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003up about 30 minutes of buffer time so I appreciate that member Karen said that she will be here as soon as she can she had a bit of an emergency to attend to could we have our roll call please here thank you very much and just a couple things from the opening language that I forgot we are at the Johnson center at 35 Pleasant Street in Greenfield we are being recorded and broadcast live by GC TV if there are any other members of the public that are recording please tell me now okay seeing no one will just move on with the agenda has everyone had a chance to review minutes from May 12th 2019 related to the minutes I had one point that I wanted to clarify that I noticed today when I was reviewing
004and I didn't have a chance to review our video footage to double-check the language one of and that item is related to appointing school committee members to the Sikh bank committee the word potential is this is on page three says a an accepted potential appointment of GJ and Casey to represent school committee on sick leave Bank committee and I don't necessarily recall using the word potential and I as I mentioned I haven't had a chance to review that remember Hollins sure so my point around that still stands any discussion any other discussion yes member horns I spoke to this the way the I don't support there are additional funding other than raising taxes and I went on to talk about the use of City Stabilization funds and I'd like the minutes corrected can you be
005more specific sure sure could you read it one more time okay okay and that feels like a fair reflection Susan yes okay I just want to point out that it's not accurate we weren't trying to adjust the levy limit we were nowhere near the living the moon so I mean it might be accurate to her what she said okay is use City Stabilization funds is that I mean I want it to reflect what you think is accurate of what you said yes ma'am okay okay so and then I'll go back to my request to remove the word potential from page three the bottom of the page a an accepted appointment of GJ and Casey to represent School Committee on sick bank simply Bank committee is there further deliberation or discussion okay all those in favor
006aye okay that is unanimous thank you everybody and public comment are there any other members of the public that are here to comment today okay seeing none then we will move on to reports student representatives oh yes please perfect and you might need to move it closer to you just to make sure everyone can hear thank you for coming yeah you're welcome my name is gabe LaRouche my name is Hannah Moyer all right we might as well just start off with the fun stuff sports yeah boys tennis was 11 in 4 on this season in lost in the semifinals to Belchertown girls tennis went to 10 and 1 on the season and lost in the quarterfinals to Mount Greylock baseball was 16 and 6 and lost in the quarterfinals to Southwick and softball lost 6
007and 4 to okona in the quarterfinals boys track and field finished 5 and 2 while the girls track and field team finished 1 and 2 each team sent one athlete to States which is actually really incredible I move on to academics now tomorrow afternoon is the all-school awards assembly around the 1:30 when period 6 begins finals begin on Friday and then Tuesday on the last day of school Friday through Tuesday are 1/2 days all right time for clubs spectrum they attended the Northampton Pride a couple of weeks ago and are now attending the Greenfield Pride this weekend environmental science club attended a green and green field convention called drawdown at the library where students broke up into the groups and talked about items of interest to them National Honor Society attended the Relay for Life
008this past weekend and they held their officer elections the Future Business Leaders of America Club had their end-of-season party last week which is pretty fun green room had a particularly successful year mainly their cooking club actually grew the most this summer they are running their Greenfield outdoor adventure leadership club and game smithing another one of their more successful clubs student council recently made instead of luminaries at the Relay for Life just this past weekend and held their officer elections as well as their inter class officer elections French club is having snacks in a movie 5:30 actually right now and yeah that's all I have super sounds like fun could you tell me your name one more time I'm Gabe the Rouge and you're Hannah sorry yeah super folks are there any questions or comments for
009the student representatives okay yes member Johnson I just want to say I had a chance to attend that drought drawdown event and the presence of the youth there was so strong and the adviser was clearly great at mobilizing people and getting them into leadership so we broke into subgroups where we identified next steps to try to cooperate on a larger scale to make Greenfield more part of the climate change movement and it was great to have the youth leadership I appreciate especially appreciate the young people and the advisor who were there that night I can speak for all of us and we say that that was a very enlightening experience super all right thanks very much for coming happy summer okay hey I guess it's my report time nope yeah please come on yay good
010evening my name is Kim Herlihy and along with Nicole's Lewinsky where the to title on reading specialist at Greenville middle school we are here this evening to share one of our community service learning opportunities that we have a green from middle school we will also share through two student narratives as well as our culminating a field trip to Amherst College that we have on display over there so this experience is coordinated with reader to reader which is a public charity that works with bringing books to under-resourced school libraries across the United States where you think share located at Amherst College is a mentoring program within reader to reader paid for by our title one that matches each student to a college mentor that joins the CSL together they read the same book at the students
011pace and use a special really cool forum to share and discuss the book together online the students receive positive feedback and academic support from a strong role model and hopefully it promotes a stronger interest in reading for pleasure now we have Riley Mitchell one of our fifth graders who was in this CSL who's going to share her and a classmates experience about reading share do you think share yourself my experience with read think share was awesome I had a great time communicating with my buddy we think share encouraged me to pick up and read pick up a book and read before we think share I never just pick up a book and read it's the best time in the day where you get to pick up a book and read for a little while then
012you got on a Chromebook and write about the book you are reading together on the forum I got really excited when my buddy responded to me on the forum here is something really nice they read at your own pace so they are not way ahead of you or way behind you the Pheo take the field trip to rethink share in Amherst College was also a great experience we got to learn about different extinct animals including dinosaurs we also got to learn about different buildings on campus how old they what they are and and what they are used for the dining hall is very nice they had many different food options including a whole bunch of sides drinks and even desserts it was amazing we got to learned that there were dinosaur tracks discovered in Greenfield
013they showed us dinosaur footprints in the sidewalk tiles that was my awesome experience and reading share this is Kristian yogalates unfortunately he was not able to attend today dear Greenfield School Committee I had a lot of fun this year partly because of one of the great and fun CSL choices I made this year one of these great choices was reader to reader even though I did not have a college buddy for a while I still had a lot of fun when I did finally get a buddy though I really loved it having any college buddy to talk to made me smile cheek to cheek it gave me some someone to talk to also the college buddies would not judge me no matter what I said I also loved waiting for a response it was so
014fun just to think of what they might say overall reading buddy CSL was really fun and I feel tremendous about amount of gratitude for the entire reader to reader staff and miss olanski thank you for listening and although I cannot be here to say in person to say this the school year was very fun thankfully Christian Yovani would it be okay to leave our display for a little while it would be great I was actually going to ask if you could so that I could take a look at it afterwards are there any questions or comments I see my erection and then announce it early you're a reading teacher this is school I just wanted to thank you because you must have a role organizing this program and it's a lot of coordination when you're
015hooking up every student with somebody in a college so I wanted to thank you and I wanted to thank this student I am glad you learned to be a pleasure reader and we had this program to uh for you thanks for coming member action I just wanted to share that our youngest Sam our youngest economist AMCOM I really enjoyed this program as well and he too was impressed with cafeteria superintendent so I was wondering if while you're here you could also speak to the summer reading program that's coming up because it is school committee members actually have some of these photos from the visit to Amherst College in your package and I was going to highlight these specifically the dinosaur tracks from Greenfield are really cool and this reader to reader program has been a
016really great collaboration but I'm wondering if while you're here you would speak a little bit about the program that's launching for this summer okay so mrs. Zelinsky and I for the third year this summer we'll be participating in a summer lending library through oak courts so two times in July and two times in August it's really every two weeks we have books that we bring there and we set it up coordinated during the lunch time so we can have students gathering where we have read Aloud's and we offer students books at all ages to read to help keep them going throughout the summer we offer drawing and little activities and then of course at the end there's a culmination where we have fruit and sherbet and we give free books to the students just to
017help encourage them fantastic yes remember Eckstrom do you need any books do you need any books the O is love books okay did you hear that greenfield and beyond any book send our way thank you so much for coming this is really great it's wonderful to hear about this program and I'm glad that you've had a really good experience and some of your friends so thanks a lot for coming out on a Wednesday night yeah okay so now I think it's time for the chairperson report thanks a lot I just want to start off by again just reiterating apologizing for being late today and also for kind of being a little quick to the start here Susan I'm sorry I hope I didn't start off on the wrong tone related to the minutes so okay
018related to okay so in my I didn't draft a a particular address for you all but I do want to say that it was a real honor to represent the school committee at the Greenfield high school graduation ceremony and there were multiple school committee members present and that was really lovely to have them in the audience and this event that this is the second time that I've had the opportunity to represent the school committee on stage and I just want you all to know that it really means a lot to me and I want to say congratulations to all of our graduates it was a wonderful ceremony Mary Martin was sitting next to me and I wish all of our graduates the best in the next chapter in their lives as well there were several
019members that attended the trout release from the middle school at the Green River swimming pool and that was also a really fantastic event I wasn't able to attend last year I'm so glad that my schedule allowed me to attend this year and it was wonderful to see multiple school committee members there also to celebrate the release of the trout into the Green River I did follow up with a superintendent related to a motion that was placed a few months ago the costs for utilizing the jonzun space I just wanted to quickly update the committee the superintendent indicated that currently there are only additional charges if there is over time necessary for setting up this space so as it is right now it seems to be a cost neutral place for us to have our meetings
020is that accurate superintendent okay thank you as well a quick update on the Green River school building the mayor has indicated that a financial order is going to the council for the installation of a heater at the Green River school building and there is a proposed timeline for a fall 2021 opening of the Green River school building if there's any additional information related to that I will certainly bring it to the table 20:21 yes fall 2021 is that accurate Thank You mayor yes member Hollins is there any interest in looking at options for programs at the building the reason I mentioned that is for other reasons I've been studying what's going on in Massachusetts and the u.s. in terms of new grant programs and there are even if the program going into the school continues
021with the current thought if it's organized as a Horace Mann charter school there's a $500,000 3-years startup grant and it's the district district sponsored charter schools is really rare Massachusetts has that provision because they were one of the early states to job a charter school law and then they had to change it around but it's a really interesting model and it comes with a lot of start-up funding so I don't know if there's any interest other than mine and looking at models for using the empty school and new programs I'd be interested if anyone else thanks member Hollins let's stick to the agenda there's a lot on the agenda today and I just want to say before moving on that we did take a vote to end our meetings at 10:00 p.m. I will try
022to hold us to that and with that in mind I'll be looking at the clock maybe around 9:00 p.m. we may need to table what we have left we do have a little bit of an executive session business that we need to attend to so please keep that in mind that's all I have for you superintendent I will be brief with my reports because we have a lengthy agenda we are nearing the end of the school year and it is a busy and exciting time in our schools we had field day at some of our schools today four corners had field day monday we have field day at Federal Street in Newton school we had some rain this week so some of those got moved around we have had 19 field trips in transportation those
023field trips have been done in-house with our transportation crew and our fleet of vehicles they are out and about you may have seen them they look good they are safe and they're saving us money every day so we're really excited about that the last day of school at the academy of early learning is tomorrow it is an early dismissal at the academy of early learning and next Tuesday is the last day of school for all of our students it's also an early dismissal so as we head into these last few days of school we are wishing our students and Families a wonderful summer we are launching our title one summer school program our extended school year program and our summer meals program with a number of summer meals location throughout the community we are also
024hosting raffles at a number of those sites to encourage participation as a reminder youth eat free in Greenfield if you're 18 and under at those meals sites you can eat for free and we encourage folks to do that we know that for many young people in Greenfield the reliability of the school nutrition program is extremely important to them and so we make that available over the summer as well the superintendent's health education task force has had several meetings those have been extraordinarily productive we have school committee representatives special education parent representatives school nurse and school nurse leader representatives school physician teachers special ed teachers ALL teachers parents Who am I missing it's a great group a lot of community members and folks who are experts in this area and we've so far looked at curriculums
025for students with disabilities that support a comprehensive health curriculum and we'll be moving into making recommendations for middle school health curriculum for all middle school students there is a behavioral health task force that the director of pupil services is leading up with some grant funds and that has launched and is well underway they met again today and we're looking there at supporting our students in our schools using those funds to begin deepening the work we do in the partnerships with mental health agencies like CSO in our community and I think I'll leave it there for today unless there are specific questions as always your financial report is in the packet and I think many of the things will come up in the agenda throughout the night Thank You superintendent are there any questions for the
026superintendent are there any questions related to the financial reports okay seeing none we will move right along subcommittees I'm not sure that any of our subcommittees actually met since our last meeting did health and safety okay and I think policy I'm not sure if it was in between the meetings or not but we do have another policy meeting that's scheduled for the end of the month I think it's June 24th so I don't think there's anything to report from subcommittee okay school committee representatives member action would you like to report on the collaborative two weeks two weeks ago now and spent some time talking about the budget for the collaborative and their finances are run very differently from school districts finances which was interesting for me because with my background I in bookkeeping rather than
027school funding it was very easy for me to follow along but all the other people in the room seemed to be lost which was kind of entertaining for me at least and they're just talking we were talking about some new initiatives that were thinking of making thank you any questions for remember extra okay and member Hollins did planning and construction meet I wasn't at the meeting I think they did need actually they combined their meeting with a city task force on looking at the city bank downtown and that was their meeting this month thanks ever Holmes and I was there you were there I was there I had to think about it cuz it was not the regular scheduled time there's a second committee that the mayor established looking at the bank building downtown and
028they combined with planning and construction okay thank you and I'll see about I think they had another meeting following that okay and I will check in on some minutes from those or if member Hollins if you are able to get minutes from the meetings that's very helpful thank you yes superintendent I think you said Citibank but you don't mean Citibank you mean I do I am Citibank and there's a bank building downtown and pushkin it's not that it's not the First National Bank I'm sorry okay the city's bank building thank you thank you any other questions remember Hollins okay so let's jump right into our business believe it or not we're ahead of schedule okay so this is a proclamation in support of LGBTQIA pride and civil rights month this was brought to our attention
