Regular Meeting 10/13/20

001wonderful i think we'll get started then we have 701 and we have a quorum so tonight um welcome to megan megan you might want to wait a second um holding cable is having a technical problem all right no problem just give me the go ahead when they're ready megan yes evan will let me know when they are set i am recording the meeting so if you want to start we at least have the google meet record i might give it um to 705 if people don't mind um just in case i know these meetings are pretty uh widely watched i want to give the public an opportunity so let's wait to 705 and then we'll check back in then so if anything it's a last minute stretch give yourself a couple minutes the youtube stream

002is running though okay before so all right i've got 705 on my clock um we are recording and streaming on youtube um so i think it is satisfactory to move forward tonight so i wanted to welcome everybody tonight to regular meeting one three five three of the wachusett regional school district school committee held tonight tuesday october 13 2020 via google meets per the regulation set last march by governor charlie baker i cannot believe that we are officially on month seven of pandemic first tonight um we're going to have a public hearing i have a single comment to read for public comments so i will read that and then we will move on this evening good evening my name is mary shepard president of the wachusett regional education association 1320 wachusett street in jefferson teachers want

003to be heard students want to be heard administrators want to be heard and school committee members want to be heard but no one is listening in education leadership classes i learned to enter a leadership role observing in this pandemic environment i hit the ground running with time just to extinguish fires making the time to step back and observe for my new role has opened my eyes wider letting me connect with my observations with some private knowledge when he started in public education as an esp over a decade ago one afternoon faculty meeting still resonates with me the new superintendent was sharing with her staff how to reach a common goal she showed two pictures each picture had the goal represented by a dot at the top center of the page below the dot were more

004dots representing the individuals who carry out the goal in the first picture the dots are scattered there is no clear direction like the kids on the playground in the second picture the dots were moving towards the direction of the goal like students on their way to lunch from different hallways we as educators would be remiss if we didn't have a method to get our students to the objective however the administration is neglected to provide a clear objective to teachers nor the path to get there and no one is listening two summers ago i experienced a life-altering diversity lesson for pd in ell in this workshop i learned about individual centered cultures and community-centered cultures we live in an individual-centered culture we are asked from a young age what are you going to do when you

005grow up how are you going to make a difference in the world never how are we going to make a difference we perform parallel responsibilities in our day-to-day lives with many in our community never intersecting never learning about each other because no one is listening taking this new knowledge we see it here in school committee meetings meaning after meeting with individual centered culture views the school committee members get stuck some say it's a personal agenda of individual members but i think like systemic racism individual centered culture is systemic it pits us against one another and we lose sight of moving forward towards the betterment of our community each member speaks their part but others may be rarely listening or they are listening to respond versus listening to understand in reality no one's listening with individual

006center culture comes a lot of anger it's my way or the highway attitude the anger in our school district is years deep anger is like a hot coal you can carry this burning feeling everywhere you go in mindfulness training anger is just the tip of the iceberg under the water are the true feelings of shame embarrassment and hurt we the educators are feeling the shame and embarrassment yet we cover it well with smiles since the success of our students is paramount always putting our personal needs to care for our own stress because the fact no one's listening let me reiterate here my vision of sharing more kindness for a better community as i develop and deepen the vision of kindness i realize educator morale must be the priority educators are on the front lines for

007the sole purpose of a better community each educator has a symbiotic relationship with students their students have the symbiotic relationships with their parents their parents have a symbiotic relationship with our elected school committee members school committee members have a symbiotic relationship with our superintendent our superintendent through the principles have a symbiotic relationship with us educators it's a circle a large circle representing all of us when one link is weak we all feel it as educators on the front lines we know to listen to our students we're the first to go above and beyond we share our ideas with administration but no one is listening so as i welcome you here today um i again remind members to carry on that message of listening to one another the best way we can listen is to look

008at one another so again as has been made practice please turn your cameras on unless you are in a situation um that precludes you from doing so we're going to stick to our two minutes per person per topic tonight as usual as well in order to give everybody equal voice to have their voice heard in our meetings as i was reflecting on my opening comments um this evening i almost felt like it was groundhog day rushed home from work spent a little time with the kids did a few miles of a run just to get some stress out and got ready for tonight's meeting thinking about what i wanted to talk about as i've said before the only thing certain in these times is uncertainty but we look towards our school district to be a

009beacon of stability in these uncertain times we meet every other week we smile once in a while some days we're stressed out and bleary-eyed we as a school committee implore the the administration in our own ways for clarity for more information for better communication with our constituents we cross our fingers that the communication is going to happen some some meetings were more forceful about it than others and then we crossed that bridge again two weeks later when we're back here so as of monday march march as a monday october 5th we got an email from the administration stating that more detailed plans would come this week or next in regards to the hybrid plan we have so hoped for to unveil in this november no email came last week and as of tuesday this week

010we certainly do not have further information in some ways it almost feels like a trauma situation where we sit here hoping that the best comes but always preparing for the roars so tonight i reiterate our request to have more information to have that information come on a weekly basis to have our parents updated and what's working and what's not working to maybe even highlight some of the great teaching and learning that is going on because we as school committee members we as parents know there is amazing teaching and learning happening even in a remote setting let us know keep us informed tell us when things aren't going well tell us when deadlines won't be reached and we'll understand but hearing nothing is again bringing us right back to that trauma that we've experienced over the

011last seven months with that i want to say um hello to our student reps tonight kenichi and catherine um do you guys have a report for us catherine smiling i think that means yes um yeah i can start so our sports team started playing games again between now and the last meeting um they're all going very well um we had 50 kids enter back into the building on that october 5th date about 50 kids and principal biendo says it's going very well so far um we offered the sats um october 3rd and then we're offering them again in november and the psats will be offered to our sophomores and juniors and the 17th um and then our student council is offering a pumpkin carving contest open to all members of the district not just high

012school families um and so they're asking people to drop off pumpkins at the what you said um main office on 10 29 and then there's a drive-through event the 30th where people can drive through and see all the pumpkins and enjoy that so that's one nice thing happening this fall that's all i have thank you guys so simple real meeting nietzsche do you have a report as well um i have some questions am i allowed to ask questions during this time um i would hold your questions um until the superintendent's report um and then when we go around the table i actually will call on you first i feel like this is unrelated but it's it might be a slightly unrelated to school itself um it's about the flu shots that are mandatory um is

013that included in the reports no but that's a state mandate so we can try to help okay so um where will we be turning in this paperwork will it be on the website or do we have to turn it in by hand to the school nurses that is a good question very good question uh kenichi in the same way that we do with you know all of the documentation that gets shared so if it's electronic it can be shared electronically if it's a paper form it can be dropped off at the school for the nurse okay uh will the district be offering flu shots so um individual schools nope okay no we'll have to take them at clinics uh we'll remote students that don't do any extracurricular activities in other words no contact at all

014with other students no well they have to take flu shots they do that's the mandate okay so everybody has to take two shots yeah thank you good question though it's coming the deadline is what december 31st dr mccall yes yes yeah all right thank you anything else kenichi all right thank you guys both for sharing we always appreciate it it almost felt like a real in-person meeting just talking about sports and and normal normal things from the old-fashioned times um so next we're gonna go to the superintendent's report dr mccall do you have things you want to highlight sure i'll highlight a couple things um you know thank you everybody for coming i hope everyone had a nice um you know extended weekend uh in terms of um you know having a data kind of

015a little one more day to kind of pull things together uh you know we did have um our students returned to school last week on october 5th and we were very excited to have those students come into our buildings so they returned to 11 of our buildings and we had almost 200 students back in in classrooms this is a big step for the district a big step for teachers and for i think parents and families just getting back to as you said uh chair weeks kind of that the the norm uh it feels a little more normal so um i know i was excited to see the vans pulling into ecc and families dropping their kids off uh over the past week so again what we're going to do is we're going to phase in

016you know more time with these students over the next uh couple of weeks and you know by november 18th we're looking at bringing all of our students back into uh the hybrid model um that will be you know moving forward with starting um you know that wednesday you know in terms of uh some of the other items that we've been talking about i know um there have been some issues associated with uh google we had some chromebooks issues it had been really keeping teachers and uh kids from accessing a lot of the online learning that was going on so there was a a plug-in that ended up getting put out there it has alleviated a lot of the issues i think it's a little better than it was and i've talked to our it department

017barry about that and it's better it's not perfect but it's definitely a little better and you know in terms of the remote learning we feel as though that's that's going to really help out um you know as kids kind of stay stay moving with that and the the other part that i just did want to talk about is just want to you know thank director dede for um really the hard work that he put forth um i if people read my report about the refinancing of some of the bonds that we have here in the district and it's uh it's almost 700 000 worth of savings that the towns will actually see over the next 10 years which is you know over 10 years it's a lot of money um and you know i really

018appreciate the fact that director didi kind of put forth that type of effort uh in in terms of looking to kind of pull together uh some some unique ways in order for us to help all of our communities save you know over the next five to ten years uh in terms of what we're looking at for um some of the information around uh hybrid learning remote learning uh there will be some more we we had a great meeting with our teachers union about 30 um actually 40 teachers and some administration met last tuesday evening where we had an extensive conversation around a variety of hybrid models that we're currently looking at and we have um another meeting set up with our teachers union on thursday evening and we'll be you know concluding our discussions and

019information will be out to families around the remote uh plan as well as the hybrid plan so that um you know family and i know this is something people have been anxious for and so forth um and it's it looks like it's coming together nicely right now so uh that is that is going to be here by the end of the week thank you so much dr mccall um as been our practice um in the last few months i'm going to go around the round table we are missing a few members this evening um so be patient as i go through the list with those who are here and not here um but i'm actually going to start where have we not started i know member smith um may be here only for a short

