Greenfield School Committee Meeting May 9, 2018

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002don't cut corners we clean them check them out online at real clean comm call them at 4 1 3 4 2 2 1 1 4 3 People's United Bank located at 45 Federal Street in Greenfield you can call them at 7 7 4 3 7 1 3 or visit them online at people.com the soleus tour of Greenfield replacing fossil fuels and nuclear power one home at a time visit them at 23 Fisk Ave called them at 4 1 3 7 7 2 3 1 2 2 or visit them online at solar store of Greenfield com thank you to our sponsors for supporting all of GC TVs productions [Music] hi everyone welcome this is a meeting of the Greenfield School Committee we are here at the Greenfield high school at 21 Barr Avenue it is Wednesday

003May 9th at 5:30 p.m. and could we have a roll call please committee member eckstrom committee member Hollins to remember Karen could name a reward I show his absent mayor Martin I show his absent I have myself and committee member Nunez here chairperson we do have a quorum thank you secretary Alexander so we do have some executive session business to attend to immediately we will be an executive session for approximately one hour and then return to our regular meeting at that time can we have a motion to enter into executive session for reason number two to conduct strategy sessions and preparation for negotiations with non-union personnel these are for multiple administrator contracts is there a second second remember extra moved by member Hollins roll call please committee member Eckstrom yep yep c'mere Hollins can you

004remember Karen yes committee member Nunez yes and I vote yes we are an executive session at 5:33 thank you thank you to everyone who has been or I certainly did miss calculate how long our executive session would take so thank you very much for your patience the first item on our agenda is the approval of draft minutes from for there is one error in the minutes at the top with the date I believe it's listed as May 11th so we would like a correction there to reflect April 11 are there any is there a motion to approve draft minutes from for 1118 so move there a second okay any further discussion beyond the correction of the date has everyone had a chance to review would you all like more time to review right okay would

005we well we have a motion on the table any questions or deliberation okay all those in favor of approving the April 11 2018 minutes okay seeing four eyes um anyone against your yes okay so minutes pass I believe member Hollins you say yes okay so that is unanimous we will move on to public comment are there any members of the public that are here to speak please come forward to the microphone here hi Doug welcome pardon well you know we've been thinking for two hours so just as a reminder a public comment you receive three minutes to speak and for those who are not familiar there is a little button that says push when you come to the microphone you'll you're gonna want to push that button please state your name and your address please

006for the record Doug Selwyn 38 Forest Avenue in Greenfield thank you so I'm here to talk about the the SRO which I understand you are is on your agenda tonight and I want to strongly urge that the money that is being proposed to hire the school resource officers be used and said to be applied to services that support the kids counselors teachers more resources more professional development I'm advocating this for a number of reasons we all want Safe Schools but the research shows that having additional officers in schools don't make the school safer what does make the school safer are a number of programs and personnel that that go directly to supporting the kids so I have some paper because I know you need more to read this from the the Centers for Disease Control

007and Prevention talking about preventing school violence and what they advocate is not more SROs but more programs that strengthen young people's abilities to effectively solve difficulties that arise pro-social activities school-based programs and violence prevention programs that help kids get together with teachers and families to figure out how to be with each other most usefully there are community level strategies that involve more parent involvement more community involvement not through police but through more social pro-social activities the there's a sentencing project facts about dangers of added police and schools talk about research that shows that actually having more police in schools makes the schools more dangerous raises the level of violence and I'll bring these up to you so you have them to take a look at so it's counterproductive it's a sort of a knee-jerk -

008there's something that some violence that happened let's bring in more police and and overall it doesn't show to be a valid thing to do a well-intentioned perhaps and not valid the other thing I want to link to this is that there's quite a bit of research to show that public education is a worthy investment for state government for local governments it's good business to invest in the schools people move to places because their schools are good high school dropouts are more than twice as likely to be unemployed and three times more likely to receive welfare assistance decreasing the number of high school dropouts by half with nationally produce forty five billion dollars a year in that economic benefit to society there are more statistics I won't bore you with it but I'll give you the

009paper that suggests that investing in the schools make sense so for the third year in a row cutting the school budget makes no sense what we're doing putting in the schools in a deeper hole and so spending two hundred thousand dollars on police officers where that money could be spent to support the schools in other ways makes good sense the hundred thousand dollars that was misallocated I guess if that goes also into the schools that would be three hundred thousand dollars more to support the schools and that makes good sense to me students were were you're at three minutes sorry my timer is really low I have the honor [Laughter] thank you so much thank you so push push push guys the light illuminated the green light is on great my name is Jan Mayer

010I live at 38 Forest Avenue in Greenfield I'm a retired educator and I think what Doug was about to say is that the students who spoke at the City Council meeting expressed strongly the feeling that they would not feel safer with more that they did not feel physically unsafe right now that they feel emotionally unsafe and that speaks to all of the things that Doug just mentioned I too have some things for you some reading it's what we teachers do but I want to just echo everything he said but add to it something that I I found really I don't know concerning about as I did a little research in this I looked into the basic certification for an SRO in Massachusetts and it calls for 40 hours of instruction covering 15 topics that include

011school law understanding the teen brain effects of youth trends and drugs on schools threat response understanding special needs students diversity etc etc etc forty hours to cover all of that material a counselor or a teacher probably has a class in almost every one of those topics and so is doing vastly more learning about how to really serve the needs of students so again I you know I understand that everybody's sort of nervous these days about safety but the research as as has already been said is very clear on this that what really makes safer schools is attention to building community is attention to having more counselors having more people in roles that that the students feel safe with and some students may very well feel safe with more SROs in the school but a very

012significant number and the ones most likely to be in in trouble one way or another whether it's because they don't they are not fluent speakers of English yet or they have other things going on in their home life that makes it difficult to function well they are the ones who feel least settled by this and who need most of our support so I would urge you all to do everything you can to to promote the idea that what the schools really need is more counselors more teachers more people who can directly serve the needs of the students and that's what's going to make their schools safer thank you very much hi thank you but there we go there you go hi my name is Paul DeMarco I work with Massachusetts Teachers Association I represent the

013Greenfield Education Association and teachers and staff and other districts in the area and I've handed you out two pages from the budget book which are collated so if you just take one pointing one way and one pointing the other way you'll get full of pages pages 25 and 44 from the budget book and I'll wait to have them there were two facing one way two facing the other way Susan knows I have problems with handouts there were actually four different angles but it's all good we now each have page 44 and 25 right yeah perfect great so I presented this a little while to go to the Ways and Means Committee and they were receptive I think what I'd like to point out is on page 25 if you look at other amounts to be

014raised you'll see there's one called snow and ice deficit it's a third one down there was no funding in previous years for this account it's $300,000 if the city were to create a rainy day or snowy day fund you know he actually has it's called the general fund and that's what you use when you have more snow or ice to remove and we think but if you want to create a separate fund the Department of Revenue recommends that generally reserves should be about twelve percent of the annual budget so on page 44 if you look down let's see what you'll find in this it's under Public Works snow and ice removal the total cost for snow and ice removal is two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars in next year's budget so basically this line

015item snow and ice deficit is creating I don't know we're expecting the ice age or something it's creating more than double the amount of funding that you would need in any given year to remove to remove the snow and ice so we think it's entirely unnecessary this is a source of funding that could be used to fund the schools budget another a number of city councilors who would support this but it'd be very helpful if the school committee would also be bringing this to the Town Council's attention because they're not going to do anything if you don't support it so I wanted to make sure that you were aware of this also if you look at the police department budget or this Public Works budget the mayor gave them both 10% increases to their budgets

016but that was more than they asked for themselves whereas the schools the mayor cut your budget by four and a half percent or approximately you have increasing enrollment for the past two years and the city's per capita of pupil spending has gone down almost by a thousand dollars over the past two years so you're really abandoning your kids and it's a shame and I think your kids deserve better than that I'd also like to endorse the comments by Duggan Jam about this SRO you could put that money back into the budget as well hundred and fourteen thousand dollars it won't catch it to you to your total budget or the cuts that the mayor's been doing but it's a good start thank you for your time thank you are there any other members of the

017public I would like to speak okay seeing none we will move on to reports starting with our student representative thanks for waiting it out for us we appreciate you I brought homework just in case I've been out there eating skittles and doing homework so it's okay so it's the first full week of May which is at GHS we know it as AP testing so kids have been dreading or looking forward to this week it's bet it shifted the tone that do you adjust a lot more academic and rigorous studying last minute procrastination the usual high high school tendencies and then the week after is not next week the week after that is am cast testing we're in the freshmen and sophomores will be taking them cast I believe this one's math and then after that

018the sophomores will never have to take em cast again given that they pass in this Friday night at 7 p.m. the Moose Lodge is holding a fundraiser for DHS student council its trivia night where it's $10 to go and nine of those dollars will go directly to help supporting kids from student council going to a leadership camp or like four or five days this summer pretty good cause I suggest that you all go I know it's always been a blast met one I've heard it from it's 21 and up so there will be no students there and if that's not your ally the Film Festival is this Friday those open at 5:15 it starts at 6:00 it's a great way to see what the youth of the community have been working on in terms of

019films I know it goes from elementary to high school so you see a wide variety of different viewpoints like satire comedy tragedies love stories even the occasional music video it all just kind of mixes in and coming up next month is the Relay for Life which from ghs we have national and society representing and the cross-country team will always have at least two people running around the track for the entire duration of the event to show that hits are like enduring an long struggle but where they're willing to show our support for the entirety of the event and an exciting thing for seniors as prom is May 19th that is next Saturday it's at the log cabin a lot of people have been going to get their suits and dresses and hems and just finally

020finishing things up for their for the cream of their senior year just the moment they've all been waiting for just that last hurrah before they finally graduate on June 1st on Friday May 25th we'll be doing our two hours of community service where we got we're doing team where we go and help community in a like plethora of ways except this time instead of going by team or advisory students will be able to choose which one they want to go to you which will like have higher quality participation and also what's better than like helping your community while also hanging out with your friends at the same time the band went on to the overnight trip to Boston and the flutes came back with a gold medal from Micah which is pretty rare and got

021them invited back to perform at a gold medal showcase where all of the people who have gotten gold medals going perform so people can go and see a high-quality performance which is pretty nice knowing that uh flutes a high quality in gold medal rank which is pretty great and now to talk about myself because you know I love to I had the international news competition as you heard and I ranked fifth in the nation winning a $2,000 scholarship doing that which was I dab when I'm sitting so so it was a really amazing time I've made fans I still keep in contact with the group chats still keep me up at night when I should be studying it's pretty amazing and then I know I may not have one but since I didn't come top

022three I can return next year to try and win the grand prize and I but I will say I won the Halloween costume contest that was after the voting as Taylor Swift and in a performance too low-cut she made me do that Miss Patenaude gave two big thumbs up - that has been your monthly report thank you very much any questions for our student representative no I do not cuz I've been too focused on my academics but it's something I've done in the past and would really hat what I like to do the film stuff but I haven't really had a an elective since eighth grade and won't in high school because because of ATP's and academics well thank you very much and congratulations on your scholarship award thanks a lot Thank You Susan I

