001Start. There you go. All right. And then at the end, how do I end that? Hi, Deb. You don't have to. I mean, you can just end the meeting or go back down to where it says record at the bottom. It says record at the bottom. Yeah. Uh I see stop. I see stop video. Where does it say record? Well, it doesn't. You can if you stop the video, you can it'll uh you know, when you exit, it'll just it'll dump you. All right. Okay. So, you'll be you'll be there um part of our quorum somehow, right? And then we'll go. Oh, maybe. Yeah. Okay. All I need is a Yes. But you can Yeah. Go like that. And if you have your ear butt in, you would hear me say record. I mean, you
002hear me say, "Thank you, Greg. What are you thanking me for for doing this? A little notice. You got a notice? Just, you know, so I don't have to search through all the emails this, you know. Uh Alan, why don't you do this just um I I I need to get back upstairs. I got a commission meeting, but um I'm gonna I'm gonna basically sign off. Um I have to. Okay. You'll be fine. You just keep going. You're recording and um I will come on as soon as we're done. Okay. Okay. All right. All right. Have a productive meeting. Thanks. I was hoping he'd stay on the screen there just Yeah. But he didn't. So, how you doing? So, this should be a fairly quick meeting actually. Um I want to make sure we're touching
003bases and and things and covering a few things. Um there's always new developments. Uh we had one this week when I learned that uh the superintendent Gil Monagu is re resigning. Yeah. Um so I'll probably ask Bill because that was a news article which I haven't read but I heard all about it in terms of you know what what what do they see as the next steps and so forth. Um, I remember when Pioneer when the when when the heart committee was and and we had uh we knew that Mike was going to be resigning and um and Pioneer um had one more year. Uh we told them to hire an interim superintendent because ours was resigning and we said so we went to the school committee and said hire an interim for a year
004because Mike's resigning and that's an opportunity to have a shared superintendent and see how this would work. Yeah. Yeah. And Pioneer wouldn't listen to us at all. And they ended up hiring a guy with a three-year contract as a business who was a business teacher and it it was just a nightmare. So, I'm wondering, you know, what what uh what Gil Moner was thinking since we, you know, this will be coming to a vote and um you know, see what what their process might be. So, you know, school committee hasn't met discussed it, but Bill's the vice chair, so he could maybe give us some insight as to what they're thinking the process will be. Um, so I'll probably invite him to make a comment on that since it's in the news. And when that
005happens, there's all kinds of people speculating. Yeah. Yeah. So, y So, I'm gonna try to just get in front of that. Bill should have some insight. Yeah. To, you know. Yeah. He can't say he could. Right. Right. Well, yeah. he could just probably just give us a quick update on on uh you know the I'm sure it'll be on the school committee calendar that coming up real soon but I don't think it has been yet. Um it said that he was going to stay on and help in the process and the transition in the article. Yeah. Oh, is that what it said? Okay. Um and this this uh AI generated thing was very let's see. Oh, did it did it finally the the meeting concluded with long growth or discuss the the journ Oh, good.
006It took it out. Wait a minute. This is the April. Oh, the April. Oh, good. I was concerned because they had in there uh the one that I was looking at, I said, Greg, it's got to you got to take that out. It said um I hope these are the right minutes. It said that uh the minutes that you got at the very end, it didn't make the mistake in saying that Paul O'Neal who was a long serving member of our committee had passed away. It didn't say that, right? I didn't read the mail. Okay. Because I I was trying to make sure that that was not in them because it was and and it was AI generated. And I said to Greg, "No, Karen O'Neal's husband, right?" So, so, um, I guess I'll find
007out. Uh, and I'll be honest with you, even then I I can't remember if we had a germed and then you said it. I mean, no, I said it. It was one of the last things I because Greg then you have the option when you get on, you can have AI, you know, AI generated minutes and then you can doctor them up and do what you want. Yeah. So he he decided, "Oh, let's see what that's like." And he clicked on it because it's been hard to get people to do minutes. And then he could just uh you know, fix them up. And so when the meeting was over, you know, he stopped it. So AI wouldn't have picked that up unless I said it during said it while before the before it was actually
008adjourned. So um I was looking for Karen's number, but I I could not find it. So, um, so we're not, no one's here yet. So, that's interesting. So, why no one's here? Let me try to do this real fast because I Oh, seven people are waiting. Oh, that's me. So, you've got to let them in. Yeah. So, how do I do that? I have no idea. Oh, geez. Okay. Um, Darinda, admit. Mike, who's Mike Jackson? Admit. Jake Evan White, admit. reporter. Um, Ray, admit. Um, Deb Bloomer, you're in. Darinda Karen O'Neal asked to be unmuted. Oh, how do I unmute her? Uh, usually she can unmute herself. I'm going to click on Dinda. I'm going to do this. I'm going to make her the host. I'm going to say yes. Dire, can you hear me?
