Pelham School Committee

001you know when i'm go you are ready to go okay i will call this meeting to order at 6 pm and we'll start with roll call attendance ron ron present sarah best present margaret margaret present and hall present um all right first item is approval of the minutes but i dropped the ball on this we actually have some july minutes and also last month's um but they are not available so we'll we'll do that next month um i did not receive any public comment um so now we're up to you mike superintendents update sure um and i'll probably defer a lot of this to mickey who's got more to say but you know just really really pleased this year when i've been at pelham school and i was there today granted it was after the

002kids had left so it was parent conferences so people were on their screens um connecting with families but just um you know i think we had most kids back last year but now we have more kids not just because all kids are back there's no remote option but also because the school has more students in it because we got a lot more school choice it's incredibly calm i know that's just an anecdotal kind of phrase but it's the staff are doing a fabulous job you know with students and you know there is some movement of course to specials other areas i also have seen the art room set up and i happen to be there it's not usually a day that i'm at pelham but one day miss darling principal darling and my schedule got

003all mixed up and we ended up i ended up there that there was art there that day and the art teacher's really using the space really well still a lot of outdoor uh instruction going on across the board but i just thought that was you know noteworthy that you know just we're using the spaces differently and i think better the gym is more naturally a gym it's not as much a multi-use space and i think that's been a really good thing uh for our students and i think just creative uses of outdoor space you know pelham was the first goal and some of my other ones have followed suit with under the big tent moving um some of the tables that would used to be in the cafeteria outside and just really creative use of

004indoor and outdoor space and i think during these times of covet you know one of the you know potential silver linings is we're thinking differently about where instruction happens and how we're using space and i think the staff at polymer are doing an outstanding job of that so um that's my sort of core update but i if it's okay with the chair i'll pass it over to principal darling who can share more details about things going on in pelham um yeah any questions for mike before we move to okay mickey you're up okay um like mike said it does feel fairly calm here um within the normal range and um it's i've just really i'm really enjoying being the principal i'll be honest and walking around and spending time with the younger kids that i

005haven't had the opportunity in my oh i don't know how many years uh in education uh the kindergartners are so sweet they see me in the hallway and they grab me and hug me i call it a quick hug because a coveted quick and um [Music] it's just been really great and i've loved walking around the fifth graders or doing a terrarium with recycled leader bottles which is super cool so there's fish and crickets and chaos which is awesome they're learning so much just from that one little project the kindergartners are doing these identity posters in the gym so these huge sheets of paper and the kids lay down on it and somebody traces them and then they put all these other pictures that kind of they self-identify with i guess that's sort of like

006the general gist of it so they start to learn about themselves and their identity um i was walking around and there was a bunch of teachers working with leaves and art projects so i really encouraged our teachers to do more art and just kind of calm go outside recess to just kind of regroup because we are seeing you know a few kids that are stressed out and so we're trying to help them through the the stress um [Music] in the third grade i saw them kind of doing role plays and learning how to apologize and do a really good apology and when to do the apology um the first graders are learning spanish the sixth graders are learning about space they're creating these awesome posters so a lot of like really when you think of

007elementary school a lot of awesome projects happening as i walk around um we're gonna have student council we're gonna have we have elections coming up in a week and a half right around election day so the fourth through sixth graders are running for student council so that'll be fun there's an all school bulletin board to connect to our latino heritage all school read which is awesome to see and we actually had um our uh was a climate committee yesterday and we talked about keeping that all school bulletin board so that all like all the grades are kind of collaborating and doing some more cross-grade connections and next week is school spirit week crazy hair day pelham colors dress up hopefully not you know any crazy halloween costumes that aren't appropriate for school but you know

008a way for them to dress up still um i'm really excited about our new intervention teacher our position and we've been a lot of people have been helping um carol scottie kind of create that position she's been working with other intervention teachers in the district and we've been working with the curriculum director myself the special ed teachers and all the teachers to kind of create that position and really um give students intervention in the younger grades and she actually um has been able to work with all the way up to fifth grade the sixth graders have enough teachers that we are able to do the intervention with the special ed teacher and the para educators so it was kind of impossible to do all grades that'd be an impossible job but we're excited about that

009um the pto has been awesome they've been bringing in treat carts for the teachers which has really helped the teachers to feel appreciated and boost a little bit of morale as mike mentioned we've got the tent out there with the tables and the esser funds the copic grant money we purchased some more tents and um some picnic tables so kids have more seating options when they're out eating lunch um we're hoping to bring back the turkey trot so our school climate committee decided we really should bring that back so more to come on that and um the trunk or treat is coming up so that's exciting i know we had to move the dates unfortunately because it was scheduled at the same time as the pelham town meeting you live and you learn and um

010open house was a huge success we had a big turnout and the teachers because of all their work last year online were very savvy with their power points i got to pop into most classrooms and families they didn't really have a lot of questions they just had a lot of comments about how happy their students were and how they love certain aspects of the day so that was really nice as well any questions or comments thanks mickey go ahead ron out of curiosity who's doing your old job um so we kind of s we moved some people around and that's how we created the intervention teacher any other questions for mickey all right thank you it is it is remarkably smooth or at least it appears that way i'm not saying there's not a ton

011like that your feet aren't paddling crazy under the water and it's exhausting and stressful but it is remarkably smooth so keep it up yeah i mean they're kids they're acting like kids and if they were all just like sitting there with their you know we would be worried so they're doing great great thank you um okay next up school committee announcements anyone anything they want to share okay um okay so we'll go to new and continuing business the first item here is the fy21 fourth quarter budget yeah i'll pass it back to doug so just um for everyone to make sure everyone's on the same page uh we'll do the fourth quarter last year which is how the year ended up which was um a very positive way and then we'll talk about the first