020time so christina why don't we start with you in case you do need to leave i think she accidentally left the meeting instead of unmuting it happens to me all the time there she is you're now you're muted but you're here life in google meets land is never easy all right she's back christina i will get this it is just different where these buttons are i'm so sorry um go ahead so and all that to say i am all set i don't have any questions on the report no thank you all right thank you christina i just wanted to make sure you got to go in case you needed to leave um we'll then go down um kelly remember williamson hi everyone um i just had one question about um director kenan's report on the

021homeschooling numbers and i the people that are staying in contact with the district continuing to get those emails i was just curious if he had insight into whether or not like they were homeschooling because this is so hard for families trying to juggle the remote learning and and um the concept of hybrid learning for their schedules is it more of a schedule based thing for all of these new home schooling i just was curious if you had that that kind of insight and if they might return you know when things are back to normal sure do you mean as far as what they're looking for for information or i guess more more insight into um you know what why they chose to homeschool and and if it seems likely that they're you know that they're

022looking to come back when when the schedule is more manageable sure um yeah and just to give some context for people that haven't read my report so for families that are homeschooling i sent out a form to give them the option to still continue to receive district messages this is just a way to really keep them up to date especially around remote learning i had a lot of families especially new homeschooling families that may not have been planning to homeschool other than the remote learning model um so uh so basically they're they're looking to just be up to date about plans as we release them so they can make decisions about possibly returning because i did hear that i've been talking to a lot of those families just trying to provide that that kind of

023information so if that helps a bit we've had a lot of people sign up for that as i think about 90 families so far even some families that have been homeschooling for years that would still like to be up to date it's just a technicality so once they're unenrolled it pulls them out of powerschool and they do stop automatically so you know once we worked around that uh i think it'll be good because then they'll they'll have the most up-to-date information as it comes out great thank you you're welcome that's all i've had thank you guys so much member woodland hi um i have a few different questions um so i have a question about the ecc um starting this week and if that's just the um the special education students returning or if they're

024the tuition students also um that are in in the building um chris go ahead sure we'll have um inclusion partners returning on the 26th of um october so at this point it's just our most our highest needs special education students um and other students will begin on the 26th in the ecc okay thank you um and then i was i have another question about um looking towards the hybrid plans um i one of my major concerns going forward is that whenever the switch to full hybrid in november whenever whenever that occurs however that occurs that we don't lose what is working in remote and because there's still going to be those two and a half days of remote and so i'm wondering what kind of data is being collected what kind of information is being

025collected to maintain any anything that is working that can be pulled forward that can be pulled into the hybrid model and for future uh days um so that's one question but i also want to make sure i ask this too um there was a little i i saw a little confusion on um bussing deadlines are we having families choose to bus or not bus their kids um earlier than the hybrid or remote choice um because i think that there's some maybe inconsistency in communication on that um and uh yeah that's really what i would hope you could answer is um about the remote what is working in remote how's that data getting collected what's being retained for the future use sure so i'll start with the bussing question no they're the same time frame they

026shouldn't be at different times so the bussing and the hybrid choices happen at the same time in reference to kind of collection of the information one of the things that we spent a long time talking about the other day with our teachers was really what was working you know in terms of the the remote model at the at the various levels and you know i know that there are they're pretty it's interesting because i when i'm thinking about what we're seeing right now um at the elementary level middle school level and high school level teachers are feeling very passionate about the time that they're having um to work with the kids and i think in many many places it's working very very well some of it is person-dependent linda so it's their level of comfortability

027associated with being on a screen in front of uh you know in front of their students and having that capacity to do that sometimes that's a little different than well actually it's very different than standing up in front of a class or or being able to work you know one-on-one with the student whenever there's a question that you need to take care of in reference to anything that's going on in the classroom so there is some information that we're looking at in terms of how we might be able to take what what's working there and carry that into the you know because you get to think that full day wednesday is the day when we're going to have everyone together so that classroom is going to be back together at that time the a days

028and the b days those kids are going to be separated so that's where we're going to be looking at okay how might some of that stuff that's worked now translate into what happens on a wednesday but also during the remote times when kids are going to be spending more time working asynchronously versus synchronously um i just want to make sure that the other part of my question is answered i very much appreciate that explanation sure um so is the information on what's working um only getting collected in that kind of group like from this past tuesday or is there an ongoing discussion at another level um that would be communicated district-wide for our teachers so principals are working individually with each of their schools as they go through this and then when we talk collectively

029we're talking about that on a whole so when you know for example we met with our building principles on thursday we met with them again today and we talked about what's working what isn't working how are we kind of moving forward with this with the ultimate goal of looking at what's happening with hybrid so that's really what we're looking at so it's moving from remote to hybrid but okay what's what's keeping the remote piece working well right now one of the things that we're looking at is that remotes working well in the sense that everybody is there in front of you at that time so i think the student engagement piece is much greater than what we had originally anticipated where it would be you know versus what happened in march april may june of

030last spring so that's one of the things that's actually been helpful for us because as we kind of look at transferring over into a hybrid model we've already established this these roles and routines associated with remote learning and that's something at the um at the elementary level that has been i think it's taken a lot of time and teachers are being very patient but you know what it's going to work itself out middle school level again um it's like sometimes it's it's middle school so sometimes kids don't always focus as much as they really want to focus in middle school that's okay that's it but that's kind of the middle school teachers know how to deal with that at the high school level we're really seeing it work it's working really well right now in

031terms of just the capacity of the teachers to kind of share that information and the ability of the students to work a little more independently so we're looking at how that can get infused into what we're doing as well thank you everybody i appreciate that and it's nice to hear the good news as well remember young i don't have any comments on the report this week thank you thank you member young um going forward uh to the beginning of the alphabet now uh remember ayala um just one question i don't know if this is the right time to ask but i just was wondering if there's any further information about um the consultants that were were spoken about in the report i know you said there were three and i think there's one more possibly

032you were going to speak to sure so i can give you a brief update so i've um talked with three i have as well as uh deputy superintendent burleau um and i also brendan uh director keenan involved as well so we've actually spoken with um three different consulting firms um one of them was a person two firms uh about um you know what we're looking for in terms of uh some type of support especially around um the central the the kind of scarcity of resources in terms of personnel central office level and how they can best support us um i've had some really good conversations and i'm looking forward to kind of bringing one if not two on for it's kind of different different roles in terms of the support that they can play for

033the district but it will definitely benefit us moving forward i can see this turning into something that either becomes a continuum associated with supporting central office and our our buildings which is something that one of these firms does and they do it uh extensively throughout the throughout the state so i think that would be something that could really benefit our district moving forward considering the fact that we don't have a director of operations we have a deputy superintendent that's spread thin um we don't have a people personnel person we have a director of sel but he's doing all these people personnel pieces as well as the sel the coaching the home school all of those things so we have you know we're definitely looking at how we can best support the people that we have

034right now with some of those outside consultants but um you know i should have something together by the end of the week that i could share with school committee thank you thank you member aiella member bennett hi krista you still needed there you go i don't i don't have any comments i just couldn't get to the button it's basically hi to you though hi remember brown well um my son went back to the building at the high school last week and he's really enjoying it he's getting a lot out of it he hasn't really got a lot out of the uh the remote um he's not really good on an ipad and so um everything has really changed around for him um at the high school and also i want to highlight um what was

035on dr mccall's report that um the bargaining team in regarding the moa for the hybrid they the teachers and the administration have been meeting all last week 40 teachers and brainstorming on the models that dr mccall will be presenting later on uh this week so um you know i do believe um that we're listening um especially to the teachers and and we're getting their input and everything on on on what is it you know matters to them in regarding the hybrid so i just wanted to uh mention that thank you member brown um remember dennis isn't with us tonight remember gustafson okay sorry i wasn't expecting that usually later um a couple things a couple of my questions have already been answered so that's a good thing um i was curious about um i had

036a follow-up on the consultant question that was one of my questions to get more information about that and a timeline for that so what i think i heard you just say daryl is that you're talking to several people you're um possibly hiring two of them instead of just one of them and you're hoping to give us an update by the end of the week is that what i've heard yes okay i will again cross my fingers we have an update because our request at the meeting was that we'd have one hired by now and i was surprised honestly that we didn't get even a summary i think it would have been helpful to get a summary of kind of what you the kind of things you're discussing with them as an update rather than i

037don't have an answer for you um because that we were very specific that we would like an answer by today and i just i understand things take longer i'm not upset about that i i just was hoping we would have a little more detail about kind of the direction you're heading um so i appreciate you giving us a little bit and i will we'll hope that we do get more detail by the end of the week so we know kind of where that's heading um i had malaya just to kind of confirm so the way it's kind of played out and again i don't think there was the expectation that i'd have these these a firm or firms hired by by today's meeting i think ultimately it was you know having the opportunity within the

038you know the 10 business days or whatever it is to pull together these firms my issue and this is the issue that happens anytime we bring somebody on you have to pull together a contract you have to absolutely back and forth so it does take time around you know finalizing yeah anything associated with you know with something yeah it's not like we're hiring a an outside consultant to do a psych eval which it's like okay that's i understand that i didn't think i was just hoping for a little more information on how what direction you were going because i'm not going to argue over it i just thought i didn't i i am realistic about contracts taking time i was just hoping for more information about where things were in what direction kind of what

