NRSD School Committee Meeting of April 14, 2021

001okay i'd like to call this meeting of the narragansett regional school district school committee to order and we will start with the pledge of allegiance everyone would stand i pledge allegiance the flag of the united states of america and to the republic which stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice okay good evening everybody tonight's meeting is being live streamed and recorded and it will be put up on our youtube channel i did want to announce that we are trying a different method of delivery for tonight's meeting so um please excuse us if we have any glitches along the way since this is the first time that we're using the zoom webinar feature so that our the public who would like to watch will have the ability to click a link and watch

002our meeting live as it happens so i just wanted to let everybody know that and to bear with us in case we do run into any any types of technical difficulties so first off let me just get my list together here i just want to announce who is on the call okay so for the school committee to this evening we have mrs robichaud mrs chartier mrs cosil mr mason mr marks and myself mrs hughes uh mrs matson and mrs truffalo will not be able to join us this evening our superintendent dr casavant is here we have ms geister our business manager and of course ms varney who keeps us on our toes and keeps us on track we have eric ivan and lisa parker from the ndea and we also have abby bennett and callie

003weedle our two student representatives so without further ado we'll kick off into our regular business which is approving some minutes we have two sets of minutes to approve i would entertain a motion when someone is ready to accept the minutes of march 17th 2021 so moved i have a motion by mrs cosil do i have a second second and i have a second from i'm sorry was that deb brobashov any questions or comments on the minutes from march 17th seeing none we'll do roll call mrs robichaud yes mrs chartier yes this is causal yes mr mason hi mr marks [Music] he's muted yeah he's trying yes thank you and mrs hughes says yes so that is unanimous next up we have the approval of some meeting minutes from march 25th 2021. uh when someone's ready

004i would entertain a motion to approve those minutes so i have a motion from mrs cosil do i have a second okay and i have a second from mrs robichaud any questions or comments on the minutes from march 25th being none we'll do roll call mrs robichaud mrs chartier yes mrs cosil yes mr mr mason hi mr marks yes and mrs hughes says yes so those were approved unanimously next up we have bills and payroll i would uh entertain a motion to recommend to accept the bills and payrolls warranted warrants excuse me to accept the bills and peril warrants as presented so move i have a motion from mrs cosil do i have a second okay and i have a second for mr mason any questions or comments on the uh bills in payroll seeing

005none we'll do roll call mrs robichaud yes mrs chartier i'm staying mrs cosil yes mr mason aye mr marks yes and mrs hughes says yes so that was five uh yes and one abstained so the motion passes okay now that we have all of our uh housekeeping items out of the way i'd like to turn it over to our two student representatives so good evening abby and cali i'm so glad that you guys could make it tonight um i will turn it over to whichever one wants to start this evening thank you welcome thank you mrs hughes and since our last meeting since our last meeting we've had a successful end to the third term and the full school days have gone well with the inclusion of lunch and the students are looking forward to

006being back in full time after april vacation and of course they're also looking forward to april vacation to have a you know a break from school to rejuvenate and as of right now the cheerleading football and track teams have started practices and they're actually at the end of their season now um so softball baseball and outdoor track will all be coming up at the end of the month um some students are very grateful that they are able to go back to what they love doing and even though it's been quite a different year i asked one student and how their season was going and they said um that the football team has been really great at relying on each other and to get them through the year so it's definitely going to be a year

007to remember the narragansett theater company just started working on a play which we'll be doing for dinner theater and then the concert band has also been practicing a lot of different pieces so with the promise of good weather coming well not thursday but later on when everyone's in person and they'll be practicing outside more the warrior leadership students are continuing to work on their various service learning projects and then their student-led academic achievement program or tutoring group just started this past group so that's upperclassmen and a few sophomores tutor lower classmen and so they can finish the year in good academic standing the central mass student advisory council had its last meeting yesterday so the students involved myself sammy lovell and callie wheel we all submitted our final reports which will be sent to the

008state committee in the next few weeks then finally the senior class advisors and officers have been working with administration to finalize the year with some close to normal events great thank you abby kelly you've some things dad i just want to reiterate that yes students are very excited to be going back to school full-time in person after break and a lot of kids have said that sports have been a really good outlet right now this is so stressful so everybody's enjoying being able to be on their sports teams which is nice great thank you both abby and callie um i look forward to hearing more about our dinner theater and what that might entail and when it's going to happen it sounds like a lot of fun hopefully our weather um after the next couple

009of days um and and you you know who to tweet at that would be dr casvant um that we won't be uh inundated with any snow uh of that anything that amounts with the upcoming threat of snow um and that the weather continues to turn so that we can get some of these activities back to normal because the state has mandated that they have to take place outside um cali i just wanted to give you and your your track group big shout out i know that going from indoor track which is your winter season to now having to perform outdoors with little to no um things like shot put pitch and things like that um i've seen some pictures of you guys out there uh with shovels and and really digging and helping uh to

010make that a reality for the track teams that i know that the spring uh sports will also benefit from so um it's good to see that the you kids are out there and uh you're all getting to work out one way or another uh and pitching in and helping out so it's great any anyone have any questions or comments for either abby or callie i know abby you also mentioned that you're you're putting your final reports together for your state um your sac group uh if you're interested in sharing that information at some point in the next couple of meetings just reach out to myself or mrs barney um or dr casvant and let us know and we'll give you a little bit of time to do that if there's something that you feel is

011uh is that a place well enough to put out there for people i know that it's been difficult for the group to work together with people from all over the state since it is virtual but if there is something that you'd like to share and carry yourself i don't know if you're part of the state or the regional one i can't i forget which who's on which um you know the same thing if there's things that you want to report out please just just let us know all right so thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and uh and we hope that you'll stick around but we understand if you have some things that you need to take care of yourself um before you start your slide into the the april vacation break right

012so great um next up on the agenda is public input i do just want to address a couple things with public input because with our new way of running these meetings we don't have a youtube channel that this is being live streamed to instead it's happening via this webinar feature that zoom has and there's actually a chat box so that if attendees did want to send a message to they call us panelists but to the the the people present at the meeting you could feel free to do that in the chat box um i see that we do have some participants watching us live which is awesome so that we know that that's working so thank you all for for coming and watching during the public comment period we will address anything that's put into

013that chat box during our meeting if you have a question or comment you're welcome to continue to use the chat box but i'm not certain that we will definitely be able to address your comment in real time since it would be outside of the public comment agenda item but we will make note of it and make sure that we can follow up on anything that is is presented there so with that being said we'll move into public comment excuse me public input as of right now i don't believe that we have any new public input to present and i don't see any chat comments right now what i'm going to do since this is new is i'm going to move on to the ndea and turn this over to mr ivan and miss parker and

014if in the meantime anybody out in the public does have something um it's probably a little harder to type so we'll give you a little chance to do that while they are briefing us from the ndea perspective so with that mr ivan thank you for joining us miss parker thank you thank you it's good to see you all again uh it's been been a very busy spring as we've we've gotten off here with the return of students april 5th to the elementary school five days a week law planning rescheduling moving things around had to take place i want to say i'm proud of the teachers especially some of our teachers that are now classroom teachers in the sense that they don't teach their specific subject that they are so passionate about but are now teaching

015everything um it's got to be tough and they took it so well that that would be what they would have to do and it's been phenomenal they've done so well lisa can talk more about that i know they have a number of lunches i know the schedule is weird but i continually hear over and over again from teachers i can do this there's one term left or there's 40 days left or i think it's 38 now i can do this i can do this of course we all want to be back to sort of the normal schedule but um and i know dr casavant has has has sent to them his thanks as well um what they're having to accomplish is just you know it's a herculean task for sure um and then the high

016school and middle school will start fullback with students on the 26th as you heard uh abby share and i know they're excited about that and cali i know they're excited that means a new schedule for all of us in the middle and the high school it's not ideal um and i believe that we the the nda and the superintendent came together thanks a lot i want to be a big thank you to mary uh in the middle school the principal mayor lafrenery for working so hard to come up with i must have given her five or six different schedules to sort of work on as we discussed well if we change this or we change that in a day what does it look like and how do we and our whole goal the whole time

017was how do we get more minutes into our blocks so we can have more time to teach our kids you know um and it's it's a wacky schedule but again when i sort of surveyed the staff when i surveyed the teachers they were like we can do this eight weeks of school left we can do this we've done all of this other stuff we can do this you know and as i'm sure the superintendent has shared when they when the state says everyone can come back stay at three feet stay at six feet at lunch i don't know what school buildings they're thinking people have access to that they can just say oh yeah six feet at lunch you can fit 500 kids i don't know where they're talking to um but we've had to