009You're on mute. Dinda. Yes, I can hear you. Oh, super. Okay. So, I just um I just switched you to the host. Okay. There may be people I'm not sure you know what they usually look like when they come in. Yes. So, um Oh, Jake, of course. Yes. So, I I just I just discovered that there were like seven people waiting to get in because I was hosting going, "Okay, let me Oh, I let me go try to find who they are." So, I have me, Dinder, Deb, Bill, Jake, Karen. Uh, is Karen there? Yes. Here. Oh, thank you, Karen. Because I thought I it said you were I needed to unmute you. Um, there's Mike. Mike Jackson. And that must be from the recorder maybe or the the um Sure. And then there's David
010the Tana Warwick. Good. And there's Jake. Okay. Um who's Alli? Alli Ray Crowley. Hey. Um I don't know. Alan, uh may I have permission to explain? Sure, please. Can you hear me? Okay. Yes. Um I'm logging on temporarily with both my phone and computer so that I can uh talk. Um Ally is also with us at the reporter um reporter um and is is shadowing I'm the editor at the Monu reporter. Yeah. Oh thank you. Is there a way a distribution list for these meetings? Um, yeah, we could have it that when we send out the uh the agenda, we could add you to getting the agenda. Is that what you're saying? Does that work? Fantastic. All right. And Steve is on. So, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Um, are we able to
011get going? Greg was on. He had to sign off for a few minutes. Um well are we 50% of available slots or 50% of we voted 50% as a quorum of of the people there should be or the people that there currently are those are two different things right if we're a couple from each yeah people that are members are presently members yeah then seven's fine we have 12 members all right so let's uh we all set then can I I will officially open the meeting at 6:37 seven. Um, and uh, I'll just uh, quickly go through the roll call here. I'll start at the bottom. Uh, David Young here, and thank you. Bill is here, Dinda here, and Alan Genevies is here. Deb Loomer here, and Steve Richtor here, and Karen O'Neal here. And
012I think I have everyone. All right. Um, so let's go right through this agenda. It's a fairly light agenda. Um, but you know, there are several things we want to make sure we cover. Uh, so it's uh 637. We've called to order. We have with us uh Jake. So I'd like to do uh go right to the beginning. Jake um Eperine is um was the project director uh or you can correct the title there, but he worked in the the uh the Birkshire um uh efforts to form a uh a new regional school district with eight towns that uh he was working with. And so I thought this would be be a great opportunity to just uh meet meet him, have him talk just uh you know briefly a little bit about himself and then
013um what they you know what they learned in terms of uh uh the benefits in in uh doing that and any takeaways we might be able to have from from his comments. Greg and I talked to him for like an hour, well over an hour and we found him to be a wealth of information. uh we don't have obviously that kind of time. So I wanted you to meet him and uh he definitely has a passion for the possibilities of what you can do in a um a bigger uh regional district. So Jake, do you mind if I turn that over to you now to quick background and then share some thoughts? Yeah, of course. I'm happy to um you know share thoughts or I'm also you know more than happy to answer any questions
014or respond to any prompts you may have if there's particular things you want me to um address. I I tend to to blather on about this stuff. So, you know, um yeah, I have been doing this work um in sort of a ma, uh an unintentional way for probably now seven or eight years. Um this this work all started in 2015 with a volunteer group in Bergkshire County that was just um uh grappling with the same challenges a lot of rural areas are are challenged with which is declining enrollment and limited resources and and uh even declining cohort sizes in schools and how do you you know provide a robust educational experience. And so uh we had a volunteer group that just met for a number of years and ultimately we were able to get
015some money together to start doing some to actually start investing in study. Um I at the time was a superintendent I've been a superintendent in three school districts Pittsfield public schools uh Lennox public schools and Lee public schools in Berkshire County. I've been a high school principal high school school school teacher. So, I've been in kind of different roles in education, but I find myself in the community I live in asking the question, how are we going to all weather this? Um, and feeling some degree of responsibility at the end of my career to to weigh in and help out. So, one of the things we did as a group is we did um we made a very bold recommendation that we thought Bergkshire County should be a single school district um with a backup
016plan. We might want to divide into three regions, South, Central, and and North. Um, and that's really where where we're headed is is option B. Uh, there's a lot of conversation around Southern Berkshire consolidation. Uh, there's an impending study about to launch with Northern Berkshire. Um, and then obviously school districts like Pittsfield are still working on restructuring uh, their 12 school buildings in a way that is um, reasonable. So, our work in in South County started um, right prior to COVID and we worked all the way through COVID. They actually organized as a planning you know regulated planning group I believe as you are all um you know three people from each town and we went through a multi-phase process actually mass associated regional schools Mars yeah how'd it go helped at the very beginning
017of the study town meeting and then we worked through um a series of option development with them analysis of those options ultimately the planning board selected an option we then spent a year working on the regional agreement um which is kind of where you all are and then um a lot of time really ramping up for the town votes. Um as probably many of you are aware um that project did get rejected. It wasn't voted by all the towns. It's a real you know we're finding it's a real tall order to um to think that every town can you have to get unanimous support on some of these things. But um anyways um I think there were some really good things that came out of the study. Um but um ultimately it did fail. One
