MGRSD School Committee 02/12/2026

001All right, we are recording now. >> Nice. Oh, thanks. >> Hello, Curtis. >> Hello. And I do think that Steve should be here. So um we can expect him to join and I think the 617 number Steve Is is that you? >> That is correct. >> Great. >> All right. So, everyone's here on your side, Joe. >> Yes. >> If we're taking sides, yes, [laughter] >> I just had to I just had to say that. But yes. >> Yep. Thanks for Thanks for letting me flub up my first time chairing this year. >> Are you kidding me? You're the most experienced chair. [laughter] >> All right. I think we can get started. Let's call this meeting to order. It is 6:01 p.m. Um, we are gathering the Mount Greylock Regional School District School Committee. It

002is Thursday, February 12th, 2026, and we are meeting remotely via Google Meet. Uh, let's do a roll call. Alphabetically by last name. Conry here. >> Constantine here. >> Elenbine here. >> I didn't I didn't hear Jose or Curtis. >> I did hear them. They were They were a little quiet. >> Okay. >> El. >> All right. Green here, Mallaloy here, >> here. >> Great. Thank you. Curtis, would you be willing to read the mission? >> Absolutely. At Mount Greylock Regional School District, our mission is to create a community of learners working together in a safe and challenging learning environment that encourages restorative based processes, respect, inclusive diversity, courtesy, integrity, and responsibility through high expectations and cooperation, resulting in lifelong learning and personal growth. >> Thank you. Next on the agenda, student updates. Jake, do we

003have a student tonight? We do not Dominique couldn't make it and the [clears throat] um the uh the student council was scrambling to try to find an alternative but um everyone was was busy. The two alternatives they had were also b were busy so they were it sorry but it's not happening tonight but it's because of good stuff. >> Yeah, we love hearing from the students but happy to hear they're all doing good stuff. Christina, can I This just occurred to me, but it seems like we've been without a student representative for a few months now, and I'm wondering um if there might be opportunities for the representatives to just record a message for us and have us view it um if they can't be here because I know that's asking a lot with their

004busy schedules, but >> they do meet weekly. >> What's that? >> They do meet weekly. So that's I think that's a an um >> an easy request, a simple request. >> That's a great idea >> to send something written that we could include the packet. >> I I think a recording would be nice. >> Awesome. Thanks. Great suggestion, Carrie. Okay, moving on to public comment. Joe, did you have anyone signed up for public comment? >> I did not have anybody signed up, but I do see two people present who who might if they want to. >> Okay. Opening it up to public comment for anyone out there. >> Nope. Uh, no. It sounds like no and no. So, we'll >> Okay, >> we're in good shape to continue. >> All right. So, moving on to

005the approval of minutes. Would someone like to make a motion to approve approve the January 8th, 2026 minutes? >> So moved. >> Curtis moves. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Carrie seconds. Any discussion on the January 8th minutes? Seeing none, all in favor I'll start. Conry I. >> Constantine I. >> Elfenbine I. >> Green eye. >> Sorry. Malloy I. >> Miller. I. >> Okay. That motion passes. Would someone like to make a motion to move the January 21st, 2026 minutes? Curtis moves. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Carry seconds. Any discussion on those minutes? >> Okay. Hearing none. All in favor? Conry. I >> Constantine. I >> Elfenbine. I >> Green I. >> Malloy. I. >> Miller. I. >> Thank you. That motion passes. Okay. We are moving on to the

006school council budget priorities. And first up, we have Williamstown Elementary School. And I believe Carrie and Ben will be presenting. >> He should be there. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Yeah, we're good. Hi. Can you guys see the screen? >> Yes. >> Okay, great. Uh, I don't My apologies. I just had a bunch of windows popping up. Hi everyone. I just want to introduce myself very quickly. My name is Benjamin Torres. I'm the new school principal for Williamstown Elementary School. It's a honor to be here and to have this opportunity not only to uh get to know you guys in person after watching so many uh school committee uh meeting recordings. It's nice to be able to interact with you all. Um before we get started, I do want to give a big shout out to

007the members of the of the school council and um we have two great teachers that uh are part of the school council. One of them is Bonnie Dingman and also Carrie Hineker which happens to be the co-chair for the school council this year. And then we also have two parents that are a member of the school council, Jana Hastenamp and Nick Straoud. It was a great honor to work with them to put this presentation together. And as you can imagine, as a new principal that have very limited knowledge on the school and the background of the school, it was quite interesting to put together budget requests when I'm still working in understanding all the in and outs of um the school. But I'm very thankful for the support that I received from the school council

008as well from the teachers at west that uh did uh provide a lot of information that that was very helpful for this process. [clears throat] So I want to start by just giving you kind of a a summary of what we have put together. So in December we conducted two uh school council meetings just to kind of formalize the school council um approved the bylaws that uh we use the high school bylaws to informed ours. Uh and then we especially as a new school principal I wanted to understand better uh the school academic needs and the school performance as a whole. So one of the uh first thing that we did was that as a school council we review our MCCAST school accountability report and MCCAST historical data to help us understand what are the

009things that we have been doing really good and potentially opportunities that we can address uh as we continue to move forward. Um and then in January uh we ended up um asking teachers to share with us what their thoughts were in terms of budget request. Uh and then we did try to make an um our best effort to connect to connect the data as well uh to or connect the data to the budget request that we are presenting uh tonight. And then in February, we had the opportunity to review the PowerPoint uh presentation that we put together for for this uh night. And then we did ended up tweaking a couple of little things here and there as we continue to review um our budget priority and the data that supports this. So the first

010thing that I wanted to do was to uh highlight for you all what is informing this budget priority request. And I want to start by uh showing uh an a particular area where we do see a great opportunity for us to really start moving the needle uh when it come to state performance. This is very important to see through the lens of the bigger picture which is that West currently outperformed the state performance by about seven uh scale score points. So even though there are little areas of needs, I think that it's important to look at these needs through the lens of the accomplishments of the school, which is that we are currently outperforming the state by about seven points. Similar to Lansboro, um one of the challenges that we're seeing or one of the

011opportunities that we're seeing is um students essay writing. One area that we did uh discuss when I met with the teachers in November and I was discussing the MCCAST data that was released is that uh in the essay composition it's where we see that there is a lot of opportunity for us to really focus on improving some of our scores. Now it is important to recognize that currently grades three and grade six. We are outperforming the state when it comes to writing uh grade three by about five point and grade six by about one point. [snorts] In grades four and five, we are currently a little bit below the state level which is uh uh a difference of four point for grade four and three points for grade five. Now, similar to Lanesboro, we've been

012having a um a lot of really good conversations with our faculty in regards to what do we uh see as a potential challenge and we're going to be discussing this further with um our team in the school uh through the data uh meetings that we're trying to put together in analyzing these uh MCAST scores. But definitely writing it's it's an area that we are seeing that there is a need across the board uh from both of the school or both of the elementary schools. And then in addition to that I think that it's also important to recognize that this year we are implementing a a new math curriculum which so far um the implementation has been pretty uh robust and successful. uh our teachers have been receiving a number of professional development that was put

013together by the district. Uh but what you're seeing here is the data that we have gathered so far from I ready and I wanted to uh help everyone understand a little bit what we're looking at here. So number one, students that are placed in tier one means that the the students are currently performing at grade level and that they don't need additional support in order for them to meet all the standards before the end of the year. Tier two means that students need additional practices and sometimes they could be falling behind uh by an uh by a full year. And then tier three it will mean that students are approximately two years behind. I want us to be very careful when we look at this data because I think that this data not only represent