018do some real real creative thinking to make this you know what has to happen right um and teachers have been super supportive of that so uh that's been really positive that everyone just sort of is in the same boat going if we don't work together it it's gonna it's not gonna work at all right so we've gotta work together um and then once again i do want to advocate for our music program um i know that there was an academic subcommittee that met that academic subcommittee presented information um to the to about what's going on with our music program and you know whereas traditionally we would have a teacher at the elementary uh two teachers at the middle and then one at the high and a robust band and a robust chorus you know the

019music department's feeling like what's going to happen in all of this right as we continue to struggle budget-wise with money continue to look at what's happening with our programs and so i just want to advocate for them again that anything we can do as you guys discuss music to keep that program i mean when i i was telling someone earlier today when i came to dance in 2004 john josinski when he hired me told me two things about the high school i needed to know that where the place everything happens in this in the town in the in the two towns right friday night lights that was his words friday night lights and our music program uh and he was so proud of those as a high school principal that he wanted me to know

020that when i the day i got hired and we want to see that maintained we want to see that stay and thrive and be healthy um and then i could turn over to lisa if she has anything i know my experience in the high school with our schedule has been like oh my god this is changing i'm going to have a 77 minute block or whatever's going on for lunches but i'd love for her to share what's going on at the elementary because their schedule's even wackier isn't it so typically i have lots to say because i'm out and about and i see a lot of different teachers but now i'm teaching fourth grade for the last nine weeks um so i don't see very many people too much but i do stay in touch

021as much as i can and i reach out and visit you know during my prep um but i think everyone's doing amazing um and like eric said our you know our unified arts teachers our classroom teachers and um our title one specialists our classroom teachers and and i am and it's you know i think no matter how nervous anybody was right when you saw kids walking the day walking in the door that first day it's like it all just goes away and you just jump in with the kids and the kids are happy they're smiling they're working hard um i know the teachers i've seen in the hallways and talked to um i just happened to have the kids back all the kids back and just to bring those cohorts together and have a class

022be you know a real class is just a pretty amazing thing and the fourth graders that i'm working with um that's the beauty of the position that i've had is that i feel like i know all of the kids in the school um and just to have these kids i already know where they're at in math so i feel like that's like a bonus for me um and i'm doing some live streaming i'm live streaming one class and one class is full in person so i've gotten that experience and it's just it's been great i mean there's really not much to complain about the schedules aren't ideal they're not perfect you know the nine o'clock start isn't a perfect schedule but it's working and it's and it's effective and the kids are getting what they

023need and the teachers are you know doing what the kids need and i just feel like people are working together and making things happen and i don't hear complaining i don't hear complaining from people so that's all that's all good um and it is and you might say oh it's only seven weeks it's only eight weeks but i feel like it's it's going to be a really good end of the school year for these kids and police teachers and the kids are getting exactly what they need yeah and the only thing i hear is it's just how tired everyone is everyone understands why this is happening and why we're doing it this way but everyone is also like i've never planned this hard i've never worked this hard i've never had to to readjust so

024often and teachers are used to right we're used to that making things happen and reconfiguring but yeah i do hear that a lot that people are just like man i'm tired we're gonna make it we're gonna get through it great thank you both for that report i think you know i i think we say it probably every meeting but truly um you know the committee sends their thanks out to you know all the teachers all the staff obviously the administration as well and looking at how well you have all worked together to come up with these solutions i think lisa you said it none of these conditions are ideal but we have the right people um that are going to make it work and that that means the most because these kids mean the most

025to every individual in this district so it's nice to to hear that feedback um you know i think we understand the struggles um you know we can empathize you know i can't sympathize because i'm not going through it but i can only imagine how difficult it's had to be to change your your basically you know in in my terms your business model you know on a dime 15 times so thank you all right um i just uh one comment came out on the chat and christine bennett says thank you mr ivan for your comments i believe it was after your advocacy for the music program so i believe that that's what it was in reference to um otherwise we don't have any other chat and as i said if someone does want to say something

026feel free i don't know if we'll be able to address it in real time or not so we'll see um if we can if not we'll take note of it and and try and follow up with you uh individually after i just want to make note for the record that our assistant superintendent kate police has also just joined us so hello kate thank you for joining us um so with those things being said um we'll jump over to the fy 22 budget status update and normally i would say at this point that we're waiting for the house ways and means and hot off the presses they have released their cut of the budget um and there's some good things and there's some um concerning things um i think the biggest concern for me is there

027is no s or two use of the mlc offset in this budget i don't know what that means i i don't i don't know if there's something else so we're still waiting um to see what that means um and i'll look forward maybe at our next meeting to hear more or if you know anne marie or dr kazan if you have have any as i said this is just coming off the presses um it does look like there's some additional monies that were put into certain line items regional transportation seems to got a decent amount of funding but of course with the issues with our busing and whatnot i don't know what that means for us so i'm sure ms geister you will take a look at that and and figure out if we need

028to panic or not um i think i saw that circuit breaker um had some some a little bit of additional funding and the inclusion of the special ed transportation as a potential reimbursement if those levels would be would be met again uh there's a lot of moving parts and this is only step two in the process we've got a few more steps to get through i don't know dr kazman do you want to add anything to that as i said it did just come hot off the presses um and and if not i will have you comment on that and i'm going to turn it over to you as well um because the next uh topic with the fy 22 budget is the the district music program update so i'm going to just turn it

029over to you for that uh thank you madam chair i i have to tell you that um i i was you know we were keeping i was keeping track through honestly twitter um through the uh through the masc um she has a fantastic job she literally is at the meeting or she's watching it and she tweets out um in real time so uh but no i did not see that kind of the final uh well the latest version how's that um i don't know the the s or two offset doesn't make sense to me um so i i think that maybe i don't know if ann marino's what what what that's or two offset would be i i ester three would make sense i think if you're going to offset maybe mlc you know like

030they did i don't know so i'm just saying i don't know what uh i don't know what this is they were they were taking it away so whereas the governor said you had to offer your districts the mlc offset yeah house this this version of the budget does not provide for that so there's no offset to the towns for that okay again i don't really know what that means people are too far into this process yeah you know the flickman have voted on things we're ready to go to town that means we would have to re-certify and i yeah so i you know to be honest obviously uh obviously i i don't know i haven't had a chance to read up on it and um julie kelly and company will will do a nice job

031as they always do to um it keeps informed so i don't think i can speak to that although i am pleased to hear that um they've identified some of the problematic areas that we've you know that we've been talking about for years never mind uh during cobit so um you know from that perspective we'll we'll see and i you know i know that emery had a meeting well she had a mars no yeah it was mars meeting maybe um and they spoke about a little bit about i'm sorry masbo not mars masbo meeting so i know that they've you know we'll be getting the ground rules and we're you know they're gearing up and we know that at some time in may we'll abso you know we'll eventually uh receive the um the grand award

032but we're um it's in motion so a lot of things it sounds like a lot of things are up in the air so we'll just wait and see what the final or what what it finally ends up being so excuse me um so the last time we well the last time the full committee met um um you know the the we reviewed um some some of the decisions that uh we made for the fy 22 budget in regards to the music position um at the high school and what what that did and how that translated into ultimately um hiring a physics position um at the high school so during our during the academic subcommittee um we spoke you know in depth or at least more in-depth about some of the reasoning and i don't know

033the philosophy behind it and i think that so some of the feedback that i've received might not be uh and i'm going to have to double back because i don't know that um either either we i was not clear or maybe there was a misunderstanding but um there was you know at some point i think the confusion of the music program first off i want to just say say this that um that folks use the term other words the music program you're cutting the music program um and certainly when i it's not a play on words and i certainly don't want to you know get picky but when you cut the program that mean it no longer exists um we we in fact did uh eliminate a position in the music program uh department uh

034pardon me um and we did so because of needs in other areas but we also did so because quite frankly that we think that we can offer much of what people are are asking for or feel the need uh to have a robust and strong music program um i i think the other confusion was the fact that the reference to um an extracurricular activity and i think that's important for the committee to understand and folks who may be listening is that um in no way certainly suggesting that the music program should be um you know an extracurricular activity what i did say or what i did mean is that that certainly in the areas of band potentially a and i'm talking about band as say the middle school band right um and uh the chorus