018of the school districts did vote, all three towns voted for it. That was Berkshire Hills. And in southern Berkshire um I think we had one town vote for it. A couple were right on the fence. And then we had one of the bigger towns, Sheffield, which is where their school is located. They reject it pretty uh pretty um pretty strongly rejected the proposal. And part of that, as you know, there there's always a um you're always going to have a challenge when you're when you're talking about reorganizing kids and closing schools. Um you know, losing mascots and changing the names of things and all that stuff. Um you know, is is just really tough for people emotionally to work their way through. Um and there are some things we learned in that. You know, the
019last six months of our work there was really all around what we what we talked about. We we did um what we referred to as an informational outreach to the community. Um we didn't really call it a campaign or or sort of a marketing campaign. And um we we felt pretty strongly about using public money not to, you know, um try to coers folks into voting a particular way, but to make sure they were informed so they went into the town meetings, they had the information they needed uh to make an informed decision. The challenge we had, however, is that there were there was a relatively small group that was was much more um aggressive than we were. Um and they mounted a very very um active social media campaign. Um and you know, they
020tugged at the emotional strings of of teachers and parents and students and um that was really difficult for us to weather. And I don't I think even though we did have people who are working on marketing outreach work and we had someone who was um scanning and responding on social media um I think we lost that battle. Um and in retrospect we need to do better. I think uh if we ever get to that stage right now we're in Mohawk Trail and Hamont. They just voted forward a proposal. They'll spend the next year I think vetting that proposal and writing the regional agreement which is where you all are at. And so hopefully a year from now they'll be in the same position preparing for a vote. But those are things that we definitely will
021take into consideration which is how you really have to be super super active um and uh have a very comprehensive and mixed methodology to how you do your outreach. We've done a lot. We sort of started Mohawk Trail um right out of the gate with a lot of community engagement and outreach, presentations at every school, every town, every select board, every finance subcommittee, direct mailings, hard copy stuff, social media. Um so trying to hit it from a variety of angles. Um, uh, the other thing I talked to, uh, to Greg and Allan about too was this idea of really having strong advocates in each of your towns who can speak for the project. I I refer to them as champions. You've got to have credible people who are willing to stand up, talk to their
022neighbors, talk at the transfer station on the date of the vote, be on the town floor, and make some some remarks. you know, it's going to be really important that, um, you have credible people who can do that. Um, in many ways, your consultants, they can't do that, right? Because they're they're paid and they're going to be perceived as, um, you know, having a bias. And actually, many of you probably will be perceived that way, too. Um, because you've been at the project, you've been on the project, and folks will, you know, as I say, they they will often, you know, sort of challenge the message and the messenger. Um, and so the more you can get folks who are on the ground level in the community, uh, who can speak to the, um, to
023the value proposition that you're putting in front of people, I think, um, the better off. So, I'm happy to fill in all kinds of details. I mean, that is like a 30,000 foot um, you know, fly over, but if you have particular questions that um, I can talk about both, you know, successes and and very honestly failures or places where we felt we could have done better, I'm happy to talk about that. So, why don't I I open that up for a minute. Um, anyone have Deb Loomer? Yeah. Uh, just a quick question. Uh, only because some people have, uh, said this about what we were doing and they said, uh, why don't we just have a Franklin County Regional High School? And so, I'm curious what Mohawk, you kept talking about Mohawk. What exactly
024are they thinking about doing? Are they just thinking about doing it within their own elementary schools or are they reaching out to a Birkshere? Are they reaching out to uh Monument Mountain or Mount Greylock or Yeah. Um yeah, it's kind of interesting because um as you all know, you know, elementary schools are driven by classrooms, right? So you can often shrink and still you sort of maintain reasonable class class sizes. Their enrollment in elementary school has has shrunk so much that they're getting to the point where they have incredibly singledigit grade levels in in schools. So because between the two districts they have four elementary schools. Um they've already consolidated their middle and high school. There's no more consolidation to do there at least within the eight towns. Um but they have four elementary schools
025that do offer some benefits around consolidation and that's really what they're talking about doing is consolidate elementary schools and then gotcha. Uh the wild card in all that is Row and Row also has an elementary school. Row tuitions their kids in 7 through 12 into Mohawk Trail. So there is a conversation about whether um you know Rorow would join the district uh you know K formally either K through preK through 12 or seven or six through 12 um and uh and then also consolidate elementary school. So we're really seeing the savings by and this is get gets very very controversial. It's very emotional um about closing elementary schools and consolidating them and um you really save in the operating cost associated with the schools but most importantly redundancy and staffing um and so that helps.