014the students performance but it also represents the implementation of a new math curriculum. So it's through those lens that we are analyzing this data. And as you can see here um every grade level is listed twice. So we have a fall performance and then a winter performance and for every grade level we see a significant increase from the fall to the winter. I think that this increase is attributed to multiple things. Number one, the great work that our teachers are doing uh in the classroom. Um I have been very impressed with the work that our students do as well especially as a new principal at West. And in addition to that is that also our teachers are starting to feel a lot more comfortable with the implementation of the curriculum. So those pieces of information

015it's important that we um that that we do understand as we're looking at this data for the most part in the elementary level. So uh students are uh pretty pretty much outperforming themselves from the fall to the winter. So in kindergarten we do see um an increment of tier or of students performing in tier one by almost 39 points. Uh and then in grade one we see an increase of um 50% of students uh falling into tier one. And then as we start moving towards the upper grade level we see that there is a movement but it's a little bit more slower. And it does make sense because as the students get older, any particular gap that they have experienced throughout the year or any challenges that they have experienced, it will carry carry with

016them and the numbers will start um shifting a little bit as the students get um older. So when I met with um with the school council, we actually looked at this data and we felt that for a new program and and being in the first year of implementation, we're making a significant improvement in terms of our uh implementation. So having said that, we do have a number of students that are in near in need of tier three intervention. Um and one of the things that I that resonated a lot when Nolan was making the presentation in January was the need of a math interventionist. And that's one of the ADA areas that we felt uh pretty strong as well as well when we met with the teachers and we survey the teachers as well. So,

017this is just kind of a preview of the data um in terms of ELA and math, which is the information that we're using to inform the budget request that we have for the school committee. I'm going to pass it to Carrie, my co-chair. >> Hi, good evening. Um so as we were looking at priority one to improve student academic outcomes and support um we really identified four things um as a school council. One um is already happening. So districtled um the literacy initiative. So, district principles have already launched a leadership book study of um the writing revolution um to evaluate writing instruction tools and opportunities um that can then be brought back to the schools and used um to guide future collaboration. So, that is happening which is fantastic. Uh we also something that has

018been scheduled is curriculum aligned professional development. So providing writing focused professional development for the new administrators that Ben is extremely excited about um to deepen their understanding of how the wit and wisdom curriculum can address uh that writing strand. Uh and then in addition to that, we would like to find intentional opportunities for teacher collaboration through you know by way of professional leave, professional um time for teachers to share their input together, reflect on their practices and then you know come together to identify um areas of need related to that writing instruction. So we're hoping for time for teachers. Um it, you know, how that is implemented is open for some discussion, but we really identified professional leave as um a need for the teachers to have that time together. Um and then after looking

019um at the teacher survey that we sent out and then those MCCAST or the I Ready scores um we identified that we really need targeted academic intervention. um by way of a math interventionist to support those tier 2 students or students who fall in the tier 2 um need for push-in services and then also um those students who are at risk requiring tier three instruction by way of targeted pull out in pull out support. Um and that really when we sent out that survey it was overwhelmingly you know one of the top things that teachers identified as um you know throughout all grades like this really is something that um we see as a need in the building. Um and then another thing that we identified through the survey and um through discussions with the

020school council um instructional resources. So, uh, we would like to formalize the teacher supply budget to $300 per teacher to ensure that we are able to provide appropriate scaffolding tools and manipulatives and the materials that we need in the classroom to support diverse learners. Um, this is something that as a building, um, I guess we we wrote formalize, um, because we we did have that a while ago, but it was provided in other ways that just are not manageable at this time. Um, have any questions before I move on? Okay. Um, and then our second priority, so that was the first priority, right? Um the second is really access to technology and instructional resources. So as the curricula continues to expand and students and staff are increasingly you know using digital and online uh resources

021as a part of our daily teaching. Um we want to ensure equitable and reliable access to that technology um across the building so that we can fully implement the curriculum that we are using on a day-to-day basis. Um, so at this time there is no specific budget request that we have. Um, but throughout the month of February, uh, the the building, Wes, uh, Ben and, um, Rebecca Leonard are assessing and conducting a full comprehensive inventory of all of the Chromebooks, the teacher computers, um, the instructional technology, smartboards, uh, classrooms that do have them and how their smartboards are working. there are some ongoing technical difficulties that some smartboards are experiencing and then there are some classrooms that do not have smartboards continue not to have smartboards. Um so we're com completing a comprehensive inventory and

022then once that is finished at the end of the month we will report back to you um with identified priorities and specific needs that um that are much more um real time. So, we didn't want to make a guess with, well, we think we need Chromebooks and we think these, you know, Rebecca's doing a full inventory of how everything's working and what the needs of the building are so that we can um come back to you with pretty specific priorities. >> And then the third priority also um it's in response to an earlier school committee meeting. I think it it was in November if I don't recall incorrectly which was to really reduce the um the uh chronic absenteeism at west. I think that uh when Joe presented back in November um there was a

023lot of uh information um that that basically described the the different uh uh needs or situations that happen at West that might be a little bit different than the other uh two schools. But we um uh the district uh Joe and Joelle they ended up meeting uh with me at the big I would say probably in October November to talk about the the challenges that we were having with attendance. uh we refined uh the west attendance protocol and then we started communicating this protocol not only to our classroom teachers but also to the families as well and we started having conversations with um some of the families that are already um at a at a at a pretty high number of absences and our approach is is trying to it we're trying to have an

024approach that is constructive um and supportive more than punitive. So we are working with families to understand what what are the barriers that are causing some of the absenteeism and then we're working with families individually to put together plans that are u meant to support them as we maneuver and walked around those uh particular barriers. Our goal is to try to return back to the u uh percentage of students that we have back in 2019 um prior to COVID which was around 7.4%. 4%. So far, we have done a a a decent improvement. Um, our highest number of chronic absenteeism was around uh 2022 2023 with 15 and 16% of our students being categorized under that um uh uh state label. And we have reduced that uh to 11.5. and we're hoping that the new

025uh refined protocol that we have put in place will help us address that even uh further. I do have to say that the families and the teachers have been pretty uh supportive with this attendance initiative and um it is not an it is not a finalized procedure. It's still under a lot of refinement uh as we continue to receive feedback from both teachers and families as well. And then this leads us to just give you kind of a little bit of a um a summary of of what we're trying to do here with the the attendance protocol. Um number one, uh we truly believe that when students are in the building, uh we do develop uh and uh provide uh uh students sense of belonging. And we really want to make very clear to the

026families that the more the students are with us, the the the more they're getting the full um benefits of our uh education and our system in the building. So with that, we created not only a protocol but also an intervention playbook. This intervention playbook like I mentioned earlier it's one that is trying to be proactive and supportive and it's um it it is designed in a tiered approach. So we are looking at the challenges before they get or hit that 18 uh or 10% of absences. We're trying to be as proactive as possible and having different metrics that are helping us keep an eye on things and then starting to reach out to families and um and students as well to try to figure it out what are those barriers and try to provide that

027uh supportive um approach. So at this very moment there is no particular budget requests at this time but we did wanted to share with the school um committee that this is an area uh of priority for us at west this year especially as a new principal coming in and I think Carrie this will be >> y >> um so not budget requests for this year but we felt uh we would be remiss not to mention, especially since these were things that came up in the teacher survey, um we want to accurately reflect some of the things that the teachers noted from the survey, um items that the school council is discussing, uh restorative practices versus consequences. So, we will continue to look at um how we're balancing accountability with relationship centered restorative approaches to student

028behavior. Um along those lines, we want to continue to look at our teacher supports and strengthening that behavioral and structural supports um for students and staff in the classroom. Um that is something that we talk about on a daily basis and the school council will continue to evaluate. Also, our pair of professionals um expanding their professional development to ensure that there's consistent and schoolwide implementation. Um, we have fantastic pair of professionals. Um, they do really great work and I think it is important, the school council felt that it was very important to make note that um, we want to continue to look at how we're um, what types of professional development we're giving them and at what points during the year um, they're receiving that. Also, uh, recess and music funds. It definitely came to