035uh for the middle school um uh instrumental lessons have come up quite a bit you know in conversation um that those things could be satisfied after school through you through an in you know through an extracurricular activity um because there there isn't there isn't time necessarily again the staff in the day to do those things because because i think that some folks got the impression that this was happening at the high school the high school still has a chorus program during the day offered and it's a credit bearing they still have a band program which in fact is credit bearing um and so none of those thing none of those two activities i'm just using two of of many um opportunities that for just music um that are that are actually during the day and

036they're a credit bearing and so i think that that's an important that that's an important thing to make sure that we we settle um and that folks are understanding because again what we did talk about quite a bit when in terms of the one of the main areas or reasons that that folks have cited that we had such a strong band program is that instrumental lessons could take place during the school day and they have for years um you know and etc so um that that could not that that could not continue um for a lot of reasons but one you you certainly can't take students out of an academic program in order to fulfill um well in this case lessons or anything else for them and they and actually some of the angst um

037really came from the content area teachers who were losing kids you know maybe during you know instruction again you know this is this is how this was almost three four maybe even maybe four years ago at this point in time so but i think we can satisfy that for you know again in a stipended position which can then very well be um you know we'd have to negotiate that through the union through the ndea because the stipend of positions run through the ndea contract um but certainly we could in you know with the committee we could certainly take this up at some point either this month or next or the next meeting to utilize what is in the contract about adding a stipended position during the contract year i mean there are some steps and

038we did that this year for the nursing if you remember um so we've already we've already kind of invoked that um that rule so i think that um there's a lot to be there's a lot to be said there's a lot to be discussed so what i've asked and i've asked if um if eric could arrange this week and i realized we only have a couple days left of this week but a meeting between myself and the music department um or you know with the finance you know the fine arts folks or whoever would like to be part of that meeting um and obviously we'd probably do it through a zoom so you know we can focus and just address some of their concerns and and i can answer um some of their questions that

039i know that are um that are bouncing out there um at this point in time so in terms of an update um from my perspective uh i i haven't i have not personally uh received information you know that is compelling enough to to um put uh you know to reapply or put the position back in the budget um again you know uh as someone had asked me so you're you know you potentially could receive somewhere up in the area of 1.3 million dollars that's the three and that is a very rough estimate we're not we're not sure people brandish these type of numbers around and we we have not been told and that is that's that's quite a bit of money there's no doubt about that we do have a lot of need and you

040know as we discussed in other in other venues that we might have to push some of that money to fy23 in order to make sure that we are you know we're solving but again these are conversations for another day another time but again i um i certainly would entertain and i don't know what else to say because i don't think my position has changed um but would certainly you know answer any questions that obviously the committee may have and i do see some numbers in the chats going up and down i don't know i can't see i can't see the questions but um so that that's that's that's my position at this point in time or the update yep just just for your information the comment uh was actually from justice graves um and i

041believe it was a response to the comments that we made about the fy 22 budget whereas he says the tenant from town templeton that emphasis empathizes with the committee on the budget that's concerning going into annual town meetings um because he is uh he just clarified that he's a citizen of the town temple this was just clarifying where he was from so that is the comment that showed up so there wasn't anything specific to your commentary dr kazivan i i look forward to you sharing with us if there's anything else to report out on the subject as you start to have more conversations um you know if you want to share does anyone on the committee have any questions or comments at this point um on the district music program update that dr kazzavent gave

042okay i'm looking and i don't see any so i thank you for the update uh dr casavant and and again look forward to any other information you may have going forward if if um if and when you are able to have those discussions and and uh you know we can see what what can be done especially as it relates to some of the um plans that you're talking about um as far as what can be done maybe in an after-school extracurricular time frame maybe to fill some gaps so thank you sure and i certainly don't want to and i want to make sure that i don't know that the nde well this is still there oh and eric i'm sorry i didn't see um square that you know obviously i'm not suggesting that it's a

043done deal it's it's always a it's in the contract it's part of it it's always a conversation you know what i mean but but certainly i think that that would be an avenue that we could possibly take um to help satisfy some of the area of need great thank you okay so if no one on the committee has any questions or comments on this we'll move on to our next item on the agenda which is the business manager's report ms geister as usual has put out her um her files for us to review um so i'll turn it over to you and marie if you want to give us an overview and then we'll see if anyone has any questions sure what i thought i could do tonight is focus more on the grant side

044and all these grants that we keep getting and some of the stuff that we have spent them on um so i'll start with sr1 which was 133 174 dollars we that basically we applied for it last spring it was effective july 1st and most of that was spent on getting us up and running for the fall we purchased a lot of cleaning supplies in ppe with it we used some of it towards some additional sped tuitions that we hadn't budgeted for that came up from last march to the time school started it also paid for a lot of technology supplies to make sure that our remote learning went smoothly and one of the big things that it covered is it provided us with ingenuity which is an online platform for remote learning that gives kids

045more choice so that was our sr1 sr2 as we've heard a lot about um that one was a total of 551 234 dollars and that's the one that we all know about that supposed to have the mlc subsidy that's all voted on that our budget is all planned around it's also covering our budget shortfall for fy22 which was 188 000 and it's providing um three one-year teaching positions to help with smaller class size and learning loss for next year as well as helping us to cover the additional summer programs that we're running this summer to again help learning loss we also have another one that was thrown at us it's the coronavirus prevention money that one is 71 625 and a lot of these monies have to be used within months like this particular one

046just came out in march has to be used by june 30th so this particular one is going to cover one of the additional teachers that the elementary school for the remainder of the year and it's also providing us with um middle school math curriculum which will be for next year as well so then we have another one that we just got um it's rural aid which this is something that we just recently qualified it's it's based on if your district has so many kids per square mile if it's far enough apart you get a little chunk of extra money for the state so that one is fifty seven thousand seven hundred and forty six dollars and that one dr casavant and i have yet to decide on the finalization of what it will cover and

047then as he had mentioned yesterday i sat in on the masbo meeting and the afternoon they spent a lot of time talking about all of the esser funds but all of us the real hot topic is what about sr3 tell us more about it so there's not a lot that they can tell you in detail they just said that the rfp will be out in mid-may to apply they have not released exact numbers they just keep telling us that it's 2.2 percent more than your s or 2 and to start planning for things and the big one that this grant is to cover is 20 of the whatever number we get must be used to address learning loss and again this one could be applied for you could use it now till june 30th but

048we're opting to start ours and apply for it effective july 1st and that way it could potentially carry into fy 23 as well once we figure out what the plan is to address all of the requirements that are going to come with it which other than the 20 that's the only one i know of now but i'm sure it's coming with a lot more that we just don't know about yet so i don't know if anyone has any questions on any of that does anyone on the committee have any questions i don't see any thank you for that um detail on those those grants there is a lot of money out there that has been talked about but i don't think people understand the timing of a lot of that money um and how we

049are constrained with the uses so that was very helpful thank you um it'll be uh we interested to hear what you think we can use that rural school aid grant on because i know the parameters of that are very narrow um it's great to get money um i apologize my dog's barking um but uh sometimes it's hard when you have a very narrow street that you can go down to spend it so looking forward to hearing more about that um anyone have any other questions for ms geister on the numbers as they stand okay i'm looking to know i think in our next meeting we'll start to discuss um some of the wrap-up for fy21 we talk about i know we need to talk about line item transfers and um borrowing uh in advance of

050of uh anticipated revenue or receipts and whatnot so we'll do all that at our our next meeting i believe uh in may that will handle a lot of that that housekeeping detail um so we look forward to more information at our next meeting on that from youth so thank you okay so next up we have covid19 updates i know there's several items that we do need to actually vote on so i'm what i'm going to do is turn this over to dr casavant he can go through the list and when we need to stop and take a vote he can make a recommendation and the committee can decide if we'd like to vote on a couple of the actionable items so over to you thank you madam chair um well just as um the way

051of an update the elementary school um we're in week two um and honestly it's about as smooth as it could possibly be day one was a little rough day two was better and by day three um we were right on time so um of course not without any hiccups or bumps you know folks are and our parents have been great and i and they have been very understanding um you know dropping kids off at nine o'clock or thereabouts is difficult um but right now we don't have and we've talked about this a lot but we didn't we don't have the staff to run off you know run the building as we normally would so all the prep periods have to be in the morning and the teachers have handled that well and the parents have

052too so in terms of um in terms of an update honestly it's been um it's been great and that is in fact it is a direct credit uh to the of course the staff um and um emily and courtney um who you know have i don't know they have the patience of joe but they really do so they uh they have done a fantastic job so as eric um you know it said earlier we just there's nothing but praise just all the way around it's an incredibly hard job and honestly at times they make it look easy uh and i don't and i don't know how they do that i don't but they do so we're very lucky to have the few folks that we have in terms of the middle school high school return