029from Ms Sarah Ahern who is a resident here in Greenfield she is also here just in case we have any questions or anything for her and then this was supported then by member Johnson so in the body of the email is the proclamation it starts in the second paragraph with we the Greenfield School Committee hereby issue this Proclamation in support of LGBTQIA pride and civil rights month in the month of June and year of 2019 we believe at a time when the nation is trying to roll back protections from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity we need to step up and lead the way forward we believe that everyone deserves the opportunity to love who they love find and keep a job in a safe environment and enjoy the same everyday
030freedoms every American regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity and expression we also believe that all members of our community especially our youth deserve to feel and be safe from violence harassment and exploitation of any nature we believe this proclamation will show our residents and neighbors that the city of Greenfield is a leader in embracing diversity and is tolerant and inclusive for all people who live and work in our community this Proclamation respectfully submitted for your consideration at this month's June school committee meeting is there a motion to support the proclamation move by member eckstrom and is there a second second by member Johnson any discussion yes superintendent I just want to add some context to this by saying that we've had a spectrum Club at the Greenfield high school for a number of
031years and in recent years we have added a Gay Straight Alliance at the middle school largely by request of students and of course we have a broad diversity of families that attend and participate in the Greenfield Public Schools and I think that it would be appropriate for the school committee to issue a proclamation like this that really makes clear that this is a bigot free and supportive environment for for young people and for their families thank you sir Branton any member honty well I agree with every single comment in the proclamation so I have two comments one is I check to see how many other months there are of importance like like there are dozens and if we start making proclamations do we have to make lots of proclamations for every important topic on civil
032rights or or identity or anything school safety I would rather address this instead of a proclamation with an action that benefits our students and that's my second comment I've brought up several times the Safe Schools program for LGBTQ students which was passed by the board of elementary and secondary ed in 2015 it has a bunch of provisions of their recommendations to schools other than in addition to what we're doing now so that's my thought is that we should be action oriented toward our schools instead of making proclamations because I worry that there are so many other important issues will we be making proclamations all the time member Johnson I'd like to thank miss Ahern for bringing this to our attention young people have higher rates of suicidality of teen pregnancy of STD infections of substance
033abuse issues all of which work against their student achievement which our school committee is committed to so I think it's very important that we send messages I think action is also important but having been a gay man in public high schools I can tell you that we are listen we are listening and people are listening to us and what we do and don't do and our words do matter in our inaction in and of themselves so I'm supportive of this Proclamation I had you know it was on sort of a tight timeline and I had I hadn't exactly I had wanted this on the agenda to have a proclamation and had drafted something a little different but I'm very supportive of this as it is and urge other people to vote for it and and
034yes we should then see this as a statement of our values and be looking for ways to to support the schools to make sure that everyone can thrive in our school system regardless of sexual orientation gender identity or gender expression thanks for me Johnson did you want to offer an amendment to the proclamation at all no I I think I think it's better just to leave it as is as its presented thank you thank you mayor Burton thank you madam chair I don't know where the legal advice came from but there's no no authority for the school committee or the City Council to offer proclamations you can offer resolutions according to the Charter so I would say that this title in the beginning be changed to a resolution instead of approximation the City Council will
035be converting their title Proclamation to a resolution for the same purpose but let me say that Greenfield is a safe community a welcoming community we have we have quite a few public and external demonstrative displays of our openness of our inviting everyone into town into our little city I think actions by frontline leaders is more critically impressive and role modeling for younger people than to have committee edicts I'm not opposed to the resolution of such leadership roles so that the frontline leaders can know where their committee members stand on certain issues I know I've been around a long time but even the I don't the LGBTQIA I'm I know most of the letters and what words they mean and I know most of the words but I don't know all of the meanings so I
036can we have that explains and instead of really putting a resolution forward on a on a acronym they have it explained sure I see you remember Johnson's and why don't I add an amendment to spell it out first so in support of lesbian gay bisexual transgender queer intersex and asexual pride and civil rights and then if we need to say LGBTQIA later it we can use that as an acronym just the follow up I guess the point of order I think I may not have stated it correctly I was trying to make a motion to amend that yeah thank you so member Johnson well then I believe then I would have the floor and then I would ask member Johnson through the chair to explain me oh gee btq I a and then and then
037I'll make a motion and then member Johnson can make a motion after that amend the motion amendment okay so I think I get the I get the acronyms to explain that but I'm not certain what the last two were that I a sure intersex refers to people whose genitalia don't match the binary of male or female they may have components of either or both and a refers to asexual people who do who do not experience sexual or romantic attraction towards one or the other gender at all that's my non technical definition of the community thank you so I would move to amend the motion has put forward to replace Proclamation with resolution and remember Johnson I believe that you wanted to put forward an amendment to write out everything is that accurate yes would you
038accept that amendment member Eckstrom would you accept the amendment to smell out super superintendent I almost brought a handout with the exact description about each of these for the committee in anticipation of this but I've also seen the a stand for a lie so and the tea sometimes has a dual role as transgender transsexual at any rate I think and as inclusive as possible a understanding of this term is helpful yes member Hans had a comment and and the suggested amendment and the state guidelines the queue also stands for questioning students that aren't sure they're thinking about their gender identity and my comment is what anyone would the motion maker accept an amendment to add to the motion and over the summer the school committee will review the Department of Education principles for ensuring safe
039and supportive learning environments for lesbian gay bisexual transgender queer and questioning students the erection that was for you I think that they can easily be a second motion okay to separate it from the resolution yeah I just I I don't have an issue with I don't know that those two pieces should travel together I guess is what I'm saying so yes I agree with okay so no we would not accept the further amendment but not because I have issue with it just I don't think they should travel together okay member Johnson just that it I think that that second item would need to be on a future meeting agenda to be in accordance with open meeting lots of people know we're going to be deliberating on it before we have it on an agenda and
040discuss it thank you ma'am or Johnson okay so there's a motion on the table we will change the word proclamation to resolution and we will list out LGBTQIA any further discussion yes well we have made motions on items from reports that are being given by the chair and items that come up and I think this is pertinent to the topic so okay so there's a motion on the table we're talking about the motion that's on the table right now is everyone ready to vote on that before we do I'll just say that I wholeheartedly support this I think that even in putting forward a resolution that is in action and I very much appreciate member Johnson speaking very clearly to some of the challenges that our students may be facing and youth in our community
041and beyond and I think that putting forward a resolution a statement like this is incredibly powerful and I actually would be fine and invite additional resolutions that are proclaiming our position on additional issues that may come forward just to speak to the worry that there may be a need for more resolutions I think that's fine I think that's powerful okay yes nerman I'm inclined to agree with member Hollins and her amendment that it's part of this an integral part of this topic and that if we're to lead with this type of resolution we should also show what we're going to do to make sure that it gets spread throughout the system and to do that we would have to comply with with whatever is coming down from Jessica or other state agencies Superintendent I fully
042support action on this item I just think that we don't have the people at the table tonight to advise appropriately on this and if there's a directive to ask the superintendent to put together a team of folks in our schools some of this work is happening right now on the behavioral health task force some of this is happening right now on the superintendent's Health Education Advisory Committee we did be happy to combine those resources make some recommendations and come back to this committee but I'm a little wary of on the floor tonight without advice from the folks that are doing this work every day with our students to try to come up with something now I fully support both the resolution and action happening and I don't feel that they need to be tied to
043this motion in order for us to continue taking action that we are to support all of our students yes member Hollins would review the document it wasn't that the superintendent so I just want to clarify actually that we have a motion on the table member action did not accept your Amendment so let's go forward with voting on this particular motion unless there's further deliberation on this particular motion mayor Martin just say that I can't support the resolution without some type of action associated with it directly okay are we ready to vote okay all those in favor aye all those opposed one opposed no abstentions the motion passes thank you Sarah for bringing this to our attention and did you have a follow up motion yes I'd like to move that over the summer the School
044Committee review this the 2015 Department of Education guidelines called Safe Schools for LGBTQ students principles for ensuring safe and supportive learning environments for lesbian gay bisexual transgender queer and questioning students some of these suggestions are simple like have a designated person in each school they're very interesting I don't think we've ever reviewed it thank you I don't know if anyone would second the motion no Johnson I object to consideration of the motion on the basis that it's not on the agenda it is a would in my view or my judgment be a violation of open meeting law for us to deliberate on a topic that was not notified to the public in advance of this meeting it's a great topic let's put it on a future agenda item mayor Burton does that a motion remember
045Hollins I second the motion okay and it's my understanding that the motion can be made I appreciate what you're saying member Johnson and I agree with member Johnson's position and that I think that we should add this to an upcoming agenda I think that that's at the heart of what you're asking for so I think that we should consider a review and add it to an upcoming agenda and the go from there before we add any strict's the motion timelines or um Susan forever could you read it back to us please did you have a comment I was just wandering through there's a mushroom I believe on the floor and I believe there's been a second did it I just had an audio problem so thank you for fixing the mics but I was also
046wondering if it might be more appropriate to refer to subcommittee for a recommendation before the full committee so because that's how most actions come before this committee never Hans I'm just asking the school committee North know about this document it would take us five minutes to review it and look at what the state's recommending and then if there's a need to review it to a committee for something fine but this is a document for school committee's to review that's why the board voted it [Music] thanks Ian I appreciate everyone's patience with me right now I would like to hear the motion one more time please that over the summer the School Committee reviewed the 2015 Department of Education guidelines called Safe Schools for LGBTQ students there's more to the title I see Mira Marin and
047then I see the superintendent in the 9c member Johnson some might suggest that since the superintendent knows about this guideline that we direct the superintendent to review it bring it with their recommendations at the next meeting of the school committee so that we can all understand what the guidelines are for a safe school thank you Mary Martin and I see the superintendent well I understood the motion to be to review it as in to make the committee aware of it it's my understanding that sending out a currently public document to the public body with no deliberation is not a violation of the Open Meeting Law so I might suggest that in addition to whatever actions taken place that member Hollins or any other member of the public body or myself could send that document as
048long as there's no deliberation that document can be distributed immediately Thank You superintendent and member Johnson my thought was was similar that if school committee members want to encourage other school committee members to read things they can send us the link it's not but we it's not necessarily necessary to make it into a big process dispute here I don't know what we're not sure what where we are on the agenda I saw an on the agenda Pride Month Proclamation we acted and I'd like to move on Thank You member Johnson comment we just spent all this time because this is such an important since since I've been on the school committee we have never once looked at what the State Board is recommending to school committees and I look I've made a motion that we
049review it as a body and let's hit question um okay is that a motion and all the question or can we just I don't think there's any other further deliberation right okay all those in favor of reviewing the state's safe schools information sometime over the summer say aye aye all those opposed any abstentions member Johnson abstains motion carries so we'll take a look at it okay thank you we were still on schedule so we did have a new item the special education transportation purchase this was a an urgent item that was added yesterday it came to the attention of the superintendent yesterday and it was added on to the agenda because it is urgent the information is in your packet looks like this I will yield the floor to the superintendent to explain what's going
050on with this I'm going to invite the business manager and transportation coordinator up and if there isn't available mic maybe Steve you can grab the available mic remember Karen so that you can and use that you need a super and don't forget to press the button thank you okay we were planning on waiting a little bit but we did have a little bit of a problem with one of our big yellow 14 passenger buses while we were transporting some kids the brakes failed luckily the driver who has a tremendous amount of experience was able to bring it safely to a stop we were able to get the kids off board hence our request today what we'd like to do is to finance three additional Honda minivans that will give us one additional capacity for 15
051kids and not 14 kids it'll give us the flexibility of doing longer distance runs as we need to the good thing about this is that we've already secured funding or secured students through Gil Montague for this summer and next year which will bring in about $65,000 which will is more than double what it costs in order to go ahead and find that finance this over three years our lease price our finance prices 995 per man per month so we'd like to go ahead and do that the original plan was to bring you a comprehensive plan going forward but given the the the need right now we'd like to go ahead and ask you to consider this right now edit if you have any thing to add regarding the safety and whatever you think is pertinent
052okay I don't want to any more time on the agenda than I have to but we looked at the aging of the fleet and there's no such thing with our fleet it's past aging we've been warned and it accomplished what we have so far in the district we've pushed every piece of equipment we've had to its max now we're starting to see the failures that we were told were gonna happen these buses are the one that lost the brakes it's probably going to happen again I can't guarantee it won't we were lucky all the way around one of the other buses same thing 14 passenger had to go in for a repair and when I went in and looked at I don't mean to laugh everything underneath it was on the floor because the rust
053is so bad they had to redo the repairs right then and there it couldn't just be a patching carry so we're fighting this and we're fighting it in such a way that we know what we can replace it with these vans just a reminder are seven years of maintenance through Honda and that's everything tires rims key fobs everything oil changes so it puts us in a whole different light for these vehicles in the future the things we have now on a daily basis are questionable we're keeping them repaired because as soon as the light goes on or something doesn't look like we get them right in for a review but it's being continuous now so we really need to do this and like I said we're watching that fleet every second of the day the
054drivers us in the office and the DPW are looking at and they most the time shake their head when we roll one out after they've repaired let's start with emotion and then we can deliberate on this and ask any questions that we have is there a motion to approve the request for purchase of three Honda minivans and a second second second by member Johnson moved by member Eckstrom I'm seeing member Hollins hands remember Eckstrom I have a comment we'll start with number Hollins will the money coming in from Gil or any other community for school transportation be deposited in our school transportation revolving fund and will the cost of the lease be posted to the same school transportation revolving fund yes that is the plan so there will be no impact on our school budget