026Now, their their high school is still going to be small. Um, and you know, it's challenging because you make a point about isn't, you know, would there be room for consolidation in Franklin County around, you know, an academic high school like there is a vocational high school, right? Um, but the challenge associated with that is you've got to have, you know, sort of countywide leadership structure, which, you know, Massachusetts is really not set up that way. And that's we find that even in Bergkshire County to get folks to work beyond the borders of their district really takes school committees willingness to get together, select board's willingness to get together and the study in Mohawk Trail really was focused on the eight towns plus row. Okay. Um but we've had a lot of folks ask that
027question. You know, why aren't we looking outside beyond that? Um, I don't think that Mohawk Trail would ever um, you know, be able to join with North Adams or or or Northern Berkshire School Union. You know, some of their kids in Planefield can go down the the street. They used to be able to go to Cummington, but now Cummington's closed and central Berkshire, so they've got to go all the way to Hinsdale or Dalton. So, it's it's um, you know, the transportation is a challenge as as many of you know. So, thanks for asking the question. Yeah. And Jake um you know to that point you know we asked our questions ourselves you know is six towns too small and um because the way the state requires to you know have three uh from every
028uh town and so forth that I mean even us were 18 when we started. Um it it we wanted to have language in our regional agreement as we had said in our conversation that created that pathway within the regional agreement for um other uh towns or other school districts to come in. And it's my understanding and not to get sidetracked here, but uh that Desi heard those kind of conversations and might actually be proposing language for uh to be amended to existing regional agreements to uh have that type of language in there um present regional agreements that that would talk about membership coming in and how they would be assessed. So that will be very interesting to follow uh as they go through their um review period for public comment. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean
029we um I know that you've you all are in review right now with Desi, right? So the way we built the regional agreement in South County was that we had a very small working team and we built it in sections and we interact with Desi throughout the section building. So we had sort of um approval on a section bysection basis and then obviously at the end it was holistically approved. But it was kind of nice to build it that way and then we brought it back in sections. But yeah, as you point out, Allan, there were a lot of things where Desi had very particular requirements around things that needed to be included in I think the addition and subtraction of of member towns into the agreement um is one of those things. You know,
030the Mohawk Trail Agreement right now, one of the things we did as part of our initial work was to look at the agreements and um you know, Mohawk Trail did an update. Hallel's agreement was probably written in the 60s. Um so it's not contemporized at all and um their their regional agreement requires a a town vote on like everything. So if they want to move kids just like one grade, if they want to move sixth graders that are currently in elementary schools to their middle high school, which they're talking about, um they have to get town votes. they have to amend their agreement and get votes to the towns which again just makes it really really clunky to do anything and to react and to have a a degree of flexibility based on what's happening
031in front of you. Right. So I understand Bill. Yeah. Are there any other questions? So let me uh just say that uh Jake has expressed an interest in helping out in any way that uh he can. And so, um, with with him, uh, expressing an interest in the work we're doing, uh, we thought it'd be a good idea for you to meet, uh, him and and hear a little bit about his work and and what he's been doing. So, I won't I won't keep you longer, Jake. I wanted to put you on. I was remissed when we started this to say that this meeting is being recorded, which I should have opened with this, so everyone's on notice going forward that the meeting is being recorded. Um, any anything else, Jake? No. I mean, if
032people want to see kind of the example of the work we're doing, I know you got you all have a great website, too. Um, ours is two districts, eight towns. Two is a number. Eight is a number. So, two districts 8towns.org. You can go out and check out. That's the work we're doing in Mohawk Trail. We also have all of our work archived in South County. Um, as I say to Allan and and Greg when I've talked to them over the last couple years, um, I'm willing to share anything we have, right? It's this is about a process to help communities navigate really, really difficult work and conversation. So, if we can give you stuff that helps you and you can give us stuff that helps us, it we're all learning and navigating this together.