023look forward to that I hope you liked my solo and then also the solo that we never practiced okay thank you very much so we'll move on to chairperson and superintendent report I have just a couple of things I want to start with just an expression of appreciation again for those that are in the audience that have been waiting for us we tried a new process today and having our executive session in advance and I appreciate the willingness of committee members to come in early and also our minutes our secretary Susan Farber so thank you everyone for that and also just to take a moment to express appreciation for all of our teachers I believe it is teacher appreciation week so we appreciate each and every one of you thank you very much and everyone

024who helps to support all of our students here at the Greenfield Public Schools aside from that I just have two quick updates for the committee the first is a a suggestion to change the charter of this city of green field from councilor burns son this was forwarded to me and I believe that it's of interest to school committee members this isn't an official item as as an agenda item we don't necessarily have to take a stance on it but I wanted everyone to know that this is something that's in deliberation right now and it is regarding modifying term limits placed on counselors the mayor as well as school committee members so that's in your packet I do not know the date at which that will be voted on right now it's in subcommittee and then

025I also wanted to follow up with everyone on the School Committee shared folder that we had talked about at our last meeting and I'm still working on that I think it will be a relatively simple thing that can be resolved actually tomorrow in a meeting and I will report back to you all on that progress and then one other item is that we do anticipate a vote on school choice coming up very soon it was on the calendar for this month but through conversation with the superintendent I made the decision to delay slightly so we may have a special meeting coming up and vote on it then or it will be at the on the June agenda and then in terms of information from the superintendent we have our usual packet telling us about what's

026going on in our schools and I did one make a quick announcement regarding our food service director has put in her resignation in order to spend more time with her family and just wanted to let everyone know that that is now a job that is available so if anyone out there is interested please inquire with the superintendent's office as well just a moment to say thanks to Madison for her work here in Greenfield in your package is also our regular budget reports we are not necessarily going through them this evening but if there are questions we can entertain some questions as well there is announcement of the graduation ceremony and class night that is upcoming I do encourage committee members to attend it's really great to go and see just bear witness to our graduates

027it's wonderful so that concludes myself my report and also an abbreviated report from the superintendent are there any questions regarding any of the materials that I just breezed through or any questions for the business office who is here okay I'm seeing none and so we can move on to our school I'm sorry our subcommittee reports and I just asked that with the subcommittee reports if there's anything that's that's would be more appropriate for an in-depth conversation on the agenda item for example the school resource officer please consider holding the report of the subcommittee until that agenda item but otherwise we've all been provided our minutes and I will yield the floor to member Alexander if you want to report out on personnel and negotiations and policy thank you ah the personnel negotiation subcommittee met on

028the 17th of April 2018 our discussion topics were continuing discussion on the human resources memorandum of instruction which has been in kind of quite lengthy describe discussion for several months now and we also began discussions about our legal representation in which we're coming up later this summer and month of June to renew our contracts upcoming topics for discussion that we're going to be picking up on May 22nd is to pick up a previously table discussion on legislative representation and work up a rat rough draft of a duties descriptions as well as a formal recommendation to present to full committee I was also asked as a reminder to remind us here on the committee that superintendent with her annual evaluation is coming up next month she will be having her self assessment and supporting documentation is

029available on the 18th of May from the roughly that date all the way through the third June each committee member will have that packet and they'll be able to make their own individual assessment comments and then on the 4th of June committee member Eckstrom will be collecting all of the individual comments and collating it into one formal evaluation to be presented to the superintendent and one thing I would like to also remind us is during that time period while committee member Eckstrom is doing the collating you just kind of keep your eye on the email or your phone because she may need you to clarify something okay we really want this process to go through go through smoothly and with minimal bumps in the road so we can do a really good job and then

030of course right now we are tentatively scheduled for the 18th of June special meeting to conduct the evaluation of the superintendent the only recommendation that we're presenting from the personnel subcommittee is in reference to the human resources memorandum of instruction I'll just read it verbatim here personnel subcommittee recommends the town of Greenfield consider and evaluate cost saving options for human resources services including an online program to provide employees a self-service option for benefits administration for future possible expansion to school district employees basically what we're asking for the city to create if they don't have it already or put it together is some kind of an online or self-service option so that the school district employees can better monitor and track their benefits and so we submit that as a recommendation for the possibility to be

031forwarded to the mayor and that it's all for I have for this for both policy and personnel and negotiations are just personal sure yeah go on into policy alrighty so segwaying right on into the policy sub committee policy subcommittee we met on the 24th of April where we consider discussions that we've had over the past couple of months on the policy 21 initiative and later on tonight I will be able to present you a recommendation because it is on the agenda this past meeting we also as a subcommittee took a critical look at policies bheegi bheegi bheegi see all these policies are relating to policy adoption and review this was not an official review it was just basically for the subcommittee to read through it and understand it a little better and start thinking about

032any possible changes or Corrections that we may need to do in the near future upcoming policy that's like I got my notes backwards here sorry also during this meeting we also had a discussion and it's not an official policy right now but we are working on language on students being returned to school after school hours this has been referred to us from the health and safety subcommittee and right now it's being and more information is being gathered by the superintendent so we can finish creating this policy and upcoming policy events that we have coming up we'll be looking at policy BDE that is the subcommittee's of the School Committee and that is coming up on May 29th and again I'll have my recommendation for when we get to it and learn the agenda Thank You

033member Alexander are there any questions from our Alexander okay seeing none we'll move on to the next report member Hollins Thank You member Hollins is going to report out on the budget subcommittee because member Ward and Mara and are not here yes the budget subcommittee met on May 2nd as you might imagine the discussion primarily centered on the difference between the budget that the school committee voted and the budget for FY 19 that the mayor recommended in his comprehensive city budget and there is a difference of $800,000 so most of our discussion was how do we bridge those two numbers as you may recall we had voted on a special report from their business services contractor for revolving funds so we had better separate the funds by year when we talked about that we had

034a discussion on the super intent of the mayor recommending that a hundred and fifty thousand dollars be placed in this city Stabilization Fund for special education he said there's already a hundred thousand in the city's specialist stabilization account and with the passage of this budget another 150 will go in giving the city of two hundred and fifty two thousand dollar stabilization account we went through all of our revolving funds against what we voted as a safe amount to carry forward for stabilization purposes you remember we spent a long time discussing that policy and after going through all of these we actually took a motion to vote just so it would be clear what we were thinking and the motion was up and it was based on a report from the superintendent to accept this superintendent's

035recommendation for reserve fund for use in the FY 19 budget as in the April 24 2018 report for a total of four hundred twenty six thousand sixty nine dollars and four cents and the discussion about this vote mayor made the motion i seconded it that only three of us came as a third chair the discussion that the mayor made was that the vote bringing to you that we use four hundred twenty six thousand supports the presentation we had at our meeting it's compatible with our new revolving funds policy it cleans up to old cut hold accounts and it will greatly help with the difference in the FY nineteen budget we did note that there's still we still have encumbered bills to pay and the exact balances of these account may be different than in the

036report because of so we noted that those numbers may change a little bit and we also took another vote to ask the superintendent to come back with some more information on a couple of funds particularly special intuition accounts and so at our next meeting we'll have some more information it was a long meeting but I think anyone who attended the meeting understands that policy and revolving funds all the different revolving funds we have and that was useful the second thing we talked about at the end of the meeting was really enrollment you'll recall the superintendent in presenting a budget recommendation anticipated one hundred new students so we talked about that because that record that estimate was made in January and our meeting was in May so even though it's still an estimate so you open

037your doors we had a little bit better information and that estimate has now changed to the new estimate is 40 students and it and that led to a discussion of the middle school if you'll recall or you may not recall one of our budget meetings we were talking about new positions needed needed or requested there's a quest for a fifth grade position in the middle school and the reason for that I don't remember exactly there's something like we have nine fourth grades going to grade five and we only have eight grade five features that may not be the right number of grades it was something like that and it looks like based on the estimate now that that really is a actual number of students moving up gary said that they're not seeing very much

038movement of people moving away which is great and so I had said at the meeting there may be some things that were taken out of our budget when we were creating it that we actually need to look at as long as we're going over the whole budget again with the fight to come so we had a very long informative meeting about person enrollment and funds and we think we have made some dent in looking at the difference between what the mayor recommended and what we thought we needed when we voted our budget are there any questions for a member Hollins did you raise your hand member Eckstrom did you raise your hand okay Thank You member Hollins health and safety so we to have a nice long and very productive meeting almost everything we talked

039about is on our agenda for this evening we discussed in length the estará proposal as we saw it and I reminded ourselves as well as everyone in attendance that we are not discussing a person we're discussing a role so just be clear what we're going over all of these things and we also talked about a couple of issues again that will be on the agenda later about possible need help with some crosswalks moving and stuff like that it was a really long and very thought-out conversation and didn't necessarily end with a clear-cut decision or any of that but like I said we can I think we should probably just get into it later and I'm sure there are a lot of thoughts what's there's questions okay are there any questions remember hearing at this moment

040okay seeing none we have two school committee representatives that's member Hollins for the planning and construction committee did you all meet and that would have called okay great I don't if we met I don't recall being at the meeting but I've been at every meeting so far the big issue at the last meeting is the role of this committee and how the recommendations of this committee are picked up and used in the city planning similar to the discussion we're having about the role of school committee particularly regarding capital reviewing capital requests thank you and number Eckstrom our representative from the collaborative of educational services did you all meet prior to our last meeting okay thank you so I think that that closes out all of our reports and we will jump right into our first

041business item which is the school resource officer proposal hi I did send an invitation to chief Hague to attend the meeting and he unfortunately had a a prior commitment so he has sent a statement with deputy chief Williams that correct thank you very much for your patience and thanks for coming I think that the easiest thing to do is to start with hearing your statement and then we can follow up with any questions and our deliberation and I just want to start with reminding the committee that there is not necessarily a need to make a decision this evening on anything the other thing yes so I just I just want everyone to know that in advance before we begin so please jump right in good evening everybody chief Hague regrets that he can't be here

042but he did prepare a statement and asked that I present it to the committee I was instructed not to get too deep into questions as I hesitate to speak too much on his behalf because he's been much more involved in this discussion with you than than I have so but I will do my best if there's anything I feel like I can safely answer but just so I'm not trying to intentionally be evasive on anything just following orders so chief Hague did prepare this statement though the dear Committee on February 26 I took part in a conversation in the superintendent's office with several administrative staff including the current school resource officer during that meeting I belt I heard a concern that other than at the high school there was a lack of presence of the

043school resource officer and at the schools in the elementary levels would appreciate a more visible presence prior that prior to this meeting I had already been speaking with the mayor about a thought of improving school officer presence by adding school resource officers to the school district with so many schools within the Greenfield district than being spread out across town one officer is simply not enough an additional concern was guaranteed coverage on a daily basis which with one school resource officer it cannot be accomplished to solve these concerns I believe three school resource officers is the best solution three officers will allow for at least two school resource officers to be on duty on any given day additionally this will allow for more flexible schedules especially when all three are on for activities that are outside