055that is correct I have one other question schools today's the June 12 we only have school for a few more days so I didn't I understand the general need to replace the whole fleet I'm trying to understand the emergency need with school closing in a couple days for all three vans take care of that school program for summer school the title one at Newton Street usually is contracted out we are doing that what was the saving Steve somewhere around at twelve thousand twelve thousand dollars and that's what we're doing every day when we can we have the AEL summer school we have the high school and we have 17 out of district kids that goes all summer so our fleet and our drivers and even our monitors are gonna be busy all summer long getting
056these kids back and forth safely and it's a huge experience with what we were able to do even with the old equipment and their savings coming in because such as the 19 field trips they used to be paid for those were in the budget those will show up later on as a savings but not right now but my department is tracking everything we're doing as far as anything new were doing assimilating with a cost of the size of a yellow bus event or whatever so we're actually tracking what we're saving the other thing that we were able to do in-house with the new equipment annual is what we refer to as emergency trips when there's a situation with it could be a sick child a parent that needs to come in and doesn't have a
057right we're able to dispatch the vans in between the the three tier trips and go get them and get business taken care of and then take them back home and it's helped tremendously across the board including with kids that had to go home because they were sick special ed kids that were having problems that we had to make sure I got home with their parents without a disruption of the classes or anything else and we're very proud of being able to do that it wasn't done before thank you my reaction I have a few questions so this says three-year lease is that the leases you're renting it and then you give it back are we purchasing these on a payments over three years I say we finance finance okay that's a different question yes we
058will own them we will own them yes and so when we purchase the other three vans and I actually talked about this a little bit when we purchase the other three we had thought that we would cover our costs with transporting other district students reaction can you move your mic a little closer to make sure everyone can hear sorry Thanks we had talked about the Vans costs being covered by transporting students from other districts so now we're going to buy an additional three vans and is it that we have that much interest that these additional three bands will allow us to transport more students than we currently have been we do have interest we have interest with Pioneer regional also yeah and the the original three band excuse me vans were purchased with some capital
059money as well as some money out of pocket about twenty three thousand dollars out of pocket okay so this is thirty-six so fifty some odd thousand right now with just Kilmarnock you alone for next year we're looking at about seventy thousand in revenue so we're still to the good okay in that area so we'll cover three thousand dollars a month yes just by virtue of other students from other districts exactly okay if I could just further that and regard the savings that are not right up front but we can track when these vans are running like the three we have now the next straight they're all going to be through Honda for seven years at no cost to us so there's there's a maintenance budget out there now and that will be recoverable so it's
060really hard for me to say okay we save this money right now but it's there and we have to track it and watch it come in and it and I imagine we're gonna save on insurance for vans versus buses just the fuel alone yeah it's humongous and gas the fuel and one spot small buses is maybe three to six miles to a gallon maybe okay the Honda Odysseys that we have already are 22 miles per gallon in town stop and go in 31 on highway so it's it's it's not even a comparison anymore and we need to be concerned about hiring additional drivers now that we have additional vehicles we have the amount of drivers right now to cover everything we have the only thing I might have to do is look for maybe two
061or three monitors to go with those drivers during the summer time wonderful that's a that's everything for me thank you thank you so you said the savings is real when will the savings occur it's it's occurring as we speak because we started to take over all our out of different district students that were being transported by private contractors for over the last 12 weeks I haven't let vehicles what's that vehicles with the fleet our aged fleet that's why we're starting to get into trouble we used our equipment made sure it was up to snuff to put it out there and we've been running those children every day I understand you purchased three already they just got they just got going within the last couple of weeks so they're on the road the city's insuring them
062he went through all that process and sort of using them for transportation and you can see that there's a savings yes as you predicted a $250,000 savings for next year FY 20s we took some vehicles off the road we haven't taken any off we haven't taken any off so I thought those three were going to replace some vehicles they just got on the road so we've been using the other vehicles not like now I have to go through the aging fleet one by one and see which ones have to go the quickest out of our way all right then the you well let's go back to this first paragraph it just to be clear again a us for three additional kind of minivans at a three-year lease you don't mean lease you mean finance yes
063yes okay so you're financing the vehicles for three years roughly a thousand a month for each or four one for each for each so that's about 110 115 thousand dollars plus interest over the three years that it's inclusive image so that's the last meeting when nuclear one of the three vehicles it was exempt from 30 B because it was special ed are these now special ed vehicles these are continued will continue to be special ed vehicles but you're using them during the summer and you're using them for yep so do we have any vehicles for any other students that are not special in oh yeah the yellow buses you show up two hundred thirty five thousand nine hundred and eighty five dollar surplus under transportation had money planned to be used for anything that's the
064end of the year you've got an income rate of encumbrance through the end of the year of 119 thousand and showing a balance of a surplus of 235 so what's that 235 thousand going to be those four that'll be that's an end-of-the-year balance and what we'll do is continue to monitor that as that floats to the bottom line there's some other accounts that are the negative so that's going to offset those accounts so the 1.5 million dollar original budget for transportation is actually 1.2 as far as I can tell right now yes the money that we're gonna receive from Gil Monaco you said you've made an agreement with Gil Monica schools for transportation what are the numbers with that how many students how much money where was transportation going from from website to website right
065now we're working with Gil Montague to transport five of their students to various locations in Holyoke and Springfield and what we're doing is piggybacking those on our regular students that go there all year around to Springdale Center and there's another school down there Neary Springdale Center and Neary so when we add a Montague kid to our bus already was three or four kids on it we're charging them $65 a day the one student we're charging 120 dollars a day that will be for the summer and for next year and when school starts we'll be able to pick up a few more kids from Gil Montague that go there but are not part of the summer program so it'll be roughly around six or seven kids from Gil Montague and then we're talking with Pioneer regional
066of two or three to get to those locations and depend and it depends on you know what we have if we're going to piggyback and things like that as to what what they cost but that is a much better deal for them because they were getting charged around eighty ninety dollars a day so they're saving a little bit of money and we're making some money off that thank you any other questions or comments yes member Johnson I just want to thank you so much for doing this work and bringing this all to our attention and in particularly in addition to this particular request I'm also hearing you know you're concerned about your fleet and I just want to say that I mean I think probably a lot of us feel this way in the richest
067country in the world like why we cannot have schools funded at a level where we can have transportation for them where you're not having to have these headaches and you know having just having to worry about these things it just makes absolutely no sense I I think everybody in the town has done their best to build a budget that could support you as well as it could but it's clearly not really where we would all want it to be so let's all keep pressure putting pressure on our state officials to try to get the funding where it needs to be so we don't have so our students can just be in buses that are safe just quickly I think we should all take one eyeball to the sky so we can have a global view
068of what's going on not be too naive about what's happening just in this little corner of the school department so we have vehicles in the police fire department that are over a hundred thousand miles and we have some of the DPW that are a million miles let that sink in for a while so when we talk about financing vehicles in the city it's all it's all a matter of finance and priorities and logic so when you get a high mileage vehicle you try to replace it safety is number one number two is jeanna to make a deal that makes sense that you can sustain and pay for just to add to that and you know the mayor as well as everyone else has been think outside the box ways to make money on this and
069you've all been very clear on that and I think it has done an amazing job here being able to think outside the box and unlike the fire unlike the DPW we have an opportunity to bring in revenue for our vehicles which were taking full advantage of so it's a good deal all around if I might just say this everybody the School Committee the superintendent Steve everybody has worked with me and my crew to get us to the point in five or six months that you would normally think it would take two years so I appreciate everything everybody's done and what I want to really say about this particular program that we're working on right now replacing and advancing and bring students in is we're making a plan that the other districts can look at try
070and copy or work with us to expand ours and it's an asset to everybody so I appreciate it emeralds I also applaud your effort and I'd like to make a friendly amendment to add with other district transportation fees and with vehicle leasing cost posted to the school transportation revolving fund the motion I think does that I think feel like that's what beautiful motion that okay with the amendment which we've done this before when we were specifically putting money and are taking money out of a revolving fund the amendment was and that's why I clarified this right away with the other district transportation fees and the vehicle leasing cost posted to the school transportation revolving fund Steve said that was the plan legally we right I mean there wouldn't be any other no if we take
071in revenue and revenue so it's it's kind of you know six of one half a dozen the other tech deal okay so there was a friendly amendment number Eckstrom [Music] it's not necessary but you know if you want to be with belt-and-suspenders don't worry it's only necessary if new people come on board read the record want to know what we're doing that's up okay so remember action are you formally accepting or not sure [Music] okay is that my only question would be is that going to handcuff us handcuff us to something now fine I mean no I don't know I don't know my response is that you know I was really excited about this I was about to vote yes and then move on and what's happened now is muddying of a very simple but
072essentially you know approval of a purchase of the vehicle that I personally think is unnecessary and not I know that it's part of the proposal to be working with other districts in supporting their needs related to transporting students but I don't think it needs to be attached to them to the motion to purchase these vehicles he doesn't write yes I disagree I think I think the physical responsibility of the School Committee is obvious if we're going to expend some investment into purchasing vehicles and there's going to be a revenue stream derived from that we should direct that revenue stream to an account that we can review at any time and know what's coming in and anything going out of the account will obviously comes through the business manager I support this a member Johnson I
073moved to call the question as amended okay there's a motion to call the question all those is there a second yeah let's let's vote on the motion to call the question is there a second to call the question second by member Hollins there is no debate and call the question so all those in favor of calling the question I that is unanimous so we will call the question miss Farber if you could please repeat the full motion to us every question or purchase of three Honda minivans with the other district transportation fees and the policing costs posted to the school transportation revolving fund okay all those in favor aye that is unanimous thank you very much I saw one of our bans on the highway I was so proud I really wanted to snap a
074photo but I chose not to Greenville Public Schools okay thank you very much okay so moving on to role of subcommittees so in your packet there's a couple of notes from me right here role of subcommittees [Music] and it kind of blends into sub committee assignments and recommendations related to subcommittees so I feel like we do have tension on our committee and I think that one of the ways to address some of the tension on our committee is to become more formal and that's why there's rules of procedure that's why there are certain roles and essentially process to help us along and I think that it's been a little foggy as to the role of the subcommittee's and I wanted to put this forward as a reminder to everyone that our subcommittees work to support
075the work of the full body and we've been doing this we've been doing this pretty well in some instances not so well so I felt the need that we needed to bring this forward just as as a simple reminder to everyone in general we've been we've really gotten into the habit of referring particular topics to the subcommittee and the subcommittee's have taken them up for discussion and brought back any recommendations to the full committee the budget subcommittee has taken on additional discussion load that was not necessarily put forward by the full committee and at times was not a priority for the committee and so this is part of why I brought this forward today so I'll just read what I have here as a reminder of the role the subcommittee is to support the work
076of the full committee the subcommittee's do this by taking up deliberation on topics the committee directly refers to them in order to offer recommendation to the full committee if there is no charge to the subcommittee there is really no need for the subcommittee to even meet this process is formal and transparent it builds trust amongst members and it keeps the committee and the administration from taking on unnecessary work so I think that you know it's very important to underline this I think that part of this is really building trust and keeping trust amongst the membership ensuring that we're all aware of what topics are going to subcommittee what's being discussed and also making sure that there is not unnecessary work that is being placed upon our administrators or beyond or even our school committee members
077we all have obviously an interest in serving we also have limited time so I think it's really important for us to say very focused in our work so what I'm asking for today is emotion and support and recognition of the role of the subcommittee as a body that supports the work of the full committee and takes action takes up deliberation on topics that the full committee requests deliberation on number Holland's chairman Nunez I think your definition of a standing subcommittee is inaccurate I don't mean to be adversarial but a standing subcommittee is a subcommittee with a broad charge that doesn't wait for the school committee to give it an assignment it takes on the topic the standing Subcommittee on school safety would consider issues of school safety not wait for someone to say specifically look
078at this I don't think you'd find any budget subcommittees in the state or even look at ways and means that waits for the City Council to say would you take a look at this in order to meet people meet and generally on any topic that comes up if you talk to the School Committee Association the business managers Association their comment is there's no question any school committee member sub committee budget subcommittee could ask which is out of line because the responsibility for budget is so grade a committee didn't have tension among itself although we disagreed we always got to something but the idea that a budget sub our policy calls for standing subcommittees in broad areas and then special task force sub committees which are also public bodies so I think the way you describe
079a standing sub committee is not correct that budget subcommittee that policy subcommittee maybe there is a charge from the school committee a specific one and that happens all the time but otherwise that committee particular budget just reviews whatever they think is important about the budget has worked for the whole school committee so I don't think the definition of standing sub committee is correct particularly for budget IC member Karen so I wanted to back up a little bit sort of how this whole conversation started was in policy we were discussing the role of subcommittees and I was not quite exactly clear how we decided what to deliberate on so I asked ma SC and that's how this conversation started I want to be clear it was not a role of our chair or anybody to purposefully
080set aside anybody and say you're doing it wrong that's not what started this conversation I don't want anybody to think that there there seems to be this notion that people are being attacked and that's not actually what's happening so when the ma SC ancer they said the the opinion of the ma SC is that a group should not be deliberating on topics that the full committee has not decided to be valuable for two reasons one that's a lot of time wasted for a full committee to then do nothing with to our administrators are consistently having to pull information show up for meetings do work for us and we're overloading them as it is and then we've asked them for charges so I don't think that Adrienne has the wrong definition of this I think this
081is the recommendation the mas si gave to us in policy as a group we decided that it made sense so now we're talking and asking for a motion of support the reality is the unfortunate reality is the budget subcommittee does have a broader topic and it is harder for you to be charged with a specific thing but because of that you're also asking our administrators for more work than any of the other committees are and consistently that is harder for them for Steve for Jordana for anybody who has to bring information so I think that is part of the problem at this and calling meetings with exactly 48 hours and five minutes notice for any of the committee's is not a good idea because we're not giving them enough time to give us the information