033So, um, I just want to make sure that you know that I'm I'm not here to try to solicit work. If we can help, that's fine. If we can give, that's fine, too. Okay. All right. Thank you so much for joining us. You're welcome. All right. Have a good meeting. Right. All right. Thank you. Bye. Um, all right. Uh let me go to the minutes of April uh 29th and uh people had a chance to read them. Oh and let me also note that Deb Potay has joined us, Michelle has joined us and uh I think that's it since we started. Uh any comments on the minutes? Move to approve. Is there a second? Oh, I'll second Michelle. All right. Any comments? You saw from my notes that they were AI generated and Greg tried
034to tidy them up. I put back several edits to them. Um, I like the fact that they have like a beginning and then like a summary at the end. Um, so and I and I we'll see how that works. Um, roll call vote. Deb Bloomer. I'm going to abstain. I did not get to read them. Okay. Alan Genevies is yes. Deb, uh, Potay, I approve. Yeah. And Dinda, yes. Bill, yes. Steve, yes. Uh, David, yes. Michelle, yes. Karen, yes. All right, I think did I get everyone? So, the minutes uh are approved. Uh the comment um so so the communication update first one is from Jay. I've been in touch with him a couple of times. Uh he has submitted it to Desi and he sent me a message today uh because I had asked,
035you know, for a followup, you know, where are they? So, he said they do have them and they are being reviewed now. So I was looking for a timeline of what when they thought they would complete that process. I did not get one, but I'm encouraged that they are looking at it. So I guess sometimes I get over um uh reactive in terms of what's the deadline, you know, when might we get them because we have a lot to do once we get those back. So that was encouraging. Um, we had the I think every town meeting has um every town has had their town meeting except for Michelle in Leiden. And is yours June 3rd or 6th? June 2nd. Oh. Oh, June 2nd. I have an update. The moderator is going to let me
036reads at the end of the meeting. Oh, wonderful. So um I I appreciate the uh you know people stepping up and and uh making their uh you know reading the script and bringing that to people's attention. I was curious if uh the people that did that if you if people came up after the meeting um after or if it generated any conversation whether for or you know supporting or not supporting or just it wasformational and that was it. Does anyone have any comment that had their town meeting regarding that? At at ours someone was annoyed that they weren't allowed to say anything after it. Oh. So they commented just that they were annoyed that they couldn't comment. No. Was that Do you think that was coming from a good place or just they were just
037annoyed? It's a town meeting and they can't talk. Yeah. I Yeah, I think you know it's uh we don't usually have something informational like that at the beginning. So I think it, you know, outreach efforts as soon as possible to start getting people information. Yeah, it was it was um helpful to remind the town and that was the comment uh that I received after that uh this was um going on and that um you know they were looking forward to getting you know additional information but to remind them that it was the towns that voted us for to do this work and so we're doing this work on their behalf and therefore we you know we wanted to you know give them an update. So I think from that perspective it was appreciated. Um all
038right we did take so news articles there was um the update we had in the six town regional planning board one to give a heads up and I think maybe in in both papers if uh we could start a series at some point when we when we line things up on how we're planning to go forward in terms of maybe specific articles. So, you know, an article about how the assessment plays out or an article about the benefits to students or um you know, we we can focus on topics that we hear in the form of questions that are people asking, we might be able to then have uh articles that are written around that point. Um Darrena, you're the host, so please uh jump in. Oh, no. This was just like sort of a
039question related to that. So, um the assessments were run like a year and a half ago, right? So, I'm wondering if before town meetings will get sort of a modern assessment. I know, for example, like Gil's assessment increased 12% this year. So, maybe they would no longer um they would no longer have a 6% increase in their assessment through regionalization because they've already had that bump because they had a lot of kindergarteners this year. So, or maybe they'd still have 6% on top of that. So, it'd be good to know. I think people will want the hard numbers um based on the incoming kindergarten class like later this summer if that's something we still have the funding to run question. Okay, wait a minute. Let me just write that down because that's important and that