029our attention that supporting student well-being and the whole child um with their engagement and enrichment opportunities um is a topic that we would like to continue to evaluate. And then our aging furniture, we have a beautiful building um that everyone loves to work in and yet we need to continue to assess our learning environments to ensure that they are safe and functional and student centered. Um, as beautiful as the building is, it I think we need to continue to look at the aging furniture every year. Um, so that is something that school council is going to keep in mind. And our nutrition program, um, I don't have to mention to you, it's been a topic um, at many of your meetings that it was brought to our attention through the survey that we need to

030continue to review program access and quality to, uh, better support student health and learning through our nutrition program. So, we wanted to just make note of those as things that came up through the survey um and that the school council will continue to keep on our list of items. Thank you. >> Well, we want to thank you all for for your time. Um this pres this presentation was put together with a lot of thoughts uh not only from the teachers but also the the members of the school council and we even though we're not making specific budget requests for the attendance or the items that are still pending uh we did definitely wanted to put it in your radar as we continue to move forward. As a new principal with a new school council it

031was pretty challenging to try to get us ready for budget request. Um so we try to prioritize what uh based on the data and the high leverage uh re requests that we can put forth um in order for us to have a a bigger impact on our students uh performance. So thank you all. >> Thank you and thank you for the collaborative presentation. Really appreciated that. >> Thank you. Does the committee have any questions, Jose? >> Yes. I'm just going to start off by saying, Ben, grateful that you are our principal as a parent of two children at the school. Really grateful for your leadership and the leadership of your your team and the teachers at the school all across the board. You know, really grateful for you and and all the work that's going

032on. U and Carrie, you know how much we think of you both in the classroom and poolside. Grateful for you. uh grateful, sincerely, incredibly grateful for you both. Uh question going into this budget season, um this presentation, as you heard from uh from Carrie, really thoughtful, um really well put together. Can you help us identify perhaps like the top two requests? I'm hearing uh uh on the writing and u but also math interventionists and and you know smartboard and like what if if we could like uh condense that into the top two uh requests or needs maybe that that you're asking of of our district going into the the next academic year. What what might those be? >> Carrie, do you want to answer or do you want me to take the lead on that?

033>> Go ahead. Okay, I will say I will say that one of the main things that I I feel all the teachers um as well as as the admin team feel very strongly about is definitely the math interventionist. that that is something that we feel that in ELA we do pretty well with the reading specialists that we have but a lot of the time as students get older um those little gaps that accumulate throughout the year it's really challenging to provide that space within the uh main classroom to to try to co close those gaps. So we're really trying to provide a space where we can really remediate some of the uh learning gaps that we have seen in the data. I think for the most part when I looked at the data uh something

034that it's a little bit new to me coming from an urban setting school to uh to Williamstown is that a lot of our students do extremely well academically but you the disparity sometimes among our students performance it's pretty evident. So for the most part, you have a a higher number of students performing at grade level or outperforming themselves, sometimes even performing two years ahead of their current grade level. But then we do have this few number of students that um that struggle with the with the challenges of the grade level. And because we want to keep moving forward and want to continue to push the rest of the students forward, finding those opportunities for students that are struggling academically is definitely a little bit challenging. And then the second piece um that I feel was

035pretty clear in the survey and in the conversations that we had with the school council is that a lot of the time um uh the teachers are utilizing their own personal resources to try to supplement and really provide students with opportunities to close their academic gaps as well with their with their own pockets. Um it appears that at some point um there was a budget provided to the teachers I believe through the parent uh not parent connection the FS for west I think it's what um I think it's what what it was um there there's been some challenges with fundraiser fundraising so the the resources have been pretty limited for the teachers so um teachers are having to f to make that decision of how much they're willing to uh put in without sacrificing their

036own personal small um financial situation but also trying to figure it out how we can best support the students in meeting um the needs that they have. So to me those were the two big things. the technology. There's definitely going to be some needs throughout the year, but I think that if if if if something has to take the back seat, uh technology definitely could be that um because we can still maneuver things with what we have. But the math interventionist and having resources available for teachers were the two big things. Do you agree with that, Carrie? >> I do. Yeah. Overwhelmingly. Yeah. Thank you both. >> Um I I'm curious um if you can give us some examples of things that teachers are purchasing on their own when they should be coming through a

037budget of some sort. >> Do do you want to take that uh Carrie? I know I know that we mentioned a couple. I mean, are these basic school supplies? Are they special supplies for particular students? Um, >> no. The special supplies would would come through. Well, I guess it depends. Um, not for particular students. No, I think um you know, in order to supplement their curriculum and um and provide material, well, alternate seating. Sometimes I think teachers, you know, the chairs are great, but a lot of our teachers will buy wobble chairs or bean bags and those things would come out of the $300. Lower grades often find themselves um it's a, you know, prek for sure, but kindergarten through like second grade very consumable with the ways that we supplement the curriculum. So things

038that we do, we don't reuse. So um their teachers were buying um I don't know construction paper like when we fill out the survey at the end of the year asking for supplies for the classroom typically from in my experience that survey says how many expo markers do you need? How many folders do you need? How many rolls of large um easel paper do you need? like items of that nature, but not necessarily the items that are uh extremely engaging and that you would use to do an extra craft to supplement or put together um you know a a presentation that the kids could I don't know the all the crafty things um those don't come in our yearly uh supplies. So teachers will go out and buy them or manipulatives if a child if

039you notice that kids sit better if they have something in their hands, you know, asking for um little things for them to hold on to that doesn't come out of a budget somewhere. Teachers just go and buy them. Um extra books that might be better to supplement the curriculum that don't come with the curriculum, things of that nature, I think they tend to just go out and purchase for themselves. >> Okay. Thank you so much. That that helps to clarify. Okay, any other questions from the school committee? Okay, let's move on. Jake, you are next. Hi, good evening everybody. Ben, it's gonna be a tough act to follow. Thanks. Thanks for that. Um, >> in all fairness, I was a little bit nervous, so I could do a little bit better next time. >> You

040you you nailed it. You nailed it. Better than Nolan. [laughter] Don't tell him I said that, though. >> No, no. Hopefully or anything. [laughter] >> All right. So, I will share my screen. Slideshow. Start from the beginning. And how's how's that? Can folks see that? So this is the >> Not yet, Jake. >> It hasn't been shared yet. >> Not yet. Okay. Why can't I see it? So I'm new to Google Meets. Do I just go to um slideshow and share from beginning? If you would like, I can put it up on the screen. >> Yeah, it's it's the the same one I shared with you before. >> Yep. >> Um, give me one sec. >> I'll come to some of that tech training that you're going to have down at West, Ben. >> Sorry,

041Joe. >> No worries. All right, let me do I have to import it into Google. Oh, >> how is that? >> Uh, it's not the first slide, but it looks good. >> There we go. Thank you. >> Okay, thanks. Um, so hi everybody. Jake Schutz from from Mount Greylock. This is the uh Mount Greylock School Council update, specifically budget considerations for next year based on our uh school improvement plan. So, if we go to the next slide, um uh take the lead from Ben there giving a shout out to the school council before we get into it. So, we have a fairly new school council. Uh, our co-chair is parent Liz Kraton. Our two other parents are Jamie Tutor and Matt Carter. Our community members are Balal and um Lyndon Lind um Lyndon uh Moors

042from um from Lansboro. Um students are Sabine Guerrera and Adele Lowe, both juniors. We are currently short one student. So, school student council has been uh trying to fill that slot as well. And then our two teachers, Joe Johnson, Spanish teacher, and Luke Polyaro, math teacher. So, the our current goals in our school improvement plan are uh focused on three areas. academic achievement, social emotional wellness and social emotional learning and diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging and excess which do nest in the Joe. These slides are old but that is okay. Um I'll just I'll just keep on going. Um let's see the priority goal. So what we want to focus on is the academic goal. Um the goal is to improve academic achievement while developing self-motivated, resilient and healthy students. Why does this matter? This matters