044of a normal school day schedule I do not believe anyone realizes the impact an officer student relationship can have in a positive manner as I feel the police are being portrayed in a negative light simply because of money at the time of the meeting on February 26 the budget was not configured or settled and I felt my proposal was a welcome plan for safety visibility and community relations now that the budget numbers have been presented I feel these two additional positions are about dollars and cents not what is best for the city of Greenfield school system I am not willing to change my proposal as I feel I am recommending something that will benefit more than just protection for students but will support staff and administration as well I will not state that my desire

045for more school resource officers is any more or less important than any staffing or other need the school department feels they may need as I am NOT a professional educator however I believe this is the best option for our school district to create a safer environment for staff and students while also creating better relationships between the youth of our city and its police officers which in fact has proven to be a benefit to general community relations partnerships and information sharing through trusts and bonds I apologize for not being present tonight but do feel I have presented the best case possible to improve on the city's safety school relationships as a whole sincerely chief Robert hey Thank You deputy chief Williams are there any questions from school committee members immediately yes member Alexander I guess my

046one question would be is what criteria what constraints did we come to the number of three officers based on the geographical locations of the building and I guess my second question would be yeah we would stick with that one for the moment okay again not speaking for chief Hague but giving my own perspective on this I I wasn't part of those initial discussions when this was developed but we have operationally of course discussed if this happens how are we going to implement this what kind of expectations will we have and that was one of the things we talked about okay what if we have three how do we deploy them are our immediate thought of course this would obviously be in consultation with school leadership in the school community obviously to help determine these things

047but we figured three would allow for a more consistent presence if not an everyday presence at the middle school which we feel has a need and and doesn't get all the attention that it can get just because of having only one officer now and then having the third officer available to visit elementary schools private schools as they wish in the district and and also you know potentially have kind of a fill-in system where if one officer is out vacation training sick whatever reason you know we can fill the gap with that third person so that that's that's I believe from my perspective how the number three felt like it would be a good good operational number for us thank you did you have a follow-up question I just want to clarify to make sure I'm

048understanding so basically three officers you'll have will you have any officer like permanently based in one location and the other two are floating through different schools each day or is this a patrol like X hours in one school they move on to the next school is it you know what's the patrol look like I I think that would all be need to be determined I just know that when we were discussing you know potentially some areas where we could add a school resource officer presence are our immediate thought was well the middle school is kind of the next logical place to put somebody more consistently now whether it was every hour of every day that would remain to be seen and then you know there's still a number of schools beyond the middle school in

049the district so we thought if the third person was working other schools could could be visited that don't get you know nearly enough attention right now just because they can't member Holland's yes thank you for coming trypsin to chief I have three things that go through my mind and remember Karen said we we had a long meeting discussion very long meeting long discussion but the three things to go through my mind or first I I really respect chief hay for doing what he thinks is right from his position he came up with a recommendation of what he thinks from a police chief's point of view was right and I really respect that he says to us look I I'm not changing the recommendation I was requested to give for my position so I'm fine with

050him not altering his recommendation the second thing that goes through my mind are just questions about money but not so much where it is in the budget but more what the school district pays you know how many like you mentioned people go and leave they have vacation to get sick you know in our arrangement we're paying as I understand for a certain number of days so I wonder about that and the third is a reservation I have that I'm not sure anyone else has is new expectations we develop my understanding is that we have a very close relationship with the police department and anytime anything happens to the school we pick up the phone we call the police and they're there really quickly that's my experience and I have a slight worry that if we

051get three officers in school and something happens over here and we pick up the phone we call the police department there may there may develop I'm not saying it would some idea within the police department wait a minute we got SRO is for that and time go by instead of immediate response like we have now and because we get that a little bit over the years maybe this isn't a good example in special education where we have some people hired to work with special children children with special needs and some people that are hired to work with everybody and then you get sometimes you know well wait a minute someone else's life to do that and I would never want anything including I would never want an unintended consequence of having three officers assigned to

052the schools that we call we have a need where someone might have zipped over where people start hunting for school resource office that's something that goes through my mind if we get too dependent on school resource officers as opposed to just officers that's all thank you how do you you're welcome um member Karen did you want to expand a little bit on the conversation that was had at the health and safety meeting absolutely Susan brought up one of our many concerns that that could become a problem not you know not on purpose it sort of just happened so we're referring you to this person and said we also just didn't know if there'd been a needs assessment done like a true when we have to hire a new position superintendent has to come to us

053with a needs assessment and she has to say this is why I need it these are the hours these are the places and one of our things that we did discuss and we clearly have a need it's for a truancy officer and so that was our one of our massive concerns was that that's what we really need as a school district we need someone to help us with this position and we heard from other school administrators and I I hear it's actually what chief was saying and that if he feels like this is an attack on the dollars in the sense at this point and I can hear that and it does feel very I can see how it feels like out came the budget where we got this massive cut and now we're all

054mad about it I speak for myself and I hope that it and other people can chime in that is not my reason for not wanting or wanting this position trying to separate money from that unfortunately the reality of anybody in the school system or town or anything right now it's a lot about money well we had a long conversation and we couldn't come to a full consensus as a committee the only full consensus as a committee we could come to is that we didn't see that we needed three we saw that there was some support for one there was support for half one never support two we couldn't we couldn't get to a full consensus as the committee we could say that we needed position for a behaviorist so that if we had a pretty

055havior assess the elementary schools and maybe that would only have the gate the one s Rose job at that level if we had a truancy officer then that would help alleviate some of the load on that level as well I don't think that we had any specific questions at the time is we really wish to have been a more fully thought-out or more exploitive proposal instead of just using the - I want this is what they might we're done we wanted what are they gonna do where are they gonna go how is the training gonna be handled if there's only one conference for the training every year how are you gonna work that out with three people anyone who was there can chime in or ask questions like I said we just weren't sure there

056was no we just felt a little pushed into a decision there is legislation coming down we haven't gotten out all the way yet so there will be legislative changes to the MOU that might need to be made anyway that was discussed but I don't know which I'm an hour adrián member Hollins I I could say that the discussion wasn't only about police being police kind of in a police role we also in the discussion was the need for someone who would feel safe going to the home of a family or going up to a teenager about being in school and that if if and when we had additional support an unmet need in the district is someone who can assist the schools with attendance issues because not many people in the school district feel comfortable

057these days going to a home or stopping a teenager on the street thing you know why aren't you in school so we had a long part of our discussion was around the need of the school system for some assistance in attendance what would that look like for attendance monitoring Thank You member Hollins any questions or comments from other members okay I again I just I do want to remind the committee that we don't necessarily need to make a decision this evening on any related to school resource officers however the council will be voting on the city budget very soon at the end of the month and I they may be looking to us for some guidance related to funding they may not also obviously all of our meeting minutes and everything our public documents so

058we can be sure to hoard them if that's of interest and then I just also want to remind each and every one of us that this is a program of the Greenfield Public Schools it is governed by the school committee so any changes to the school resource officer program is governed by us so with or without funding for additional positions we have the authority to make any changes to the current program remember Karen I the one should have the one unanimous decision that we also come to with that if we would really hope that any of the extra money could be shifted back to us that if we could make a recommendation to the council it would be if you have extra money please shift it back to us because if we had one as

059our extra SRO that's still up for conversation we could really use some support in other areas like I said of truancy officer of behaviorist things that could help alleviate the original role so that was the only thing that we all could be unanimous about which was please if you can we could use that money in many ways number Holland's I recollect that we talked about the current Memorandum of Understanding that it would have to be changed that I just it so there is legislation coming down so we were going to wait to see with it right we were hoping to get a lot alert from mas C to make it extremely clear it seemed to us if there was some in the new legislation it just just asked a couple weeks ago now if there's

060some new legislation about the standard operating procedures very specifically that that was how that would be handled including evaluation process and all of that but we haven't gotten the real clear so we were gonna wait on this oh we were gonna wait on that to be clear and and in addition the memorandum we have is explicit about there being one officer and being based at the high school correct so so if anything happens that whole thing needs to be so I actually think we should make some decisions today because it's the middle of May and the City Council's going to vote their budget and we we would have it seems to me we would need to endorse two more officers one more officer no more officer that we should do something so the City Council

061knows what we want or if you want to wait to the end of the meeting in case of some other decision of budget I'm seeing that a member alexsandra had his hand up and also member Eckstrom so let's pause that thought and hear from member Alexander first if you don't mind or unless you want to yield sure number Eckstrom I think I think us trying to make it a decision without a needs assessment formal needs assessment much like the superintendent brings to us about staffing and teaching teachers numbers through the school system would be ill-advised at the very least I mean you know I could say hey I think we need four and okay awesome but I don't have any hard evidence to back up the why we would need four or why we would

062need one I think we would be ill-informed and ill-advised to do anything without more information about actually needs assessment I mean we know what we need and I am the chief was telling us what he believes would be appropriate what what is his assessment base on thank you member member Eckstrom remember Alexandra did you have a comment chair this is okay if I asked deputy chief Williams one more quick question when we're talking about busing up the officer and the strength of who's on duty and stuff like that what is the I'm trying not to use army lingo but what is the overall mission that the chief is aiming for is the aiming for a high level of violence or is he aiming for a high visible presence to dispel violence basically I guess when

063I was in the military when you create an Operations order and you make a plan you have a specific target in mind you're gonna hit something or you do something and when you resource personnel and I'm just trying to get an idea what does the chief what is he planning for is I guess what I want to know where he's going with this well I I believe in a statement he referenced you know the benefits he sees in the program and in building relationships between us and the youth in the school so certainly I I believe that his vision is that we can increase those partnerships increase those those bonds I think there's a belief on our part if we can reach youth earlier you know maybe get some intervention and troubled families and troubled

064situations earlier by getting to know these kids younger before they're in high school that can have an untold effect on prevention of future problems so again that's this that's deputy chief Williams speaking not chief Hague but I can only you know assume that that's one of the benefits of of involving officers in the schools in this way and and clearly the Commonwealth has made a pretty clear statement with the latest reform that was just signed of being the intention of where they want school resource officers to go and the direction they want programs to go and I think we're largely they're already here I think that was I think they just possibly other districts in the state that weren't operating like ours but I think I think we've done a great job here collectively school

065committee in the police department and in you know doing what we have with our program so that's a that's as best I can answer your question it I really should leave to peg to explain what his thinking is on that we've really spoken more about like I said the operations type of ideas not so much about you know theoretical concepts of you know why you know what's our mission per se I'm we just kind of focused on if we had if we had two more just some ideas on how would we deploy them member Holland's I went to respond remember Eckstrom I completely agree that in a rational world we do a needs assessment and then you make decisions based on that but I think if we don't do anything we're making a decision to