053we have been working you know just since almost since the elementary got got in we've we have literally scoured every corner of that district for extra chairs and um tables and you know to make sure that we have enough obviously seats and chairs our primary tables to go around and i'm happy to say that as of right now we we do for the kids that for the students we know that are going to come back who have indicated that they're going to come back on monday um april 26th um and and that of course is grades 5 through 12 for us and so we you know on monday will be full we'll be back now what we anticipate and we talked about that today game planned it with the templeton pd and our entire admin

054staff is that you know just because they're middle school and high school kids and parents doesn't mean that during the first day of school that there aren't you know confusion and um and you know back backlog of cars and just forgetting how to do it we we get it and we understand and we're ready we're ready we're ready to roll um so so i think and you know you don't know until you know but i think we're as prepared um as we can possibly be and both the middle school and the high school have been working extremely hard to make sure that they've thought of every possible you know nuance to this move and done a great job so i think it just kind of got lost in the wash so to speak um is

055that fall to athletic fee in spring athletic well and spring is coming well it's here but we think um but uh you know we one is what we we discussed about waiving the fees for athletics um and for all or any extracurriculars that are happening and so what i would recommend is that the committee would vote you know after the fact but obviously fall two um and uh the upcoming spring um athletic and extracurricular fees uh you know for the for those activities moving forward uh to uh close out the year so i'll just pause it that i would imagine madam chair so great um so with that being said um as dr kazamat said it was just an oversight that we actually didn't take a formal vote on fall two we actually discussed it

056said no we'll do it when it gets closer and we forgot to circle back on that one um so with that being said um i would entertain emotion um to and we'll we can do both of them together unless someone doesn't want to make a motion as such but i would entertain a motion to have an athletic fee waiver for both fall 2 and spring athletics so i have a motion by mr mason do i have a second second okay okay and i think that was mr marks jumped in right before mrs cosil um any questions or comments okay i do just want to say for the record we have waived every season so far so this is consistent with what we've done so this isn't something new just for these two seasons so if

057there's no other questions or comments we will do roll call vote mrs robicham yes mrs chartier yes mrs cosil yes mr mason aye mr marks yes and misses you i'm going to actually abstain because my son is in um the program so i'm going to abstain from voting on that um but the motion does carry with five yes and one uh abstain so it does pass that the athletic fees for both fall to and spring will be waived this year so we'll turn it back over to you dr caspian thank you um another uh issue that is i know is permeated in some in some areas is the miaa tournament eligibility so the miaa has an academic standard in terms of courses being failed and eligibility etc and of course our own district has those

058standards and we follow um the the eligibility rules so in essence what what what happens is districts have to sign on and say that hey you know we're following we we plan to follow the eligibility rules if you don't then what happens is that teams cannot go to the to a tournament which is really the playoffs okay so you you would literally have to forfeit any chance um going to uh to playoffs now interestingly uh none of our sports seasons have had even the the option for um playoffs or tournament as a matter of fact the miaa itself waived um the requirement into you know in totality i believe it was for fall one um if i've got all my sports seasons correct but it was it was certainly the beginning of the year um

059apparently there has been some districts who have just outwardly um you know just refuted and said we're not we're not following the miaa you know eligibility uh terminal eligibility we'll just simply wave it now and that has created some some angst um so i wanted to be clear that my position on this from a philosophical standpoint is that um the mia has tournament eligibility um you know in in by the way some districts have received letters that they were in violation apparently um so ultimately i have a problem with the miaa really uh you know seriously on the last quarter of school or the last half of the school year um saying that you know so now it's now uh we're now going to enforce the eligibility either you're going to from the beginning of

060year on or not that's again my personal um take on this we also know that um you know i would normally say the word students in this in this next phrase but i'm going to say every human being that i know certainly has had a difficult go when it comes to covet and how we've had to educate and live and handle and travel and do all these things or not travel whatever the case may be and and so you know we have quite of every district in this state right now has reported higher than normal failure rates now i'm going to stop and say that i know for a fact that our our teachers our staff have gone i don't know a hundred miles above and beyond um to make sure that they are trying

061to reach out to students and do they have done more than more than enough they have i have heard stories from actually parents and kids who said yeah you know mrs so and so called me at 6 30 at night wondering you know i mean they're going above and beyond and some kids just are not respond do not respond well to either you know they're living in conditions that are just um just unthinkable or they're just they need school and we can't offer it so so my point about it is that it it is not a matter of the teachers just arbitrarily just going around and failing i i really think it's it's one of those things about it is certainly coveted related this district from the very beginning has stayed with the process we've

062we have done what we have done for years you know far as i know years but certainly the last couple is that we put students on plans academic plans and there's a whole litany of things that you have to do to be on this plan and so if you know if you stay on the plan and you meet all the markers of the plan academically depending on whatever the course is that you you'll well they've made sure that you'll earn you'll you'll do well you'll you'll be able to pass or do do better um achieve but if you don't follow the plan then then you in the term ends and you've failed the class for example that the plan was to hopefully you know help you um achieve a passing grade then it's not like

063those students get to keep keep playing so so i think that there was some confusion about this because i think some thought um one if they you know grade a plan but you're not you're not even holding anybody accountable because they keep playing that's not true the students that were on plans and did not successfully uh meet the you know complete the plan or follow it um achieve it whatever you want to say they they're not playing they're not they're not ethnic not athletically eligible the kids who may have failed for the first time this year or this this year for this term or two that they've been put on plans there was certainly a lag of time so what i want to say to you is that there was a certainly a practice or

064a game in between where i had to make a decision about what what the district was going to do um and that certainly wasn't on purpose because you know folks are not following the plan that the teachers have put forth and they don't deserve to i mean i say don't deserve but you know these teachers are working pretty hard so what i wanted to make the the committee aware of is that we have followed the process that we've always followed um we've given kids the option the opportunity to and our teachers have have to buy into this as well and for those kids who just can't or i should think positively for those students who who take on the challenge and follow the plan then they'll be they'll remain eligible those who do not won't

065so in essence we probably will not be eligible for tournament play in a sense because again it's a little bit of a gray area about what the the miaa expects um we i believe that we are following the um the eligibility rules but in but in the end though um if if um the miaa or someone has a problem the way we have dealt with this then um then we won't be eligible for the tournament which happens in july and i have to tell you quite frankly we've already spoke to kids you know we don't nobody wants to go into july to play a you know a um a playoff game right and our coaches agree we start getting into some weird some rarefied air so there's really no i don't believe this uh man

066of chair there's a vote to be taken i think that it's sim i'm just informing you of that there's other there are other situations going around uh going on around us that are not are not similar and i certainly wanted to make sure i delineated um uh our situation versus whatever some other district may be no i think you're correct that we we don't really need to take it um but thank you for that update on um how we're handling the situation it's it's tough times um for everybody in a lot of situations and um you know as we've always said um athletics uh and other extracurricular needs are sometimes the kid to participate so it's good to hear that we're still working with with all of those uh students and it sounds like we're

067taking the right course of that yeah holding but still holding them accountable is what i want to make sure that people understand this is not you know we're still doing it but we also understand that this has just been unprecedented and it's just been very difficult for everyone so um okay so the next is the fy 21 school year calendar adjustment so when when we've when the school committee voted to adjust the calendar as it is today in which we started you know 10 days 10 school days later and um we took out all of the uh half days for pd and and that was done back prior to the start of school we had no we had no idea that we would then on a lot of levels one be required to take mcas

068um be back in this configuration we always hope to be back in full um but uh we've we've got some situations in which we are going to need to well my request to the uh to the committee um is that we add three half days uh in the month of may one of them is voting day for templeton so in which falls on the 17th i have to get my notes because i've screwed these dates up a couple times so just keep there with you here so the 17th is voting day and of course we use the middle school gym for the voting machines so in in essence they'll we really don't have an option that has to be a half day um voting doesn't start till roughly around 11 we'll be um we won't

069have again remember the our gym is our cafeteria now so we have you know we have table set up in there and so we're going to have to um flip that into of course the voting station the other two and i started with the 17th because that's the one one important date that's really in a sense not negotiable because the voting has to take place the other dates are may 4th which is a tuesday in may 28th which is a friday prior to memorial day and these days are important because there's a couple of things going on all at the same time one we may need the all these buildings cleared because we might have um mcas makeups now the state has been clear that at least at the elementary and middle school that tests