043um because of an increase of complexity of student academic needs specifically in foundational writing and mathatic mathematical reasoning and profici proficiency similar to what Ben was talking about. Um in that same vein we there's a growing demand for tier 2 and tier three interventions. Hey Joe, I'm going to pause for a second. you don't happen to have the actual slides, the the the live slides. >> I just I just swapped that in. I just loaded your full your full presentation here. So, just give me a second to >> All right. How's that? >> Perfect. Thank you. Sorry. >> And so, [clears throat] so our priority goal is our academic goal and um we just talked about what that goal is, why it matters, and what the plan requires. So to fully implement this goal based

044on our all our objectives and actions within that goal in the school improvement plan um which is aligning our social emotional learning, redesigning our student support team um having data-driven interventions and strengthening our literacy and numeracy supports. Uh we need to increase our instructional capacity. If we go to our next slide, we can see what we are going to specifically ask for. We are asking for two FTEEs, one in math, one in um one a combination of FT FTEES. Um the priority request here is for a math position, which we'll get into detail the next the next slide. And the secondary request is this combination FTE of you know three portions specifically allocations and the visual arts and tier 2 intervention and in social studies. These are distinctive distinctively different roles requiring separate certifications, special

045skill sets and professional expertise. Given the the differences in in lensure and requirements and focus and responsibilities, it's highly unlikely that a single individual could fulfill those needs. Um, in addition, scheduling, logistics, programmatic demands would exacerbate the feasibility of actually combining these into one position. However, um the school council thought it uh appropriate to put this on there to um to make the school committee aware that you know that there are other needs in in other in other I'm sorry in other departments um even though it doesn't rise to um a full FTE. So next slide please. So back to our priority request and again this is based on our priority goal which is academics. Um we're looking for one math teacher not necessarily an interventionist. Um, we currently have so well this slide outlines

046outlines the the landscape of our current math department and defines our needs related to the landscape and then um leads us into how we plan to meet those needs. So reviewing the slide we see that currently we have seven teachers, seven math teachers offering 18 courses. This is for grades 7 through 12. uh we are short one math interventionists um that that we had several years ago. Some of the restrictions based on that staffing are were unable to run some advanced classes, some college prep classes and remedial level courses. So there are a couple examples listed there. BC kelk, intro to calc, integrated courses and element courses. And you'll see there that that spectrum of classes really runs uh runs the the the full spectrum. Um similar to what Ben mentioned, you know, wanting to

047continue to push um our our most advanced students and having appropriate classes for our students who are not our most advanced C uh stu u scholars. and then on the other end having courses that are able to help those struggling students. Um we do have a lack of direct instruction uh or direct instruction opportunities for students with math disabilities. So unlike in in reading where we have a reading interventionist, we do not have someone that has the time and capacity to provide that direct instruction in math. And the idea would be this math teacher would be able to to do that um in addition to um coaching and pushing in to some of our our regular classes. So um so to go over some of the and I just mentioned some of it some of

048the expected impacts we want to increase course offerings and that's along the full spectrum. Um, we want to meet the needs of our most vulnerable and struggling students, challenge the most advanced students, and then appropriate uh appropriately place all the students in the middle um to make sure there's no no gaps. Um because how it's going right now, there's normally um there's there's not enough to to be at the level where we are with our staffing and normally something's got to give either on one end of the spectrum or somewhere in the middle. Um another impact we want to um improve. So we as well are doing benchmarking using I Ready. We want to have the targeted intervention there. Um, and we want to reduce class sizes. Um, and all this we want to do

049in a more timely manner and we want to do it sooner. Um, so this this person would also be able to focus on um helping our data teams specifically around math. AC um in in all all grades and all courses sort of take the lead in in helping us read and react to that data. So let's go to the next slide please Joe. And so this this is the summary of the requests I went over. Um the one math FTE which is our priority and that secondary request is for that FTE um broken up into several several different sections. If we go to the next slide, we also wanted to bring to the attention or continue to bring to the attention actually let me go back one step. math, a math [snorts] teacher, math interventionist

050has been on the school council's radar for several years. It has not been the priority or it hasn't been the first priority. Um, it's been like two or three for for several years. So now math isn't [clears throat] going away even though with what we have, we've tried different approaches to get there and that um that need is still there. So now going on to our our requests, so not necessarily needs, more of wants is a behavioralist and a 504 coordinator. These are um are not new and they are um uh are something that we felt should still be on there. One thing not listed on here that has come up um and uh some folks might may think it's silly, but it it's come up from the from the school council from um you

051know around the full circle of of participants in the school council are um funds for tissues in in class in the classroom. So, it's not in my presentation, but I did want to mention it because it is something that um parents, teachers, and students have have mentioned. Um so, if we go to the next two slides, I'll just briefly outline what the goal would be for these two wants, a behavioralist and 504 coordinator. Um, and and you'll see up there the the goal would be to implement real-time restorative justice practices with a behavioralist. Right now, it is a goal of of the schools to to transition to more restorative justice justice practices. However, this is something that needs full-time [snorts] attention. And right now we are trying our best um tacking it on as a

052um additional um task for for current folks, but to to do it right, we really have found that it needs to be um more of a full-time practice. Um, so like the notes say on the bottom, it's it's ongoing, but it it's challenging um not having somebody devoted to it all the time. Um, this request also nests with our SEAL goal um in addition to some of the the district goals. And if we go to the next slide, our 504 coordinator or request for 504 coordinator. Um, this could be a district position. Um, it would support the inclusion of all people of all of all of our students on 504s. We currently have over 70 active 504s. our dean of students has taken on the responsibility of our 504 intake officer and um it's um

053it's not really a position. It's more like a task um to make sure that the students who need it are able to um and and are able to meet with the parents and to to guide them along the process of getting that started for them. Um yeah, I think that is all I have for the 504 coordinator. So that that is it. But for a summary, we have two um two needs that we're asking for. The first priority and really the the main main focus, the main priority, if if Jose were to ask me what was the the number one thing, um I'd stop my feet and say it would be the math position. not necessarily an interventionist even though we would use that math teacher to do some intervention. Um it would be um

054likely a combination of taking on some classes to lower class sizes, taking on a class to allow somebody else to teach an advanced class, taking on a elements class um and or doing direct instruction in mathematics for students with disabilities who who require it. So that's what I want to leave the committee with is uh me mentioning that FTE need for a math teacher. Um pending your questions. Yes, >> I have a question. Um Jake, when we had a math teacher retire a few years ago or leave the district for another district, Mr. thistle, I believe it was. Did we replace that >> position? We did. Okay. >> So, >> Mr. McCormack. >> Okay. >> Yeah. So, we're not we're >> Yeah. He So, we're we are just short um and we actually had an

055interventionist um that who who left um maybe two years after he was here. Um, and that was maybe two or three years ago. >> Okay. >> Probably at the end of 23 at the end of the 22 23 school year I think is when >> that that sounds right. And um just and one more thing to mention. So using this I ready what we did not have when we had that math interventionist was a concrete plan of how to use the interventionist and with I what we have with I Ready. how I Ready um offers the curriculum, the the um and the curriculum development and the the testing to help an interventionist [clears throat] sort of like have um have a curriculum for each I'm sort of uh repeating myself here, but I already offers