039sorts of things you're hoping to bring them on to do um that's just me i'm just one of one of us and we talked about it at the special meeting so i won't repeat all that um another question i had was i think touched on that it looked from your report like phase two of returning has disappeared but i know from the cpac meeting that there's kind of a 1.5 sort of happening in october um is that taking the place of what was phase two or is it just being called something different or your report skipped ahead to november and several uh people had asked me about that sure sure and i think christine i see raising your hand to clear yeah thank you sure sure uh so let me just be clear so 1.5

040so phase one began on october the 5th that was for our our students who came in on october the 5th and they're coming in for some shortened days 1.5 uh was a name that i sort of created i'll take total heat for that and i did that so that i could give placement to what we said in the report which was over the course of october we would be extending the time for our students in phase one so that's ultimately what 1.5 is we just needed to give it some more parameters for the busing company to really figure out what we were asking um because when you extend the time you're really creating new routes for all of the kids so 1.5 is about those phase one students still attending but attending for longer periods

041of time in some cases not in all of the cases is that happening and then we are on track for that and for um phase two so for phase two we are adding more students to the to the in-person learning opportunity so what we've done at this point is we've given all of those names to our transportation company and ask them to root all of the routes as if we are looking at september 26th but we're going to start some of those routes as early as i'm sorry october 26 and start them as early as october 19th so that's the work that's being done right now by our transportation company is creating those routes and our intention is to get that information back from aaa um by thursday and turn that information back out to

042our parents by friday um with the extended times for october 19th and the extended time and programs for october 26th so all of that information we have a hot deadline coming up this week we have gotten the information out to aaa and we're getting back those roots right now what we're trying to do is not create um you know that day one for kids in on october the fifth and then another day one on october 19th and then another day one on september 26th because each one of those day ones if you will is creating um delays or difficulties with families as they as the bus routes keep changing so the long and short of it is that yes we are on track i'm glad you're asking me um that question malaya and we will

043get more information out to families um i have a hard deadline this weekend uh i mean this friday of making sure that all of the families that are connected to phase 1.5 and phase 2 get that information by friday i appreciate that because the daryl's report skipped over phase 2 and it was confusing so i think this is still happening so thank you for clarifying that remember one more quick question uh i will throw it out there and i'm sure other people will probably add to it so i'll just throw it out there that i i was hoping for more details about the enrollment numbers um the last ones that we had um prior to this were for homeschool and private school were august 28th provided at our september meeting and um if you add

044all those up to the home school numbers we got in brandon brennan's report there's only 63 students additional in private school so i think there's probably more than that by now and i i would like to see the numbers that we had shared with the state even if they're preliminary um so i think it would be helpful so thank you remember that's the same yes in the numbers yeah brandon yeah i'm going to respond to that um so we have not submitted that report yet it's a bit of a misnomer so october 1 report for the state means that as of that date it's what we have for enrollment to actually figure out where students are takes the whole month of october so that is actually due at the end of the month um what

045i gave you back in august uh where it showed actually private school enrollment that was all based on basically the tallying that secretaries are doing at the building level so we need to be totally accurate on this october 1 report for a lot of reasons so when that is submitted you'll get a very detailed report of private school enrollments charter school school choice out broken down even by grade if you would like to see that but to get that accurate it takes the whole month of october so we are doing that currently takes a little while though so i appreciate your patience on that i did give you the um the total enrollment as of october 1 um and compared to last year's so that was the best i could do for this meeting but

046that will be coming thank you member gusen uh member lavoy has a follow-up question um so i will allow it now remember the boy can you hear me okay yes all right i'm a little confused as to what um brandon keenan just mentioned because i just want to share with this committee that on september 30th i made a information request to dr mccall asking for updated numbers and potential financial impact on students leaving the district for home school private or school choice i have not seen those numbers but on october 5th dr mccall responded and he stated that i was hoping to have final numbers for october 1 by the end of the week or early next week i'd like to have the correct number that we are suffer certifying with the state that must

047be done by the 15th of october so i'm a little concerned as to communication that we're hearing from mr keenan because it seems to contradict the expectations that dr mccall had provided when i made the information request that information request still has not been responded to and that was well i'm just trying to get to your follow-up question which is why why we skipped the quad yeah remember so i just said we had to do it by october 31st and it takes the whole month dr mccall told me admitting it had to be done by the 15th of october since august 26th okay you're talking about two different things matt brennan's talking about um the report associated with kids who are you know going into private schools and so forth in terms of the october

0481 report that jay howe does out of barry's office those numbers those preliminary numbers are pulled together um october 1st they're then sorted through quadruple checked and then have to be finalized by the 15th what i said to you was i was hoping to have that ready by the end of next week or the beginning of this week so that we can have that ready and i can share that with you that's one thing brendan's report is another another thing so the state asks for the october one numbers associated with pure enrollment but then also uh the out-of-district numbers that brendan talked about and those are due at a different time right in the numbers on the numbers that the members follow up question we can have further comments in your we can go back

049and forth megan and cut each other off but part of listening is to listen this is this meeting is being chaired by myself um i allowed you to ask a follow-up question the member gustafson's comment you'll have a turn to speak in two members so your help so i i have a follow-up point on this when i followed up with dr mccall today for the information request he responded to me saying please see brendan keenan's report for enrollment information so i'm confused because right now he's saying it's a different report this morning's email told me to look at that report remember lavoy um dr mccall apparently there is a little confusion regarding these numbers um if these need to be certified by the 15th which is two days i would appreciate as a request by

050the chair to have the numbers you're sending to the state by the 15th and then director keenan as soon as those have a breakdown per where the students are headed whether it's private school or home school or at a district if you can provide those as soon as those are available and i believe that would remedy both concerns thank you guys so much i appreciate it remember haber hi uh most of my questions were already asked i do want to mention that the task force has been reengaged um they will meet tomorrow um but again we don't have a direction yet um we have a meeting tomorrow at five o'clock and i still haven't got an email about what we're meeting about um so i'm happy to participate but i wish that we had some

051direction ahead of time so people could be prepared it just seems like this happens not just a task force but with all of our meetings that we're getting this last minute information uh director keenan do you ever read yeah just to respond to that um because it can get missed and calendar invites in the invite um i previewed that we're gonna be discussing um the communication plan reviewing that sometimes in i i can see why you might have missed it it's in the memo of the calendar invite but just want to make sure you know that um that's all all right thank you member hebert and if you would um for our next meeting would you mind providing a short report on on how that went or maybe thank you um member christian bomb can

052you hear me yes thank you laura thank you oh and i thanks thank the administration for um continuing to work hard at trying to get our schools uh reopened um on time uh my question has to do with our reopening plan and our target dates i'm just wondering um can you be i'm assuming that you had a very rich conversation with the potential consultants um about some of the needs some of the uh the uh to do's that need to be done i'm just wondering if uh we have the resources and the personnel uh at hand to get those to do's done i would like to know what those to-do's are and what uh what personnel what resources need to be done need to need to be in place in order to get those things

053done for our big reopening event on october i'm on november 18th so um those are actually the items that were defining with the the the consultants that you know were looking at so laura i think one of the things that i can do and we can write that up so that you can get it formally i think that probably a little easier for me to explain so that way you can see okay here here are the action steps that still need to happen here are the people responsible would that work i think that level of detail would be helpful not only to this body but also to our constituents i think there's a lot of a lot of still a lot of um anxiety angst around making a decision um without having all that information

054uh in place and so um the faster i know that this is a big big order but the faster you can get out some information even if it's not uh you know this is exactly what it's going to look like but this is where we're heading i think that that information would be um you know would be a good place for us to uh to to get to yep um and then i also want to echo my concerns around enrollment impact budgetary impact uh for next year and also um you know when we get those numbers about where people have gone where our students have gone out of district i would like to know if there is any um information gathering on whether or not they intend to return uh perhaps at next year because

055that's going to impact our budget for next year as well in our projections so as much information as we can get from that enrollment data and the out of district placement data i think will help us start to gauge what we need to do for next year and what i can tell you is that you know in terms of the homeschool i know brendan has had conversations directly with families who've kind of put forth this uh kind of information associated with uh you know why they're deciding to homeschool um many of the families are doing this because they just feel as though they're safer at home they didn't want their kids back in school we know that there are families who are planning on coming back once there is um some sense of normalcy maybe

056immunization those types of things uh that'll that'll make them feel safer in terms of added district placements if we're talking special education out of district placements i don't think we're going to see that decrease where you know if we have kids going out they're going out and typically that's that's something that was ongoing prior to uh kicking in yeah i'd like to know um about like people that are uh that have opted for private school um for this year um it'd be nice to know if they have intentions of returning um or if it's just a done deal and they're gonna um see their way out on the long term uh that will have implications for staffing for programming for everything so the sooner we can start to think about that the better off we'll

057be uh thank you yeah and again um remember kirschbaum when we're talking what's what we're going to have to look at with this um is that right now the state's having some issues collecting information pertaining to um the the october one numbers um i you know barry did you want to jump in on that a little bit because i know that's something that you and i had talked about with jay howe yeah yeah so i might be able to clear up some of the confusion with the questions about state reporting on october 1. so typically it's we don't actually send anything to the state anymore as a report it's done electronically through a sif platform so essentially our data is being sent to the state all the time what happens on october 1st is that

058the state takes a snapshot of the school's data and compares with what's supposed to be there and whether or not there's any data in there that needs to be corrected they send back errors there's an error reporting thing they look for duplicate students where two districts might be claiming the same student have the same student in their student information system because they moved but the old district didn't take them out so things like that happen but they all happen on on the state side and then this year the state has had some serious technical problems and typically by this time we might have preliminary numbers on a typical year this year we don't the certification deadline for sif is october 29th that is the deadline and really all we do with it is respond to