082and that's why the charge is important when we charge you say policy with a thing Jordana knows about that for three weeks before the meeting but if we don't charge the subcommittee with something and then they call a meeting 48 hours in advance they have no idea what to expect so this makes everybody's job a little easier I guess I completely disagree the idea that the very complicated budget situation is going to be answered with a four hour session once a month by seven people who haven't had a chance to speak with the business manager of the superintendent this is quite ridiculous even the budget subcommittee who met often and had documentation from left right and all over the place had a difficult time interpreting what was going on was a constant changing of the
083numbers and the constant changing of the documents so I'd say that in particular a budget subcommittee is critically important for for a school committee that monitoring roughly 30 37 32 million dollars of city and federal money so I'd say I don't know why you might be doing that I don't know why you think you're actually moving into next agenda item and that's an extra item that is two items down so or one item down solving the but right now I'm just talking about the role of the subcommittee's you certainly shouldn't emotion yes I'd like a motion to support the understanding that the role of the subcommittee is such to support the work of the full committee and the work that they do is by charge from the full committee so is it in conflict that
084would ruin procedure that was moved my member Eckstrom and there was a question by mayor well I didn't hear I didn't hear a motion I suggested a motion to support the definition of the role of the subcommittee as a body that supports the work of the full committee and acts upon charges of the full committee what is our policy say do you have it there's no second second second my member Karen okay [Music] I see superintendent I think Marin might have had an additional comment mine is actually not to this motion I'm just going to ask all committee members have been doing this a lot with my mic off I'm just gonna ask you to please move your mic close to you when you speak we do have people that watch from home sometimes I
085get updates throughout the meeting and people are having trouble hearing at home it really is important in addition to those folks in the room for the record that people can hear you so if you do have a comment if we can just do one at a time and into the microphone it's very helpful thank you very much member Johnson thank you are we in discussion now of the motion that's been made and seconded yes okay it's my impression that mas si are experts at school committees and their guidance seems valuable I think that this makes sense there are other places in our rules that talked about not wanting school committee members to be accessing resources without a commission from the full committee and so this is in line with that it's essentially saying if you're
086if you're operating as a subcommittee that you have a charge from the full committee and you can therefore access the resources you need to do the job but it does make sense to me that the body as a whole should be involved in that certainly there are commissions that would be expansive enough that people may have topics that come up we don't know exactly all the topics but they have a charge which which may be broader sometimes we may give a committee a very specific charge and sometimes we may give them a very broad charge and broad access to resources to fulfill that charge so for that reason I'm support of this definition of the role member Hollins we have a long-standing policy on subcommittee's of the school committee and it says just what you're
087talking about the subcommittee will be provided with a list of its functions and duties so what you're saying is their current policy just is just clarifying it a little deeper yes but with budget it is very broad if you have a standing subcommittee to understand the budget and that's its duty then that subcommittee should be doing that it shouldn't be restrained it is complicated so I don't understand it I don't underst I couldn't understand if you want a motion to eliminate a standing committee for budget but if you have a committee and you're charging them to try to understand all the funds and receipts and expenditures of its multi-million dollar budget to micromanage and say you can talk about this but you can't talk about that just doesn't make any sense to me you have
088a standing committee for budget it says here you have a list of duties so if the duty is to try to understand the budget if you want to clarify it but I can't understand your motion of further refining that because that's a anyway I can't support that because we operate by policy and the policy is really clear I think I disagree I think this is actually really clear when you attend trainings on being a school committee member and my understanding is that the majority of the members of the school committee have not attended the required trainings that we are the charting of the course training and potentially additional trainings and I actually think that you know we in my time serving on this committee we have approached the use of the subcommittee in different ways
089and we've really just gone off the rails and what's happening now is that we need to clean up our act we need to get things focused I've seen agendas topics that are not priorities for the full committee and or not priorities for the subcommittee that have landed on agendas this takes up so much time when time is very limited and so this is essentially a request a plea really for us to get organized and to be really focused the other part of it too is this idea that you know I really want to be committed to transparency and building trust and I think that there is a trust problem on our committee and I think part of the reason why this exists is because sometimes things happen without the knowledge of the full body and
090people question that and I think that the way to remedy that is to be very clear in our full committee meetings as to what it is that we are requesting of each of our members and especially of our subcommittees so this was as member Karen stated it was part of policy conversation on the role of the subcommittee and the standing subcommittees policy and what to potentially include this is how this came forward I received multiple requests from members related to addressing the role of the subcommittee's I did hear feedback considerable feedback about the budget subcommittee I heard requests related to just being more formal and actually kind of tightening things up in our process and so this is is a simple reflection of that it is just you know I'm asking for this simple commitment
091it doesn't I don't believe that it necessarily unnecessarily bars our subcommittees from doing the work that they need to do if there's something that's going to help them safety we should all know about it if there's something that's landing on the budget subcommittee agenda we should all know about it and guess what it should be a priority for our group so this is part of a larger request for us to tighten up our practice and I don't think it's out of line I think it's in alignment with our policy I think that it opens up transparency it builds trust in our group that's where I'm at mayor Merton yes I think tightening up the process comes from a chair so when you when the chair gives information to the subcommittee to work on something you
092give a timeline you expect the recommendation back from the subcommittee as you can see we've been who spent saying quite a while working on the same topic in subcommittees even the policy and Health and Safety have been continuously working over the same issue whether its water or safety and sidewalks or parking it constantly comes back the the idea that the subcommittee's are reaching out I think is is indicative of the fact that there are a number of issues that need to be addressed and they're not always given the direction in which to do that so if we're going to focus on the discussion and the role of subcommittees we should also know it's my impression that the chair of the subcommittee does the agenda the chair of the whole committee gives the subcommittee chair Meishan
093as to what to work on so if we're going to sever that relationship and not have a chair with direction from our chair having autonomous autonomy over the subcommittee then we've pretty much taken out the autonomy of the committee and made it a chair committee so I'm not into having one person rule over all the subcommittees I'm also not interested in having if there is no charge to the subcommittee there is no need for the subcommittee's to me that's what be up to the chair if there are no ongoing business there's no condoled business there's no new issue then you wouldn't have the meeting that that seems obvious but if it were not no charge given to the subcommittee then your subcommittee doesn't mean you've taken away an arm of the democratic and transparent committee
094work that's supposed to be working with the school department the school department including the superintendent is obligated to provide information to the school committee that's in not in contracts that's certainly in the Charter so the whole idea that we are overworking the school department that has a 19 million dollar budget to get information that we're supposed to monitor let's let's really address that we need to we need to be doing our job here so I'll respond quickly and then I saw I think my member Johnson did you ever hand up and superintendent so actually what I'm suggesting is the complete opposite of what you're saying and part of the reason why I'm bringing this to the table is because I think that our past practice is flawed and so yes sometimes in the past the
095chairperson would say maybe speak with the chairperson of the subcommittee and say actually what's happening right now is this and we need to you know please add this to your agenda but that didn't always happen in a public meeting it didn't always happen so that the full body was aware that was happening even when we had calendars there's constant questioning as to whether or not we're addressing those calendar I'd and part of is because it doesn't come to the full committee table to specifically just say hey we're tossing this to you right now please take this over so I actually believe that moving forward with a process like this where the full committee is saying health and safety I would like you to take up conversation on the Safe Schools LGBTQIA information as it does
096he provides and we all know that and we all agree and there it goes and it's happening at a at a public meeting it's very clear it's very transparent the subcommittee takes it up I also believe that you know what I heard you just say is that our staff our superintendent and administrators they are obligated to provide information to the committee to the committee so when the committee is operating as a whole body that's we're the ones that are charging them to provide us with information and yes yes subcommittees also within a reasonable range have the same authority to do that but it also has to be with the understanding of the full body the full bodies got to be behind it full bodies got to support that we want to have more information on
097a particular topic and so I don't want to micromanage I don't I think it's not acceptable for the full committee to necessarily be micromanaging every single little thing at all times but that's not what it's that someone it's about you know it's about the full committee saying hey we give you permission to look at basketballs and our basketball inventory and that includes whatever the subcommittee requests the information that they request from our administrators related to basketballs so that's where I'm at I I saw member Johnson I saw the superintendent I see member Hans I did you have her hand up member karien member Johnson I I'm new to the committee and I know there's more I need to do to like learn about the practices and the policies I thought I heard member Hollins say
098that this is essentially a reaffirmation of what we already believe and so I think that's great and we should reaffirm it because it seems like we've gotten a little far from it I mean the I think that it may it sounds like there may be some well I think one thing that's great about this is it tries to clarify what are the charges the existing charges the standing charges that this the full committee has made to the subcommittees I don't if if members of the budget subcommittee thought their role was to delve into any and all things budget it sounds like either they misunderstood the charge that was put to them or the charge was too broad so I think it's very useful to get very clear about what what we are charging groups with
099and what we aren't I also say that I think there are some challenges kind of like baked into Robert's Rules and having to vote for or against not being able to kind of build consensus or it kind of gets us into kind of an oppositional stance I'll just say that as a process observation but I think sometimes we're arguing even when we don't really disagree that much I mean if we all we all I think we all believe that the full committee should be authorizing in any major use of the superintendent and the staffs time that that shouldn't just be two or three members of the of a subcommittee who have a broad charge that entitles them to any and all access I think we understand that there should be some limits reasonable limits for
100to keep to that use of that valuable resource to things that and have been a stated priority of the committee as a whole and I think that's what you're trying to do and I appreciate you chair for for doing it and I hope that we can I'm not sure I I guess the other thing I was going to say is I'm as much as this is an interesting conversation I think that looks I doubt that there's much change in members opinions that's likely to happen due to more conversation although I'm happy to hear more people's thoughts if they have them superintendent member Karen's hand was up before mine I was just gonna say again I think there's this assumption that we're talking about the budget subcommittee only but as the chair of the health and
101safety subcommittee I made this mistake multiple times it's not just an attack on the budget subcommittee this has nothing to do with them only I put things on agenda that I was interested in learning about it was not necessary I was a safety committee I could learn about everything whether or not the door handles all work on every building could be a topic for me and that's a waste of everybody's time so it's not a direct thing it's about all of the subcommittee's spending a lot of time on things that they don't need to because it's not useful for everybody I have much more important things to learn about as a safety person than whether or not the door handles work but I was intrigued so I've made this mistake I am owning my mistake
102and deciding to help everybody who comes after me learn how this should go remember hones as three quick comments the first is there has to be a place on our agenda to mention things on our mind that could be then the agreement of the committee to go somewhere we can't not a be allowed to send emails which I agree not have anything on our agenda where we can bring up topics and not have subcommittees picking up topics I think are important so that's one thought the second is there's been a lot of discussion about the problems of the budget subcommittee and we really haven't looked at the facts of that yet so I think before saying what the problem is that it's over burdening certain people that's a good topic to take up because this
103is one of the most important functions we have and it isn't working well I agree and the third is I'd like to make a motion that the School Committee take up the motion on the table sorry so later I'd like to make a motion but my third issue is there are issues with the budget process that have to be addressed or no matter what we say about subcommittees it won't work well in my opinion so did you have a comment superintendent I did I had a comment I was just thinking about the last comment that was made I just wanted to add some context because I was present when the MAS he was advising the policy subcommittee and it was my understanding that this is actually intended to empower the School Committee this is really
104about how a school committee can be most effective and powerful in accomplishing the work that the committee sets for itself and because you are a public body and any individual member has no authority as an individual member but the body has authority by virtue of making decisions as a majority of the committee then this really helps you do that as quickly as you want to so there's no limit on how much work how many requests you can make of administrators really anything this really doesn't limit any action of the committee at all except it makes everyone aware of those actions and helps the chair to effectively funnel those actions into the fastest way to get it done through subcommittee so just wanted to speak again to the intent that I heard coming from mas C's
105guidance on this and they were really floored I think they were quite surprised that's what subcommittees were coming up with agenda topics that the full committee didn't know about and it was quite the opposite that they were saying your full committee deserves to know what work is being done by individual members of your committee this is your committee and you have a right to know what's going on and if minutes aren't coming before the full committee for approval of the subcommittee's and if the charge isn't coming from the full committee to the subcommittees then is the committee really even in charge and the question was really how do you as a committee get in charge of the work that you as a committee are getting done through your subcommittees so I actually see this as
106quite empowering of the committee and I just wanted to offer that member Johnson I move to call the question so I came I remember Hollins all those in favor of calling the question I anyone opposed marry Myron opposed any abstentions Katie were you a yes okay thank you motion to call the question passes Susan could you read the motion to us please to support the definition of the role of the subcommittee as a body that supports the work of the full committee and acts upon the charges of the full committee thank you all those in favor that is unanimous thank you so the next item is subcommittee assignments and recommendation to dissolve budget subcommittee and operate as a committee of the whole I'll start with the first part of this the the reason why this
107is here is because we have a new member member Johnson and it's my recommendation that member Johnson joined the policy subcommittee and and then further I do recommend that regarding budget related items that we move forward for the duration of this year this calendar year operating as a committee of the whole in regards to budget and finance the reason why I'm putting this recommendation forward is because I received requests from multiple members essentially I believe all of the members that are not on the budget subcommittee to have the opportunity to learn more about the budget to be either become a member of the budget subcommittee or just have workshop on the budget or additional information and I think that in order to [Music] best move forward and be mindful of everyone's time because any any