040will go along with um updating OPED information as well that people want to know. Uh who said they had a question? Was that you Michelle? I I Nope. All right. Um yeah, we'll we'll take a look. I did have a conversation about that not that long ago. Well, probably three or four months ago, and they said it shouldn't be that different, but um a lot has happened. You know, population shifting. We've got community wealth uh changing in the various towns because of some of the insane prices that people are paying for houses. So, um, yeah, there is new information that we that we need to be up to speed on. Um, and then there was, um, anything else on that piece? And then there was an article regarding the, um, the resignation of the Gilmanagu,
041uh, school superintendent. And so, you know, that obviously spirits uh, you know, conversation about, you know, what's that all about? We're fortunate that Bill is with us and u he is the vice chair of the Gilwan Regional School District. So Bill in terms of process or what um I didn't see anything about the school committee taking a you know having a conversation about how they are thinking on proceeding. Are you able to fill in any blanks for us to help us understand what what you think might be happening? Yeah, there's no information from the school committee because uh that was the first news that they had received of this uh intention also. So there hasn't been a reaction. There are obviously uh timing issues involved with it in terms of replacement uh because you have
042to establish a committee to do it do the superintendent search and all of that. Uh this is kind of late in the year to be to be doing that. Um so no nothing has been uh this is just the beginning and the elections were just yesterday and today in the two towns. So actually uh the school committee's next step at our next meeting in a week is uh to reorganize and to elect new officials and from there certainly this uh will be a top priority as school committees are responsible for superintendants and the budget. Are superintendent usually hired on an interim basis at first or just or not interim or would it need to be interim? No, those are two different animals. Interim superintendent are are traditionally as I understand it uh not candidates to
043be the full superintendent. So yes, because of timing, probably a a an interim is what the reality will be for this district. Uh leading into next the next school year, at which time then you will have time to establish a committee and do the interviews and make a decision. So you're probably looking at a a full year of an interim All right. Thank you, Bill. I know that um when a school committee goes down this road for a process, you have the option and you usually put that in your your um uh your reach out when you're when you're soliciting uh applicants. you you can put in there that um that the the person in the that gets selected to serve as the interim either may apply for the position of the full-time or uh
044permanent superintendent or may not. Um so that would that would be a conversation you probably want to think about so that that's clear to candidates. They're not automatically excluded. Yes, that's that's a good point, Alan. But I will say that for Gil Monagu, Gil Monagu in the past has had a an interim superintendent that who was an in-house person that then did become the superintendent. So, I'm fully aware that that happens. I'm just saying that it's not the usual approach. Yep. Perfect. All right. Well, thank you for that update. That's helpful. Very helpful. I appreciate it. Um, we're on the next topic, which is the naming committee. I I think um the way we left it, everyone seemed to be pretty comfortable with that, but it was the AI talked about and I may have
045said this, you know, if everyone wants to sleep on that for a bit and bring it back to the next meeting, you know, we can do that, but then I couldn't quite remember um we did we finish and say, "Okay, this is what it is," or did we want to bring it back and just reaffirm reaffirm uh yep, this is the decision. So, one of the debs, can you speak to that because I wasn't clear. Yeah, I think I think Well, I don't know. Is Greg here on the phone? Uh, not right now. He might be joining us after. Um, I think Greg was being a little provocative, but I thought most people seemed pretty happy with Great River, and I think he was, too. Um, I don't see any point in um going through
046all of this again. And I think Deb and I worked hard uh to come up with I mean to reach out to different people and I think it's perfectly um good name for this possible regionalization and the last meeting nobody seemed to have any kind of issue with it and I don't think it's uh uh it's inappropriate to to take a the name that honors um the the colonists who came here their perspective or I think it would be inappropriate actually to take the indigenous people's um language um when Connecticut is a bastard bastardization of their two different indigenous communities. Does that make sense? So great river I I think is a makes a lot of sense. My daughter giving me the thumbs up. Yep. Lots of talks about this. Um I I and I
047didn't get any negative feedback from it. Um I I know it was in the newspaper. Um so yeah, I think it's a it's a good choice and actually it came from um BJC who was a select board member in Northfield. It was her recommendation. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Deb. I was going to say Yeah. And there were a couple people in Monagu who also said that. I was going to say um assuming uh the minutes the way they read was that we would possibly look at it. I would like to be more in the affirmative to say I move that we keep the name Great River Regional School District as the name. Yeah. And that's what that's this is such an important decision and and yes we were just talking about different things and I