059what the state tells us needs to be investigated and corrected so we're waiting to do that with information from the state we are behind schedule on a typical year but october 29th is the deadline and and it's really up to the state to certify us thank you barry if i could just take one of you follow me let me get you remember christian your follow-up question thank you and and that is that uh uh do you foresee us as a body uh as a school committee do you need us to do something with the state a request to reconsider the policies in the past on how budgets are made for the following year based on enrollment numbers what um what actions do you see us needing to take in order to try to advocate for

060uh for those potential for shortfalls that may incur if that's an appropriate thing to do so it's a it's a very appropriate thing to do in terms of a collective body putting together a letter basically advocating on behalf of the district and on behalf of districts in terms of the pandemic and the issues associated with lower enrollment based upon students being homeschooled going to um you know deciding to go to private schools all of the things that no one a year ago at this time would have predicted no one you know we've never had numbers dropped like this nor have uh other districts you know anywhere in massachusetts so this is an anomaly in that sense so that is something and i i think i've talked about this the superintendent's group that i'm part of

061is working with our legislators around this i know we have um advocates at the state house uh who are working on this senator goby is working in this representative ferguson is working on this so it is something that maybe as a body this that could be uh some documentation that is shared with um senator goby and representative ferguson directly to the governor again we still don't have a state budget on last gosh tuesday or wednesday rebecca my days are messed are kind of all blending together but i had the opportunity to sit through a second public hearing associated with the budget so there was one that occurred in april um and then there was another one that just happened last week and that was open to the public senator goby had uh shared it with

062everyone and i participated in it in terms of being able to listen to it um while doing my work but much of what they talked about was the fact that we're still even though we're we're doing a little better in terms of tax revenues they're still projecting um a couple billion dollar shortfall moving forward it was wednesday thank you malaya that that to me is a scary number associated with not necessarily this year but next year which is why it's so important for us to push forward with hey listen you know that chapter 70 formula either has to change or get expanded or you know there has to be hold harmless whatever it is so that districts don't lose an enormous amount of money associated with the students that leave the district yes could there

063be less staffing yeah you could go but we're already kind of in that mode of reducing staff so i feel like you know we're not really in a place where that that's really appropriate when i look at other districts and they have math coaches and science coaches and literacy coaches in their elementary schools helping their teachers with remote learning and hybrid and we have nothing um those are the things that kind of frustrate the heck out of me because we're still you know our teachers are working so hard to you know get through the kids but they don't have a lot of the support systems that other districts have so again we're already kind of you know working toward that model so yes laura um to your point i think that would be uh beneficial

064for us to have a letter sent from the school committee thank you thank you both and i'd love to work on that with you remember christian moving forward great thank you remember a little boy all right um a couple of things that i wanted to just comment on the report one of them being i was a little disappointed in the lack of detail in terms of meeting with the education consultants and it sounded like from dr mccall's statement that looking more at two consulting firms to help with operations and i just want to remind everyone on the committee and administration that there was a specific motion that outlined what what the consultant or consultant should be be looking at so i just want to confirm with dr mccall in your conversation um had a consultant

065firm seen the the motion that was stopped and what those expectations are yes they did and the two that you're looking at what are the areas that you're thinking that they're going to need to focus on so a couple different areas one is uh looking at you know ultimately the reopening plan and um its effectiveness moving forward uh moving you know with remote and hybrid um how that's gonna play out because again we've seen this play out in other districts and they have some they've already had the opportunity to work with other districts who have already started this process so they can jump right into it that was a big part of one of the things that we looked at also communication being having the capacity to kind of work with the central office in

066order to ensure that uh timely information gets out there so you know again what we're trying to do is establish kind of a baseline from which they can help support what we need to do in order to ensure that information goes out uh parents know what's going on teachers know what's going on you know what's going on uh in reference to everything that we're you know we're working on as a as a central office but ultimately as an administrative team okay thank you i did have one other um concern and you know the the i think a few other members mentioned the updated numbers on on people leaving so i would just ask through the chair that this information request was made two months ago or so and it was in three consecutive reports by

067administration without numbers being updated and i think when the request was originally made it was focusing on those october 1 numbers so i would just ask through the chair that if there's an information request that that information or that chart remain in the report until that request is fulfilled because i think that would give us all an indication that it's still being worked on the other thing i would ask through the chair is i made an additional information request on september 30th that was not fulfilled and i'm not sure what the best way of of managing those are because i made it through the chair into dr mccall and i don't think the full school committee is aware of that information request so i just want to know if we put something on a future

068meeting to talk about information requests if we send those to you through the chair does that go out to the full committee et cetera matt i'd be happy to um send that out to the full committee um and i think that's a good best practice moving forward okay so just as a follow-up to that i just want to state it so the committee can hear i uh and dr mccall i appreciate you submitting the professional development dates so the information request i made was a professional development plan in scheduled events for wednesdays who will lead the session the district principal teachers etc and content how will feedback after each session be captured compiled and utilized and the reason i made that request is we as a school committee vote on a schedule to have professional

069development on wednesday i think it's ultimately important when we're making those types of decisions to know the effectiveness of what's actually happening so that's the the basis for it so i would actually ask that request to be turned into a report that is part of the report every every either a week or a couple weeks that we have a meeting giving that information so we can know what's happening and the effectiveness of that remember lavoy i will send that request for information um to the administration and the whole school committee um and just as a point of clarification if other members have requests for information i i'd like to compile them all into one email so they don't get kind of lost in the weeds so if people could email me let's say by friday

070um i'll send out um that request of information for all members on friday um to the administration so they get one email and one place for information thank you thank you very much my little boy uh memorabilia so a lot of my questions have already been asked uh but i wanted to get some more information about how the elementary school kids are doing with remote learning uh can you enlighten us a little bit more about how they're doing sure um so what were what we're seeing with the elementary kids a we're seeing uh kids that are you know working hard because they also have support systems at home helping them out i do know that parents grandparents other family members are helping out our younger kids quite a bit at home and that's something that

071has been shared shared with me via parents as well as teachers and you know what they're seeing in terms of how that's kind of playing out so at the younger levels it's it's a little more challenging as as you move up in the age levels it's makes it it's a little better by third fourth fifth grade kids are a little more independent they have the capacity to do a little more work on their own um not saying that their um their focus is always uh perfect um and we know that anyway so even in a in person class it's not going to be perfect uh all the time it's hard for a 9 a 10 11 year old to sit in a desk for hours upon hours at a time so again one of the

072things we're looking at is how we can make it a little more interactive for those students it's not okay you're just in front of the screen for x number of hours a day are you just a quick follow-up are you hearing a lot about meltdowns kids sort of no no i'm not um it not a not in the you know what i am hearing is that there are kids who are you know there are certain kids who yep they're they're not having a good time but oftentimes it's they're not on the screen when it's happening it might happen you know the the parent might actually say you know i'm gonna mute and take the camera off and you know something's going on or before they get on so those are the those are things that

073you know i'm hearing a little bit you know and that's something that's happened from the beginning pretty normal um the big difference with kids at home versus school is that kids are different in home than they are at school kids are different with their parents than they are with their teacher it's a different environment um the number of conversations that i've had with parents over the past 30 years around hey your child's like this in school and they're like well they're like this at home i i mean you know i can't believe they're that good in school or wow my kid would never do that so they're very different and that's kind of the part that's a little more challenging uh with a particular model is that you see them in a different light so

074they're trying to do school but they're in their home setting so again one of the things that we suggest is the kids aren't working out of their bedroom they're working in a place that everyone can see it's a consistent desk or space every day they're not moving around too much so it's really been something that we've been you know talking with principles out about and so forth um bob did you want to jump in as well yeah if linda your first question there uh i think for priest preschool k one two maybe up to grade two teachers are standing on their head to get kids to just pay attention so it's definitely not a situation is to have it be remote three four five a little bit older the kids are are able to handle

075it a little bit better we're getting a little bit more out of it it's a real challenge for our teachers and i also think for the parents as well as the students for for those primary grades it just is this is not the best situation at all we are trying to make it work but this is not what we would vote for if we could vote for what do we want to do right now okay thank you thank you thank you member long below i appreciate your question it relates a lot to my very heck right now um but i do want to give a shout out the teachers are just phenomenal i couldn't ask for more um remember mills all right four quick things one uh i appreciate the the response from the last

076time but i think it's it's what i call anecdata right it's like someone's heard i've heard i've looked at right i think we need to do our best to make collect real assessment data so we can make data-driven decisions so i've heard anecdata tonight not working for the little kids working good for the high school if we collect real data and that can inform our decisions and say maybe our priority is getting the k to five kids back fast and let the high school kids a week or two later like using collect real data right and make decisions off of real data is my my suggestion too um mlc the possibility of hold harmless disappearing we have got as a school committee to get on advocacy for that public comment closes on friday we we've

077got to do something because that would be a disaster for our district if hold harmless goes away um three we talked about you know kids are homeschooling because they don't feel safe well we're providing remote options so somehow it's not just that right somehow it is what they were uncomfortable with what we were offering remotely in terms of homeschool again so we really need to investigate that so i don't buy that as an excuse for why so many kids are homeschooling when they could just be remote right and we're providing them remote and the teachers are doing a great job with it so that's that's my last thing my main comment those just came up as i was listening my my comment was um i see a a slow rolling disaster next week that we've