056my path which creates curriculum specific to each student. So you could have a class um this math teacher could have a remedial class with 15 students all at totally different places. But my path provides the opportunity for that teacher to provide specific direct instruction within say a 45minut block which our periods are 45 minute minutes without having to create 15 different curriculums. So, um, we have more of a, I guess my point being we have more of a structure and an opportunity to successfully implement a, um, remedial classes now. Um, we're just we're just positioned better with it now that we've implemented and worked out most of the kinks with I Ready. Sorry, Carrie. I think I cut you off. >> No, that's okay. That's that's really helpful. Um, I Ready is a program we're

057using just in the middle school. Is that correct? >> Yes. >> Okay. So, we're specifically talking about seventh and eighth grade >> for I Ready >> for for I Ready. >> Okay. >> But >> and but the math I understand you were talking about the need to supplement um courses and all that. That would be for the high school as well. And do do you need the interventionist for the high school as well or is that really the focus is the middle school? >> Um well, I really don't want to call it an interventionist. I want to call it a math position. Um and so so we think the school committee um or school uh student council school council and the math department think the best person to um to intervene with some of our

058students whether with disabilities or without disabilities is a math teacher. And I Ready helps us do that with some of our students on disabilities. a math teacher will also help us because one of our other gaps is the students in the middle are often left out like and so like having a uh intro to calc class is something we don't offer because we have to offer um you know several a sections of AP and the same vein several section of you know algebra 10 101 so um it not you know the I ready is is just something that would focus early soon and often in the middle school with students with disability and then hopefully building it out so they can challenge themselves um all all the way through and and progress in a meaningful

059path. Um and yeah, >> thank you. And then my first question was, have we traditionally had seven math teachers and we're looking to increase the department or has eight been a better number for that department? We had eight when we had the interventionist, the math interventionist. I see. >> But before that it it was seven. Um and we saw the need for the interventionist then. >> Um the inter interventionist came, interventions left and we still had the need for that extra um that extra math position. >> All right. Thank you. And and Carrie, ju just to tie it to some of the conversations that we've been having earlier this year too in grades seven and eight, figuring out the interventions that are based on diagnostic assessment and having the staff to to work on that.

060That's a priority. And then oftentimes across a number of subject areas, math in particular right now, the slope that students need to go up once they're in high school based on the progression of studies that we have within each department, um it's it's a very steep slope relative to to many many high schools around the state. um being able to insert additional classes to to create a gentler progression if students need it um is one of the things that that I think would be offered here by offering additional classes, decreasing the pressure on um on needing to uh move students into that steeper set of of class progressions um just by nature of the the staffing that we have. Any other questions for Jake? >> Okay, thank you very much. >> Sorry about sorry about

061the slide snafu there >> and I'm sorry for loading the loading the wrong thing to start. So, thank you. >> Thanks, Jake. >> All right, moving on to the 2026 2027 school year calendar draft. Yes, within your packet, you have a draft calendar that um we are currently finalizing internally and we are um and we're spending time with with union representatives going through it. Um it will be ready for a vote next month, but we wanted to make sure to get it in front of you um this month so that all of you could start to do your look and your review. Um, in terms of highlights, um, we we have made sure that that we meet the the 900 and the 990 hours along with the the 180 school days. Um, that is a

062check that we've done administratively, internally. Um, we do abide by the collective bargaining agreement as far as um, start, date of the year, things like that, number of days um, for professional development. Um we are creating a shift here within this calendar um where we have fewer half days than we have had historically uh at Mount Greylock. Um and and we we are maintaining a a larger number of half days at the elementary schools um because we do need the time for staff to be able to work through whether it's data reviews, working on writing curriculum um and instruction as teams um and and also being able to continue all of the other work that that that we've been rolling out whether it's restorative practices um training or the like. So um those are the

063highlights of the calendar. Um it it is not thankfully most dates fall in ways that that create um pretty reasonable lengths of breaks and things like that as well. Um but I'll just open it up to any questions that people have and if you'd like I can screen share it or if you want um the the text is kind of small when you're when you're in screen sharing mode but I can certainly do that if people need it. questions for Joe. Okay, thanks Joe. >> Yeah, >> moving on. 2026 vision and values development process and timeline. >> I'll hop on that one. Similarly, uh in your packet um is a uh is a shortened refined version of what we went through during the retreat uh last month um for the vision values development process that

064we are going to go through as a district. Um starting starting right now, we are formally announcing the process as as we had discussed it within the school committee. Um over the course of February and March, we're going to be working internally, getting school councils working together, continuing to inform you, um and uh and starting to gather data and figuring out how we're going to tell the story of of who we are as a district right now. Um so that we can create a a nice um consistent baseline for everybody participating in the process moving forward. Um as we go into March and April, all of that work will continue. We will be def making sure that we get dates out around events and and invitations, paper, digital. We're going to try to really be

065as comprehensive as we can in terms of inviting people into the process. Um, in May and June, that's when we plan on having events. Um, so we look forward to bringing people into spaces um within all of the geographic area of of our regional school district community um to try to gather as much input and foster as many conversations as we can. Um, in the summer, it's when we plan on um taking all of that input that we've collected and working as teams internally with the with the team that is around during the summer in the district office um to uh convert that into a draft set of documents um that we will then be sharing with you and with the school councils and with the student council as as uh working partners in that

066process. Um and then in September and October, we will share a a draft uh for public review um during open houses and and other events at all three schools. And we hope to have um an updated set of vision and values documents ready for approval uh in November by the school committee. And that will then form the foundation for work on a strategic plan and a district improvement plan that will um that will carry through next school year, the 26 27th school year. So that we will then at by the end of that school year have a refreshed look at um who we are as a district and and who we want to be and and what steps we plan on taking first to to get there. So, that's what we've got going. This is

067the kind of the public announcement of the the timeline and the process that we want to have. I don't know if the school committee wants to either ask questions or or remember something that I forgot to mention that's important for the public to hear. >> This is more of a question. Um can you just remind us what what is your plan for um like do you have an organizational team that's helping to you had mentioned that it's a you know it's a collaboration among several entities school committee being one of them but is there a team that is like doing the planning for the various um >> the administrators who will at the center of the work will will be Joel Brookner and and myself. Um and and we we do plan to invite in

068and lean heavily on other district and school-based administrators as well as the school committee, the school council, um and and student leadership. Um so we will be um we'll be coordinating but but we hope to have a lot of participation in facilitation and um and input from all of those all of those committees and and and school-based um leaders to be able to to get this done. the the district office right now is it's it's Joel, me, um Jonathan Napper in HR, and Dennady in payables, and Reena Chararma in in payroll. Um so that's that's really the the hub um outside of special education where where we have Noel Sullivan, Destiny Hicks, and and Vicky Winchell. Um so it's a it's a fairly small district level group. Um but uh but we're pretty mighty so

069we'll we'll get through it. >> I guess I'm wondering if you consider like having a representative from each of the groups help with the actual like implementation of this process. If I I if we're if we have any volunteers from any of those groups, I I think we we certainly would love that. Um we can think about trying to trying to draw one member from each of the school committee and the three school councils um to participate in in regular meetings on it too. Yeah, it's a good idea. Any other questions for Joe? Okay, thank you. Finance subcommittee is next on the agenda. So, we're going to turn it over to Carrie. Um we did meet um we went over the um FY26 uh budget and uh talked a little bit about FY27 um as

070well. And um there is a budget hearing which I think you all heard about in an email um and has been on the master schedule or the annual calendar I should say for the school committee. Uh but we're also hoping to have a budget workshop to go over the um budget um proposal before it actually goes to the budget hearing. So the date for that is it >> we are looking at having a budget workshop March 3rd. >> Yep. >> And [snorts] then the public hearing we we we're we're hoping to have it March 19th. So later than the usual meeting meeting date. Yeah. And would either of those would it make sense to have either of those in person or do we want to keep everything remote? I'm pausing for a moment partly because