048think that's why I had said well if you want we could come back I've done this at other school committee meetings and just reaffirm yeah this is the name just reaffirm and and that's it. So we could do it by vote or we could just by consensus people are um uh comfortable with reaffirming that is the name. I liked it because it had a ring to it in terms of when you add the word regional in it. It kind of went together well. Deb made a motion. I'll second it. Thank you. All right. Um so, uh roll call vote. All those in favor, we'll just go on. Deb Bloomer, yes. Alan Genevies, yes. Dinda, yes. Bill, yeah. Rick. Steve. I mean, I'm sorry, Steve. Yeah. Where where' Rick come from? Um, Deb, yes. And Michelle,
049yes. Greg, thank you. Yes. And uh David, yes. And Karen, yes. And then I want to say that uh Raina Drix came in at 7:03. Uh Rene, yes. Thank you. Okay. All right. So, that's it. That's our name. I will pass that on to Jay and he will let Desi know to put that in the beginning of the regional agreement that they're reviewing. All right. Um, public relations uh coordinate a working group. Um, we do need some brainstorming uh folks to get together and talk about what that strategic plan would look like. Uh, I think Direinda, you're going to be part of that with the technology piece and I could share some ideas that I got from Jake. I think Michelle, uh, I can only see the top of your head, but I think you
050were willing to have those conversations. Um, there was me, there was Greg. Anyone else want to be part of sharing big picture ideas and and how we get the public more involved in how we're going to disseminate information? Um I certainly would encourage you to two things. One of them would be to um if you're interested let Greg know if you have questions call of either of us and talk. The other one is is that it doesn't have to be someone on this committee. So, if you know people who have an interest in our work and have um the interest and maybe some really good ideas or uh are motivated to help out, if you could encourage them to contact Greg, I think uh Jake's point about involving champions in the communities is a really
051really good one. And so if you could all in the next let's say two weeks try to get two two names at least if possible and get them to Greg so we and their their phone number and uh that they're comfortable with us reaching out to them and and trying to uh pull folks together uh to have a conversation. We've got to get that moving. All right. Any comment, suggestions around that, Greg? Does that make sense to you? Welcome back. Yeah. No, that's fine. I uh yeah, I think a lot of it's just going to be some common sense sort of PR that uh is just some work, but uh you know, getting out on social media, um getting out in newsletters, um you know, spreading the word, writing articles, all that. Just hitting a
052lot of different places. So that brings us I I indicated this is can I ask one question agenda. Yeah please Dinda when the when we pass legal review then is it going to go to all the select boards like before we post it like at what point do we post it on the website? What point do we start sharing it with the community? Does should it go to select boards after legal review or did the select boards just say legal review is fine? everybody to agree to it. We're good. I think what the next step would be is the once we get the feedback from Desi and that's why I want to get a couple of meetings scheduled that then that should come back to the planning board and the planning board should see what
053they have to say and have some conversations about any particular um uh articles or suggestions and then from there we can have a conversation If we have a meeting of the minds in in those uh conversations, then at that point we could have it then go to the uh select boards, but I I don't think the order should be it goes to the select board at the same time. And we haven't we haven't had a conversation about that because I would think they'd be interested in our feedback about the various articles and why we may support them or push back on them. So they would have an idea of where we stand. So, if that makes sense, that's what I'm thinking the process would be right now. And I'm very interested to see what that
054is. And that's why I really want to schedule a meeting that we can pull together as soon as we get this and say, "All right, here's a document. We've sent it out to you. You've had a chance to read it. Let's go through any of the articles that seem to be I'll call it problematic since I can't think of a better word right now." Does that make sense? Okay. So then that brings us to scheduling a meeting andor some meetings during the summer and people are on vacations and and it will be hard to you know it's not going to be easy but if we can just come up with a tentative calendar then we can um if we have some want to call them emergency meetings but meetings of that we need to have