078already seen twice this year and i'm just really frustrated i understand that we're not gonna you're still talking to the union thursday i hear that you're going to talk to the union so i really don't see us getting a lot of information by friday or being very well processed by friday we're going to get data a plan next week that parents are going to have a ton of questions about they're not going to have any feedback two-way opportunities to get questions answered i don't think that required a school committee meeting but at least some outreach some question answer thing to clarify their decisions parents who work won't have a weekend where they can sit on a saturday and say let's just look at this information the district gave us let's think this through let's make

079an important decision for the year for our kid and it's going to be a ton of ticked off people i caught myself there emailing us social media rightly so because they've had no opportunity for two-way feedback a deadline is approaching without any information about when they're going to get information it's very predictable that when this hits next week people are going to have questions no real outlet for your principles are going to get slammed with questions central office is going to get slammed with questions and and it's fair right because this deadline is a week from friday um and it's it's going to be another repeat of the chaos we saw the last two times we had deadlines for plans so i strongly encourage either through the committee or through central office that we come

080up with a thing where we sell parents we will tell you by this date we will have these two sessions to take your questions whether they're virtual whether they're by mail-in whether they're something we will answer those questions you will have time to process them and then make your decision and i know we got to get to november 18th but somehow we just you just can't do it wrong right you just can't like throw stuff at them and then expect a decision without just a repeat of what we saw the last two times so that's just my i don't know how many sense that was but two cents i think that was a lot of sense and it made sense yeah um dr mcconnell you can provide yeah so and i think the concept of

081having the um opportunity for parents to provide feedback for open open questions and so forth is something that i want to do uh next week to give people the opportunity to talk to kind of put something out there so that if there is the opportunity for them to ask questions we can answer them uh collectively so i think that's that something that we um have to do um but there also has to be some more general information that goes out there to families so that they can make an informed decision can i hear what you're saying about the timeline and so forth so uh definitely something that we're going to do and i just encourage you to my follow-up is is you have to communicate the timeline right because people people will get anxious and

082rightfully cranky if they're thinking when are they going to tell us when am i going to get my questions answered so there just has to be some timeline that gives people time and respects their time too that they can't be like oh because people might have a work meeting tomorrow morning and they just can't deal with it the night before and make a one day decision right thank you member mills uh member mitchell um well as always member mills did a great job i appreciate that because uh by the time it gets to me majority of my uh statements have been addressed um so i i have uh no additional comments that's it remember mitchell i put a star next to your name that means you're starting next time so you better be ready to

083roll number uno uh remember ottmar all right thank you um again a lot of great questions that have been asked um again my question pertains to uh the enrollment numbers as well that we're uh we're in uh mr keenan's addendum or his attachment um again as as member mills said though potentially looking at a drop of 400 students from the district hold harmless stays in place then we're looking at flat numbers for next year but if they take again they decide to take that straight strike that from the laws then that's that's that's a bunch of chaos that we really don't need but my question relates to have we taken a look at basically doing a crosswalk with our staffing against that drop in 400 number because for a drop of 400 students you're looking

084about 31 across our 13 grades and if we go back and look at our tier 2 cuts we had 13 teachers that were in that tier 2 and so have we like circled back around and said like well we because of because of our budget situation we had to cut some teachers but we also have 400 less students in our district so some of those cuts may not have end up being as acute as we thought they would have been two months ago when we were projecting 400 more students in our district so my question is have we kind of circled around to take a closer look at that or or is that something that we're still kind of weeding through so really it's a little bit of both carl um when we're thinking about

085what we're looking at in terms of numbers again because we're talking about 400 kids but they're 400 kids spread out over you know it's it's uh three three year olds all the way to post grads so it's spread out over more than 12 grades um that means it's you know when we're talking about numbers per grade then you break it down by school it might mean one or two kids at a particular grade level so you might go from 20 down to 18 which doesn't allow us to then merge to take a look at those kids so um i know rebecca had pulled some class size numbers for me a couple weeks ago um when we took a look at them you know i'm there are probably some places where we're going to be able

086to find you know consolidate you know and it's not pull teachers together but i think we're going to have some situations where teachers might retire and so forth so that might be a place if it's really small class sizes we would consolidate in terms of looking at next year and if we don't get those kids back uh those 400 kids and we're in a situation where we don't need as many teachers again i'm still trying to work as best i can within the confines of the um the school committee numbers associated with recommended class sizes because again we have a lot of places where we're still over those numbers even with our lower 400 you know dropping 400 kids um it's still you know it's still off so how that kind of plays out i

087think it's going to be something that we we look at a little more closely but yeah we have taken a look at the numbers they're they're not dramatically different i'm not seeing drops of 30 kids in a grade so i can say okay good we can consolidate we don't have to worry about that and that's something bob has looked at with principles i've looked at with principles uh we've looked at it holistically and there just aren't a lot of places where we could consolidate all right thanks thank you member ottmar member shapiro hi yes um again thank you member mills my concern about the timeline of getting the information and then making the decision for the um for the survey was definitely um a concern of mine um so well said uh along that though

088i i've been hearing a lot from people um as far as a concern of something that was kind of posted as a as a side note in one of our meetings a couple weeks ago and on one of the slides saying that um when we moved to hybrid that busing was only going to be allowed from the students home and that bussing from daycare centers and [Music] before school and after school centers was not going to be allowed is that just as a preview is that still in the plan and still what's considered um for that yeah so deidre when we're looking at this because of the the way it works with our transportation schedule we if if we have um families that they pick up at their house but they drop off at a

089daycare center those kids are taking up two spots on two buses and we're limited to 23 to 20. you see what i'm saying yeah so it what what happens is it it would put us in a situation where we would we would literally be adding probably several buses routes that we'd have to then kind of expand upon which is you know by the time we add these buses they're going to be in the 40 000 range at least a piece um in terms of doing that so that's why again when we're doing this we're saying it's the same pickup and the same drop-off so even if it's they're picking yeah and again this is something we're having more discussions on but even if it's a pick up at um your grandmother's house and it's a

090drop off at the grandmother's house that's the bus that's the spot because we're still doing this by by name um so if that's the case that's fine but we just can't do two different locations for morning and afternoon i see so it's um if the daycare center is essentially the morning spot and the afternoon spot then that would be considered there yeah i'm i'm i'm fine that's something that we can we can work around it's just when we run into issues associated with two different spots two different spaces um that are taken up on buses we just we're gonna run out of room i think that that needs to be clarified because um what i'm hearing from parents is that that's not supporting working parents and i think a working parent would be you know

091um would would consider the the challenge that you're talking about of having two spots so you know to work out their schedule where it's the same spot every single pick up and drop off five days a week or whatever that's what working parents are looking for yeah and that's exactly it it's got to be five days a week it's got to be the same spot uh or you're not five days two days because it's gonna be the two days exactly so if that can be spelled out a little clearer i think that was very helpful and we can do that through through our transportation great okay thank you that's that's it for me thank you member shapiro and last but not least member silva um yeah so i would like to chime in with what

092member mills uh mentioned all my concerns have already been addressed but i do have one i would like some more detail on i know you said we would have more information by friday what exactly is that information going to be and when parents are asked to make a decision what information are they going to be provided with and is it going to be a one question at one time or is it going to be an evolving question over time as more information becomes available the reason why i'm asking is giving giving parents a general idea of what hybrid and remote looks like is one question but then giving parents another idea of if teachers are being changed on their kids or the amount of instruction time or how exactly it's going to happen uh you

093know with the details of each schedule per child may in affect their decision based on per child or per family so is this a one-time deal where if a parent says on this one particular survey a question and that's it are they locked in or is this going to be more of an evolution type of survey yeah so in terms of a survey they're not locked in um you know again one of the things that the state is stressed is that parents have the opportunity to have some flexibility associated with their learning um opportunity for their their children so um there are families that choose remote and then down the road they might say you know what i'd like my child to come back into hybrid well we we can do it it takes you

094know it'll take a week or two to kind of do the schedule and make sure we have the spacing for them in the classroom but that's something that we will do they they will have that opportunity that you know they're not going to be locked into hybrid or remote um you know during the school year but we will we will have you know as much defined information as we can give them at that time so that they can make a decision um so and it won't really be a rolling survey if if that makes sense well as a follow-up question uh you know is it going to be clarified that if they change their mind how long it will take because telling parents that it may take up to two weeks and not being definite

095about it is at that point some parents might say just sign up for it and push and pull back versus pull back first because if if it's a situation where i can't get my child in for a whole month and we only go so many months out of the year for school that's that's that's a long time for my child if i chose hybrid not to be in school yeah so i i put something out there um gosh in one of my last communications you know in reference to um when we transition from one um one model to another or when a parent requests the transition from one model to the other that it would take a little bit of time in terms of just organizing the classroom ensuring that there's space bringing the child

096back in so there was that that had to come into play um you know all we're all we're saying and this is what many districts are saying there's there's no definitive time frame for it it's as soon as we can do it so but people can't expect what what people have to understand is that it's not going to happen overnight so you're not going to say okay i'm i'm remote right now but tomorrow i want my kid hybrid it's not going to happen because we literally can't just fix a spot do a schedule put a child in there make sure the space is all set that's what we we can't do it some places it might be easier might take them a little less time but there there is a time frame that we have