108final decisions on the budget any final decisions are made here at the full body that we provide this opportunity to all of our members for additional experience and education with a hands on committee of the whole addressing budget and finance that's where this is coming from so my it's my understanding that I have the authority to appoint members to subcommittees and that the committee should essentially vote in to support any committee assignments so I'm asking for the support of the committee to assign member Johnson to the policy subcommittee so I pardon Thank You mayor Martin is there a second second by member Eckstrom is there any deliberation on this member Johnson no okay okay all those in favor I may run are you in favor great is that unanimous okay yuria susan's yes okay thank
109you okay and then I move that the School Committee moved forward for the rest of the calendar year as I move that the School Committee for the rest of the calendar you're dissolved the budget subcommittee and operate as a committee of the whole in regards to Budget and Finance topics so most sorry season it was I move that the School Committee dissolved the budget subcommittee and for the duration of the calendar year and moved forward as a committee of the whole in regards to Budget and Finance topics I think that was pretty much it so I did technically move it that was then supported by remember Eckstrom and also member Johnson did I hear that ok I see two hands on this side first member karien I just have a quick clarifying question only because
110I think this is gonna be one of the first questions that come up it's not your intention that we would discuss all of the budget subcommittee stuff our budget committee stuff at our full meeting but instead would hold a separate budget meeting for everyone thank you member karien it is my I think that in order for this to be successful we would have to all excuse me schedule additional meetings of the full body and I have requested from the superintendent any potential dates I think that we you know in order to satisfy everyone's needs we would have to have those dates very soon so that we could schedule them and ensure that everyone would be available so yes I would see this as probably a combination of occasionally things coming straight to our regular meetings
111but likely actually most of them especially when there is a need for some extended deliberation or education to actually hold meetings in more of a workshop format that would be a the entire committee so a special meeting remember hones everybody it's the same question there's really a lot to budget and there's really a lot if for people that are thinking about details looking at details I don't see how that happens unless there are I can see how it happens with the full committee but with separate meetings that are regularly scheduled and I hope you would have a consistent time every month so people can schedule around otherwise I really don't think it's responsible to have like a one-minute discussion of a budget this big with so many issues and so good you're working on pretty
112much three budgets at a time closing at one year figuring out the year you're in having a perspective year and you have to keep all of that in your head so it's a lot thank you just quickly in response I've never suggested a one-minute deliberation on any of these items and I agree that there needs to be adequate time and space for our membership to deliberate on these topics so according to policy we have our one regular meeting per month it would require a change in policy and what I'm suggesting is essentially a short-term arrangement I know that there will be a new body coming in in January and I'm not sure how that group may like to operate so this to me is a little bit of you know addressing some dysfunction that we
113have now allowing for educational opportunities for some of our newer members especially those that may be carrying on to serve the Greenfield public schools and so yes I do want us to have scheduled meeting so that everyone is aware of when they would be and to have them set I definitely you know I don't want them to be just like called out of nowhere unless there's some kind of urgent item remember action and then member homes okay is there a second and all the question okay second second my mayor Martin all those in favor of calling the question hi all those opposed remember Holland's opposed motion to call the question carries Susan could you read us the motion that the School Committee dissolved the budget subcommittee for the rest of the calendar year and move
114forward as a committee of the whole in regards to Budget and Finance topics okay all those in favor aye all those opposed any abstentions remember Hans that I didn't see your vote you said there would be separate meeting scheduled for budget okay member Hollins is a yes I believe mayor Martin was a yes I and I think that is unanimous so what I will do is as soon as reasonably possible I will look at some dates with the superintendent as and try to put forward a calendar to everybody you have a look of concern okay I would suggest that who would with the greater notice of a special meeting and and with the relaxing of providing a subcommittee budget with information that we get financial information at least five or seven days before the scheduled
115meeting with hard copies okay am i hearing are you putting forward emotion do we need a motion for that yeah it's a change in practice the committee has actually already voted for 48 hours if someone filed a grievance on the change of practice did someone file a grievance against the school committee for change of practice we're asking for information and financial stuff 5 to 7 days before we discuss it the full committee actually took formal action and requested information 48 hours in advance so as it is right now you know I think that our administrators can make an attempt to provide information further in advance of 48 hours but it's not a directive of the body I understand thank you so I would move that we instruct these to pretend in a business manager to
116provide financial information 5 days before a scheduled meeting discussing budget and finance okay is there a second second second by member Hollins discussion I see just different I see member Johnson member Johnson first it seems like you have to have two timelines both when for this motion to work you'd also have to have a timeline for when school committee members made requests for particular information in other words you can't say the information has to be to them 5 to 7 days before the meeting when you're not giving them a timeline for when they're going to receive the requests because otherwise you can end up with unrealistic demands on the staffs time to try to get information to a committee within a certain time frame thank you member Johnson member Hollins I'm generally the reports that
117we get our computer generated they're not originally you know someone sitting down it's just updated reports or it would be what the School Committee has requested at a meeting so there would be time but generally it's reports that are printed out I disagree with that I think the Muniz report is definitely you know a few keystrokes and clicks of a mouse however this document is a special document that the school committee has requested that I believe is additional labor and does require manual update that's my understanding and I have also we also see other reports that are manually updated this one is another one as well you know especially in deliberation related to say for example the FY 28 those documents are prepared you know we see our you know transportation coordinator and business manager
118putting forward this one-page individual you know prepared document for us so what was stated about simple reports coming from a program I don't think is entirely accurate I saw the superintendent and then I see member Hollins hand again I'd like to state a matter of fact for the record this committee voted on multiple occasions for information from City Hall that was not received ever despite votes of the full committee before the budget was passed by this committee also as a matter of fact is my understanding that every piece of information that has been requested by myself or another administrator has been provided to the committee along the time lane reasonable or unreasonable as requested I'd like to understand the basis for a moving the yard post yet again it's not part of my goals it's
119not reflected anywhere we're adding meetings I'd like to understand why remember Hans are you suggesting that we would I'm sorry are you I'm sorry chairman Nunez I understood we would have separate meetings but are you saying that the report we receive that's organized by our budget and cost centers would be replaced no I never said anything about replacing anything look I was clarifying the comment that was made that you made that you know these reports are just reports requested from a software program and that's not true okay thank you yes I see Steve and then I see Mary Mary has to put all this together you do too and so I'm gonna give you my two cents worth and you can take it for whatever that's worth first of all eight cents out of that
120the whatever timeline you put on it I would suggest that you not do five to seven either decide on five or seven because then we get into a squishy area of what days when is this a five day request is this a seven day request just decide on a number and go with it number two as long as I've been here for it's been about eleven months now ten ten eleven months the financial statements that I provide are simply that financial statements what you will want to see and I'm hoping you you will see this and request this in the future but that Rinna's right now all you're getting is a piece of paper yes that is a one button push that really doesn't tell you anything it's it's extremely unhelpful most subcommittee member most
121subcommittees that I've been on require an analysis piece to it which requires quite a bit of work to do the analysis and that's why analysis usually comes only quarterly to the School Committee not bi-weekly the current system of bi-weekly meetings is just frankly untenable and then often times information is requests at that bi-weekly meeting which requires which I do not receive a agenda for until the couple days beforehand and then I literally have a day to put together the information to get to get it to you within 48 hours so I would suggest that the requests go both ways if you decide on seven days I will need at least seven days notice in order to get you the information and not including weekends because seven workdays to get the information ahead of time so
122you know it's it's a couple things and I think the committee would work a little bit better if we focus in on analysis focus in on setting agendas far in advance of what you'll want to see far in advance and having that analysis not be bi-weekly but at least quarterly monthly something of that nature because it turns into quite a you're always behind the 8-ball with these two two-week meetings and less than 24 hours notice of what is on the agenda it needs to be planned much better remember Holmes I I agree with Steve I want to say that the budget subcommittee at a Warren meeting did make a schedule of topics for the year that was aligned with the schedule of topics for the school committee that we had also made together at a
123special meeting and that wasn't supported but there was an effort to have an annual schedule so the different areas of the budget came up each month when there were action items and I think I really think it's an important topic Steve is mentioning a few things that are important to him the budget subcommittee it was really important I think to each individual member of the budget subcommittee that they see the final budget earlier we saw the budget I think when it was sent into the newspaper and so I I I think we need to put on our agenda instead of saying what the problem is and it's this person or that person or this process I think we need to put it on our agenda that the school committee take up the process that the
124charge the process and the timeline for budget discussions it just has to be set out so that the different parties aren't at war that I think is a dysfunction the timeline for receiving just the broad stroke when we develop a budget and if we could have a meeting to discuss that I think however we meet would be much smoother I want to say that the there was a set times for the budget committee that you might want to consider for your special meetings which was first Wednesday before school committee met so that if it was going to be some action and then third Monday which is in the middle of the month so those were already scheduled with the administration maybe you'd want to consider one of those times for meetings of the whole on
125budget Thank You se remember Johnson and the number Eckstrom I think the motion on the table is to requesters to mandate the reports budget reports unspecified budget reports get brought to the committee five to seven days before the meeting and I'm gonna vote against that because I think that we have professionals working with us and if we have requests for information or analysis they will work with us in a professional way to establish a timeline that's both workable for them and for the committee thank you member Johnson I see member Allen's person and Mayor Martin I'm sorry remember actually my apologies I actually want to backup Glanville but we have I'm just I'm looking at our agenda and I have no idea where this topic is within the agenda for the day and and thank
126you let's focus on moving forward I don't see where it is on the agenda neither I think we're still talking about the subcommittee's but the if we don't act with the instructor and a directive to the superintendent and she is requested because it's a change because it's now 48 hours whenever the special meeting is called it will be 48 hours so you'll have 48 hours before the meeting to discuss 350 line items or whatever there are so I think you need more time to review despite the fact there is no analysis in here most people like to look and see if it's a plus or a minus and then see if we're on schedule on budget so I suppose it's I support this because it just pretendin requested a definitive hour day limit for production
127of documents before a special meeting on budget if we don't support this then it's 48 hours and I don't think that gives much much lead time for the professionals that are providing the documentation we're looking for at a meeting sorry I just like to clarify don't believe I requested that at all in fact I think we've done a really good job of providing this information with no lead time on our part we get five minutes and you get 48 hours these meetings are regularly called with very little notice and we still produce documents we're operating under onerous votes of the committee that are totally unnecessary to produce documents ahead of time as if we are not professionals and as if we do not do our jobs I'm hearing things like it was important that they
128get a budget earlier in the year we didn't see it these sound like complaints and criticisms of staff I'm going to be ask you to be mindful of personnel and contractual rights of employees and I'm happy to provide information happy to talk about the budget we like this work we do this work there's no conflict here at all we've provided information in a transparent way it would be helpful if we had the information we needed from the city to provide the documents and complete the budget that we're doing so if the committee's interested in entertaining a vote to support getting timely information from the city that would be helpful but regardless we're going to provide you documents as best we can balancing the other duties of the district so again if you're if you're going
129to make some changes I just like to understand the rationale if there's a concern that could be addressed perhaps more privately if there's not a concern I'd like to move on yes some time was addressed by the superintendent and a couple of items the the request from the superintendent this evening was that she would not accept a discussion by the chair or the committee to change the process for presenting information to the subcommittee that is now a whole committee called by special meeting so that's why I brought the motion forward so that she would have a directive because she stated that there was it was already it was a change of work orders or change of schedule so that's why I promoted this I also just heard that I should be mindful or we should
130all be mindful of employees who are professionals and have contractual sensitivities maybe and that we shouldn't criticize anyone and then I heard right after that criticism of the city not providing information to the business manager and superintendent and I find that quite untrue and it was explained several times over several months where the information was so I mean that's off topic for sure and I'm willing to discuss that further any time I'm supporting this motion to have the financial documents five days not five or seven five days as I stated in the motion before we have the special meeting on budget not two days before the meeting member Johnson I moved to call the question I second all those in favor of calling the question that's unanimous could you read the motion for us please
131Susan I'll show thank you okay all those in favor all those opposed and I don't think any abstentions the motion fails two yeses four notes thank you okay the next item is rules of procedure I received multiple requests from members related to rules of procedure thank you Steve still alive maybe [Music] yeah let me I'm trying to find the document so so it's behind a few things so this is in your packet this is a printout of the City Council's rules related to debate the request that I received were specific to having some rules to kind of create some boundaries related to a debate that was my understanding of the requests and so one request was to like you know can we just adopt what the City Council has so I brought this forward essentially
132as an exhibit a sort of foundation for this deliberation my suggestion is to modify the rules of debate that the council uses to actually limit our debate slightly more there says has a five-minute limit we find it that would be on the item too no member shall have or hold the floor for more than five consecutive minutes of debate and I am suggesting that we would modify that to be three minutes consecutive of debate I also want to point out before we take a motion and consider more of this is that a lot of this actually is part of the practice that we do now as the chair I try to recognize numbers that haven't spoken yet prior to allowing someone else to speak I think that at the beginning it was definitely an area
133where I needed to improve in my facilitating of the meeting but I think that there has been some improvement there and so yes I I guess I'll just leave it at that now if there is a motion if anyone has any motion to put forward either to accept the council rules of debate or to modify it in any way I'm open to that I'm bringing this to the table because I think it's going to help us in our operations and also because of multiple requests that I received independently Mary Martin accepted town council rules up to paid section five six - five - five and wherever councilor is mentioned to be replaced by school committee member is there a second okay Mei Ren do you want to speak to your motion all right I forgot