055in order to move this forward and make some decisions. Uh that would be good. I threw out there June 17th, 24, and 25th just to get us started for June. So, I'm opening that up to what people as you look in your calendar, uh which one of those if we have the information to have a meeting, then we would have it. If we don't have any information, then we, you know, we'll just have to wait until we get it. Hopefully, we'll have it by then. That's quite a ways off. I tried to pick. 17th is fine for me. Yeah. 17 and 24. Uh 24 for me. 24 for me too. I mean 24 works I think for me too either. All right. All right. So that's a target and uh and then we send out
056information as we learn it. We don't always have to have a meeting. I can always send out information, you know, just to say here's an update and uh I can and at the beginning of the meeting we had a reporter Greg since you're here um wanted to know if we could include them when we send out the agenda. so that uh they will get the agenda as well. Okay. Was that Mike? That was both Mike and um where's the other one? Was Chris Larby here or no? Ally hanging out here. Oh, Ally. Yeah. And it was Ally. Yeah. So, if we could make sure that they they get that information. All right. So, now we move to Yes. July. If we stay with that theme, would July 22nd, which is a Tuesday, was the 24th
057or Tuesday? Yes, it was. Yes. Okay. With me. Strong objections. Karen says, "Okay." Make it all right. I will put that as a tenative date. And and let's do one more August. And that would be the 19th vacation. My birthday. Do you care about spending it sharing a little time with us? I have no idea. Just I'm on a plane. All right. You want to do the You want to do the 12th or the 26th? Wait a minute. Is the 12th too close? No, we could do the 12th or the 26th. Both Tuesdays. One or the other. Sure. Sure. All right. So, let's do this because that's way out. I'm going to put both those dates down, the 12th and the 26th. And as the summer vacation starts unwinding, we'll throw out which one works
058better for you. So those again will be um tenative and so I'll put them on both of those dates. 197 was on a plane, right? All right. All right. So that's that's good for now and I thank you. Um Ellen, I have a question. Yes, Karen. Um, again, I'm not listed as a board member at the top of this agenda. [Music] Well, that's weird, Karen. Yeah, you are. Should be on there. Yeah, I have a I have her on my April 29th where it says I know it's it says Michelle and Karen and And but it's not on the agenda. may have just been a mistake, that's all. All right. Thank you, Karen. We'll correct that. I just thought maybe you've been trying to get rid of me because it's happened once before. No. Well,
059it's funny because you're in the Everybody's been left off at some point. And And you're in the minutes, Karen. At the top of the at the top of the minutes, you're you're in there. Hey, Karen. Can you refresh my memory, though? Is is Jennifer Coffin still on the board? She's not on the school committee anymore. So, right. I just didn't know if she I don't know. I don't know. You thought she had to go off automatically or what, but we do we do need someone from the school committee. Well, we do have uh Oh, yeah. Right. from your town. Yeah. I mean that was that was the one question mark that I had on the board. Yeah, Erin, you were not it. You were on firmly on the board. So, okay. Thank you. So, the
060the um the the recommendation or the um the guidelines were one from the school committee from each town as I recall. Right. And that was um you were for Leiden. Uh Raina, who's from Who's from? Um Jennifer Coffins's from Berneston. So that's why Berneston, right? Yeah. Yeah. I just didn't know if anybody I just knew you you guys were both on the school committee, so I thought you might. No, she didn't run the last time. Right. So we can reach out to her and find out. Okay. Yep. All right. Thanks for that question. Yeah, we should um all all members um to meet our requirement. It's important. Yeah. And just um for continuity, it's good to keep y a lot of the same people. Yeah. I think I mean I think it the requirement was
061to for the formation of it. I mean obviously we do our best to to keep keep you know up to date with as many members as we can but um we have to keep going forward. Yeah. Yeah. One of the things that came out of COVID that I I think we're fortunate because we're so geographically um dispersed, the fact that we could do remote meetings really really helped I think to keep keep us together to um you know keep people involved. I'm not sure sure sure that would have been that easy if we were all traveling to the senior center wherever that might be. So um I I do recognize and appreciate that uh that has helped our work. At the same time, it also hindered it in trying to meet with folks during COVID,
062but we we made it work the best of our abilities. So I think that's it. Is there any other items that you would like to have on the next agenda? If you think of some, send them on to Greg and we will we will include them. And um I think that's it. If you I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn. So moved. Second. And um David, I'll start with you. Let's see David. He's not there anymore. Yeah, I think he just left. Uh David doesn't believe if we have a quorum, uh his feeling is we don't really need to vote. We could just adjourn. That's what we can just adjourn. Y So, we're we're adjourning at uh 7:23. Okay. All right. Thank you, everyone. Bye. Bye. Good night.