097to kind of put out there that people have to understand it's not going to happen overnight and is that the same thing as for um someone who chooses hybrid to go remote or is that going to be a faster that'll be faster because again it's you know we're not looking at the space issues associated with those students uh or transportation it's just rolling them into a schedule all right thank you member silva and thank you everybody for your questions and comments this evening at this point we're going to move forward with our school committee agenda we do have two motions on the agenda that are requiring action by the school committee the first i'm going to read aloud to accept the fy 19 annual financial statements fy 19 audited end of year report fy 19

098single audit and fy 19 student activities audit as well as the management letter prepared by district auditors malanson cpas for fiscal year ended june 30th do i have a motion so moved second it's been moved in seconded um before we have discussion um is director dede here would you like to offer um any anything so good evening everyone and these these audits were shared um at art advisory uh back in july the senior auditor from lansin uh presented to the committee that evening and then last monday evening i shared i gave a i guess a 50 000 foot overview of the of the audits uh just uh very quickly in terms of the financials um one of the significant changes there is that our opeb obligation increased approximately 28 percent roughly 37.7 million dollars so

099our this unfunded obligation is probably 175 million now um at the end of fy 19. our um ending balance on the general fund at the end of fy 19 was approximately 134 000 uh the the fund balance the undesignated fund balance was approximately 1.3 million dollars in terms of the uh the single audit we had a perfect audit a clean audit uh it's the first time in a number of years that we've had such an audit um secondly in in terms of the end of the year report audit um we we had a perfect audit uh that there were no findings whatsoever and again it's the first time in a number of years unfortunately with student activities and these have been problematic over the past uh several years it's a project that i became aware

100of when i first started on board two years ago we did have aid findings and we are in the process of working to to correct those findings in terms of the management letter there were there are also three findings that were addressed in there as well number one uh there was a concern about the number of bank accounts that we maintained um in the auditor's eyes uh we had too many bank accounts uh we're looking um at those accounts and where if we can't consolidate or close out we'll do that secondly there's there was a a concern about the the process relative to to warrants um and internal controls and those are being addressed and then thirdly there's just a question raised about the the thresholds in our federal grants manual that is a 50

101000 foot overview madam chair um and we we went into much more detail at audit advisory and finance chairman mitchell is here um ben did i miss anything no i think uh you covered that well damn i don't have any additional uh statements or anything okay thank you um director duty and claire mitchell uh do other members of the committee have comments or concerns member mills yes so i'd encourage other members of business and finance to chime in i don't think member dennis is here right as the the chair of business and finance i'm the vice chair um we did briefly discuss this at business and finance um i think in particular i think we focused a little bit more on the student activity concerns um i i think business finances was on our agenda

102twice and i think we kind of were to some degree deferred uh this to aab hoping that they would have um uh would have input you know into this and remember mitchell you know did there and um and i'd encourage you know if every gusmans or others have other recollections of things from represents the finance meeting since member dd referenced it a couple times i don't have specific recollections the only um thing i recall was a specific mention that the student activities work on the student activities process handbook would be happening shortly and i don't know if we have an updated timeline on that but that was discussed as a major area of concern and and process that needed to be addressed in the next i guess couple weeks um so i don't know if

103there's an update on that since our meeting um i think everything else has been covered though through the chair uh we are working on that um i i did have a conversation last week uh uh with uh with ben and we're looking to have a follow-up meeting uh with aab uh sometime in in november um at which point we would present the the draft booklet relative to student activities and hopefully at that time aab will then sign off on the audit findings and uh i'll then uh bring them forward to to milan's and cpas make them aware uh that uh we've addressed uh their concerns and they can sign off on those issues as well and then once that's done uh then we get into to the nitty-gritty uh we'll need to sit down we

104need to um um do trainings um uh with staff with all the uh the key stakeholders relative to student activities and walk them through uh the process and and the guidelines uh that that were discussed and outlined in in the audit for suit activities thank you remember ayala you had a question i do um i it was in regards to the adopting certain policies and procedures for the student activities fund i'm just curious should this be a subcommittee or short-term subcommittee that helps with this or is that something that is only um through the finance committee dealing with coming up the policy and procedures because it specifically said the school committee in in in the write-up so i'm just curious if that would be appropriate or not so in in the findings uh malanson uh

105referenced the deci guidelines uh the guidelines changed actually about i'll say five years ago don't don't hold me to the exact date um and so we're a little bit behind the eight ball but we're we're moving forward um in in essence what we'd be doing is is taking those guidelines as presented uh by the desi and and uh just incorporating them in into our our new guidelines here i mean i'm welcome i'm happy to to receive the input but uh i think uh uh you know once once i complete this task again i'll bring it before audit advisory and then finance as well um so so they're privy to the changes that we'll be uh moving forward sure can i make a quick statement of course regarding the question the these changes are more to

106put us in line with desi standards as as director deity said than something that is subjective these are more objective standards that we have to adhere to that we've just taken you know that it wasn't a critical finding it was more of a we just have to get our aligned with the current standings thank you everybody thank you are there further questions or comments seeing none we're going to take a roll call vote starting at the top um remember ayala yes ayala remember bennett bennett yes remember brown brown yes emma gustaf remember long bolillo yes sorry no worries remember mills yes remember mitchell mitchell yes remember ottmar marias member shapiro shapiro yes remember silva silva yes um remember smith is she still with us i don't believe so remember williamson williamson yes remember woodland whipland

107yes remember young young yes and the chair votes yes the motion passes next on our agenda tonight and i am asking you guys to bear with me the um the motion that needs to be read is actually quite lengthy um but because of the importance of the emotion i feel that it's in our best interest to read the entirety of the motion um so if you bear with me um i'm actually going to attempt to also share my screen so you guys can see it as i read it so it makes a little more sense to everybody and then um i'll read the motion and we can have discussion within one second see there we go um can everybody see my screen that's um it should say 10 13 20 emotions dot dot can you

108make the font bigger i will i'm on it let me zoom in whoa too big is that better linda that's thank you yes okay great all right so i'm going to read this and you guys can read along it makes it a little easier than and reading all this um by itself so the motion is to approve the sale of the district's 4 million 145 000 general obligation state qualified refunding bonds and the execution of relating closing documents prepared by bond counsel to the district voted that in order to reduce costs the district treasurer is authorized to issue refunding bonds at one time or from time to time pursuing to chapter 44 section 21a of general laws or pursuing to any other enabling authority to refund a portion of the district's i six million one

109hundred thousand dollars general obligation school bonds unlimited tax dated august 21st 2008 maturing in the years 2021 through 2028 inclusive iii two million one hundred thirty four thousand general obligation municipal purpose loan of 2009 bonds dated october 2009 maturing in the years 2021 through 2026 inclusive and three three million ninety four thousand general obligation school bonds dated january 27 2011 returning in the years 2022 through inclusive collectively the refunded bonds and that the proceeds of any refunding bonds issued pursuant to this vote shall be used to pay the principal redemption premium and interest in the refunded bonds and costs of issuance of the refunding bonds further voted that the sale of the 4 million 145 000 general obligation state qualified refunding bonds of the district dated october 22nd 2020 the bonds to roosevelt and cross

110incorporated at the price of four million seven hundred twenty thousand five hundred twenty four dollars and seventy cents is hereby approved and confirmed the bond shall be payable on september first of the years and in the principal amounts and bear interest at respective rates as follows you guys can see the chart that follows the year 2021 amount 550 000 rate 4 year 2022 amount 540 000 same rate 2023 545 000 same rate 2024 525 000 same rate 2025 what 515 000 at the same rate year ten thousand 2026 the same rate you're twenty twenty seven four hundred and ten thousand dollars at the same rate year twenty twenty eight four hundred and ten thousand dollars at the same rate and finally year twenty twenty nine a hundred and thirty five thousand dollars at the same

111rate further noted that in connection with the marketing and sale of bonds the preparation and distribution of a notice of sale and preliminary official statement dated september 23 2020 and a final official statement dated september 30th 2020 the official statement each in such forms may be approved by the district treasurer and be here fi or ratified confirmed approved and adopted further voted to authorize the execution and delivery of a refunding escrow agreement to be dated october 22nd 2020 among the you the district u.s bank national association as refunding escrow agent and the treasurer and receiver general the commonwealth of massachusetts as paying agent further voted that the district treasurer and the chair of the committee be and hereby are authorized to execute and deliver a continuing disclosure undertaking compliance with sec rule 15c 2-12 in

112such form as may be approved by a bond council to the district which undertaking shall be incorporated by reference in the bonds for the benefit of the holders of the bonds from time to time further voted that we authorize and direct the district treasurer to establish a post-insurance federal tax compliance procedures in such form as a district treasurer and bond council deemed sufficient or such procedures are currently in place to review and update said procedures in order to monitor and maintain the tax exempt status of the bonds further voted that any certificates or documents relating to the bonds collectively the documents may be executed in several counterparts each of which shall be regarded as an original and all of which shall constitute one in the same document delivery of an executed counterpart of all signature

113page to a document by electronic mail in a pdf file or by other electronic transmission shall be as effective as delivery of a manually executed counterpart signature page to such document and electronic signatures on any of the documents shall be deemed original signatures for the purpose of the documents and all matters relating thereto having the same legal effect as original signatures further voted that each member of the committee the district secretary and the district treasurer be and hereby are authorized to take any and such actions and execute and deliver such certificates receipts or other documents as may be determined by them or any of them to be necessary or convenient to carry into effect the provisions of foregoing votes and so my years reciting shakespeare to my students came in handy tonight with the language