134to have the three minutes in place of the five ok that's your intent motion to three minute section okay I think this is one second did you second it do you accept that okay thank you just briefly I agree with a chair there's a there's a good opportunity to put the Tai Tokerau around the discussion and move meetings on quicker and still maintain the the aggressive respect we have for each other thank you very much any additional deliberation I see member Hollins it's just going to apply to budget meetings I'm on b1 no member can speak more than twice to the same question because new information new statistical information is added I'm just wondering if b1 will apply to this and what is the differentiation if there is one between debating and deliberating is there
135a difference I consider them to be synonymous in this context and my understanding is that yes this would apply as a basic guideline for our deliberations as a body maybe recognize cheering yes thank you so much remember Johnson just say that in instances where committee members need to speak more times than is put down in these rules they can make a motion to suspend the rules in order to have a fuller discussion so that's possible with I think a two-thirds majority thank you member Johnson remember Karen it does say in there without leave from the chair so the chair came without a vote of two-thirds could easily just decide okay this new information has been added and continued and if we feel whatever reason the chair is not being fair we can all work together
136to suspend the rules thank you any additional comments this is actually very consistent with Robert's Rules and it's it's a more formal approach and part of the reason why it's formal is to keep things civil and respectful and to keep the flow of the conversation moving okay I see member Holland's on b1 it says no member shall speak more than twice to the same question debate questions so you're saying that this is going to govern our deliberations and same question could be broadly defined as you know what's in what's in there but budget review and [Music] I am more interested in really understanding the budget and being able to have accurate numbers and any question any member has going through it because it's so important to the community I'm more interested in that than any
137member of this committee not being allowed to ask a question about the budget so I have trouble with B 1 regarding the budget I understand other philosophical issues but I don't understand how this is applied to a budget discussion and where it says you can't speak more than once the same question that could be on it isn't defined so that could be interpreted to mean we're looking at the budget report I'm sensitive to that because I go through the reports carefully and find things so I don't think it's in the community's interest that we're not allowed to have active discussion of our budget and that's my concern be one definition the same question and how it applies to budget discussions I see the superintendent and then number Eckstrom I'm looking for clarification but my understanding
138is that these are our town council rules and that they use these for all Town Council including the budget and that while our budget is roughly twenty million dollars theirs is roughly 50 million dollars and if it seems to work for the budget deliberations at the council I would think that it would allow for the budget deliberations here and it does in b1 address the fact that you can still sort of seek permission from the chair to address something remember extra call a question is there a second second by a mayor and all those in favor of calling the question hi that is unanimous I think okay Susan Ferber can you please read back the motion that the School Committee accept the council's rules of debate section five six five - five and wherever councilor
139is mentioned replaced by school committee member and 4b - changed the limit to three consecutive minutes of debate in place of five minutes okay all those in favor aye that is unanimous thank you okay subcommittee minutes on use of the school committee secretary this showed up on our last agenda and was tabled due to time so this corresponds to the draft minutes process that is on the same page with the role of subcommittees and I stayed here that the committee voted to hire a secretary to support the group by drafting minutes for our subcommittees at this time the secretary reviews an audio recording of the subcommittee minutes and drafts the minutes according to what is heard on the audio recording audio recordings and minutes are posted online the succeeds open meeting law requirements for posting
140and provides an additional check on accuracy and provides transparency to the public unless there is a vote to stop this practice it will continue this is what the committee the committee has requested this the MAS C recommended practice regarding the acceptance of subcommittee minutes into the record for the full committee to receive the draft minutes and vote to accept them at the same time in the agenda that the full committee minutes are accepted I'm asking for a vote to adopt a new practice of accepting them draft minutes at the full committee meeting and what I meant is the draft minutes of subcommittee any revisions to the minutes would need to happen on the floor attorney general guidelines for minutes will be followed and then I added a note at the end to just remind everyone
141that our practice has really dramatically improved in the past few years when I first came on board subcommittees I don't believe were even drafting minutes so I'm really proud of the effort that this body has made to improve this practice and to comply with the law and I think it's worth noting everything that we do and you know I think that at times we hear different feedback related to the timing of when the are received and beyond but we far exceed the requirements in the law and it's really important for us to recognize that and celebrate that so I think that this is an example of us continually improving our practice so I would entertain a motion to adopt a new practice of accepting the subcommittee draft minutes at the full committee meeting with any
142revisions to minutes made on the floor so moved move I member Johnson a second by member extra this is a considerable change in practice just you know to speak quickly to this idea but I also think that it's very orderly and it makes a lot of sense for us to just you know do this as a full body accept them into the public record and there it is and I think it will take a little bit of a period of adjustment for us since we aren't in a sort of routine as it is right now related to subcommittee minutes and approval of subcommittee minutes any discussion yes superintendent I will say there was one additional added benefit which is that members of the public that are interested in the school committee meetings attended person or
143review the packet online will then also have the minutes of the subcommittees which gives them a very holistic idea of the work that the committee is trying to accomplish so to somebody who's a member of the public and interest in in transparency yes there are recordings in minutes posted in the subcommittee's but it puts it all in one place so it does have an ease of access for the public member Hans in one of our packets I believe it was the meeting before this one we had asked attorney Quinn and he had answered in a document that we never discussed but it was in our packet the question was who's responsible for the content of subcommittee meetings because the subcommittee is a body it's an individual meeting minutes it was a typo minutes yes but
144we asked the question because we are a body and when a subcommittee meets the subcommittee is a body an answer was and I believe that's the clarification I've had the body is responsible for its minutes so it would seem to me in the future we have a policy subcommittee that wants to make sure their minutes are a certain way it's up to that body to be responsible for their minutes again this could there's only two people on this committee that are continuing into the next for sure into the next after December and I think this is a topic to pass along personally I want to say that one of the issues for the budget subcommittee why this seems so important to me if you'll listen to the tape of the November meeting the whole meeting
145was about minutes the conversation was members present thought because we were discussing budget and it was so important there should be detail of what we're discussing to be transparent so people could understand it the minutes through the secretary there were issues because the guidance was that we should own we should it didn't work out our minutes from November on do not conform with attorney general guidelines where there's a summary of the discussion on each subject and then the minutes from July through March weren't posted until March so there's a problem with the minutes and it's I think it's up to the body to decide what they want in their minutes and it would just waste time for the school committee for those discussions to take place at school committee I guess in that last statement
146she might have answered my question but I don't I don't know why we can't make those adjustments on the floor at the full committee meeting if you come to if you're on the budget subcommittees and since what we're talking about a new company today that is not what happened and don't feel like that's appropriate you can then say I would like to take time to take these back but in the meantime the rest of us have a little bit more of an idea of what happened at that meeting I feel like I have no idea what happened at most of those meetings because I've never seen any minutes because the policy or the practice I should say has been that you will approve them before I see them it's right but not I think we
147only speak one person at a time thank you member Johnson so I think and this is true for all of them some of the health and safety minutes have not come forward and fast enough so nobody knows we talked about because the agenda wasn't always ahead of time step or you know I mean so I think that it's important they just come even if they're wrong it's just like with our full committee minutes they come and we say yeah that's not quite right and we make adjustments on the floor I understand what you're saying about wasting time I can see that becoming we've become bogged down in the minutes of not being perfectly accurate that would waste time but we can always say I'm gonna table these or I'd like to refer these back to
148the sub budget subcommittee to be looked at again superintendent I think I heard a couple of comments one was that the minutes from November weren't up to the Attorney General's standards and another was about posting so I'd just like to talk about the standards for minutes we have the good fortune of having Susan Farber as the recording secretary for the full committee minutes and this is a practice that she's been doing for many years without naming how many number thank you so for consistency Susan actually provided some orientation and training to the new recording secretary for subcommittee's and then she not only did that at the beginning but then also did additional check-ins so when you're referring back in the fall at the beginning of this year I think that was I believe the vote
149of the committee happened in perhaps October and then that's my memory is that it was early in the fall and then there was some additional training as she came up to speed with the school committee's expectation so the attorney general guidelines said that there includes a summary of the record of action taken for sure but also the discussion summary and so there's some discretion around how much discussion is appropriate there's an excellent five-minute video on the Attorney General's webpage that just covers meeting minutes it's literally five minutes it covers this topic I'd be happy to send the link without deliberation out to the committee and it also recommends that when appropriate that the minority and majority opinion be expressed and I think that that is fairly consistent with how subcommittee minutes are taken and how
150full committee minutes are taken and to member Karen's point this committee has the authority for approving them so you can always edit those so I do think that that has been very helpful in bringing public transparency and consistency to the minutes Piper Johnson to call the question my second all those in favor of calling the question hi and Susan is that a yes okay that's unanimous Susan forever could you read back the motion please to adopt a new practice of accepting subcommittee draft minutes at the full committee meeting with any revisions to minutes made on the floor all those in favor aye anyone opposed one opposed motion passes okay so we're coming up against our time constraints here we do have a couple of important items my suggestion at this point related to time is
151to move through attempt to move through item number 10 and unfortunately okay I actually given the time constraints I think the best approach would be to table items 11 and 12 which is hurts my heart a little bit because we keep tabeling policy and it's important but we can do our best to prioritize them at the next meeting the other items are I think we can get done in a timely fashion and then save enough time for executive session we with that in mind I think that we would be looking at probably going to about 10:30 so first in an informal way or is the group able and interested in staying until about 10:30 as opposed to 10 p.m. I'm saying a yes I'm singing yes I'm sing I guess bill is ready to go
152ok I'll just say let's just pretend to be enthusiastic about it ok so I just want to express a concern about the deferral of section D policies these are our fiscal policies and throughout the budget process there was a lot of debate about how to implement these policies ensuring that we were adhering to policies and the policies that are coming forward based on the recommendations of MAS C differ significantly in some cases from this committees in particular because there are policies in Greenfield that do not exist anywhere else and that raised some concern about tying the hands of the committee so I want to note that we have to make some difficult decisions as we move forward and as a policy board I really hope that the financial policies have top priority and if there's
153going to be a budget meeting that I think the financial policies should also be considered before any further budget work because of their importance thank you thank you so I move to table items 11 and 12 second second by member Holland's any discussion member Karen I will agree to table but I really want to point out that as the superintendent said these are really important and that we should all show up at the next meeting having fully read these fully understanding them and with coming with questions so we shouldn't be wasting time saying oh I'm not I haven't read that well enough we have had these four multiple meetings I I'm always available for questions I believe without crossing any open meeting laws you can send a question to the policy subcommittee ahead of time
154they will not respond but they can come back with an answer at the full committee meeting someone can correct me if I'm wrong but that way we are ready because this needs to be done as the superintendent said Myron in in the discussions with what was at mas C did they say that we should vote these policies before we discuss 2020 budget or modified 2020 budget I don't believe that that came up necessarily however the discussion on these policies has been going on for several months and the intent related to the timing of the policy discussion was to support budget deliberation but the your specific question of you know deliberating on the modified FY 20 but didn't come up exactly specifically as you're stating in it okay policies over yes we didn't we hired the
155MAS C to support and guide us through a full comprehensive policy review so yes we are engaged in that program now did that cost $7,000 I think it was actually ten ten thousand over three years limits RIA so I noticed under legal and the warrant today or and in a payment to ma SC for seven thousand dollars under legal so I was curious as to how we made a legal payment without the full committee's approval I don't know is that I mean we can take a look at that - ma SC yes it was verify that mass Association of school committees but you're looking at the policy manual development so I'm wondering if this was done in October why we didn't don't wait and we have a chance to chitchat about this quite a few
156times I know we've had policy I haven't been to policy subcommittee meetings but if that's been done going maybe it should have been brought to the full committee what's the question yeah four or five statements and the question is how come we didn't know about this but what is the it we didn't know about what hiring the MAS you to support us on policy review is that what you mean no so the question before us right now that I asked did ma SC advised us that we should pass the policies before we address any budget issues so we're going to be transferring and moving money around so are we do we need a policy change to have that happen so if that was the case then I would be in favor of continuing the policy
157tonight so that we could accommodate budget discussions as the superintendent had mentioned if not then move it off to the next meeting because it's no offense member karien but it's been moved from meeting to meeting for a while it has yeah so I backed that up with the other evidence of what makes me think this way is well we gave them seven thousand dollars in legal then then they must have given us some legal advice as well as given us new policies so I guess I asked one question and offered the balance of the information the question is does nasc have they advised us that we must pass the policies before we make financial transactions no they have not specifically advised us of that [Music] my understanding though and is that there may be a
158need to revise the policies suspend the policies and go back and review because when we suspend a policy we're then required to go back and then address it we can suspend a policy temporarily and come back and address it so yes these all this goes together you're very right that it all goes together but they did not specifically advise us the way that you stated I see the superintendent I think I see Katie and then Steve came to the table so let's start with the superintendent okay so I do just want to say that section D was taken out of order specifically to anticipate a clear policy in place and not a policy transition during the budget and that was taken early in the budget process for that reason so we were hoping that we
159would have Section D completed however the committee wanted that to look before the budget went forward because it does impact how we approach the budget and then I saw member Karen I was just going to reiterate what the superintendent said the goal was to have this in place it has gotten pushed off multiple times on top of that the MAS ceased as chair Nunez said didn't specify how we should do it but it was sort of under the impression of you need to decide how you want to do it do you want to continue to use the current policies for 2020 or do you want to suspend them where do you want to try and get these done our goal was to get them done and we keep shoving them off Steve that bill is