070will be given virtually they can take them online i should say um but that's not the case we think because not all of this has come out yet but at the high school level we know that the 10th grade is a non they they must take the 10th grade and they're they're going back and forth so right now we're trying to figure it out but what we know is if they have to do it in person we may not have enough space because we have to with everybody still there then there's also the issue of creating summer school and um which is quite an endeavor because we are opening the plans to open that up just you know to um a lot of kids and this is not the traditional i want to make sure

071i say this because i've received several emails that this is not um the summer program in which you know kids um and you know have like it's like it's summer camp right that we've that we've held for years that's not what we're talking about this is the the um the way in which we're going to help um you know close some of the gaps that that covet has you know potentially created academically so we're going to need this time to do that um and so it made sense to and again we tried to space them out and over the window of testing the testing window the month of may so in case at different times if we needed um needed the opportunity to either provide space for testing etc so obviously being a change to

072the calendar uh the existing calendar uh my recommendation um or my uh my request is that um the three dates the fourth the 17th and the 28th of may be half days for for students and i have to make sure i make sure i said that that's not for staff that that's for students okay so with that um introduction i would um i'll entertain a motion and then we can discuss if there's any questions after the motions made so i would entertain a motion to um approve may 4th may 17th and may 28th as half days for the students and adjust our fy 21 calendar as such so do i have a motion so moved i have a motion by mrs cosil do i have a second i think that was mr mason we'll go

073with um any questions or comments on that change okay prior to voting i just want to announce for the record that mr marx had to leave the meeting i believe it was about 5 50 or so 5 45 and i think mrs barney's got the exact time for the minutes but i did want to announce that he has left so um we will do a roll call vote on this mrs robichaud yes mrs chartier yes this is cozia yes mr mason aye and mrs hughes says yes so that was unanimous and we have approved the addition of the three half days i'm going to save the dates one more time just in case the public's watching uh may 4th may 17th and may 28th uh there'll be student half days added to the calendar so

074i will turn it back over to you dr kevin thank you very much um and last and not least and i and i've kind of prefaced this through the to the previous um uh topic is that um the update is that we've um we've posted and we've um for teachers and staff alike um for the summer program and kate would you mind speaking to this just a little bit uh because obviously you've been a part of that planning of that sure so um mrs sultezak ms bachand mr holloway and i have been working together to plan a summer program on one side we're focusing on very targeted interventions for students who are struggling in reading in elementary on the other side we have um for students who are struggling who have ieps so so both

075populations will be invited the students that will be invited um on on the intervention side will be based on on data that we have from mid-year from star reading we're also going to do additional testing to validate those results and the survey should go to parents this friday hopefully we'll have a probably a three week window for people to accept a slot in the summer program it's going to be five weeks three weeks three days a week for five hours so it'll be a good opportunity for students to receive some additional support in reading we have a list of you know staff from the district who have um indicated that they're interested in participating we have some outside interviews that mr holloway has set up excuse me for the um i believe it's monday and

076tuesday after april vacation so i think you know our program is is well on the way um to providing supports to students this summer mixing both the special education portion and the intervention for um students who are struggling who don't have an iep great thank you uh kate for for that update it sounds like there's been a lot of behind-the-scenes planning going on um and we look forward to uh more information obviously as you start to really nail down what what all the um what what all these sorry laughing at our dog mrs charney my cat was just in the film so um anyway um but we look forward to hearing more as those plans get nailed down um and i i do just want to say because we did have a finance meeting uh

077subcommittee meeting last night and we were talking about you know just the the resource issue that we've got a bunch of teachers out there who have been you know working at 250 percent and normally those are the people who we continually tap into to help with these uh things such as summer school and whatnot and um and the concern about having those resources um and i just want to you know say up front that um i'm certainly it's appreciative of of the commitment of the staff as i'm sure that as you post thing items and and have the teachers respond that they're interested um because it's in the again the best interest of our students it is if if i could just say i'd like to give a shout out to um kim chenoweth and

078suita who are our normal under normal normal conditions our interventionists at templeton elementary and they have been very very helpful in this process because they're the experts you know in this area and we're really looking to them for their help and they've really stepped up with that so they deserve a little thank you great and i'm just going to kind of jump ahead with one comment because i know that we um you had presented um a couple of months ago the first star assessments and some data i think we've got it on the agenda for our next meeting so i think that's going to be a great thing to go hand in hand um with more information on our summer school program right where we are so we'll we look forward to hearing about what

079we've seen and the tools that we have which which to me is i think the most exciting part of it um so often we we know there's an issue but we can never put our finger on exactly what it is and now we have these tools in place and the people focused on it um so thank you to you and your team and everyone that's involved in figuring out what we need to provide and then of course making it happen madam chandler the one uh i just have one more thing under covid because uh this has to do with so if you remember ashley niggle uh who was our school psychologist uh for the high school who she came before the committee not only to introduce itself but to talk about the biomass um uh

080surveys which really you know in short um you know identify any potential you know issues with kids social emotional self-harm etc so we and it's a lot of work and it's one more thing that our teachers and ours and and our uh our guidance counselors etc you know had to do and it's a lot of work but i want to i want to give you this so um ashley reported out today that the um that the they did the first wave of this and um several students identified as needing to be checked in with um but in short one child um identified and was at the level in which they were at um at serious concern um to self-harm um they they did the follow-up interview um and you know they it was determined that

081that child was you know having such a difficult time that um that they that really some deep interventions need to take place but i without going into too much i need to make because this is true um that there was a plan self-harm um that was it was evident and as ashley put it in we've already heard back but that saved a life today and and so people say things like this i think that they mean them in the grand scope of things and but legitimately this this program this this assessment saved a life so you know when folks say about you know the kind of work that people are doing every single day um academics i mean i think we'd all agree that academics falls very short um when it comes to um the

082important piece which we also we all know it's social emotional right in in the well-being of all of our kids right um and and our adults and our staff um but the kind of things that people that we're doing here um you know mean a great deal and i and i have to say this one to make sure that this isn't something that someone's writing a paper about um our staff are working extremely hard in what i would say to the staff through eric who's with us still and lisa is that certainly a thank you of course but you know the actions of all the hard work right to make that happen literally save the life this week and that um you know if no matter what we talk about the rest of the night

083before or after that um that's what that's what that's the work that we do in schools um and and so i want to make sure i say that under the covid piece because you know we certainly could tie the two together i'm not a you know psychiatrist or but i'm sure that a lot of it had to do with that and that's that's the important work that folks are doing here um and i uh i thank you ma'am chair for indulging me one more bullet but i i i wanted to make sure that and that was new news to us today so uh you know a thank you to everyone but um you know that's that's the kind of work that every single one of these staff members are doing every day great thank you

084for for sharing that because it is important information and it's important i think for for people to know that you know we're the focus that we have is is on the whole child it's a holistic view and all of the pieces work together and how important you know every person who is in our buildings um how they truly are to each and every student and the impact they have and and again having these tools um are instrumental in in helping us um and i i probably shouldn't include us as because you guys are the ones there with your hands on um and making it successful so thank you for sharing that that was a very good information to share okay so i i think if that's all for covet updates um because we will touch

085on i'm sure a few other things as we go through um we do have the fy 22 school year calendar that we need to vote on it was presented for review at la the last meeting we had two calendars that were brought forth one was a plan to start before labor day and the second was the plan to start after labor day um i know dr casavant you were tasked once again to get your calendar committee together so i would uh take a recommendation from you on which calendar the committee and yourself and your team um would be recommending for us to approve so it's the greatest committee in the land um and i'll tell you it's a great nice seat two of them are on two of them are here so uh but it

086is it's a great committee they think they they do it's it's a great group of thinkers i'm not joking because thinking about this type of thing and of course anne-marie is i'm a huge part of that as well so the recommendation quite frankly is to start before if you allow me susan uh to share the screen i could pull it up real quick if if you want misuse but anyway if can i do that susan or yes hold up that would be great if you would share yeah i will definitely i just couldn't uh whoops oh oh okay yep oh okay okay it should be set yep so and we again like we do every year we um we attempt to um we attempt to give you two calendars and i'm gonna do my very

087best because it's a little bit different looking at this but anyway um i'm gonna try to share again see what happens oh man okay well i'm gonna share the desktop and see what happens all right and boom all right look at that so i'll do my best here so is this it is this before yes yes 8 30. so what we have here is before so um ultimately that the um the teacher pd days the two would start uh would be on the 26th and 27th of our august um uh first day back for um students k12 will be the 30th and um you know normally you know again there's a lot of information in these calendars so i never i'm not certainly going to go over point by point but if i were to