071I I I think Julia was also in in email touch with all I I don't I'm not sure how many of you have confirmed availability for March 3rd um and for March 19th, but but if we could do that budget workshop in person on March 3rd, I I think that would be a wonderful way to go about it to have a a diversity of options for people as we move through March, >> right? because that budget workshop is open to the public, right? I mean, it's >> Oh, yeah. >> It's an opportunity for folks to to ask questions before we get to the public hearing. So, people are welcome to ask questions at the public hearing, of course, but if you ask them on March 3rd, we have more time to actually, you know, take

072any suggestions or questions into consideration. And so I guess my question is if it is in person, are you getting fewer of those questions because it's harder for people to attend? >> Yeah, I you know I don't know. I we we don't typically get a lot of attendance um either way, but it might be nice for the committee to be able to meet in person the way we did at the retreat. Um you know, so I'm just posing it. We >> Yeah. This >> it's a it's a constant like balancing act, right? >> Yeah. Curtis, >> I feel like this is an opportunity to actually apply a hybrid model in in one way in that we have the workshop take place in person and we have public comment, question and answer, whatever we're calling that

073at the beginning uh for anyone who wants to come but can also set up a laptop with the screen so that anyone who wants to ask a question or give input but is unable to attend may take part in the meeting in that portion only remotely to submit their question or concern or what have you and then we continue the rest of the meeting in person for those who are able to attend in person. Just a thought. >> Yeah. So maybe something to talk about with Julia Joe, you know, because you >> that that brings up other sort of technological challenges, but I think it's a good idea. Yeah. >> Yeah. Hybrid is nice. It's it's definitely hard to coordinate. [laughter] >> Yeah. Um Joe, is there anything specific about um the either of the

074fiscal years that we talked about that we should be referencing here? Yeah, I I think that there are um so during the finance subcommittee meeting, we we reviewed at this point we know what the what the revenue inputs are to this this coming year's budget and that um the state and federal funding that we foresee um net it's going to be slightly down from from what we are seeing here in FY26. So, Chapter 70 is going up just a touch. Um, but currently within the governor's budget, the rural aid line is going down. Um, it's going down by more than our chapter 70 is going up. Um so net there all other things equal meaning if we're trying to spend the same amount of money next year that we are this year not adding a

075thing that pushes more of the budget overall into the town's court as far as assessments. Um the other thing that is at play is that we have intentionally in conversation with our two towns for for years now um we have been spending down the reserves that we have. So we've been spending in the negative on our accounts um choice tuition excess and deficiency. Um so within all three of those areas we can no longer spend in the red the way we have the way our towns have asked us to and the way we have. Um, so that also shifts more of the budget, all other things equal, as far as spending, into the town's court, which the the punchline as we start working on this budget for next year is that spending the exact same

076amount of money between this year and next year, that alone pushes what will probably be uh right around a 4% increase to each of our towns. So that's the that's the baseline on top of which everything else will happen and and everything else that will be happening. Um we have the school council requests. Um we have contractual obligations and we are currently in negotiations with with our unions on on all of those contracts. Um we we now know that for health insurance we're seeing an 8.75% increase. Um but we also have an increasing number of our employees who are taking our health insurance. Um so that health insurance line is is increasing substantially. Um and then when it comes to out of district tuition as well as as transportation, both of those are seeing market

077increases as well. So the budget that we have going in FY27 is going to need to accommodate a number of those things um that are non-negotiable. um and and we're going to try to figure out how to how to gain as much as we can um going into FY27. So, the work that the finance subcommittee will be doing um we'll be meeting again next Thursday um and perhaps the Thursday after that and then we would love to to start to share a more complete picture and set of menu type options um during that March 3rd budget workshop with the full school committee. Joe, I I know we talked about the out of district placements being um particularly well higher in the coming year than they were even this year or last year. And I don't

078know if this is an option for us or if it is something that the committee wants to consider, but in the past um out of specific out of district placements have been separate warrant articles on uh town budgets. So they're not factored into the full budget to increase the percentages, but they're actually um taken on as separate uh we'd have to look up the history of it. Um but you know I'm just trying to think creatively about how uh ways in which we can maintain the but even without looking at any increases um ways that we can u maintain our spending um because at at this point it's really hard to think about accommodating requests um given you know what we know about what's coming. So something that to at least look into the history

079of perhaps and um see if if we have options around that. Okay. Thank you. I guess um if you haven't already sent Julia your availability for March 3rd and March 19th, if you could and let her know if in person would work for March 3rd while they work out the hybrid bits, I think that would probably be helpful. Okay, next up on the agenda is policies subcommittee. So we turn it over to Jose. Thank you, Christina. Thank you all. Um, we have three policies on the agenda as action items and uh and actual scheduled votes for um these three policies. >> Jose, before you Sorry, before you go, I have March 5th as the budget workshop. >> It's a Thursday. >> I I think I had it as a a Tuesday. Yeah, it's on my

080calendar in the wrong date because we have Finn FinCom on Thursday and I thought we were doing the workshop after that, but I could be wrong. >> I'm I'm pretty sure we Tuesday and March 3rd rather than March 5th. >> It's March 3rd. Okay, great. Yeah, but I will double check to make sure that we actually ask people about it's it's possible that um that we have a typo in an email too. So, I will look into that. >> Sorry for the interruption. >> Back to you, Jose. >> All right. All good, Christina? >> Yes. >> All right. Thank you, Carrie. just to clarify the date of that meeting. Um, so jumping into the policy and governance uh section of the agenda, we've got three policies that uh are on the docket or at least

081scheduled for us to vote on. Uh, first up is policy EFBA, a new policy on school food and nutrition meal modifications. Uh, I'd like to move that we adopt this policy. uh the subcommitteees had an opportunity to um discuss this and and provide uh the the language that you see before you in this in the meeting packet. Uh do I have a second on this motion? >> Miller, I'll second. >> Miller seconds. Uh any discussion regarding uh this policy on uh school food and nutrition meal modifications? [snorts] Joe, could you would you mind um kind of walking us through plans going forward, not necessarily related directly related to this policy, but perhaps, you know, connected to uh conversations around wellness and and nutrition in the district? I would love to. Um we are going through

082the process of of convening the uh the wellness committee for the district which consists of parents, students, staff members from a variety of uh roles whether it's um school food service uh nurses um teachers within wellness and and other subject areas. um and district administration to um start to work on numerous topics. A marquee one, especially with all of the good input and conversations that we've been having, um will be what our school nutrition policies are. Um that wellness committee will feed information into um the policy subcommittee as it works here over the next few months um to help reshape policy ADF which is our existing school district wellness program policy. It has information around um what the what the school district um considers as its guidelines, its requirements as it relates to nutrition. um

083that can go above and beyond what what the Department of Agriculture and and the USDA and the state of Massachusetts all put forth. Um so that that process will be wellness committee does its work um in in a way that's collaborative across across a lot of different stakeholders um with the ability to look at um very detailed information around around menus around cost around how do we balance health and desiraability and cost and and operations staffing. Um so we will be digging into that in detail feeding it up through the policy subcommittee. Um and then the policy subcommittee will bring revised policy or policies forward to the to the school committee. Um so that that work is getting underway right now. Um I should note Jose that that we do have you as a volunteer

084to uh be the school committee member um participating within the wellness committee. um if another school you you you did want to make sure that I asked that if another school committee member would really love to um have that role um just reach out to me and uh and and Jose was more than willing to relinquish his his seat on that on that committee. Um so ju just let me know and and Jose I'll be in touch if um if you are fortunate enough to stay in that seat. Um we're we're trying to get a meeting together for the week right after break and then meeting at a fairly regular clip with with with the full committee but also subgroups within that committee um moving through moving through this spring. >> Thank you Joe and