066have two more school resource officers because they're in the budget and the budgets going forward to City Council so we're a little bit in an awkward position but I think I still think we need to do something and it just occurred to me listening to our speaker that we see the children and the needs when they're in school from when they come in in the morning I was talking to a principal today when I was picking up the flowers about children that have trauma this that and I realized listening to you that the police know all of our families really and they see them after school you know what's going on they're called into homes and so they they know a percent of our children in a totally different way that we don't know so

067it's kind of interesting so what do you think if we don't do something we're doing remember Karen the mayor can have a line item and they can say yes to it but we still can say no they can have the money sitting there and we can still say no you cannot come in am i understanding that correctly yes also we discuss this as a meaning that we can make a recommendation to the town council that says we don't know we have do not feel we have been given adequate time to make a decision about this we do not feel comfortable making a decision forced on us quickly in a short period of time without a needs assessment we can make that recommendation to them and they can say you know what you're right you can

068wait a year we'll get back to you with a better proposal a more laid out plan and then you can decide or we can say nothing and they can vote it in and we can still make a decision after I see what Susan saying it does feel like a statement if we do nothing so and um so um I will take one more round but then I think we should actually wrap up and before I take one more round all just speak for myself you all have heard my opinion but I'll just quickly reiterate that generally speaking I do not support the addition of two additional school resource officers to the SRO program and this is because I don't believe that the origin of this proposal came from the school committee or the superintendent I

069really appreciate the Greenfield Police Department and I appreciate the relationship that we have with the Greenfield Police Department and I actually think that the school resource officer Memorandum of Understanding that we currently have is a really good reflection of the priorities of not only the school committee but also our community as a whole and I really appreciate that I was around when we were first drafting that document I know that there has been conversation about shortening it it's quite long and there is has been interest in reviewing the document just to clean it up a little bit and I think that we need to remember some of the voices that we've heard recently about our students and their feelings of safety and that we should be using our city resources to be supporting our schools

070and supporting supporting our school budget and now with that being said that doesn't mean that I don't support the police department budget being increased I want to say that pretty clearly if the school or if the police department believes they need to additional officers of some kind then I would say that you know I'm not the person to [Music] he'll pass I I would trust that opinion now again just returning back to the fact that it's school resource officers that are getting proposed I do have a say in that we have a say in that and at this time I do not support adding two additional school resource officers and then just quickly I disagree partially with member Hollins interpretation that if we do nothing this evening we are essentially I don't believe that we're

071waiving our authority in any way it is true that we could end up with the police department having an additional I believe it's one hundred and fourteen thousand dollars in their budget and but again we have the authority over this program and so if that is the case we would end up with a need to review really thoroughly look at a needs assessment and then you know make any decisions at that point I do not believe that my opinion would change at that point I think there are many different models for bridging gaps between police departments and community members and I am very interested in kind of keyed in to what we've been hearing related to truancy support so that's something that I believe to be very different than a school resource officer although it

072is included in the MOU that we have now that the school resource officer can support truancy related efforts yeah so that's I think that also for me it's not just a funding thing this is not just about money for me I believe that not everyone has the same response to police officers in the school buildings and we need to be sensitive to that I think as part of an overall assessment we should be tapping into the opinions of our students and really hearing them out completely and then I did ask the superintendent if she wanted to comment on this and she she didn't leave me with a really comprehensive statement except that she supports the School Committee budget that was put forward and she supports putting funding into the schools through education and Support Services

073and then also she wanted to let everyone know that she had will be meeting with some students to get some input and she has already had solicited some kind of informal input from students and that she takes this seriously and is looking for more information I hope that that is an accurate representation of what she said to me today member Eckstrom did you have your hand up okay remember Alexander gives you thank you I was at that subcommittee meeting where we had this long discussion on the HR on the school resource officer and I'm kind of caught between two things right now in the back you know going through my mind is that if it's the intention to raise visibility and create goodwill with the community I can't see three officers doing that I can

074see a police officer was he's driving around on town saying hi to kids and making friends that way as well I can see many other ways to enhance police presence or make promote goodwill okay I can see having three officers as you're ratcheting up for a gun fight and that's the only way I can physically see it but sitting through this meeting to make it absolutely determination to support anything I just went through the minutes one more time and I stopped counting after seven questions that really need to be addressed that were brought up during that me before we actually make a decision employing three full-time officers in the building so I'm still still having a lot of questions on do we have enough work for three guys to do and finally I guess the

075main main part of it is this by looking at the responsibilities of the school resource officers someone recently just mentioned a couple of weeks ago that the school resource officer has to respond to a young student in the elementary school if he's throwing chairs or ease having a moment where he's out of control instead of having the resource officer handling that deal a behaviorist is much more qualified and more educated to handle that behavior problem thus lessening the current role of what we require school resource officer doing so I think a thorough look at the MOU and getting the rest of these questions answered that's when I think that we'll definitely know exactly what we're going to need to have and that's where I'm sitting at right now with it any further comments question member

076haunts that's common I feel really awkward with the discussion because the additional information I brought under new business was really a guide for working with youth and Families LGBTQ youth where there's a huge issue with police so you know I want to say something positive about the proposal but it's not because of an advocate for police in the schools so it's awkward to talk about but I I could vote that this is going to the money is currently in the police department budget for next year I think from the discussions we've had about the police in the schools we have enough issues about how to be sensitive you know what people should wear in the elementary school we want all the children go visit the fire station the police station they were not adverse to

077children having some interaction with person we have a role in whether the person is a male white male a woman a person of color someone who's bilingual to help us with Spanish families I mean we still have a lot of control so I see this as unfortunate in a way how it came about but it isn't to me so I'm so terribly different then learning today that there's a grant that just came around you've got two weeks to figure out you're gonna collect for tonight it feels a little bit like that so I could vote for one additional officer not to and that we work to figure out how we might use the services in some mutually beneficial way that includes some of our needs like chronic attendance issues or I mean I have had

078the situation of parents coming into a school with a knife or a gun or something I don't know I think we could figure out how to do something that's sensitive and useful to both the police in the schools for one additional person it may not even mean they're in the school but addressing some needs of the school so I'm not here as a zealot for police in the schools but I think we do have needs and that accepting one officer and figuring out a new guideline how to how to use the person in a way that works for all of us is possible if we don't do something then I think that I I don't know how that works out next year okay um is that emotion are you putting a motion on the table

079well I guess I will just so that wraps up for when it's like my motion would be that we endorse no more than one additional school resource officer for FY 19 and we work with the police chief on an amended MOU that addresses the needs of the school district and with full appreciation of the sensitivities of our students and families as well as our needs for intervention where the position could be helpful so no more than one when we work on how to make it work wait we talked about these several things came up in our meetings where you know like schools are stumped parents don't come to pick up their children and then how do we get them over to the police or horrible traffic congestion I don't know it seemed like there were

080issues that other than the image of people in armed guard walking around the schools there were other things um secretary Farber could you read that back to us [Music] thank you is there a second okay I'm seeing no second so motion fails is there any further comment member Karen I just wanted to say that we kind of talked a lot about some of the things that Susan Collins brought up and one of the things we talked about was making sure that an SRO stayed as an SRO and it truants the officer of the truancy officer and that a police officer is a police officer we didn't want a person to be doing too many roles and then having a different relationship with the children we talked about a lot of it could we roll all

081these into it could we not so that was a concern and once again I think that that's partly why myself I would like a larger proposal and an ass needs assessment to see if we need truancy ups or if we need help with traffic is that an SRO is that not so that's all thank you memory Karen any further comments I think we should wrap this up okay I'm seeing none deputy chief Williams thank you very much for coming we really appreciate you and again your patience for waiting to speak and please extend our thanks to chief Hague I will thank you very much so we will move on to the foundation budget Review Commission recommendation this was tabled from our last meeting and there should be a single page in your packet well I

082don't see it here though well that's a little bit of a bummer it was a summary with a summary of the foundation budget Review Commission recommendations for changes to the foundation budget I brought this forward as a way for us to stand in solidarity with other school districts in requesting that changes be made to the foundation budget to reflect the true needs of school districts without the summary I think it may be difficult for us to discuss although it was included in last month's packet so at this time it's kind of difficult for me to advocate for this if you all haven't don't have the information I apologize for that we tabled this at our last meeting because mainly because of time but I think that it's really important for us to revisit this and

083perhaps move to table until next month there was I believe the reading school committee recently voted also to support the recommendations of the foundation budget Review Commission just today I saw that announcement and there is a long list of school districts on ma SC website all of them standing together to raise our voices just raise the volume turn up the dial that we have additional needs that are not being addressed by the current foundation budget so I guess is if there's an interest in continuing the conversation in June I would entertain a motion to table until June to have more information brought forward and if not we can essentially drop it I moved to table the conversation till June who is there a second second okay any further conversation okay all those in favor of

084tabling foundation budget review commission until June hi member Hollins I that's unanimous thank you okay our next item is city and schools human resources and this is to address part of what the subcommittee recommendation brought forward related to human resources and the MOU that was in discussion for a very long time or a potential MOU I believe that discussion between the schools through the superintendent and the HR on the city side and the mayor's office lasted for about maybe a little over a year it's been a long time now I did touch base with the superintendent today to get a little clarity on this and I was reminded that the munis conversion that the city and schools have been going through will actually provide a an online resource for city employees to include member benefits

085so my understanding is that the recommendation that was put forward earlier this evening by member Alexander to review and explore a digital like either a website or some kind of digital presence that answered common questions related to city benefits that that may actually be coming forward through the fine phase of the munis conversion so I just want everyone to know that information and it sounds like even without knowing it we are all on the same page so look at that I don't I think that there are a couple of things that can help us with this particular item and one would be a motion to formally stop conversation related to the Human Resources MoU with the city and then the other would be to potentially put forward a motion similar to the recommendation which would

086be to support either the exploration or implementation of a digital resource for city employees to answer common questions related to benefits and those are all my comments on this member Alexander did you want to follow up on some of what the subcommittee had to say if you wish I'd go ahead and make the motion if you want sure what go for it what do you move in here let's see if I could take a wing at this one I would like to move that we the School Committee of the Greenfield Public School District officially announce that we are not no further no longer interested in further conversation or deliberation about creating a human resources memorandum of instruction with the city of Greenfield and that we would prefer to consider the human resources digital human resources

087option or employee services Thank You member Alexander is there a second second by member Eckstrom is there any conversation on this member Hollins I think employee services is awfully broad could we the discussion was specific to insurance and retirement programs could we limit it to that because I think that's where school personnel and city personnel we keep talking about who's going to enroll people for insurance and he's gonna enrollment for retirement and we think the idea was if the city would click you know information and commonly asked questions online we wouldn't have to keep having this discussion about it but I think it was specific um would you be interested in amending your language slightly can we work out the language could you read back Susan what you have right now and the suggestion is