160part of their overall work in policy development it hasn't it's not specific to any question that's come up here so so that's part of their that's their final payment for the policy work that was approved I want to say like in October November and then that's their final payment that now that it's done I think the issue no one's mentioning on the importance of the budget policies there's only one major change and I went through all of the policies because they were just reviewed in 2:16 they're being reviewed again the major change that affects the budget is recommendation to rescind this is my opinion worse in the policy on the structure of revolving funds who's in that old policy so if you work with the policy the way it is you know there's a revolving
161fund and a recommendation for an amount to carry forward this is put together the motion is put follow no the motion is to table so if there's something I mean is there something related to the motion you know it's just all of this discussion was the important of the policies that's the one policy that affects doing the budget that's that's what I have to call the question okay is there a second second by member action okay all those in favor of calling the question I okay so the motion on the table is to table items 11 and 12 who seconded that Susan Holmes thank you okay all those in favor aye all those opposed one opposed motion to table carries okay okay so I'll try to move through this as quickly as possible so there's
162a memo from attorney Smith and also attorney long who is I believe an attorney that works with the Massachusetts Association of school superintendents oh and there is a member yes I don't know where mine went so this is here to call attention to this is actually in response to the committee's requests at our last meeting to get legal opinion a second legal opinion on the definition of the two-thirds vote this was sparked by the most recent budget deliberation and vote that the council participated in and they received a memo from attorney Quinn Sophos Sullivan Hayes and Quinn with [Music] the definition of a 2/3 vote to be defined as two-thirds of the body I don't have it in front of me no it was not president voting so the difference here is actually our so
163we had Peter Smith we requested Peter Smith advise on the definition of the two-thirds and his interpretation of the two-thirds vote would be present and and voting of members present and voting and that definition was supported also independently by attorney long the superintendent just reached out to the ma SS to see if there was any kind of any supporting cases or any opinion so that's how that one came to the table it wasn't something that was commissioned by the committee so I'm calling attention to this because this is a different interpretation of the two-thirds rule and it may have changed the deliberation at the council table it would have changed the outcome of the budget vote I think and I think it's important for it to be here obviously I'm following up because the school
164committee requested the attorney's opinion on this attorney Smith also recommended that we draft a letter to attorney Quinn and a letter to the council there's a draft letter this is moving into item the next items so there's a draft letter to attorney Quinn expressing some frustration with our attorney essentially not engaging with the school committee and not allowing us any advance notice of this opinion and as stated in the final paragraph we are at a loss to understand how your law firm a school council could provide a legal opinion so clearly adverse to the interests of the school committee without providing us with notice or an opportunity to respond so this letter is here as a draft I guess I'll just I actually want to pause on myself and kind of move back to specifically
165item number 7 there's not a motion or anything necessarily needed related to the memo from attorney Smith and the input from attorney long are there any questions or anything related to that yes mayor Martin madam chair would you mind explaining these two letters and their conclusions yes so both of these letters conclude an opinion that the two-thirds vote in relation to the School Committee budget would be defined as members present and voting and abstentions don't count as a vote and these were two independent attorneys that offered up this same opinion not to be clear I think Peter Smith is an attorney for the school department and School Committee yes and he also served as full school committee attorney for a number of years yes attorney Michael long is the has been personal attorney of the
166superintendent during contract negotiations and may represent I don't see mass association of superintendents school school superintendent so it looks like the letter is from attorney long to Thomas Scott that so it actually is listed mass in the via email mr. Thomas Scott executive director ma SS okay right there and and before you continue I just want to clarify my understanding is that this is an MA SS attorney this is not your individual attorney is that accurate how did long and do people get pardon oh boy as long into Peter uh paranoid and when we get it from mr. Thomas Scott executive director I would be happy to forward the email chain to the committee if there's interest but I'd like to back up a few steps I did I belong to the professional association of
167the Massachusetts Association of school superintendents it occurred to me that in cities and towns all across the Commonwealth school committees grapple with school budgets and councils grapple with how to fund those budgets chapter 44 section 32 talks about the council's authority to increase the budget over the appropriation of the mayor by vote of the school committee and that information was provided to the chair I'm not sure who else but the chair the business manager myself and I believe the mayor via email but it's also publicly available law that taking a vote of the school committee would give the council the authority to exceed the mayor's budget up to the levy limit if they should so choose by a two-thirds vote I forded the applicable section of the law to the Massachusetts Association of school superintendents
168and asked if the mass association of school superintendents had a position on the definition of two-thirds as required by that section of the law with no further deliberation or discussion about the context here in Greenfield and this is what was returned through that professional organization long in DiPietro are the legal counsel for the mass association of school superintendents they used to burn dinner okay thank you the I'm having a hard time reconciling these two opinions so under long or Smith that's God Weber it states it states the such as that contained in your charter of a vote of the full council then I am of the opinion that the vote must be of the members present and voting case of city of Chicopee Kubik construed the statute is containing an express statement that a two-thirds
169vote of all of the members of the City Council so giving section 32 an interpreter interpretation relying on its plain language that is without the modifier that the two-thirds vote is of the entire council seems to be more in line with the construction the courts has given to these cases so it seems the Kubek case is what he's talking about and that was of the full council so you're missing the first sentence of you know the phrase which is on the first page and it says in the absence of some modifying language which explicitly or art or alternatively strongly implies that a vote must be of the full body either by a reference such as that contained in your charter of a vote quote of the full council then I am of the opinion and
170then it continues on so basically it's stating that because that is absent he has the opinion that the two-thirds is voting present and voting okay those present and voting but we have I think in the charterer it's there's at least a couple of references to special situations on the Appropriations for the two-thirds voting of the entire council I think Peter mentions that two-thirds president voting I am presenting these two opinions because at our last school committee meeting we were requested to receive an opinion from attorney Peter Smith as to the definition of two-thirds vote as it applied to the conversation held at the council level related to the school budget and beyond but really for us it's about the school budget and then the opinion of mr. attorney long came via the superintendent as she
171noted she requested some support from the MA SS so these are here in response to the request of the committee thank you and just to clarify ma SS did not charge the district or there's there's no that is a it was an inquiry based on if there was a position of the organization s member Holmes could I clarify has been Center you're looking from no it's a draft okay so before we move on to the draft letter I are there any other questions related to the memos okay so then we'll move on to I have here two items draft letter to council and draft letter to attorney Quinn you don't have a draft letter to the council in your packet I originally intended to include one but I didn't really care for the draft letter
172that I had drafted so before sending out the packet I decided to pull it I have reached out informally to the council chairperson just to let her know that we do have two attorneys opinions that are not in alignment with the initial opinion from Sullivan Hayes and Quinn and that is the extent of that my intention is to for these now public documents just as you know and she and/or the council can do is as they may as they choose so I I don't necessarily think that there is a need to draft a letter to the council beyond simply forwarding them these opinions and saying hey just so you know we received these two opinions that's my position now so then to move on to the draft letter to attorney Quinn this is a draft
173and I would like the remission of the committee to send some sort of letter to attorney Quinn addressing this because I do believe that we should have been notified and we should have had some time to review and I also believe that the opinion of attorney Quinn didn't necessarily it's so dramatically impacted the council's vote and actions which not only impacted the schools budget but also impacted the entire city's budget so yes my feelings are captured in the draft [Music] I'm sure I want emotion first and then we can talk about feedback in member Holland's emotion the School Committee send a correspondence to attorney Quinn [Music] about the differing legal opinions okay is there a second second I remember extra did you want to speak to the motion and give your input yeah I I
174can feel all of the emotion that went into this letter but I I would make these suggestions is that okay yeah I'm let's say I would not include the first paragraph because I think when it you know firms that have different clients they don't write to anyone but the client so I just think it raises an issue I don't I don't know what our standing is I would say on behalf of the Greenfield School Committee I want to share the two two opposing legal opinions then I go on to the second paragraph to the legal opinion your office provided counsel etcetera paragraph three I would change just say it's Eric's expectation when called upon to provide legal counsel to the School Committee your firm operates at all times with the best interests of the School
175Committee in mind I'd leave out the rest because I don't think we should be asking somebody to bend the law to anyway I just think it's fine to put a period after mind and then instead of the last paragraph I I would eliminate the what I feel is sort of a a judgment and just say we are concerned about the differences of legal opinion the differences of legal opinions as to the opinion from your office because the opinion from your office was adverse to the interest of the school committee and appreciate your apply or something I think he may have a reason for his opinion but I would try to take out some of the what feels like admonishment there may be a good reason for whatever he did remember action can you expand a
176little bit on what it is where's the reason behind our sending this letter other than you gave an opinion and we didn't know about it I mean what was the opinion given what was it regarding just briefly I'm not sure so we discussed this at the last meeting hence the request for a second opinion from attorney Smith and the reason for drafting the letter it's there's two reasons one is there's a recommendation of attorney Smith to draft a letter to attorney Quinn because of concern that this legal opinion was given and it was it directed the actions it essentially directed the actions of the counsel which had [Music] a really strong impact on the schools it it impacted how they deliberated I'm sorry excuse me how they voted on the budget how they deliberated about
177the budget the actions that they took were in part based on the idea of the 2/3 being of the current body and so my main concern is that this is something that negatively it had a really dramatic impact on the Greenfield School Committee budget and I believe that as their client that we should be informed and as I state that like our best interest should be kept in mind and I'm not sure that it was in this instance and it's concerning to me that we would have you know one we have one attorney that's working on the interest of the city and one attorney or in the same attorney that in theory is working for the best interest of the school committee and there's a legal opinion that's been given that really dramatically impacted both
178and you know we ended up with additional funding in our budget but that came by taking from other departments in the city and that action my understanding of the action that was taken by the council is because they felt that that was the only way that they could get the amount of votes that they needed in order to satisfy the interpretation of the two-thirds requirement is that I make sense it doesn't make sense I just follow up quick yeah absolutely dope is what we're really concerned about is that that it's a conflict of interest yes yes thank you for making it just very concise yes all right potential conflict of interest gotcha yes ma'am a couple of observations dealing with the letter first the the request for a City Attorney's opinion was by the city
179clerk because that they do work with the City Council I authorized that opinion because it was important to us because we were trying to also monitor all the various applica see hits the city councilors were taken so I would correct your letter and in that respect you also mentioned that the sentence without even copying the committee and our superintendent this letter purports to be sent to Quinn copying the School Committee members Jordana Harper and Steven Americo and not copying the mayor of the city clerk you seem to be you seem to be doing the same thing that you're accusing someone else of doing I understand I guess the concept of conflict of interest but you can't certainly prefer a legal opinion that's going to align with your particular position so the legal opinion is the
180legal opinion if you also provided attorney Quinn's letter with the other two then we would have probably looked at some cases that might have been the same or different but often attorneys that's all attorneys make their money there's one on each side that's how they do it so they're gonna be various opinions I think I think if there's a conflict of interest we've got one in house we've got attorney Peter Smith's coming up with an opinion on the same subject contrary to what the city solicitor and the School Committee attorney has come up with so we have a conflict within the school department with those two attorneys being utilized and as I mentioned earlier attorney Smith has been the single their attorney for the school department in the past and I suspect that option is
181coming up in the near future but let me also mention my personal feelings there is a levy limit in excess levy because we haven't been to using all of the tax dollars every single year for the past eight years that we could have that's why there's an excess levy and - I think it's a selfish position to grab all that excess money over that period of time for one year's operating budget for the school department so there may be very enthusiastic advocates out there for taking all the money as possible but the councillors knew the option they knew that any penny above the budget submitted by the mayor was a surcharge on property tax owners that's per charge and property tax and all property owners I think that's the real reason why they didn't go
182in that direction because you still needed the two-thirds vote whether it was the term president voting or whether it was the seat on the City Council at 13 so I don't I don't support a letter I support having an attorney Quinton come in here and explain his position have Peter Smith come in and explain his position so what's let's see what you both came up with the same cases and came up with different opinions so what's the real opinion the fact is the real opinion is the city charter and that's where you have to go so I'm not gonna support a letter but I'll support call both attorneys in to speak with us okay I see member Johnson I guess I also share concerns about just sending a letter to a lawyer expressing our disappointment
183that lawyer was doing a job that was tasked to them by the city and I think that our problem is not necessarily with the attorney and the work that they did on behalf of the city but the fact that the city of the clerk's office did not notify us that they were seeking this opinion we might have been able to as a as the group that's charged with improving student achievement in Greenfields to seek our own determination as we had as we had a chance to do after the fact and have that included in the Civic debate about how this was the Charter was going to be interpreted and whether this was a hard and fast rule that all lawyers agree on or something where there is room for a disagreement and there clearly was
184in that there have been three three letters written and two of them say that it's 2/3 of those voting and present and I think the idea that those counselors would have made the exact same decisions realizing that they had a lower threshold of votes for two-thirds voting and present versus including people who either were not even on the council or weren't able to attend that night his ludicrous of course it would have changed the way that they deliberated and the decisions that they made so I I guess I'm not I'm interested in the idea of having the lawyers come and talk to us so we can ask them hard questions and evaluate their work and I don't know if the letters really all that helpful but I also think that there's I think we just
185we also need to communicate to the city and the clerk's office that if they're going to be legal opinions made that substantially affect the interests of the students of Greenfields that the School Committee should be made aware of those at the time that they're happening and not when it's too late to weigh in with our own thoughts and interests and did I see any hand the rear okay superintendent it's my understanding that the city clerk was away for some period of time so I want to sort of assist in framing this conversation that this is not finger pointing in any way at the council or the city clerk I think the question is the School Committee passed a budget that was significantly different than the mayor's budget and it's different than the budget that we