088attempt to see if i can find the other one the other calendar um would start with well it would start after labor day and quite frankly that's a late that's a late labor day this year we wouldn't start until the seventh so you know we're talking the balance of the third is off so one two three four so if you again if the last day was the 14th one two three you'd be in well you'd be in that following week of the week of the 20th of june so again there's a lot the rest of the stuff really wouldn't change much in terms of the pd days or that a lot of this is just i don't say boilerplate but contractual or standard practice okay so um does anybody have any questions um about the

089two calendars uh for dr kaz event and i'm just gonna i've got a screen uh scroll down let's see oops okay sorry my my um i did something to my view and i lost everybody here we go now i think i think i have everybody on the screen sorry about that um does anybody have any questions before um we go ahead with a motion since we do have the two different options i wanted to make sure that um we provided the question up front prior to someone making a motion okay seeing none um i'll do this and if nobody uh goes ahead and motions then we will go ahead and have further discussion but based on the recommendation of dr casavant as well as the calendar committee i would entertain a motion to approve the

090fy 22 school year with the calendar that begins prior to labor day so i have a motion by mr mason do i have a second second and i have a second bye i think it was mrs cosil but mrs charlie you were right behind her um any questions or comments on that calendar um beginning prior to labor day seeing none we will do a roll call vote uh mrs robichaud yes mrs chartier yes yes mr mason oop you're muted hi and mrs hughes says yes so we have approved um the fy 22 calendar with the start date prior to labor day as presented so i'm certain now that um dr casavant yourself and mrs varney or whoever will get a finalized version out there on the website for people to be able to view so

091thank you and and thanks to the committee once again for coming forward i i have to say it's always um when i think about when i first started on the committee and the challenges of getting to a calendar that this creation of the calendar committee makes this such um much more wonderful process it's easy uh we as the committee know that it's it's uh been fully vetted by everybody who participates in the calendar um so we truly appreciate everybody's time and and input into making the recommendation so thank you okay uh with that being said do we have any school committee comments at this point okay i don't i would just like to thank everyone for all their hard work our administrators our teachers our custodians cafeteria workers bus drivers everyone i'm so proud of

092this district we've done so well thank you thank you for those words mrs koshel um anybody else want to share anything okay i don't see anybody uh with any comments at the moment so we will go on to some new business at this point we do have some surplus items um they are posted on the agenda um i'm i'm gonna read through them there's there's a few but i i just because with this new way of doing things i'm not sure who can see what um or actually if um are we able to share the list um that i can put up there and reference how about if i do it um because i'm on it right now so okay yeah it's on the agenda if you want to just share it's just there's a

093lot of them and i don't want to spend 20 minutes reading through a list of items if you give me one second i have to get back into the and share and then i have to go back oh gosh let's see how this works out now um okay there's that and then do i oh okay i gotta move this i'm sorry i'm having trouble with the um the home hold on before nope nope nope i just had it i don't know where it went it was going to open up your board yeah it was it was in board docks and i had it and i don't know where it went now hold on ah there it is can you see it i hope yep okay so um we are looking to surplus um some items

094that are as presented so i'm going to ask dr kazmi just kind of scroll through that list i don't have to read them they are posted out for the public um on our agenda so that you can go ahead and take a look if you have any specific questions um but it starts with monitors um and then there's a whole bunch of obsolete equipment and then there's a bunch of broken equipment um and then i think down the very bottom we've got um a refurbished pellet stove and a hopper and some pellets and this husky truck bed toolbox um so we would we would um motion to have these surplused and we follow the uh surplus guidelines i believe we have to put this out to the get first pick at town's list and then

095if nobody wants it then there's an official surplus um process that we can use to attempt to sell uh or dispose of anything that has no value so with that being said i would entertain a motion to um surplus the items as presented i have a motion from mr mason do i have a second second and i have a second i'll do mrs fraudier this time um any questions or comments on those items that are on the list seeing none we will do roll call vote mrs robichaud yes mrs chartier yes mrs cosil yes mr mason hi and mrs hughes says yes so that was unanimous so we can go ahead and move forth with the surplus of those items so thank you and and i do just want to put out there too thank

096you to everyone involved in in inventorying what we have and making sure that we do get rid of um items that are of no value no you know can't be utilized because i believe way back when we used to have some closets full of things um that had never been addressed so it's really important especially when we're space challenged as such um that we have someone on top of of all of these things so thank you to everybody involved in keeping an eye on these things okay so next up is end of year activities dr kazmet i'm going to throw this over to you we finally got guidance yep so um let me just start off right off the bat that the um the states um you know i'm laughing because they you know they

097don't they don't want you well they've said look we don't know about prom but if you want it it's on you and if you know we'd rather you not but if you do have it have it at the end of the month so you know in terms of so really what the guidance is is that if it really boils down to the district uh and of course member towns and in their you know their ability to do so safely it's let me just i can wrap up the entire guidance literally in that fashion um and so what we decided and we've had a lot of conversation about this as you can imagine um and i wish i wish the two seniors were still here and i realized it's they've got stuff to do but um

098this this is the efforts of um miss uh miss fliss and uh miss connolly who who worked i i don't know how many hours to figure this all out so this the the the summary is that we plan to have the uh all of the activities and we're gonna do so in the safest of ways i wanna hopefully you can see it down so i'll try to go through this and um kate if if i miss something just just let me know um but the goal is if i'm if i'm to get the most important part of this entire process is graduation period right so graduation is what we had in mind um and we really worked back from from there now for some students um prom is the most important thing ever uh but

099you know but graduation is is is what we're here for okay so let me just i think it might be it might be easier to start at the bottom right at the end so to speak and go okay graduation has to happen outside um what we know is that uh people can uh families can pod and utilize not only the bleachers um but the the um the field itself if if we all remember back to september when we have the um the joint town meeting outside we really use that as our frame so to kind of put it in perspective i want to i want to bring your attention um right off the bat i'm sorry my curse was in the wrong place that right here okay we have several dates because we have to

100have rain dates in our normal world we would just say oh it's going to be on so and so day and if it rains we'll just move it inside well we know that we can't do that so we have three rain dates okay june 4th is the graduate as i'm sorry is rehearsal but we have um raid dates of june 5th um i'm sorry yeah and sorry june 11th and you can see that um right off the bat we have these dates okay right off the bat okay so that's what we worked our way into prom you will notice is after why because we did not want to do something that would jeopardize graduation um or you know or do the very best that we could so you will see that and i have to

101actually look at this right june 18th um is the junior senior prom which it says the colonial hotel but it's in a tent behind the colonial hotel that's just a physical location um and so the so right off the bat you see that date wednesday june 16th i know i'm kind of hopping around a bit but i wanted to get to graduation which is the most important thing and then for the kids this is their most important thing for for many of them is that it will be held in the 18th but there will be this student pool testing so we've been we've been going back and forth gathered a lot of information i think currently there might be and i certainly i can't check with them all um but uh all the districts that

102it's really either or right some districts are not having prom whatsoever um but the the folks who are having prom are in fact having pool testing um a couple days before in order to mitigate any you know any issues that potentially um take place i will tell you that um i didn't have i didn't see mariah um our nurse leader but uh there is quite a few kids who already have signed up for in other words they they already do pool testing anyway so this is not um this is not like a big stretch um the other part just a couple things is that we will not be allowing anyone from another district to attend so if your partner is you know from a neighboring town no the answer is no um we're keeping it

103and by the way that is a pre-standard across the districts whom have who um who've also decided to have to have prom as well um we are also again given the dates in which after graduation some folks you know kind of worry that you know there's not a lot of um well normally you know you can hold graduation you know if someone decided to not act you know not make some good decisions um but the fact is that we're also looking into um which which we've done i am told in the past but certainly districts do it all the time is uh doing the breathalyzer as well i'm just given the fact that it's going to be so many days afterwards and we're we're still talking about that so i wanted to really get that

104out in the open first and i certainly will go back to the others okay but i i felt that it might be best to kind of stay here and answer any questions that folks may have about graduation right there and of course prom great thank you anyone on the committee have any questions about how they're looking to handle what is it june 4th would be the the hopeful date of graduation that evening with two rain dates and then pushing prom till after school's over to mitigate some of the risks that could potentially be associated um does anybody have any questions or comments on that okay i don't see any right now i'm sure as people start to think about you know what that might mean an additional guidance absolutely or may not come out yep