085uh grateful to any of you who who uh feel inspired to to join this committee and and uh want to extend gratitude to all the individuals who will be serving on that committee in support of our community. Um, thank you Joe. Any questions or comments or points for discussion regarding policy EFBA as presented in the packet? All right, hearing none, we'll do a roll call vote. I think starting with you, Stephen, if that's okay. >> Sure. I know. I'm going to just say at some point I may be driving through one of the dead zones in the book. So, if there's a long pause, I'm trying to reconnect. Miller I >> Conry I guess I'm next >> Constantine I >> Elfenb I >> Green I >> Mallaloy I >> All right the motion passes to

086adopt policy EFBA. Uh up next is uh policy J AI use of artificial intelligence. It's a new policy uh that's scheduled for us to vote. As chair of the policy and governance subcommittee, I'd like to move that we adopt this policy as presented in the packet. Uh do I have a second? >> Mill. >> Thank you, Stephen. Uh any discussions, comments, or uh feedback? [snorts] While we're waiting, perhaps Jill, could you uh walk us through how um some of the new newer edits or new amendments that um have been integrated into this policy um that uh are that that wasn't on the the a previous version of our our full committee school committee agenda? >> Yes. So during the retreat we we had all workshopped a few things around around guidelines and and the importance

087of making sure that the guidelines cover various things. Um I won't rehash that but in blue within the document that that you all have access to are the two changes that um the policy subcommittee made during its most recent meeting based on some input from the public. Um part one was uh to emphasize within the paragraph that defines um that by default use is not permitted. Um this uh the the addition here states this requires clear communication between staff and students on the prohim on the permitted and prohibited use of AI. It's just a hammer home, make doubly clear um that in order for this to be successful um we really need to figure out how to set clear clear guidelines um at the classroom department and school level uh related to that. Um, we

088added a final bullet point um within the these guidelines shall include list that states development of points of contact and resources for students, staff and families to support the appropriate and permitted use of AI in teaching and learning which this is reiterating that within the guidelines we need to have points of contact and and processes to use for when there are questions to to gain clarity um and also to make sure that there are educational resources that that we put forward as we go through the process so that so that people can um be in the loop and um working in a in a forward manner. So those are the only two modifications that we made during the during the meeting Tuesday night. So just a couple days ago. Um but this policy is now

089ready for approval. >> Yeah. And then uh sorry Carrie just just want to give Joe a chance to um communicate the plan to report back to the school committee. A plan to sort of regularly report back on progress towards these goals and perhaps the needs to you know revise the the policy given you know developments and technology and and needs and challenges in our district. >> Yeah. uh based on if we adopt a policy with these expectations for guidelines. Um the the staff of our of our three school buildings are are all uh we're all carving out time here over the next couple of months um to be together in in groups both small and large to talk about what we need to do and and how we want to go about doing it. Um

090and and starting to craft those guidelines by the end of this school year. I think that we'll we'll have a framework. Um it certainly won't be a complete wonderful highly detailed body of work. Um but we will share that back with the school committee here um in in May or June. And then once we get into the next school year, there will be another update early in the fall because staff will continue working at that point. Um and I I would expect us to have updates every every 3 to four months going forward. um this is an area of both um use as well as regulatory and legal and and other considerations that is evolving pretty quickly. So that kind of a of a three to four times a year update um sometimes brief um

091but but always valuable should be the expectation from the committee. >> Thank you Joe Carrie. Sorry. Um, I was just going to ask, I mean, it looks like the policy subcommittee took into consideration the public comment on both the um, school nutrition policy and the AI policy. So, I wanted to thank the policy subcommittee for doing that and the administration and also those who sent public comment to the school committee or presented. It was really nice to hear from people about their concerns. >> Thank Thank you, Carrie. And just uh to kind of second that that extension of gratitude to members of our community who clearly care about, you know, uh what's happening in our district and impacts on our on our students in our district and and uh giving their time and expertise to

092to helping us do better and think better about our policies and governance. Uh any other comments, feedback or or questions regarding this policy? All right. Uh we'll do roll call vote. I think starting with you, Ursula. >> Sorry, I lost my mute button. Um Malloy I. >> Miller I. >> I'm not used to Google chat. Conry I >> Constantine I. >> Elfenbine I >> Green I. >> All right. Our motion uh passes to adopt uh policy J AI on the use of artificial intelligence. Uh last stop on our uh agenda is at least the policy and governance subcommittee agenda portion of the agenda is policy KBG a new policy on parent advisory councils. Uh, as chair of the policy and governance subcommittee, I move that we uh adopt this policy uh as written and as

093provided in the agenda. Do I have a second? >> Miller. Second to help the noteaker. >> Thank you, Stephen. Uh, comments, discussion, uh, feedback, questions. All right. Hearing none, seeing none. Oh, sorry, Carrie. I just had a quick question for Joe whether we're in compliance with our policy before we um >> Yes, we we are already in compliance with with all of what this policy prescribes. >> Thank you. >> All right. [snorts] Um we'll roll call vote starting with you Carrie >> Green I. Malloy I. Miller I >> Conry I >> Constantine I >> Elen by an I. >> All right. Our motion passes to adopt uh policy KBG on parent advisory council. So back to you Christina. >> Okay. And next up on the agenda is the Northern Brookshire Regional Collaboration Endor Regionalization Group

094update. Barry and Curtis, I I don't know if you want to provide any update before I >> So, we met um and it was a very interesting discussion. It was the first meeting of the full steering committee although we were minus a member uh representing Williamstown for the Malgary log district and we'll get to that in a minute but um we had three proposals uh submitted and um one of them uh ended up being rejected because it was not in compliance with the submission procedure as outlined by the um what did we put out there? An RFP as outlined by the RFP. Um which was really unfortunate when you only have three and you have to eliminate one before even voting on them. And there was quite a bit of discussion about whether we could

095interview um the the consultant groups that were left. And the answer is no because it was not listed in the RFP. So, you know, there there's some really good questions being asked, but also we're getting some good advice from council about how to and we share council um amongst our districts and or some of the districts anyway. And um so we're finding our way and um again, it was just the first meeting, but it was a good one. was lively. Curtis, what am I leaving out? >> Nothing. I can just give my my two cents on it, which is that I've had the privilege of working with a lot of the people who are in in these meetings in a lot of different contexts both uh academically and artistically and socially. Uh and it is

096uh rejuvenating to see so many people so committed to the task of maintaining and improving the level of education throughout Northern Brookshire County. uh while simultaneously looking at ways to combine resources and cut costs in face of the daunting year or years to come with the continued increases in costs like health insurance and and the increasing uh specificity of need of many of the students within our districts. Um these are thoughtful and insightful people that we get to work with in this regard and I'm I'm grateful to be part of it. Yep, there will be an article in the eagle I think coming up on the um on the process. Um so something to look look forward to to reading. >> Car quick question. >> Yeah. >> Is it possible when you are getting items

097to share them with the school committee so we can put them in the meeting packet to give them greater dissemination? Um, you mean the packets from the meeting? >> Should just we we have a school committee meeting uh packet where we prepare and we put documents out for the public to see. So when we have an agenda item to discuss what's going on with these discussions, it would be useful to have in, you know, one night's place, here's what you guys have been looking at so I can help prepare myself for these conversations. Gotcha. Um, you know, I think the that's a good question of where I know there's a drive, a Google drive that is shared with the steering committee and that the documents are all public. So, it's a question of whether we

098could link to those documents um for meetings. That's a really good question, Steve. And I I'm happy to ask Aaron Dean who uh was elected facilitator um of the uh continued facilitator I should say but facilitator of the steering committee and uh keeper of the documents. >> Perfect. Thank you so much. >> Yeah. So, um as as I mentioned briefly um the uh member who who we had voted on um initially uh to represent Williamstown. So, Lynen Moors is representing um sorry about that representing the town of Lansboro from the finance committee and um the uh person who was representing Williamstown from the finance committee is unable to make the commitment unfortunately. Um so Joe and Julia went back to the town and asked um if there might be a replacement candidate. So Joe, I'll