088to change employee services to address inquiry is related to member benefits for employee benefits employee retirement and insurance benefits do you think the beginning of the motions a little striking I think we could refine it it's in travelling Alex everyone's feeling that it might be a bit - do you have a suggestion there was some just a little phrasing they were a lot no longer interested maybe we could say this time donut it's not in their interest to pursue or just I'm not sure I have the right wording there's a very long motion but okay perhaps something we currently members of the School Committee that it's in the interest of efficient use of time do not see the benefit of pursuing or something maybe that's to maybe leave it the way done neither I agree

089with the sentiment we need to put it a bit or anything a lot of timing going nowhere okay Susan Farber could you read back what you have what you have right now English Dawn's Dawn's with the amendment at the at the end at the tale there was a change in employee benefits okay [Music] and member Hollins when you questioned working together you mean on the digital resource you mean in collaboration so there's those and this city should work on this or that we should collaborate in some way doesn't matter to me I'm just wondering what the we're not willing we were not thinking we should get together on this human resource position but are we asking them specific um well so I think that it is actually happening as I mentioned with the Muniz conversion

090I'm not sure when that rollout date would be and the language is to support is that right the digital resource for for to consider I perhaps we should amend the language to support the implementation of a digital resource to serve the need that's written there [Laughter] you're voting yes however okay so when you have a down season maybe you'll read back what we've just compiled yeah Donn's yep [Music] and that would support the employers started supporting the implementation [Music] Superboy [Music] okay remember Alexander that's a slight change from what you put forward is that acceptable to you okay after about 15 minutes of us trying to play wordsmith here yeah I can accept that as a amendment to the my original motion all I want is I just want this issue off of my subcommittees

091agenda forever okay thank you and I'm assuming member action you were the second weren't you you don't have a problem with a second on that great okay is there any further deliberation okay all right I'm seeing no further deliberation all those in favor hi that is unanimous thank you very much and much appreciation to everyone who helped to put those words together could make one let's come in sure because our record will show just to show an eye record in all the discussions there has been no evidence that any money would be saved or that either the city or the school department would be able to decrease staff and so that's the reason it seems kind of purposeless at the moment Thank You member Hollins so we are moving on to number five which is

092policies for second reading we have three different policies that are up for a second reading and they should all be here in your packet we saw them at our last meeting for first reading this time we actually do need to read through the amended policies and if remember Alexander would like to start that would be fantastic with JK a yes member action let's support the um is that a motion that is a motion okay there a second we have two policies okay remember Hollins is a second so I believe that the motion is to move school requests for maintenance and safe transportation up to right now yes okay all those any discussion on this my only point is that this is actually a really small agenda item I'm not sure there's any comment from an

093administrator on it okay I wasn't aware of any I I do also think that director Ellis is here to potentially answer any questions related to the policies that we have for second reading so I actually think that we should not amend the agenda and keep it in order that it's in is there any other deliberation okay all those in favor of changing the agenda order all those again okay everyone's like were you again doing okay are you guys no it's better abstain okay member Hollins abstain so the motion fails so we will stick with the current order which is to second readings of pardon me policies j k 8a j LD and j LD e member Alexander please start us off with the second reading of the revised policy JK a a okay so you'll

094need to read the whole policy to you okay so at this late hour it's like reading you guys a bedtime story okay second reading of proposed policy jka a physical restraint of students maintain an orderly safe environment conducive to learning is an expo tation of all staff members of the school district further students of the district are protected by law from the unreasonable use of fiscal restraint such restraint shall be used only in emergency situations as a last resort and with an extreme caution after other lawful and less intrusive alternatives have failed or have been deemed inappropriate when in its mercy situation arises a physical and physical restraint is the only option deemed appropriate to prevent a student from injuring himself or herself another student or school community member a teacher or employee or agent

095of the school district may use such reasonable force needed to protect students from other persons or themselves from assault or imminent serious physical harm definitions of form of restraint shall be defined in 6:03 CMR 46.0 to the use of mechanical restraint medical restraint and seclusion is prohibited physical restraint including one prone restraint where permitted under 603 CMR 46.0 3 shall be considered an emergency procedure of the last resort and shall be prohibited except when a student's behavior poses a threat of assault or imminent serious physical harm to themselves and/or others and the student is not responsible responsive to verbal directives or other lawful and less intrusive behavior interventions are deemed inappropriate the super the superintendent will develop procedures identifying point 1 appropriate responses to student behavior that may require immediate intervention point 2 methods of

096preventing student violence self-interest behavior and suicide including crisis planning and the escalation of potential potentially dangerous behaviors amongst groups of students or individuals point three descriptions and explanations of alternatives to physical restraint as well as the school's method of physical restraint for the use in emergency situations point four descriptions of the schools training and procedures to comply with reporting requirements including but not limited to making reasonable efforts to orally notify a parent of the use of restraint within 24 hours of its imposition procedures point five procedures for receiving and investigating complaints and the last one methods for engaging parents and discussions about restraint prevention and use of restraint solely as emergency procedure I think it continues on the next on the back no that's a no it continues to point the same policy so I

097said really young so we are missing one of the three so this is a continuation of let's keep going on with this next point statement prohibiting medication restraint mechanical restraint groan restraint unless permitted by 6:03 CMR forty six zero three rolex one lower case B seclusion and the use of physical restraint in the manner inconsistent with six zero three CMR 4600 a process for obtaining principal approval for a timeout exceeding 30 minutes each building principle will identify staff members to serve as a school-wide resource to assist in ensuring proper administration of physical restraint these staff members will participate in an in-depth training program in the use of physical restraint in addition each staff member will be trained regarding the school's physical restraint policy and accompanying procedures the principal will arrange training to occur in the

098first month of each school year or for hired staff after the beginning of the school year within a month of their employment physical restraint is prohibited as a means of punishment or as a response to destruction of property disruption of school order a student's refusal to comply with a school rule or a staff directive or verbal threats that do not constitute an imminent serious physical harm to student or others visible restraint is prohibited when it is medically well contradicted for reasons including but not limited to asthma seizures cardiac condition obesity bronchitis communication related disabilities or risk of vomiting the use of timeout procedures during which a staff member remains accessible to the student shall not be considered seclusion restraint this policy and accompany procedures shall be reviewed and disseminated to staff annually and will be

099made available to parents of enrolled students the superintendent shall provide a copy of the fiscal restraint regulations to each principal who shall sign a form acknowledging receipt therefore out the source is from the Massachusetts OCA ssin of school committees and the legal references Massachusetts General law 71 37 G and 603 CMR 4600 thank you remember Alexander is there a motion to approve the modified jka policy is there a second great thank you second by member extra um yes maverick shown okay so within 24 hours is far too long you didn't notify people immediately if their child is in restraints where are you please points number for 24 hours is far too long we also need to talk about what physical restraint is because of my own I'll use my own kid as an example my

100daughter took jars of paint and tossed them in the room all over the place destroyed the room no one was able to walk over to her and put their hand on her arm and say Cameron pull it together because that would be considered a physical restraint so I think we need to talk about that a little bit more timeout is a nice way of saying occlusion unless the timeout is in the same room as where something is where the class is being held the clusion is not necessarily a bad thing there are people who made the space to settle down and a seclusion and restraint are not the same thing seclusion in seclusion and restraint is restraints seclusion as seclusion is when used properly is a therapeutic intervention when used improperly is not a therapeutic

101intervention so I think we're gonna talk about this and we need to talk about this you know the what is this physical restraint is prohibited when a medic me punch contradicted contradicted communication related disabilities people who are in the kind of people who are overwhelmed their brain no longer functions of the way its function you go into fight or flight and so a lot of this is there's a lot of gray area that this doesn't address and in my particular situation would was [Music] inappropriate - not for use and no inappropriate at the right word we'd put their hand and my daughters are would have been fine didn't do that but that would be a physical restraint have they done it so I think there's a gray area that's being miss um do you is

102there an interest in asking these questions - director Ellis and director Ellis are you interested in speaking remember this go maybe go through the mother yeah absolutely um remember holland's go ahead well I just want to say in response to Suzanne Eckstrom comments [Music] there are students with autism on autism spectrum who are overwhelmed by sensory stimulation in fact removing them from the stimulation I think Susan raised a very good point but these are the comments I'd like to make about the policy there's some reference here to several places about himself or herself I I think we should watch for that because even the Department of Ed is now doing data based on male female and and non-conforming I mean we're not in a himself/herself binary world anymore so maybe we could look at the

103wording like in the second paragraph when a situation arises and restraints the only option being appropriate to prevent a student from self-injurious behavior and we should try to get away from gender descriptions and also in the second paragraph the third sentence at the end says an agent of school district may use such reasonable force I think we need to say for physical restraint and then what I notice is we have a section and I think that's really helpful called definitions and then we have a section at the bottom of page one where the superintendent will develop procedures when you turn it over there's three paragraphs that are specific to prohibitions its paragraph I don't know not the bullets but otherwise the third fourth a bit like physical restraints prohibitive in this situation its prohibited and

104the next and seclusion is prohibited so it seems to me that should be a section just prohibitions and I want to make one other comment on the first paragraph on the reverse side each building principle will identify staff staff members only staff members to serve there's a school-wide research to assist so I can remember walking through the school's one time I'm not a trained staff member and physical restraint in the particular school and there was a child but it just weren't enough people around so the principal said Susan I want you to do this and so I was called in to help because there were people and it could be a parent you know where someone says here's what's going on parents so until we'd like you to do this so I'm just mentioning that

105I don't disagree with you know each building principal or identify steps sometimes you've got to as someone who's not a staff member adriennes walking through the school and it may be necessary to ask Adrian to do something but lastly it's really helpful to me to see what's changing and I don't know what's changing from our old policy and I appreciate the word quick remember Karen um I guess Diane will probably say this the definition of forms of restraint is listed there you have to go to the statute I believe that this is the Department of Education law this is not an opinion piece this is not this was us coming up to law we were not at law yet so this we took this worked from the MAS C recommendation this is almost exactly what

106they said so that I want to be I want to make sure that I'm correcting that so bad hi everyone so Diane Ella Spector of people services I felt a little bit more alert in fresh a few hours ago we all so I will try to certainly speak coherently yes as member Karen had said this proposed policy is very much adopted or modeled after the mask policy which districts were to take into effect in 2016 we were cited on this specifically in our coordinated program review I have been a second progress report to the state and I've had to update the state on our progress in adopting a policy that is in compliance with the 2016 law I will say for the men the benefits of the committee and for members at home who may

107be still listening are viewing this program that our procedures are very much in aligned with the 2016 law our policy however is not so we as a district have moved forward in implementing procedures staff have been trained on the difference between seclusion and time out and I would agree that time out as a intervention is very effective for students who are flooded or overwhelmed will have sensory experiences so having a break in a calm down area calm down rooms are not unsupervised there's always a staff person present and that's really the shift in the law in 2016 is that we do not want children who are going to say the best halation to be alone or to be isolated or secluded so having a child in a calm down area having a child take a