105right so let me go back to what i would say the more uh you know the more i don't say traditional but the the other events so i'm going to go all the way back and again i want to start with it with the big items um so ultimately the last day of academics for the seniors will be may 26th all financial obligations this is really kind of standard stuff okay tuesday may 25th we're going to have the senior athletic awards if i forget to say this it's written down but i want to say this for every single one of these events that i'm going to speak about today okay with with the exception of with the possible exception of the baccalaureate we're still trying to check this one out but we are going to

106live stream it okay so if i forget to say that in any of these um situations um then but please uh please know that any of the type of awards or those type of things we are going to live stream at the same time they're also going to happen in the auditorium because we can pod there easier it quite frankly we can hold something like 600 people again this is seat to seat what we already know because we've done it for the town meeting that we can we can do pods of peop of families safely um our kids can sit up you know up front but we won't be able to invite the entire you know family so if you have you know you know we're hopeful and we have to get some information but

107at least one if and i'm very sure of two parents will be able to go it just won't be an opportunity for six kids grandma grandpa that type of thing because then we're going to start exceeding um you know that that buffer zone so so anyway that's that's how we're going to set it up and the athletics uh awards what happened in the auditorium on tuesday look at the time may on may 25th at 10 a.m and the reason is because we're going to need time afterwards to then to to spread you know honestly to do the the sanitization and do those those type of things now we know it's during the school day um but what we'll do is we will create a when i say a separate entrance it if you're thinking of

108the middle school think of the middle school and there's the door that we used to um well there's a tree stop right next to it how's that i mean it's right there next to the art room we were talking about the stump the other day so um we'll be able to grant their own access quite frankly um and we'll make sure that everything is you know uh taken care of and we'll go down the stairs and if someone needs to use the the ramp of course we'll be able to make that accommodation um so that's the senior athletic awards thursday may 27th um will be 8 30 to 10 a.m okay so i mean the the survey the caps and gowns records book bills all of that stuff is just really kind of and the

109senior car parade okay so that's what i meant to say first the scenic car parade will happen and we're still working out that out with the um with both towns like we did last year that was a huge hit uh it was uh people have said that please do this every year quite frankly so we're going to give it a shot and then we're going to um we'll we'll more information to come on that and as you can see um low health risk event popular last year uh tuesday june 1st is the baccalaureate service um and it's the first church of templeton the dress is formal we're still um we we have to check on that in terms of any type of um live stream but we just haven't had a chance to uh you

110know get to that academic excellence this is going to happen at the camelot like it has over the years it's by invitation only um and so the food is included but it's going to be for small potted families and it's a we've have improved by the the board of health um the health is a condensed window of time to reduce the possibility of coba transmission prior to graduation so ultimately what we've what you remember um is you know bunches of family sitting around your table and you have like a you know folks myself and we're really going to cut it down to just the essential folks which of course are the kids um the the parents one or two we gotta again we're looking at numbers and probably just the high school administration um or

111you know guidance or something to that effect we're still working that part out but it'll be just the minimum and yes we are looking into the uh again to live stream it as well okay so we're again connectivity and those type of things uh wednesday june 2nd 9am will be the rehearsal for awards scholarship night which would be in the auditorium again i'm going to just um it's a rehearsal for the award scholarship night but basically same same premises i've talked about um above okay and let's see sorry the actual well the actual um award ceremonies at six i'm sorry so you know so it's gonna work just like the athletic awards and it'll be in the auditorium and of course that'll be after hours anyway so all of this has been carefully planned it's

112been vetted we have checked with everyone um did i miss the barbecue yeah i think it was yes i did i'm sorry i did so on i the rehearsal was at nine and i skipped over the um the chicken barbecue it's an outdoor event um and again we're gonna well if folks have been to the the barbecue before that's a huge um you know area with the with the picnic tables well it'll just be for of course again parents um um the kids themselves um the graduates and and and some faculty of course to round it off but not like it's been in the past where just you know just everyone is is you know is coming you know the entire family so but i think there's more to be told about that that will

113not be recorded by the way just so we know i will not be live streamed um so i i know i jumped around a bit but i wanted to start at the bottom first to kind of give you the idea of why we were doing what we were doing okay does anybody have any comments or questions on this uh slate of events mrs cosil yes and referring to graduation will there be a limited number of um guests that the seniors can have yes i think that um you know i don't want to i don't want to speak out of turn but the pot is more than just the pot itself is is more than just mom and dad in other words two i shouldn't say it that way for two i i don't remember the

114exact amount but we know that we can spread out a lot there so um that's more to come on that but it's more than just say two for sure lunenberg has five so i just yeah it's something to that effect but we we have a small class this year which again helps us in the sense that you know with the total number of kids and you know the space that we have not only the bleachers holds a thousand people again sitting next to each other but utilizing the same configuration we did for the joint town meeting we would back up to say almost at you know midfield you're almost at the 50 think about it because you'll have all the kids at six or three whatever behind so we know that we can fit a

115lot of people thank you i think the official guidance from the commissioner said no more than six per student right yeah i think it's going to go i wanted to say six i think we can max out so to speak but i didn't want to i i would like for i have to check on co with colby on that yeah and i know you know and they they really have not introduced any additional protocols other than they want the list of everyone there and all that the stuff that we have continually had to do in order to have these events so um anyone else have any questions comments okay um seeing none thank you has this information i mean obviously tonight we're in a public meeting so this has been put out there has this

116been sent out to uh the senior class um to for reviews so they can start penciling things on calendars i don't i you know what i don't believe so because i believe that they're they're probably trying to answer the question about and maybe they already have i don't want to over i don't want to misspeak i think mr young was waiting to see how it went yeah yeah i wanted to yes for sure we introduced it to the kid to the seniors okay well it certainly seems that as a committee um you know we really don't have a lot of comments other than you know great job putting this together as we all know that this class has um has had a difficult time with just getting into the building so trying to come up

117with a way to deliver all of the events and what they you know would like to have um you know kudos to everybody for coming up with land to put that in place that'll keep everyone safe really give these kids that that you know closure that they need that i i know you know speaking from experience with my daughter it was tough last year not to have so it's really exciting to see that we're going to move forward with all of these so they deserve it um and are in our again they keep talking about our staff but they you know uh especially two of kady and oh gosh they have they have worked so hard um and mandy to make because they've had to change plans 13 times you know so but they've done

118a great job and our kids are fantastic they understand the importance and they know that they've um a lot of hard work so thank you excellent thank you and and yeah we look forward to hearing more and um you know obviously if there's anything that the committee can do um you know just uh let us know as you always do so thank you okay so next up um we didn't have anything come up within 48 hours um before for the agenda so we'll go to the superintendent report and we've just got a few things there i know dr kazmi you've spoken a lot but i do know we do want to talk about enrollment and school choice um and especially the fy 22 school choice so i'll throw it over to you to handle um

119the items and we'll go from there nope there we go um thank you madam chair i think the important part is to understand that you know in terms of our um enrollment you know we've you know we've gone up we've talked about that during the budget presentation um we know that we have close to [Music] uh i think only four school choice students came back since this whole you know coming you know going full in person we thought moore would maybe they still will but as of right now only i believe four um so that means that roughly close to 100 are still school choice again 50 thereabouts are folks that we've we've had consistently so in terms of our enrollment it stayed it stayed it stayed very you know level um i should say

120it from the last time we spoke which is around um was it 1360 i think at this point so we're it makes sense if that many kids are schooled uh i think i said school choice i might just say homeschooled if i said school choice i meant to say homeschool permit um so right off the bat i would say that there has been no change and we would not see change this time of the year anyway or any dramatic spikes we watched um folks to come back um from uh from to too full from from remote and many have but home school has stayed pretty consistent the idea of um school choice now i am saying school choice the right way um one of the biggest uh bones of contention with folks is that they're

121living here and they move and then again we've talked about this endlessly that gen what the faq from if we have not if we don't if we haven't even opened up school choice we don't have any type of wait list etc then we have to pick a time which you know to make sense a natural break for them to really move schools and a lot of i spoke to a parent just a week ago and you know they're going to have to move schools at the end of april vacation okay normally we would have kept them school choice in place just to you know to bring us all back up to speed my recommendation so but at the elementary regardless we have no room so we are full as we know we only have four