114there um i do want to just start by saying that i was part of the process in order to refinance these bonds i sat in a meeting with director dede as well as jim dumbar our treasurer where we went before the state the process was very easy and the committee was very enthusiastic in order to provide this bond to us so do i have a motion on the floor second it's been moved and segment are there further questions um regarding the bond refinance uh member military business and finance discussed this last monday and we enthused we didn't take an official vote but there was brief discussion and enthusiasm in general about the motion and thanks to ember deedee thank you member mills are there others that have questions or comments so madam chair if if

115i made to the the bottom line here um as we spoke about at business and finance last week is uh through the term of this refinancing uh there's a savings of just under seven hundred thousand dollars uh approximately six hundred seventy six thousand three hundred fifty seven dollars in in 12 cents um and uh it is my intent um to to recalculate uh the debt assessments uh um for the towns uh now um and also um i'm responsible at this time uh to to develop what's what's called a bond premium letter uh that that gets sent to each of the treasurers and that letter uh will reflect uh uh the these new figures um there they voted this evening and the last task in this process is actually to meet with each of the treasurers

116uh tomorrow and have them sign off in some very extensive paperwork i can't thank enough uh the great work uh that treasure dunbar has done and also um our financial advisor uh hilltop securities uh led by by mary connie and um as as the chair has noted we had a great meeting uh before mr finance board this past july um which included the state treasurer and and the state auditor as well thank you so much for the further clarification any other members wish to ask okay seeing them go back to a role called vote remember ayala ayala yes remember bennett bennett yes member brown brown yes remember gustafson gaston yes member haber hebrew yes remember christian yes remember long bolillo long lily yes remember mills yes remember mitchell mitchell yes remember ottmar omar yes membership

117hero yes remember smith remember silva silva yes member williamson yes remember woodland woodland yes remember young yes and the chair votes yes the match the motion my god the motion passes it's too early for me to get tired yet we still got a ways to go all right so next on the agenda tonight is unfinished business there's no unfinished business on the agenda next tonight is the secretary's report we have first the approval of executive minutes of the wachuset regional school district held on august 24 2020 we're gonna hold those executive session minutes item b the approval of the executive session minutes of the watchuset regional school district committee held on september 14th again we're holding the executive session minutes for the time being item c approval of the 326 special meeting minutes of the

118wachusett regional school district held in september 29 2020 as enclosed i have a motion on the floor for this any discussion or corrections to the minutes am i seeing none roll call vote remember ayala ayel yes remember bennett bennett yes remember brown brown yes i'm aggressive then yes to send yes remember haber paper yes remember cartoon mom sorry yes remember mongolia along williams member mills mills jess emma mitchell mitchell yes remember ottmar marias member shapiro shapiro yes member silva silva yes williamson williamson yes remember woodland woodland yes remember young young yes and the chair votes yes item d approval the executive session minutes at the wachusett regional school district committee held on september 29 2020 again those will be held for now finally in the secretary's report approval of the 1352 regular minutes of the

119wachusett regional school district committee held on september 29 2020 as enclosed are there any corrections or addendums to these minutes oh first is there a motion second it's been moved and seconded any corrections or addendums in these minutes seeing none another roll call vote please remember il i yell yes remember bennett bennett yes remember brown granules regressive gossip yes member haber haber yes remember kirsten remember mitchell mitchell yes remember ottmar marius membership hero shapiro remember silva yes remember williamson williamson yes remember woodland woodland yes remember young young yes the chair votes yes thank you guys so much next on the agenda tonight the chargers report and financial statements please direct those questions to director didi next tonight committee reports management subcommittee is first on the agenda tonight um we met and again i'm gonna get

120my dates crossed um we have not met since the last 100 minutes we have not met since the last meeting on october 5th um we are going to be meeting in about two weeks um ed sub um i'm christina's lucas member mongolia vice chair yes our meeting was uh cancelled so our next meeting will be the meet the hour before the next school committee meeting on november 9th thank you very much business finance uh chair dennis isn't here vice chairman mills do you have a report you also have a policy uh yes we met last uh last monday and um a lot of what we talked has already been been discussed at this meeting we talked about the audits including the opeb the big open liability and our contributions minimal as they are to that

121fund we talked about fiscal year 20 uh potential balances we talked about where we are with 21 including uh the fact that the director deity is sitting is marking a number of charges for cobit in case they're eligible for for reimbursements or assuming they will be uh we talked about transportation settlement going to legal we talked about the enrollment trends and we talked about the policy review which i don't have right in front of me so i wasn't anticipating reading this tonight but i can call that up i actually i can share my screen it's in the same motions document number like great all right give me one second to present that again sorry guys i have too many tabs open 10 13 this one okay here we go so let me just scroll down

122for you oh i have the first reading on them in here it's in the it's in the other documents i'm sorry ken no it's okay uh i will make a motion to uh to approve the first reading of amendment policy 43 23.2 policy relating to budget and finance bidding requirements uh waiving the reading of the full policy second so we're really just um trying to adjust our policy here to match state law um which is increase some of the the minima requiring certain um certain bidding requirements so essentially we're just matching what the what chapter 30 b says now are there other questions for business and finance regarding this amended policy okay seeing none we'll go to a roll call vote remember ayala i yell yes remember bennett bennett yes under brown brownies i'm aggressive

123justice and yes remember haber haber yes remember christian bond there's your mom yes number one for real along the way yes remember mills yes member mitchell mitchell yes remember ottmar oh res member shapiro shapiro yes member silva silva yes member williamson williamson yes remember woodland woodland yes and memory young yes and the chair votes yes um any further updates um for business and finance member mills uh i think that's it again we've talked a lot about that throughout the course of the meeting all right thank you um next on the agenda tonight is legal affairs subcommittee uh member uh chair brown do you have an update uh yes i do we met on wednesday september 30th we went over quite a few things one of the things we did go over was appointing legal counsel

124going forward naomi stoneburg that's been with us for quite a while she is going to be retiring she is not going to leave us in the lurch and regarding the moa negotiations so she's going to stay home for that um but going forward we do have those three locals that are evergreen plus we have two including the wra that we need to start negotiating on their contract that expires next june so we decided um as a subcommittee that we are going to keep three lawyers um on hand um they're not on retainer or anything like that um which saves the district money so uh we are going to um go and interview law firms to replace uh naomi uh we're still gonna have joe batulis and we're gonna have matt mcavoy for the special education

125um so we have a list already of uh law firms uh we're just going to send out invites and see where that takes us and then we will bring it to the full committee um to vote on the representation so any questions for legal okay seeing none uh we have superintendent goals in evaluation subcommittee member mills your chair so we met uh last wednesday uh we first off reviewed strategies with regards to implementing a process for 360 degree reviews with perhaps piloting questions this year so we are doing more research about um how that's been done at other places and why perhaps other places abandoned such work to learn best practices we saw a first draft that night of the superintendent's goals revolving around strategic planning around the quote-unquote modern classroom around anti-racism and diversity

126equity inclusion and around student retention so they were very preliminary so we gave him significant feedback to he'll bring him back to the to the subcommittee uh we had also done some homework on selecting indicators and um and we'll discuss that at our next meeting in a few weeks i think is the 28th of october any questions for superintendent goals and evaluation please see none on to facilities and security subcommittee um cheering young an update yep um we have not met since the last meeting um as people know we we lost a member as if yesterday looks like member lavoy will be stepping into that position um so we'll be back up to three which i'm more comfortable with meeting um otherwise the chair has a little too much control over the meeting but so

127we'll be looking to set up a meeting very very soon one of the key things we'll look at we have the report from the initial look at the sampling of the special ed room hvac systems um there's a few issues all things were fixed but we'll i'll we'll circulate that through the committee and then we'll discuss it at the next meeting and then we'll be attacking some policies that's it and adam if i can just chime in a little bit we did just find out uh today that um we will have um the full report from uh the other spaces throughout the district uh they're completing their their assessments on the 15th and we'll have a full report um by the 28th of this month okay excellent thanks thank you any questions or comments for

128facilities guys seeing none um diversity equity and anti-racism uh chair silva yes we met on october 8th evening of october 8th and we had a great discussion around the bullying policy we were informed that there is a form on the school website that can be done by anonymously for like a bullying incident and we asked for that to also be put under where parents can find it a little bit easier we do have two other policies we're going to review and we're going to be meeting again october 29th at 7 pm any questions for diversity okay see none audit advisory board chair mitchell as director dede said we are waiting for um his final findings and we will have a meeting sometime in november to close the books great thank you so much remember mitchell

129i appreciate it we don't have any ad hoc subcommittees at the moment or building committees um school council reports i know cpac has one um i'd just like to put it out there now i know you guys are all assigned to um schools schools up and running um and i'm sure that principals are working on putting you together but um to the administration i'm hoping that these can get rolling um in time for our next meeting um sure i have a couple things from cpac um they had a meeting on october uh fifth just thinking backwards um where we had officer elections so um they elected i don't know if you want me to read all of them they elected all their new officers for the year and those are on their website i'm happy

130to read them all for the record if anyone would like me to or just refer to the website um actually i'll list the chairs because people may need to know that the co-chairpersons this year are rachel bullock melissa martin and tammy todd and their contact information is also on the cpac website and facebook page if anyone needs to reach out to them um they um the director fundraising position is still open and um all the others were able to be filled that night so that's the update on that there was also the second part of the meeting which i missed um because i had to go to business and finance um was that there was a presentation um and more questions and answers um that christine smith did which was very helpful and the full

131transcript and video of that and slides are online on their website as well which you can find if you follow the links from our main page i wish it was easier to find honestly it's from our main page then you have to go to the special ed page then the cpac section so um and they're also on their facebook page so i'll mention that um the other option not not to cut you off but this might be a great thing for the students to put on their their page that they have sure well i can send you the link it's kind of hard to find but it's helpful um the other thing is that their next meeting is october 28th um wednesday from 6 30 to i'm not sure if it ends at 8 or