108timeout as a form of intervention the other change that was really a highlight from the 2016 law is that restraint cannot be used as a form of a behavior intervention plan for someone who has significant or severe disabilities restraint is not a tools restraint is really an intervention of last resort as the language in this model policy states so you know we're really we are hoping to I understand the gender non-conforming gender point on member Holland's but I do want to urge the committee to really bring our policy in line with the 2016 regulations so that we can certainly satisfy satisfy our state requirements but also have our policy really reflect the practices that we've incorporated in the Greenfield schools Thank You director Ellis remember Hollins I appreciate that ma FC policy sometimes they need

109rewording either when it's the AFC policy you said something that I think is very important and I don't see on the policy you said that physical restraint is an intervention of last resort that's where it it's so well says here only in a music yes it does say emergency situations of the lift resort and you said we do not want students in a state of behavior escalation to be alone in other words at all times someone would be with a student I don't see that mentioned here and I think that's the great pellets abatement to just so member Holland's and members of the committee we have implementation guidelines that accompany this policy so there are multiple pages long this is a policy that is more broad-based and really has legal legal language of the law

110our implementation guidelines are really specific and also we have a district PowerPoint presentation that principals have utilized with their staff in training so that everyone has consistent language on what is the definition of seclusion what is the definition of timeout how do we only you know trained members who are trained in crisis prevention intervention approaches are involved in de-escalation of situations and students where it may lead to needing to escort a student again it is a restraint is something that it's used of last resort and we do report all restraints to the state there are lots of reporting requirements others very specific requirements on the form that's users receive specific requirements on parent notifications typically parents are notified the same day I want to be very responsive to remember Eckstrom comments that 24 hours is

111way too long I would think that that would be an exception rather than any type of practice you know the the expectation that is communicated in our implementation guidelines is that parents are notified and you know as soon as possible and within 24 hours it may be that you call a phone number there the voice mailbox is full you may try to send the email communication and then there sometimes I've known in my experience as an administrator and it's a former building principal sometimes ups cannot reach the person the same day as you would like to despite our various methods of communicating but there also is a written follow-up process that is in place notifying parents as well as giving parents an opportunity to express their views parents or guardians on how they feel about

112what happened in the interaction with their child and there's also a debriefing and de-escalation protocol that is in place or in a situation to help rebuild and restore that relationship and you can imagine if somebody has to be in an escalated state and someone has to secure them for the purposes of restraint for to keep them safe from self-harm or harming others in an imminent way then it's important that that bridging of the relationship that communication happened so that the student understands that that adults and those staff members continue to be you know trusting supporting people in their you know in their school program in their school day so there's a lot that has gone into the training protocols of communication the forms the reporting as the director of student services I feel really very

113comfortable with the procedures that are in place within the Greenfield schools and I very much you know would like to see our policy the address by the committee in language that people are comfortable with so that we can have a voting policy and hopefully in the near future Thank You director Ellis um any other questions or comments be picking wording recommendations sure yeah member on paragraph 2 to change a student from injuring himself or herself to to prevent a student from self injurious behavior that was second paragraph second line read note says to prevent the student from injuring himself or herself and I'm recommending we get rid of himself or herself and prevent a student from self-injurious behavior hate behavior their self-injury or something I have a quick question yes member Karen when I agree

114with the needs change himself and herself is it accurate to use themself for them or they and they make it floor to prevent students from entering them so that I just what's another way to do it okay yeah I know that injuring themselves or uh I would support that member Hans did you have additional edits mmm-hmm I think it really makes sense to say what's prohibited but if you look at the after the first two paragraphs there's a sentence of a definition and then there's one statement about prohibition the use of mechanical restraint medical student it's prohibited and then on the other side there's three paragraphs about what's prohibited and they should all be together I don't see why this one prohibition is on the first page and three paragraphs of what's prohibited is on

115the back page without that sentence I just I would move it so again you'd like to move the sentence the use of the use of mechanical restraint is prohibited over in the section with what's prohibited it's help three paragraphs of that's forgive it is so to place it after paragraph two on the second page sure I don't the question about that do you think it's possible that it's there so that we get the main points out as quickly as possible and then delve into what those are later and this afternoon well just three paragraphs are different one is that one is explaining that you can't use physical restraint as a punishment that has nothing to do with mechanical restraint or solution particularly and then the next is you can't use scissors or restraint if it's

116medically contraindicated so that doesn't really connect to mechanical restraint particularly and the other is timeout oh there's only two on what's prohibited so I don't I think they're all different statements about prohibition okay any other comments or question yes Susan Farber member Holland's I'm hearing one really clear recommendation which is to change line to paragraph to page one from to be to use inclusive gender terminology yep and then in your next suggestion I did not hear a clear recommendation the sentence that reads as follows on the first page the use of mechanical restraint medical restraint and seclusion is prohibited be move just as written above the paragraph that says physical restraint is prohibited as a means of punishment so that all three statements about prohibitions are together I'm just taking a minute to take that

117in I'd even put a little heading prohibitions okay so so then I'm hearing you say three things and these are suggestions suggestions for edits including the prohibitions header on the back page moving the use of mechanical restraint medical restraint and seclusion is prohibited to the last page and using gender inclusive pronouns so my response is that I am in favor of using an inclusive language and I actually believe that we should be keeping everything as written because I think that the way that it's written it does serve as a kind of clear introduction to what's prohibited underneath it even physical restraint including Kroners restraint where prohibited where permitted under Co 3 cm are 46 3 just under that it talks about use of physical restraint as an emergency procedure of last resort and then also

118talks about it being prohibited so I don't think that the flow is necessarily confusing and then I would just say that if we want to make these major changes it may be helpful for us to see it written out and bring it back to the table in June were you the first you you put forward the motion yeah so I think member how is that these essentially are amendments to the motion um yeah member Helens could you explain why the sentence physical restraint including prone restraint we're permitted under that at a forty 603 why that is in italics and underline that is a new language to the policy the underlined italics is brand new language it's being put in so are we changing our protocol of just making it bold its yeah but so that

119will be gone in the past okay when the policies cleaned up the italic the italicized font and the underlining will be changed to match the rest of the document I just put that in there and when I when this originally came up last month it was a the original document that came with it so you had both documents in front of you but I didn't see the first one make it back [Music] any other comments questions okay there is a motion on the table to accept to approve the proposed policy as it was written do we want to make any amendments to that motion I would be okay with a amendment to change the language we'd non-gender-specific I'm from injuring themselves or something like that and that feels like something we could do and not

120have to have a poll read out again mm-hmm second okay so let's vote on that amendment to change I think it might be just in that warning if that one side one spot line to a paragraph - do you have it Susan Farber as themselves or self-injurious behavior okay thank you I'm all those in favor of that amendment all right that's unanimous okay and so we do still have a motion on the table which would be to make that change to paragraph two and approve the proposed JK a a policy any further discussion on that okay all those in favor aye and that is unanimous thank you so it is true that there is jld that is missing from our packet this is probably just a simple mistake because I believe we were putting jld

121forward without any changes just to be formal about it I think we should table it and bring it to the next meeting since it's not here for us to look at yes member Alexander it does serve my memory and I was looking my notes there was a change with jld but we thought we need AB GLD here so that we can look at jl b dash e because okay half that's half a cup of coffee okay so are you putting forward a motion to table j LD and j LD e until june you know I'd like to move that we table second readings on policy jld guidance program and jl d e guidance program to the June meeting for a second reading at that time is there a second second second by member Hollins any

122discussion okay yes dr. Ellis I'm sorry the point I wanted to make was not specific to jl d e but another policy topic that is related so to jl d & j LD or not to those two policies okay lips policy or that exhibit no okay let's vote on this and then i will happily take your comment all those in favor of tabling until june okay that's unanimous Thank You director Ellis so respectful requests to the policy subcommittee which hopefully can bring this before the full committee for our June meeting is that our it was tabled from I believe our March 24th meeting is policy JJ our extracurricular activities policy I don't have the document in front of me or on my phone but there is the need to add a little bit more inclusive

123language to that policy around gender identity and homelessness that we want to the three policies were identified in our coordinating program review JK aaj LD and policy JJ and I just in the I know we're looking at the policy company has been very busy but I just wanted to bring this back to your attention yes that's much appreciated thank you yes member Alexander uh yeah could you read off those policies you need because I'm adding it to my work list for the next subcommittee right and this is a test of my mental strength on this day so from my memory so J kaa which the committee has worked on tonight it's our physical strength policy jld which is our guidance of Student Services I think we're actually talk about changing the language from guidance to

124Student Services if I'm remembering correctly which we just tabled to June and then the third policy which is very very very small language change that we want to add to update language around gender identity and homelessness is policy JJ thank you thank you okay where's my agenda there little steps so at this time we have the a proposal from the MA SC related to policy work and this came up at subcommittee and I will yield the floor to member Alexander if you want to introduce this okay give me a second I gotta find sorry one moment is director I was I call you Diane I'm sorry I just wanted to say thank you for joining our discussion about physical restraints it's a hard discussion for a lot of people and you are so eloquent about

125it and are really great about educating now and the School Committee but also the community at large about the policies that are not policies the practices that the district has adopted and is improving upon so thank you so much for that okay okay thank you for buying me some time while I found the piece of paper here at this time the policy program subcommittee would like to recommend that the School Committee and begin a three-year subscription with Massachusetts Association of school committee's policy one review program to assist us in our need to act make accurate policies and to update and review policies over the next three-year period in order to provide clear guidance for the superintendent in the district and also in your packet tonight you have a small hand out here describing the services

126that is provided with this program and also in the package you have a copy of the proposal for a manual development okay I'm sorry go ahead well did you have more sorry no I'm just gonna open up get us started on this sure it was okay with you so I just wanted I just wanted to jump in and clarify so there's there are multiple services at the MA CSC offers to school committees and the policy 21 pamphlet that's here this is different than the one that was in your packet the policy 21 is more of an online hosting of our policies and working sort of with a remote assistant who would post the policies online and help to keep us up to date we would it would essentially be taking some of the work that

127is now in-house to to the MAS C and then there is a multiple page document that is representative of it is a sample contract with the MAS C to utilize their essentially their policy support service which would designate one representative from the MAS C to work closely with our School Committee at regular subcommittee meetings to work through the policy manual to provide guidance and developing policy to offer new policies that maybe need to be implemented due to changes in the law to help to keep us up to date legally to help us in doing our job keeping track of policy now the way that it's described in on the website is that it's a three-year commitment however you'll see in this in this contract that this contract suggests that it would not take three years

128this is an older estimate that was given to us a few years back however my understanding is that the MAS he has indicated that the costs and the proposal would be very similar that the dates would just be updated and again my understanding is that a an individual representative from the MS SC would essentially stay with us in partnership to work through our policy manual and ensure that everything is up to date yes member Hollins the first three is the first two advantages of this proposal is that our policies can be put on liner our policies are already online they're posted on our website okay I'm on this one it's there bullets it says putting your documents online reduces hard copies and by posting your policies online good staff members another tool and it's convenient