186have today and I think we're really looking to the future to clarify what are the guidelines around what the law and the Charter says are allowable for the school committee advocating for the needs of the students in its district visa vie setting the budget and so I think the best hope to come out of this is not to chastise anybody but to get very clear I think an interpretation and in my sort of humorous comment here is there's three opinions two of them agree we have two out of three opinions about 2/3 I don't know the sort of math teacher many things none of it humorous but this but the fact that we have three legal opinions on 2/3 shows why you need math teachers more than anything anyway so I also have favorite jokes
187about you know other arithmetic subjects so I'll leave that the point is you know like why was 6 afraid of 7 ok so this is it is a serious matter it has a lot of significance to the budget and how funding for our district which we spent hours tonight talking about the budget and whether we're adhering to policies and and the value of this is hundreds of thousands of dollars potentially and it doesn't matter this year just this year it matters every year forever so having an opinion on record that clarifies what maybe it wouldn't have made any difference this year but maybe next year it matters and this is clarifying the law and the committee's power so for those reasons I really encourage that we take this opportunity to just set clearly what the
188bounds are and what can be done that's within the school committee's authority and I do think it would be challenging for any law firm to to Abele serve both of these purposes and in this case a firm is serving the council and the executive branch and the School Committee and those positions are sometimes very closely aligned and sometimes they're farther apart and this is an instance where I think you can see clearly that a different interpretation could have resulted in a very different outcome for our students like you just quickly I agree the superintendent we found a number of them light Inc spaces within the city charter that need to be clarified verified and rewritten and the council was in the process of identifying the most critical ones at this point this one should be
189added certainly but the other question you might ask did it matter was it would it matter so I mean we had we had 13 councillors one was had resigned so that left 12 acting councilors - weren't there that left 10 councilors present 2/3 his seventh and and there was no way that year was going to be 7 votes for not only overriding the mayor's budget but for a number of capital items which were tabled and will be brought up next week so you didn't have that vote anyways that's why all the Capitol items were tabled so I'm thinking a numerical clarification since we number the City Attorney's I mean she we don't want 13 city attorneys when we number the City Council members as 13 we should have the ability to number the number of
190counselors that are needed in certain aspects of appropriations and I think that's would be part of the rewrite so I don't before asking their opinion yes can i clarify are you recommending there a charter change to specify the threshold of votes required and and suggesting that a particular type of vote for example a capital vote or something else might in fact require a two-thirds vote of the full committee I think one thing that all three legal opinions agree on is that if it says of the full committee or of the fixed committee then that's very clearly of the full committee or of the fixed committee in which case it would be of 13 councillors you need 2/3 of the 13 is that I'm just clarifying yes pretty much pretty much that there so there's language
191modifications that need to take place every year ending in a 0 you have to review the Charter the 0 is coming up in January so they are preparing now for Carter change charter changes the council is in addition there are there is litigation at the same time attacking the Charter as to being irrelevant and uncertain points so the council is going to have to address that probably sooner than 2020 so I'm just saying this can be part of it thank you member Johnson okay so it sounds like going forward the Charter can be amended to make things more clear and that there will be all kinds of interesting debates about that perhaps or maybe it will be just technical but the other question of the council and the conflict of interests I'm not sure I'm
192not sure how effective a letter is but it does seem like there is something important that needs to happen regarding that and I'm wondering if people have ideas about how we go about who I agree that that there just seemed to be a conflict of interest issue there what do you see as possible solutions so before we go into any of that and potentially the next agenda item which could be related we do have a motion on the table Susan I think it's pretty simple when what's not clear to me member Hollins had suggested revisions and I don't know whether they were accepted into the letter or not they weren't part of the motion though it was just part of the deliberation and they weren't necessarily put forward as specific amendments to the motion I
193didn't know if the motion would say as amended the correspondence as amended what is the motion right now is that the school committee send the correspondence to attorney Quinn about the differing legal opinion send a car sent I heard it the same way okay send sent a correspondence to an attorney Quinn about the differing legal opinion okay I know I don't either I want to wrap this up I do think that there is a need for a conversation with our attorneys and I do think that we need to call attention to this because it did impact the schools and it will potentially impact the schools and the city moving forward so I sound like there is a little bit of consensus that we're all interested in finding some clarity for really the benefit of the
194entire community that's what I'm hearing from a lot of voices yes my reaction I I do want to mention when we first talked about one that first talked about when we spoke about what attorneys we would like to use for the school committee we did have a discussion about using the same attorney that the city was using excuse me and that we had some concerns that there would essentially be something like this and so I guess I'm just this part of me thinks that this is fool me once fool me twice so so let's for right now keep the conversation related to the draft letter emotion okay send a correspondence okay the motion is to send a correspondence to attorney Quinn say again about the differing legal opinion okay is there any further deliberation on
195that okay yes but is as part of the intent to include the two legal opinions provided with the correspondence so I think that I would put forward an amendment to the motion to include the additional the two opinions in the correspondence and request a meeting with both of our attorneys related to this topic I sighed because I'm thinking about policy section D and all of our priorities okay so yes yeah I put forward this amendment point of order so it's not a friendly amendment or I won't accept it that's a friendly amendment much more discussion as a full committee when we weren't discussing it as a full committee when we asked these different two attorneys to make any make any opinion you were not there yes I was not right but the motion was made
196by member Hollins right I'll accept is that correct I'll accept a friendly amendment to include the two additional legal opinions but I think follow-up meetings is a different issue okay and remember Eckstrom yes the motion is to send course a correspondence to attorney Quinn to include the opinion from attorney Smith and attorney Leung it's not accurate Susan it's slightly different language but okay okay let's how do we feel that's about okay all those in favor is that a reluctant aye great so I think that was unanimous here's what I can do I appreciate member Hollins input I also wrote down and put from Mayor Martin I think at the heart of this is to take out some of the emotion and judgment and express some concern and make attorney Quinn aware of these other two
197opinions and then ask for an explanation I'm seeing some yeses is that your interpretation is that your understanding on this side okay I think that leaves out a significant component of what's in this letter now emotion aside there's there's two different components one is the legal opinion and the other is not notifying the committee of the impact of the opinion and the discussion I heard earlier was that you know a an attorney provides counsel to the person they're representing and therefore has no obligation to another one but inherent is that is if that is a conflict that in the committee needs to consider that and in this case an imposition was rendered that had clear impact to the committee and no notice was provided therefore their their function was to represent the town and I
198do think that that if you leave that out there there's a significant portion of that communication that is not getting related yeah I mean I agree with that hence the initial draft so yes I'm seeing Glenn and then I'm saying though there are mayor Johnson my understanding is that the the letter that the motion was pretty pretty broad in terms of giving you discretion on what you communicated and I think the I don't feel a need to get into additional motions to confine or restrict you and appreciate your taking the feedback of the superintendent or others before you write the letter okay remind the agenda okay great I'll write a letter thank you for your feedback okay the next one is pretty quick open meeting a lot complete follow-up I just included a simple email
199correspondence that I had with the attorney general's office this was in part to clarify that what was suggested in the recorder is not entirely accurate it's my understanding that the attorney that the the mayor's office did communicate with the attorney general's office requesting to host an open meeting law training however it's my understanding that that has not necessarily been granted to the city of greenfield and states here in the mayor or in the email we will likely be scheduling our trainings in July or August and we'll be back in touch with the mayor's office if Greenfield is selected for a training so I just wanted to just like call attention to that and I also think it's pretty cool because I had already sent an email to them earlier in the day then I got
200a request from another member then I got this response back so it seems like we were all sort of on the same page to kind of put forward this request the other thing that you need to know is that I have an an open letter that I just received today from the attorney general's office I will check it out my understanding is that we have been assigned that mr. jabón the complaint was not satisfied with our response and we have been assigned the case has been assigned to an attorney at the attorney general's office and I have an email thread that I will forward to you all after the meeting and in the email thread you'll see that they state that there's no action that we need to take at this time the other thing
201that's relevant to the Open Meeting Law training is that I trying to schedule a training with the MAS see I've had a little back and forth I did reach out to the masked Municipal Association they referred me to the online trainings and said that they didn't offer trainings for open meeting law and then also charting the course will be coming to Northampton the collaborative for educational services in September the superintendent receive that information I think just today or yesterday so I will forward it to you guys it's September 7th so if folks want to attend to that training they can and that's that so it's very clear it's cut and dry requires no vote or deliberation I'll check this out and let you guys know about it when I have a chance to open it
202and read it the next item is review of legal services this is here because you know it's our it's in our policy and it's in what's inner policy the intent to review our legal services around the time of the budget I did notice on the budget subcommittee agenda that this appeared I don't think it ever received any deliberation I was surprised to see it but that's the side that's not relevant so anyway this is something that is coming to the table it is quite timely given the legal opinions that we have just discussed and my intention here is to request some support from some of the committee membership I am specifically requesting the support of member Johnson to review and propose a process that is a fair clear process for how we actually review our
203legal services this is something that is meant to be done annually we attempted this I think last year or the year before and the process ended up in subcommittee and didn't really go and beyond that and it was a little uncomfortable to say the least so I think that the committee really needs a process that's very clear and that we can all agree on and that everyone has the opportunity to weigh in on and I think that member Johnson has something to offer in this regard so I don't know so I'm asking for the community support to request that member Johnson propose a process for review of legal services to bring back to the committee at the July meeting and then we can kind of go from there and that's the motion except for that
204kind of go from there is there a second second my member extra number haunts I don't know who on the committee was here at the time that there was a separate meeting of this school committee with attorney Smith present an attorney Quinn present it's what Nate Smith it's really recent both attorneys were there we worked out a template for attorney services that both attorneys agreed to the School Committee agreed to and then each after that each attorney submitted their own guidance on what what they agreed on what services they would provide if remember Johnson is going to have this role I would recommend that we find the minutes of that meeting and the minutes that and the documents for the template for attorney services and then what each contract with each attorney is in place
205because they had agreed and they even agreed on what they would do if there was a disagreement on conflict of interest or assignment so there's a body of information I think that she go to mr. Johnson and we should all know that there was a meeting with both these attorneys working out how this would work and that they have different contracts and there was a template for attorney services no matter who it would be yeah I mean just the summarize yes we did have a contract negotiation with both of our attorneys and we agreed to employ both of them and I agree that all the information should be provided and is all public information any other discussion okay what did you want to comment on it at all I can just say you know I
206really welcome people's input on this and any information people want to share with me without deliberating but my basic thought was that first it seems like important for us to have a statement of what our needs are with regards to counsel and then we can evaluate counsel based on the needs that we've identified so that's kind of the rough outlines of what I'm thinking about in terms of what I'll be fleshing out a little bit more for you in time for the July meeting but that's where I'm headed right now okay hello's in favor hi that's unanimous Thank You Glenn we'll get you that information and look forward to July the last two items are pretty quick remember Ward requested to have office hours with students and there were some concerns related to liability and
207policy contractual issues etc and also accessibility and what that would actually mean and boundaries of the school committee etc so this is kind of a two-part question obviously member Ward is in here so he can't speak to his request I think that if the one question is does the committee want to even consider this and then the second part of that question would be if the committee does want to consider some kind of office hours as was suggested I believe that we need to refer that to Council for a review and to be clear I actually think that we should just drop this and not follow up on it and not refer this to Council and just not try to attempt to have office hours with students that's my position member Johnson I moved to
208table this agenda item indefinitely is there a second second my remember extra penny I don't know if deliberation I don't think so tabling indefinitely is not debatable that's about all those and all those in favor of tabling indefinitely hi all those opposed one opposed any abstentions one abstention okay so motion to table indefinitely passes okay and then the next part is the fold a subcommittee attorney Smith requested that the policy subcommittee well that the committee review the policy on bullying and has some specific input related to that and so I am formally referring to subcommittee the policy on bullying this would come up naturally but I think it should you know comport thank you yes do you happen to know that policy letter that is or what you know I'm very sorry but I don't
209okay it's time I just wanted to be able so quickly yeah I'm sorry that's right I can look it up I know okay so that's moved by Mayor Martin is there a second second second my member Johnson any conversation okay all those in favor perfect that's unanimous so at this point we do need to enter into executive session we have a couple of items that we need to attend to we double-check this discussion of referral to submitting except for convention that was my intent was that the there was the referrals to subcommittee was the one that I had reserved about how do we ever share what we think should be discussed if it's I will take that into consideration and come back with something okay because I've tried multiple different multiple ways to address this
210and feel flooded and we have so many priorities and then I hear feedback that there's trust in me to prioritize and there's not enough time and all the things so right now I think that we need to move on to executive session and I will consider maybe we will add it back on to the agenda yes superintendent just to make a note the last agenda it was sent via email to the full committee and the chair has just addressed it and the committee has taken action on it so you can send agenda topics without any deliberation or comment or opinion to the full committee and the chair will see them and then to me or to the chair and the committee the chair can add it to the agenda per the policy okay so I
211moved to enter into executive session for mg/l c30 a twenty one section two three and ten two to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non Eugene personnel three to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation if an open meeting they have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigating position of the public body and the chair so declares and tend to discuss trade secrets or confidential competitively sensitive or other proprietary information provided this is in regards to an item related to the superintendence contracts unit a and a transportation contract is there a second stuck in my member Eckstrom can we have a roll call yes okay so we are now in executive session [Music] all of our productions at GC TV are sponsored in part by Baystate health providing the care
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