1328 30. it was originally eight not sure if it's going long but at least 6 30 to 8. um at that meeting they will have a presentation um by christine smith on compensatory services and covet compensatory services which is a big question right now that a lot of families are asking information about there's a deadline coming up in i honestly don't remember if it's late november or i think it's mid-december um that parents have regarding that um on the state level so we appreciate i know they appreciate her doing that presentation um they've also invited attorney terry ramos to provide a broader perspective about and answer questions about um things on the state level um and so she'll be also speaking at that so i strongly encourage people to attend that in some way i

133think it's going to be a really great meeting and i know there's a lot of questions around these services and there is a deadline for requesting meetings and things around that which i know will be covered but it's a really important meeting and i'm really appreciative and i know that cpac is that the district is taking time to to speak and provide us information so that's what i have any questions people have they can contact cpac you can find them on facebook on our page you can email the chairs you can email me and i can put you in touch with them um thank you very much and then um do you mind um emailing catherine and kenichi the um cpac website so that i think their websites become very successful thank you um i

134do have three public comments that came in during the meeting tonight um so i do want to read those before we conclude this evening the first comes from ryan hinson um ryan ryan uh zakiami sorry his uh email says hinson hi my name is ryan zugami and i'm a teacher parent resident and alum of watchuset i'm sitting here for the eighth month in a row haven't missed the meeting wondering how we are here i was one of the teachers who was part of the 10-6 meeting last week and while one hour of talking and sharing was helpful there hasn't been follow up with us from central office or my building about the district the direction the district is planning to take for the next phase of hybrid it was an hour-long meaning of sharing in

135small groups and sharing out to that bigger group fast forward a week principals are sending out information to families about possible hybrid models coming up we are already in a hybrid model and trying to make things up as we go can be dangerous please please please get teachers information about hybrid scheduling there are teachers and students who are in hybrid right now and the remote students are having a different experience in those in the classrooms has anyone reached out to the families who are in hybrid now to know what's working or not working this needs to be time in teacher schedules to check in with remote remote students every day i'm happy to have anyone from administration come to observe my remote lessons it's hard work from taking attendance to the follow up after each

136independent work completion piece how can the plan to be to have teachers do both hybrid and remote cohort with the schedule we're currently using being live six times a day no discussion built in for remote only check-ins thank you to the school committee for asking the questions about future impact homeschooling and etc and asking for deadlines updated q a for parents and teachers i'll end with teachers need some direction now especially those who are back in the building with their neediest populations please continue to talk to the teachers from ryan next from christina neyman as a teacher parent of two first graders and a community member i urge the administration to provide a hybrid plan where students keep with their same teacher whether they stay hybrid or go remote it usually takes 68 weeks to

137get to know young students academic needs social emotional needs and learning styles restarting this process com november 18th is a detriment to student learning growth potential and social emotional health switching teachers might stifle the robust curriculum and learning upwards of january for many students students cannot afford this loss given the many changes that are unavoidable this is one item keeping the same teacher while staying remote or going hybrid that has to remain for students provided the hybrid plan is well thought out thank you from christina neyman finally tonight we hear from aaron ottmar on 232 west street in paxton she says thank you for all your time in helping to work through so many of these complicated issues i have two children at paxton center k and 2 and their teachers have been beyond wonderful

138with everything they've done so far to ensure remote learning is working as well as it can while we wish that these were normal times and all students could safely return to school we've been thrilled with how well our children and their teachers have been working together thank you to all the teachers who are working so hard to make this work while more information about hybrid provided this week may concern surrounded surround the lack of discussion about two issues first the well-being of the teachers and discussions about what fully remote will look like once hybrid begins due to risk in our family that children have to stay full of remote while remote might be working well for many it has not been clearly discussed that remote instruction might look different to what it is now once

139hybrid begins on november 18th while it is our preference to have our children remain with their wonderful teachers i have concerns about what this means for k-5 children who are fully remote i understand the administration is trying to keep fully remote students with their peers and teachers as described but as it was described if the teachers are working in the classroom with students how can they provide small group instruction to the remote students will a pair professional or co-teacher be in every classroom to work with in-person students if not it's inevitable and when students go back to the classroom the amount of in-person instruction as well as remote instruction will drop significantly even if teachers spend divided the classroom into three groups hybrid in person hybrid remote and fully remote then each child will only

140get one third of the teacher's attention if the student person gets the majority of attention then students who are 100 percent might be significantly neglected by no fault of their teacher it appears that the full remote children would only have wednesday mornings with their teachers and peers and the remainder of days might be asynchronous if that's the case it's unclear what the benefits of remaining with our same teacher would be worth the challenge is to spend the remainder of the school year of no instruction or peer interaction many other districts are doing hybrid have fully remote students in separate classes with fully remote teachers and daily schedules look much like they do will these children be provided with a second fully remote teacher and other peers in a consistent classroom if not how will the

141district ensure that fully remote students get significant support our students and our teachers deserve a plan that maximizes support for hybrid and remote options teachers are working around the clock doing the best they can asking them to manage in-person hybrid remote and hybrid without additional support is impossible without consistent report support for fully remote students more families will choose to homeschool leave the district i hope that i hope that as the plan for remote and hybrid this week are established the administration will keep the well-being of teachers and students and quality of instruction provided to children at the forefront no matter what the families choose thank you again for your efforts to return for the safe return to school from aaron ottmar okay and that is the end of public comment this evening um next

142on the agenda is new business is there any new business that a member would like to put on the agenda um megan yep i got a bunch of hands actually um member member mills member woodland and then member gusen i just want to re-beat my drum of the regional agreement for us to discuss that as a full committee sooner than later regional agreement okay that remember woodland um i don't know if this is an appropriate place for unfinished business so please tell me if it's not uh but uh an update on the consultant hiring process and the plan since it's still um outstanding i'm going to put that actually remember when then on the request for information and to have that request fulfilled um as soon as possible okay with that so that wouldn't count

143as uh sorry i meant to ask not for new business but if that would count as unfinished business i don't it's not an agenda item that we didn't get to if that makes sense um it's it's a motion that needs to be fulfilled um and i assume that motion will be fulfilled by week's end okay thank you and if it's not then we can follow up with that um and then remember remember gus is in the member young yep um i don't know if this is technically new business or where it fits but you can let me know but it goes back to um something that was brought up in the discussion earlier but it was not on the agenda about the um the comment period for the minimum local contribution in chapter 70 which

144has a deadline of friday which is why i don't know how it fits but um i wanted to ask the superintendent if the district has made comments on that or reached out to our towns in some coordinated effort or if he needs us to do anything to help that effort in some coordinated efforts since the deadline for those comments is friday and um i think our i don't even know if our talents know that but i i hope they do um but i was planning to mention that and then it came up member mills brought it up earlier so i just didn't know if there was any kind of coordinated outreach around that or um anything we need to be doing to support that dr mccullough any i mean mean i'll tell you i just

145put it on my personal agenda depend on a letter um to get out by that time um but again dr mccoy i guess my bigger question is are there specific talking points that the district would appreciate that we make if we do write on our own time and obviously we don't all at our own perspectives but if the district had anything in particular they would like us to convey in that regard um you know that might be useful to know so what so good question malaya what we'll do is we will go through and again i think there are some talking points that mass has put out i can take those um and formulate them in a manner that really addresses our specific needs uh with director dede and we'll we can get those out

146to you and you can send uh those letters directly to our reps i appreciate that and have you been in touch with our towns about that as well about making i mean hopefully they would all be doing this anyways but have we had any outreach to them to make sure they're aware of this deadline opportunity uh nope but i have not but that's again i think that's one of the things that i would assume that they're already aware of it yeah i can reach out to them as well okay thank you all right thank you so much that was an important point today um remember young new business yeah um there's something just came up earlier in the meeting um to either put it as a topic for discussion or to develop something to present

147to the uh committee uh to track requests for information so that there's a even a simple google doc that we can all look at and know what's outstanding what's not and also the the specific requirements that are that people are asking for so that it can be tracked what one what they're asking for so the district administration knows what to respond um and you know we can track that and then also the opposite that you know we know what hasn't been answered yet so i think that'd be great thank you number young i appreciate that i need that kind of organization myself these days about it um and then i also have um number one quickly if the superintendent could just please make sure he sends out the email about talking points um to the

148entire school committee i think that would be helpful it wasn't clear to me so absolutely linda i'd love to do that and i'd love to have one on behalf of the committee as well um so dr mccall if you can get i know it's that you're got a billion things on your plate but since the deadline is friday if we can grab that maybe thursday morning that would be very helpful yeah director dede and i'll um pull that together tomorrow we'll try to get that out to you by thursday morning that way you can at least get it out thursday yeah i want to get it out there before the death yep okay thank you guys so much that was a really productive discussion does anybody else have anything to add any light bulbs go

149off seeing none um we're gonna call for a motion to adjourn so moved second number ayala oh yeah yes remember bennett bennett yes emma brown proudness member dresses in yes and remember mitchell mitchell yes remember ottmar marius member shapiro i saw that it's an account you're supposing remember silva awesome are you with us silva yes remember williamson williamson yes remember woodland woodland yes and remember young young yes uh the chair also votes yes good night everybody i hope you enjoy getting out a little early tonight i thank you all for your service um spend some time with your family or watch some mindless television have a great night guys take care