129and accessible so I just want to say our policies are already fully online on our website and the fourth bullet users are able to search an online manual by word or phrase I don't know about that but anyways so that thought I went to say is that we're already online that thanks member Holland's there was some discussion at the subcommittee level I think two subcommittee meetings ago about specifically this policy 21 which is the online service which is essentially hosting our policies online in a easy searchable way and the subcommittee actually ultimately was not excited about it and did not recommend putting that forward to the full committee however informally the superintendent has conferred with some of her staff who is responsible for posting our policies online and has indicated that utilizing the policy 21

130service could be a real benefit for us I obviously can't speak anymore to that opinion because I don't really know anymore about the superintendent's conversation with our staff about it I do think that from the surface level and from the conversation that we had at the subcommittee it felt like okay we're already doing this like some of the things that we have to do anyway we're still just gonna have to do and it didn't necessarily represent something that we wanted to do at the time so that policy 21 is actually separate from the more comprehensive policy support and so the difference here is that with policy 21 you don't have somebody coming to help you through crafting policy that's not what the services the services essentially just to host the policies online and I don't

131even know if they're necessarily technically hosting it but they help to ensure that our policies are up-to-date online however the policy manual development is different and it takes over it takes place over the course of at least one year um and up to three years and it is one individual assigned to us to work through our policy manual policy by policy very closely to ensure that our policies are up to date and that we are supported in the work that we're doing with our policies and the cost for that is I believe ten thousand dollars that stretched out over the course of the time that we work with them my I support this idea and in working with ma SC mainly because I believe this to be an extension of our professional development as a

132school committee and I believe that we would really benefit from having this service provided to us to help us through our policy development and to help to ensure that we are moving at a pace that works for everyone and that we are keeping up with the law I also am aware that depending upon the start date of this this may also bridge the transition between the current school committee configuration and the incoming school committee configuration which will be happening before we know it so I I think that through working with the MAS C closely we can help to keep some continuity throughout did you have member Eckstrom so in looking at this policy 21 just because I do spend too much time online and you know websites and whatever I will say that the advantage

133of this is the resource links being added within each of the policies would be a huge time-saver and with all the crop cross-referencing so essentially what they do is they do a link to you know see policy whatever and then you don't have to go out and look for it yourself you just click on the link and it goes set policy you know then you can with a look at it they're now having so couldn't we do that ourselves absolutely I mean it's not that this helped you on the other hand it would cost us more in time and energy than thirty five hundred dollars to be able to do that so I mean that's that if we are if we want to talk about policy 21 and think about it that way I think

134it's a valuable resource outside of that it really is just hosting doing it that first year and getting them to do all the work and the class - tree and all that stuff and then walking away from it an excellent plan otherwise that's why I guess member Alexander yeah like good and speak to what's been going on actually in the subcommittee this first came up back in February where we had a discussion on it and in our February meeting we were all leaning towards us rolling our sleeves up and pulling out the binder and I think the chair and committee member karen we were going to go occupy a conference room somewhere and walk ourselves in and just grunge out the work and that was going to be numerous amounts of hours of research and

135trying to clean up the manual two things that I am I do feel good about is the fact that they do have a designated representative that's gonna be working with us they are still our policies we still have to vote and adopt them and but it also brings somebody who's looking at policy all day long and they can advise us and tell us little things that we don't know or we kind of miss so instead of us having to work many many hours of trying to update the bank binder we're bringing in someone kind of help us push it along a little quicker and I have been searching through this policy or one of the this website and basically just enter one word and it's going to tell you every policy in the state that

136gives that has reference to that certain issue that you're looking up so there is a technological ease to it remember Karen I believe there are two separate things remember Hans I know some of the people listed is field stuff and they have very different backgrounds if you could get Tracy Novick that's the person who is always advising everybody across the straight I've never met Tracy Novick but the person's terrific knows every law if you get someone that doesn't you don't have as a really great background to me it wouldn't be it's great but what I wanted to say is we're bringing on hopefully bringing on a new business manager and we're just setting some goals I think and from working with Pella through the last two years we we have I think if i sat

137down with Don about 20 policies that are half way through a pipeline including some regulations for you know they were they were in different sections of the policy manual based on things that came up whether they were in transportation or student services so there were there there's about a half a year's work just trying to get ourselves finished with things that are done so if we did this I would prefer that we have some say in who works with us and that we finish what's in the pipeline which I've read some more material this has come up about three times over the last over the years that I've been here I think the way they do it is one section of the time so it's the same amount of work for us because our policy

138on policy says they bring things forward and we have to go through them twice we have 400 policies and we've updated most of to section we have this cornucopia policies that we had a first reading and are waiting to come back so I would rather we finish the work on the table it's not just one six at a time and that would probably take us with a new business manager and setting goals and then maybe in the start of the year go to a policy service let me clean up what we're doing I feel really lousy about a couple of things that are that we're put on hold or passed from meeting a meeting that have seemed really important if finish misremember Holland's okay do we want to entertain a motion and all I know

139we've had some deliberation on this is anyone interested in putting forward a motion to support implementation of policy 21 and/or policy manual development with a mas e yes my balance well I'm mindful that we have two important members that aren't you tonight that are trying to be impacted by a decision to start working with another person meeting with us so I'd like to move that we consider the MA FC policy service for January the 219 and we spend the next six months working to complete policies in the pipeline is there a second I'm here you know second so motion fails remember Karen I I do completely support this but I do here member Hollins thought that we have do not have two people here and so I would like to move that we table this

140conversation and not for June but maybe for July or August we have too much coming up but we table it for now doesn't go away and I don't think that even if we pass this in July we will actually be starting any time before going where I find that hard hard to believe that would I agree with passing it so full committee - is there a second second okay I will just follow up with that there isn't it this I will follow up with member Hollins him to get the information that the subcommittee has requested related to subcommittee work that was done last year when member Hollins is the chairperson and I know that member Alexander I don't know if you two ever met I know that there was some plan for doing that and

141making sure that we were clear on what work has already been done and the work needed moving forward and other than that I would just say that I support I absolutely support utilizing the MAS a policy manual development service and I'm a little on the fence about policy 21 ok motions on the table to table until July or August all those in favor of tabling okay and I'm a no and that motion passes thank you thanks everybody um so the next item is the unit C MOU this year is Memorandum of Understanding between the Greenfield public schools and the Greenfield Education Association I'll read it this is something that we that applies to longevity for unit C members this is the the Greenfield public schools and the Greenfield Education Association agree to clarify their interpretation

142of the unit C collective bargaining agreement as follows parties agree that the intent of the longevity language contained in Appendix A of the unit C collective bargaining agreement quote entitlement to longevity will be based on the number of years of service as of July 1st each year dot n quote is meant to reward unit C members for service of complete school years therefore effective as of the 2017-18 school year the parties agree that bargaining unit members hired honor by September 15th of a given school year shall have their number of years of service for purposes of longevity calculated effective as of the first day about school year this memorandum of agreement represents the full and complete understandings of the parties regarding the matters described above is there a motion to approve the memorandum of understanding

143with unit C regarding longevity is there a second second by member Alexander did you have a comment member Hollins mm-hmm as time goes on there are a number of amendments to our basic contract and they're identified with a heading I've forgotten how it's done amendment aim and the B mm and C this needs a title and it should be whatever the classification system is for amendments it should be added appended to the contract our motion for to clewd appending this to the contract with I think they're done by an alphabetical amendment a they're not they may be called memoranda of understanding but I think we're there already four or five attached to the unit C contract there's one for ELT there's one for I don't know other adjustments in life so whatever it is I

144think it should have a heading and be an emotion should append it to the contract with the date okay so you're asking to amend the motion to include adding the appropriate appendix titles right appendix and then title or header okay and that's acceptable all right okay um I think I guess we can vote on that amendment everyone approves yes so motion on the table to approve the memorandum of understanding with the addition of the appendix number and attaching to the unit C contracts okay all those in favor okay that is unanimous thank you everyone and then let's see we will move on we only have a couple more items this is the stakeholder letter drafted by member Alexander this is a draft and this is an extension I'm sorry this is following through with one

145of our governance goals which was to draft an annual stakeholder letter remember Alexander did you want to speak to this at all before we jump in thank you okay this basically is a stakeholder letter in the way I says like my second complete rewrite of this entire document first one came out more like I'm giving a report to Congress but this one is more talking to our neighbors and fellow community members here in town and the format I was going with this pretty much this will be our first of hopefully many letters to come in the future I took the time this time just to basically introduce ourselves and to promote a few of the things that we are doing and also promote some of the other things that's going on and around the district

146so the very last page is a paragraph that I cut out and it may be put back in but that's the last page you can just to disregard that last paragraph it's just a I didn't want to lose it just in case we can use it the only other thing I was working on is if you guys wanted to include a photo on this a group photo where we're all together but if you want I can read you the letter but it seems redundant Thank You member Alexander is there a motion anyone would like to put forward I would like to motion that we actually table any decision on this but maybe take the time to each review it and make thought changes out I'd feel like we have a lot on our plate and

147a lot coming up and then a month that we may want to address in some sort of a public document or like our opinion on how things are going before we make a decision I might second that okay motion to table by member Karen and second by member Hollins is there any deliberation yes I'm Hans I just want to say in addition to what Katie said thinking about it we we have like stressed around their budget which will be resolved soon yeah and you've mentioned you wanted to have some clear goals going into next year we may have a new administrator to introduce so it just seems like it we can just way to live a bit we might get something that kind of lay fears and start the year with their goal or something

148I don't know but I think it would be useful just to wait a month thank you thank you remember Karen I just took complete to also join in with that I feel like if we do this now we're gonna have some people who wish we had made some comment and a couple of them I appreciate that thank you any other deliberation on that okay so we have a motion on the table to table the draft letter there wasn't a specified timeline but it sounds like maybe a couple of months so we'll keep this draft as a foundation if the motion passes all those in favor of tabling okay and all those against tabling remember Alexander okay sorry done um so motion passes to table we will revisit this member Alexander thank you very much for

149your your effort and yeah yeah I think it's a great foundation and we'll use that as as our our our main drop so thank you let's see we have one other agenda item on our formal agenda and then we do have some new boots business to attend to this year the last item is school requests for maintenance and safe transportation I ended up with a kind of broader this came to the table partially from health and safety recommendation to attend to a request that the DPW attend to some crosswalk painting and kind of prioritize that however there are multiple projects that the schools would like the support of the DPW to attend to and prioritize including some signage requests some fencing requests and some other items so I also spoke with a superintendent about this

150and it is not generally a kind of common practice for the school committee to put forward a motion of this sort and I think that it's worth acknowledging that we don't have to however I she is meeting with the city engineer and she's aware of the requests of the school committee and some other items that she will be requesting to prioritize and if we wanted to put forward a motion this evening my recommendation would be to just support the work the support the work of the DPW to prioritize and work on an accelerated schedule to address the needs of school safety and transportation including signage and painting of crosswalks but again such a motion is not necessary if we want to put it forward we can I'll leave it up to you pardon no we're