122teachers per grade it doesn't look that right now because we we have these s or monies in order to reduce class size but that's not a consistent funding source and we know that so we're anywhere between 28 and 30 um kids per class if in fact we did not have these extra staff members um teachers uh to round it out so there truly isn't there is no room um to even consider school choice at the elementary school at the middle school we are we we have pockets but again uh it we we're pretty full at the high school we do we do have regardless of when i say regas of cobat i don't mean if we were in this configuration but under normal configuration we do in fact have room to accept school choice at

123the high school level i think my recommendation would be as follows because i don't know first off we don't know what our configuration is going to be we do not know if i'm going to be in the same configuration or back to normal whatever this means or something else so i in thinking about this and thinking about the faq and speaking with folks about this it makes sense to for the following is to is to um open the district for school choice okay but i think that we create wait lists for every grade so what do i mean by that so miss varney will tell you that we'll most certainly get 15 kindergarten to request school choice okay we would say under normal condition would say no no we don't but maybe what we do

124is we say we have we have a waitlist if in fact you know if something should change or whatever the case is that we could reconsider then we would we would we would have to explain that this that we're not going to ex that it's not eminent and it we have two opportunities in which to do this beginning the school year in uh in november i believe um you have to kind of read you know you have to kind of uh reshuffle them or then not take any but my point is that if you created a wait list for every for every grade then then you if folks want to stay in the wait list they could if for some reason we had space and i wouldn't mean like one for one right but if

125we had space then we could entertain the idea of keeping one but what i what it really means quite frankly is that the child whom in my example has been here for four years okay they move and it's april it's april first okay um then and the seat has already been taken you know the seat has already been you know we already know that that child has been in that seat forever that really allows the child to to stay here quite frankly right under school choice but we know that the seat is not you know we don't we we're not um we're not pushing someone else out now granted that per if there's still a wait list they would have to go to the back of the wait list right that's how it goes so

126what do i mean if there are five people still hanging on in april right for the kindergarten i'm just making that up and my parents move and they say what can you do and we've already we've got the wait list established well then that child by by statute would go to the end right with the end of the list sorry it's the lottery the lottery now they changed it so they would be on the list but it's not a guarantee it's going to be moderate to a lottery yeah i'm sorry i meant not to list the lottery thank you and so you that's what happens right at that point in time other than that folk i honestly i think but at the high school level i know and we still are looking at our numbers

127what they are because we still don't know uh i think the letters just went out today as a matter of fact for money tech that's my understanding so i don't i don't know i don't know who i don't know how many or anything like that but so i would say open for the high school you know and then we would make that determination once we get there but other than that i i don't see that you could open school choice k through eight without doing something like i just you know clumsily explained so so if i may try to just encapsulate what what what the recommendation at this point is is that we would open our portal so that people can put themselves onto the list i believe by statute and policy um we have

128to um we you used to have to vote to opt in to participate in school choice that's no longer the case you actually have to vote to opt out you know we don't actually to take any action because our our hope would be that we might be able to take some school choice students but but again it seems like it's still a little too early so it sounds as if we want to open up the portal um off of our website so that we can start collecting information on who may be interested in school choice and here um i believe the next step in the policy would be by the i think it says the end of the school year or budget but no later than july 1st so we have i mean what the

12916th and the july 1st we would actually uh need to take a vote and approve which grades that you would recommend that we would open for how many seats and then we could do a lottery for those specific grades and those specific seats right and then i think the second time um i i think it's november as you said or before school so i forget what what i'll have to have to look at the um and it's all on the website i just don't want to quote it wrong um that we have a second chance closer to school so um i think that makes a lot of sense that we start gearing some interest um to see who might wanna to school choice into the district and then at our next um meeting or the

130following meetings or meetings in may we probably need to nail down if we're going to open specific seats for that end of school by july 1 lottery poll and and then we can go from there does anyone have any questions or comments on that um i don't think so i mean i know we've talked about this so much that it's it's kind of a routine topic um and i think we all understand the challenges especially in the the k-8 uh trying to fit uh more bodies um especially not knowing the configuration so i think that sounds like a good plan and uh we'll we'll keep this on the agenda going forward for the next couple of meetings so if we do need to take action we can do so thank you madam chair all right

131um anything else that you wanted to bring up this is this the is this my report i'm sorry i have oh kindergarten screening days i just wanted so it was a little i'm sorry i skipped over it but kindergarten screening days and more information is going to go out right is the 26th the 27th and 28th of may what that means is there will be no school for k students on those days because we have to utilize the staff to do the screening so more information to go out on that but i wanted to make sure that i alerted you um that on those days we'll do the screenings and kindergarten will not the current kindergarten will not be in school those days in order because we don't have we can't do it in the

132gym we can't do it the way we normally would do it so we're just going to have to do it this way great i think the only other thing was the regional agreement amendment committee normally yesterday i'm sorry i did i did normally mr marx would do the update but i do he had to drop off so i don't know if you have anything i know they're still meeting working hard yep we're meeting and we have a meeting on monday yes it's monday great okay um next up then um and and kate i don't want to jump over you but i know that you've already told us that the program of studies won't be available to view until after april vacation so this is more of just a placeholder so we'll be looking forward to

133um if you want to send that out to us for review and then we can have a discussion um at our next meeting um we can we can do that and then uh handle any questions or comments i think that'll be a good way to handle it so thank you and and thank you to mr young and his his whole staff at the high school trying to navigate through the program of studies and and advocate for the appropriate changes as need be so thank you all right so left is the subcommittee reports and i'm just looking through here i think we have actually touched on every single subcommittee with exception of probably diversity equity and inclusion and again mr marx had indicated to me earlier that at our next meeting he's going to bring the

134full committee up to speed on what's going on with the um specifically the mascot and a few other things that that committee is working on so that'll be a good report for next meeting i don't think i'm trying to think long-term planning we've put that committee on hiatus for the time being because with covet it's tough to plan further than you know 12 months maybe if that you're lucky so that committee is just on hiatus for um the next several months and then we'll start meeting again um policy will have a bunch of policies to review next meeting and i guess the only other one would be the templeton elementary school building committee i know that we should be hopefully wrapping that up soon maybe mr mason i think we had a last meeting uh

135a week or so ago uh i don't remember the exact amount but i think we came in under two and a half million in the budget on the school so excellent so is that um so i know that that element that the templeton elementary school building committee was a committee that was formed by warrant article by the town of templeton i would assume it would need to be dissolved the same way so have they been notified that they should probably think at some point in one of the upcoming meetings they're talking they're talking about that but we're not sure if we need one more meeting or not so excellent well i know there'll be a lot of celebration um when that committee is truly done and it is um with great appreciation um the committee

136in the district for all the work and effort that has gone into getting that school built and um all of the things that go into a msba project that i think people don't appreciate the the tremendous amount of work that had had to happen by so many different people in so many different way areas so thank you and i think that is all we didn't have any correspondence so our next meeting is scheduled for wednesday may 5th at five o'clock again um we will plan on doing zoom if we can figure out how to maybe um bring the committee in person and still live stream the event for the public we may try that we'll have to see um you know with the middle and high school just getting back and there's some things that

137need to be put in place but we'll see what we can do um and i just want to remind the committee that the may 5th meeting we handle about half of our annual business with appointments and some other things for the collaboratives and um treasurer and the the the physicians amendment like all of these things we need to do because our following meeting on the 19th will happen after the town elections and we will have some new members um i'm hopeful there's new members i know there's people running so we'll have some new members at the table with us and it'll be a good way to get them introduced and we also have them the rest of the reorganization items plus all of our other regular business so please make sure you note on your

138calendar may 5th at 5 and then the 19th as well other than that i'm just going to throw it out one more time to the committee if anybody had anything to add okay i don't see anyone having anything to add at this point the committee needs to go into executive session for reason number three to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation with the ufcw if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigating position of the public body and the chair so declares this meeting will not return to open session immediately following i would entertain a motion as such some move i have a motion by mr mason do i have a second second i'll go with mrs cosil everybody's looking someone else is gonna say it um

139any questions or comments before we move into executive session um i would just like to thank the public for joining us um as attendees at our new uh way of presenting our meetings i hope that you found it um beneficial and easy enough to do we appreciate any feedback um so i think at this point we will then do a roll call to move into executive session uh mrs robichaud yes mrs chartier yes mrs cosil yes mr mason hi and mrs hughes says yes so at this point we'll say good evening to everybody and uh the school committee just hang in there and we will um go into executive session once we have i don't know how we do that if there's a room or anything i think there is so susan's shaking her head

140she's gonna handle us there's no room but i'm gonna stop the recording and make sure our participants are done our participants are gone so excellent bear with me so thank you everyone thanks