099turn it over to you. >> Yes. And so the the reason we have a vote on the agenda is um we would love it if somebody would make a motion to appoint Fred Pister, who is currently the chair of the Williamstown Finance Committee. Um as our uh replacement for Marggo Neely on the Northern Birkshshire uh collaboration steering committee. >> No. So move. >> I will second. >> All right. Is there any discussion? I think we know Fred from our budget hearings and budget meetings and um he has been the chair on and off of the finance uh committee for the town of Williamstown. and he knows the town uh financial picture um quite well and he was also on the debt study committee that I served on representing Mount Greylock u last year um and

100he also you know he's got experience in municipal um finance as well so he'll be a real asset to the committee. Curtis. >> Uh before voting on this, I did just want to give a shout out to Miss Neely for originally uh committing to this process. She did not know that these meetings were going to be held entirely in person. uh but I also know that the size of this working group as steering committee uh would would not be able to make the process the progress we are making at the pace we are making it remotely. Uh so I just want to shout her out for her willingness to do the work and I hope that she will uh keep giving voice uh to her thoughts and insights because uh I think they are worth

101hearing >> and uh the location uh for the meeting for the first hearing committee meeting and perhaps for the uh the entire process I'm not sure uh is Macan um vocational technical. So, thank you to Jim Brosman, the superintendent for offering that uh somewhat neutral location because McCann is not involved in the discussion and they have a uh meeting room that can accommodate everyone and it's a somewhat central location. >> Great. >> So, are we ready to vote? >> We are. I think we may have lost Stephen. >> Oh yes. [snorts] So we'll start with Jose. >> Constantine. I >> Elen Bine I >> Green I. >> Malloy I. >> Connor I. That motion passes. Thank you both. Okay. Next up, districtwide recent and upcoming news and events. >> Yes, this is hopefully going to

102be a new recurring item on our agendas just so that we make sure to get a chance to to talk about the things that are coming up or that have recently happened. And I'm speaking slowly because Ursula has an event that she recently participated in and I wanted to make sure to share. She wants to share a photograph. >> Yes. And I just like to speak about this for 30 seconds. Um, can you guys hear me? Okay. I feel like my internet is Okay. Yell at me if I get choppy. So, I I just in an effort to share something positive, I just wanted to say a few words about this annual um parents and players basketball practice that Tommy Verdell holds uh once a year for the boys basketball program. So, this is his

103third year coaching and this is the third year he's held this event. Um this is for both JV and varsity players and parents are invited near the end of the season to come and do a practice with our kids. Um we started off in the classroom. Tommy showed us some film like he might in a practice. Um it was a coach, I want to say the Michigan basketball coach, but I honestly don't remember. Um speaking about some aspects of coaching and then he had the players reflect about what they watched and you know share some um experiences from the games and whatnot. So that was really cool. And then we moved into the gym and we had an hour or so of actual physical practice where the kids led all the drills. Um, we learned

104that some of them might need a little bit of practice with communication before they're ready to um, actually run practices, but we had a really fun time trying to do the drills they do and and, you know, playing with them and laughing and running around and all that. So, it's just a really fun event and it gets the parents involved and it kind of just makes it a family affair. Um, which it it should be because we're all very involved and and invested in these sports. So, I just wanted to shed a little light on this and just say I think it's a great event. We all have a lot of fun and I just wanted to thank Tommy for doing it and and let you all know. So >> awesome. [clears throat] Thank you.

105>> That's great. Thanks, Ursula. >> And then continuing with the basketball theme, recently Lanzer Elementary School held its fourth annual student versus staff basketball game, which is a a major fundraiser for the Cape Cod trip. Um this year students in grades four through six, they were winning up until late in the second half when the the fundraising mechanism of parents donating money to add points to the students total kicked in and uh and then the students eaked out a win over the staff. Um so uh it's it's always an awesome event and and it's becoming a really wonderful tradition. So, um, so that recently happened at one of our elementary schools. Um, within and and I think part of the challenge with this is that I'm always afraid that I'm going to leave out something

106important. I mean, our our Nordic ski teams both just won state championships um, a few days ago. Um, girls basketball is is back in tournament play for the first time in a while, which is a great achievement. And and they're a young team that's really developing. Um the wrestling team is um headed to the sectional tournament I believe this weekend. Um the hockey team um based it's a co-op based uh at at Macan um is is also in line um to uh have the top position in in the Western Mass rankings um moving towards the end of the season. Um the cooperative alpine ski program that that is hosted um by Pittsfield that uh that we send some athletes to um has earned top spots in in a number of its competitions and it's headed

107to the state championship later this month. Um, moving over to performing arts, uh, we have 25 junior district students who will be representing Mount Greylock at the Western District Junior Festival um, at the end of February and early in March at Minichog Regional High School. Um, we have high school students uh, we have six students representing Mount Greylock at the All State Festival in Worcester in March. um the performances of Into the Woods, which is our our winter musical this year at Mount Greylock, that'll be happening February 26th, 27th, and 28th, 7 p.m. at Mount Greylock. Um and then this is a good segue into part of the reason that it would be really helpful to have our uh budget hearing happen on March 19th is that March 12th in the Mount Greylock gym at

1087 p.m. is the annual Prism concert. And this year the theme is heroes and villains. Um with music from Wicked, Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, and more. Uh so that's and I'm sure I missed five or 10. I mean, there's a talent show coming up in March. That's after these meetings. Um there there are just a lot of things happening. I'm sure I missed them and and I apologize for that in advance. >> Great. Thank you, Curtis. >> If I could add one more shout out to our our ski program, we also uh host the Massachusetts individual state champion uh who is Patrick Holland who won the individual state championship in his event and that's a truly remarkable work. >> Awesome. Thank you. Okay. Upcoming meetings, finance subcommittee, February 19th at 6 PM remotely.

109There is a proposed budget workshop and I did check back at my emails, Carrie, for March 3rd. >> Yeah, I you know, I think we discussed the 5th at our finance committee meeting, but it maybe got changed to third or maybe I just wrote it down wrong. >> I know that Julia was unable to make March 5th. So, >> I think that's probably how how we shifted to March 3rd. >> Okay. And then Christina, you just said at the pre the finance committee meeting was at six o'clock. >> It says that's what it says in the agenda. >> So Joe, is that right? >> Because we usually meet at five. >> It should be at five. That was a typo. >> Yeah, we would have said five. >> Sorry. >> That's a typo in >>

110February 19th at five. Finance subcommittee February 19th at 5. >> Um budget workshop proposed March 3rd. Still waiting to um shore that up in terms of Google in person or you know enough people can attend. Uh and then there's the proposed budget hearing and meeting March 19th at 6 p.m. That's it. So Joe, um, in terms of finance, um, when we talked about March 5th, we talked about meeting before the budget workshop. Do you want to do that on March 3rd or or not? Because the I have a finance committee meeting scheduled for March 5th prior to the budget workshop. Or do you want to keep it on March 5th after the budget workshop? I'm not wholly sure. >> Okay. All right. That's fine. >> Let's let's see what happens next next Thursday on on

111the 19th when I think we'll have all all members there and then at the end of that meeting, let's plan what we want to do next. >> Okay. Uh, I have no other items for discussion. Any agenda requests? >> Would anyone like to make a motion to adjourn? >> Curtis moves. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Ursula seconds. All in favor? Starting with Carrie? Green. I >> Mallaloy I >> last Steve Conry I >> Constantine I >> Elen by an I. >> Thank you. It is 7:48 and this meeting is adjourned. Thank you >> everyone. >> Thank you for chairing. [laughter] >> Thank you. Have a great night. >> Good night everybody. >> Felt very familiar. Good night everybody. >> Go Mounties.