151not saying thank you DPW we're saying dear DPW please prioritize some projects for the school it came forward through the health safety and facilities subcommittee and a need to repaint crosswalks in and around the area of the ferrante Avenue and four corner school however there are multiple projects that [Music] the schools have requested assistance and support for from the DPW including some signage for the playgrounds and school zones as well as I believe some fencing items and painting of crosswalks that I think are beyond the location of the four corner school again the superintendent has scheduled you know a meeting with the town engineer and beyond and there is a good working relationship with the DPW perhaps McCarran can speak a little bit more closely to the issue that kind of brought this to the

152table so yeah that the crosswalk painting was we talked a bit about at our last health safety and facilities subcommittee meeting because we were talking about how they are planning to repave the four corners parking lot and that we are hopeful that that may help with the situation of parking and pickup over there but in the meantime we would really like to encourage walking to school and doing so we need to have safe and clear walkways I am also alt and also we have heard from many a principal saying they would like science that they school zone no trespassing during school hours etc so it came for facilities and safety and that respect I think that I personally and I'm only one member of the committee am okay with seeing how it goes not putting

153necessarily emotion forward that's not since that is not common practice and letting the superintendent really let them know that we are willing and able to help them in any way and ready to get some stuff prioritized that needs to be done member islands have motion sure with warm weather and an increased and increased encouragement of students walking and biking to school to respectfully request our DPW repaint crosswalks for all schools worn crosswalks for all schools I'm sorry not Radian with warm weather and an increased and increased encouragement for students to walk and bike to school in May and June to request our DPW repaint worn crosswalks for all schools worn is there a second okay I see no second so the motion field I think that we got the overall sentiment out though that there's

154some support for did you look at support for the repainting of crosswalks and beyond so I will follow up with the superintendent on this and get back to the committee and keep this as a live conversation item let's see it seemed my recollection is this wasn't the tangential insignificant discussion that the discussion was about we really are encouraging more people to walk in in some schools the cross works you can't even see the paint anymore and that it isn't really time consuming and the DPW probably has a schedule for repainting so it was to make a formal request that even if it's off schedule would they please since we're trying we have these traffic problems are trying to encourage walking make sure the crosswalks are repainted now if they could and I think there was

155a request that we even make the motion [Music] Thank You member Holland's so I do believe that we have some new business to attend to and this is in response to the legal memo that we received via email related to the council's authority to change the School Committee budget and this came to us just yesterday and I did have a chance to speak with the superintendent because I personally felt that it was important for us to discuss us in new business to consider putting forward a motion to the council in order to help guide the deliberation of the council on the budget as it pertains to us we they will be voting on the budget at the end of this month and so this is our sort of one scheduled time to put in a

156formal request for them to modify the amount of money that has been budgeted for the schools through the mayor's budget there was extensive conversation at the budget subcommittee level about spending our revolving funds there member Hollins went through some of that earlier today and the conversation is reflected in the minutes however we still have a significant budget gap between what the School Committee put forward and voted in as our final budget and what we can make up or utilize to help close the gap through spending of our revolving funds so I did speak with the superintendent and of course she supports the School Committee budget for FY 19 however it was difficult I spoke with her and also a representative from TMS it's difficult to put forward any really specific number however after the budget

157subcommittee deliberation I think that we are closer to an understanding of what could be a good addition to our budget and I think that there are two options that the committee should consider and one is affirming the school committee vote on our budget or putting forward a more specific request to Council to help to balance our FY 19 budget my recommendation would be to request the amount of no less than $400,000 be added to the school district budget from the general fund and this is based on the number that I that would put us in a range of level services and I believe that in conjunction with responsively spending some of our revolving funds it will bring us to the desired school committee budget amounts for AB by 19 member Hollings well I've thought a

158lot about this because I am on a budget committee and my two colleagues on the committee or anything of it we've gone through a tremendous amount of detail I think it's fair to say that the mayor has expressed there's two things the mayor has expressed I'd like to mention one when he made his recommendation for his budget which left us with an eight hundred thousand plus gap he also wrote a letter saying here's some things I'm thinking about and some things I want you to look at and in fairness we didn't have a lot of time on some of these topics so I went to mention that he did make here some things I want you to look at and I want you to know we have looked at some of those items which is

159how we found some money that we felt we could you I wanted to mention that and I wanted to mention how I've come to a number that I think we should recommend and why I I'm very close to what Adrienne has mentioned so we have thought about four hundred and twenty six thousand to use differently from revolving funds but my own opinion not with the forum discussion with my subcommittee I think that our budget left out two positions this is just based on this question that I think should have been in our budget and for me that's about a hundred thousand dollars I think again we haven't had a firm discussion in the vote but I haven't heard that we do not need that fifth grade teacher I just don't know how we're going to

160squish another forty students into a class that doesn't exist and we've made commitments two or three times to the parents who are in the math and science academy which had a full-time principal then it had an associate principal and what came to our attention at our budget meetings it looks like that there isn't anyone in charge of it next year and I think that's a big mistake with our commitment so for me I think we're where these two positions short so that's $100,000 there were also some discussion about items that we voted for capital improvement that we're not supported in the capital improvement program sometimes capital improvement you know $400,000 roof or another wing you know you're into hundreds of thousands of dollars and sometimes what we want is something small that you could just

161pay for and two of those items that I I think we need I don't think it's this I think these it's important every year that if there's something we need for building security and it's not hundreds of thousand dollars and everyone is in agreement we should do it and one of those for me is we have fences around our elementary schools and the reason we do is nobody's allowed on school property who's not working for the schools there doesn't come in the front door as a parent while our children are there and we have some places where the fences need to be repaired I the estimate was around $25,000 it didn't get to capital but I think we should just ask for the money because it's really important and I don't think it should be

162either/or either we're gonna fix a fix a door that doesn't close are good I just think we need to do it and the other is something that's been around being discussed for a while which is also about 25,000 we test to do with still using a system of keys and school locks everybody that comes to work or all the teachers everybody gets a key to the school and anybody can go get it reproduced and hopefully it doesn't happen and then it's not clear if you're returning keys we're not changing the locks every time somebody resigns so there's a newer safer system for your home for apartments and for schools which is a non-key law we have this system at the high school so in other words people get a badge it unlocks the door and

163when if the person leaves or is leaves the system you deactivate their badge and that's the end of it you can't copy it so two things that we wanted in capital that weren't financed we're fixing the fences so that we have gates and we don't have these open gaps and making all the schools have the safety lock system that's two things for about 25,000 so I figure that's 50,000 we should ask for if they're funding and then I think we need another 250,000 minimum if it's available to at least have level services which in our discussion is like what's the ultimate goal is that maybe we can't leap forward but at least we shouldn't go backwards we shouldn't start cutting things that we offer that students need particularly in Greenfield where you can't graduate without

164two electives every year in your program so we have to have money for her elective program so for me that's 250 to supplement our budget to close the gap eight hundred and thirty thousand dollar gap and a hundred thousand for positions that we took out when we made our budget but I think are really needed and fifty thousand to try under the two security you know moderate security issues of fencing and key locks so with those reasons I came up with four hundred thousand and I don't mind making a motion I don't know where the money would come from I was very intrigued with mr. DeMarco saying hey there's 300,000 over here for excess snow removal like really so I don't know where I don't know enough about the budget to know but if there

165is money that would be my recommendation and I'm happy to make a motion for that amount with my reason so my motion is probably too wordy I don't expect a second so that I have a perfect score tonight with with time to study and review both the mayor's recommendations for the school district FY 19 budget and also our own budget needs I moved to request the City Council identify 400,000 in the city budget for FY 19 that can be added to the mayor's recommendation for the Greenfield public school budget for FY 19 is there a second second second by member Karen it's worthy and I put I put I put the preface because we have studied this and we really have gone through it line by line and with time to study and review both

166the mayor's recommendation for the school district in FY 19 and our budget needs tamo I move to request the City Council identify $400,000 in the proposed city budget for FY 19 that can be added to the mayor's recommendation for the Greenfield public school budget for FY 19 thank you is there any deliberation on this okay there's a motion on the table all those in favor aye that is unanimous thank you I hope the minutes will reflect a little bit how I got there because I I really think we need the funding for the fences and the qidan the unheated entrances and I I real I haven't heard anything yet to convince me we don't need the fifth grade teacher for a class of fifth graders coming up that don't appear to have a teacher thanks

167member Hollins and oh there is continuing deliberation on the budget just keep that in mind everybody that will continue for quite some time and it'll come in with the budget will circle back around for us all to vote on again are there any new agenda requests that's member Hollins well I went to this year's pride with 40,000 people and I saw that the Mohawk school district was there and the frontier school district was there Franklin Tech was there pioneer was there I didn't see every single school that was there but in prior years I've watched every single one and I went afterwards to all the booths too many of them there's fabulous resources and this is from the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families supporting children it's called the LGBTQ guide for working with children

168and families about a year ago the board of elementary and secondary education in conjunction with the state Commission on education of LGBTQ youth passed an advisory it's about five pages of what school districts should be doing including which policies should be updated and how you support it Gay Straight Alliance in the high school which we now have but I'd like to recommend sometimes we put this on the agenda under maybe culture and that we have copies of this available in guidance offices and for principals because both of those items what the State Board of Education has requested we do but this is really good it explains gender terms its resources for students and there was a show on public radio the just the other day from a group in Vermont and and it supports the

169research I've done that LGBTQ students in rural communities have many more issues of support than in cities and I think one of the statistics that was 46 percent of people who consider themselves transgender have committed tried suicide it's a really pressing problem that we get up to date in our language and our understanding and have an inclusive school for staff and parents so I'll pass it around that I think regenitive copies in this school didn't have that on our agenda and the other agenda item for me is I I just want to say again we need to have a time even if it's a special meeting and even if only four of us can come on we can profile actor if ik Federal Street Elementary School and they're wonderful downtown programs and our terrific Newton

170school and the fabulous things that are happening there and maybe even the middle school what they're doing how they watch student their achievement we've had maybe three or three times on our agenda talking about traffic problems at four corners where we have traffic problems really at every school and we've had four corners gives three presentations and I love four corners that we could other terrific schools and this is the time of year when parents are thinking about where they want to go to school and I think it's just a chant we give equal time to our other schools I think I've said that before but I do feel it's really important because they're all really great schools Thank You member Hollins any other agenda requests okay seeing none is there a motion to adjourn I

171better not make it and is there a second like it thank you my member karien okay all those in favor of adjournment John Houts unanimous I think we're going home thank you everyone [Music] all of our productions at GC TV are sponsored in part by Baystate health providing the care you and your family need when you need it close to home visit them online at Baystate Health Organisation's Bank visit them at 400 Main Street in Greenfield called them at seven seven four three one nine one or go online to greenfield savings.com Greenfield Community College providing access and excellence in higher education in the Pioneer Valley visit them at GCC ma ssed you the Hammond family the Hammond family are longtime supporters of Greenfield Community television new fortune Chinese restaurant on the Mohawk trail in Greenfield

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