012quarter of this year so um just the details on that of the the quarters start you know it ends at the end of the fiscal year which is june 30th so the first quarter was um july august and september and as dr slaughter will mention when we get to that part of it you know those are atypical months because most of our staff aren't here um but it's sort of how do we end up like and close out the year last year and then how did we start the year this year and so those are the first two items with that i'll pass it over to you doug thank you thank you um so uh in looking at the at the um at the fourth quarter um and mike are you able to share the

013the report yep i will do that in uh momentarily okay so uh as he brings that up uh i'll just say we you know we finished a very positive uh you know uh status for the end of the end of the fiscal year i think uh we had quite a bit of uh money left over for lack of a term uh you know you know there's money that we could return to the to the town of pelham um as you'll note there in the uh maybe a little hard to read but uh about two hundred and eight thousand dollars of of money under budget uh and and that's really for a few reasons and and i articulate those in the report a little bit i'll emphasize them again a couple of things you know we

014were very conservative with our spending throughout the year because we just didn't know uh what kind of expenses we were going to run into as we went through and and we're dealing with the pandemic it was in sort of ever-evolving uh you know worry about what we might need to be purchasing or or you know uh how what needs we need to accommodate um as a result we sort of were very cautious with our spending additionally you know we didn't have a clear picture about what kind of supports we get from the federal government we got a a fairly you know significant amount of support from the government but you know it was evolving over the course of the year and so again we took a fairly cautious approach with our spending so as to

015not uh put ourselves in a bind unnecessarily and then the third thing is that you know as we came back to in-person schooling we really didn't know what to expect from uh you know from the kids and and the adults as they came back in the building what kinds of things we'd need to address and so again we were anticipating some some pretty uh likely scenarios where we might have to spend a fair amount of money those didn't materialize in a significant way and so our our overall spending for the year came in quite a bit under uh what we had budgeted for the year um you know there were some things we expected you know we knew our transportation costs would be a little bit less we knew our utilities cost would be less

016um those kind of things you know so so those were not surprising there were some other areas where we were anticipating need and just didn't really realize that and so we have a fair amount of resources that we can return back to the town uh for their use whether with us or what the other towns needs you know the other needs of the town uh in the future additionally the other plus i would i would mention is that um because we had such a uh a you know a significant uh i don't say shortfall uh uh under use of budget we were able to to take a little different approach with our with our school choice and this is really the timing of that is really fortunate for for us uh we had originally anticipated

017spending about 280 000 in school choice funds and we as we spoke uh about this topic when we were building the budget for fiscal 21 we were concerned about the trajectory of the balance on our school choice funds and and you know we had had a couple of years of lower uh enrollment of school choice kids and so the amount of money we're spending from our school choice revenue to uh to support the school versus how much we were taking in was was kind of out of balance and we were worried that we wouldn't be able to sustain that for a long period of time so by by being able to limit our use of school choice in fiscal 21 to just one hundred thousand dollars we were able to put 182 000 uh back

018into our into our revolving fund and so what that does is it brings our balance on that school choice up to about 400 000 which is really where we like to keep it and that allows us to be uh able to have it you know take on a bad year and uh and support ourselves and not be too worried about it so that was a really really positive uh positive outcome for us um and so i think the the the other things that you know like you go into are not as as detail well or not as interesting as far as they're detailed but nonetheless uh you know that was a pretty positive outcome for our year so we were able to to get our school choice back to a balance we really uh will

019be able to sustain ourselves for a longer period of time so i think uh i think i'll stop there as far as fourth quarter and sort of see if anyone has any questions relative what was in the report or things i just mentioned thank you doug mike would you mind um not sharing anymore thank you all right margaret and then ron um i i you said we returned money to the town i'm sorry but i missed the amount that you said we were able to return it's gonna be about two hundred and eight thousand dollars back to the town yeah so of the amount of budget we had expected to spend we we were under budget by about 10 um so it was a pretty significant return um if we had used more school choice

020which would have been you know a negative effect on our school choice balance it would have been a larger number so that was a kind of trade-off of we should use some school choice to support the school budget uh but yes you know uh we had the opportunity to to use less than we would originally planned so it was good thank you yeah mike and then ron i haven't forgotten about you go ahead mike yep and i just want to add to dr slaughter's point which is just appreciation for members in the town and the finance committee of pelham who given this we usually and those who've been on the committee a while we went to them when things weren't good and they've supported us for large sums of money you know with charter school

021expenses that were unanticipated that were you know close to a hundred thousand dollars and they found a way mid fiscal year to do that so you know it is good to it does feel good to be supporting the town when this unusual situation has arisen i think it's also worth noting that the town easily and this would happen in many towns just say no just this was your budget and anything that you know was an overage um we'll take and the town recognized the benefit of increasing the school choice account and relieving some of the pressure that's been on the school because of the challenges with that account so i just want to share my appreciation for john tricky in the town for working collaboratively with us yet again yes i agree thank you ron

022go ahead you should have had a brass fanfare with those two announcements that's fantastic that's ten percent of the school budget was returned plus the school choice we've been uh worried about the school choice for three years uh disappearing that's apparently is it stabilized uh you could call the meeting off now and declare victory and uh thank you very much for the good news i will say i can't promise it'll always be this good but i i hope to but i can't always i mean you know the other thing is is that i i think that you know in years when we have kids in our buildings more often you know or all year uh you know it'll be a lot harder to be that far under budget but but nonetheless you know uh we

023were like i said fairly conservative in our approach just because we weren't sure what we were going to get uh it was you know it was and has been and continues to be a bit of a wild card how the pandemic plays out so we're trying to be conscientious about how we use our resources to make sure we meet the needs of the kids is there any background on why the school choice was so uh underspent i mean well you know it's a it's a we had budgeted for we had anticipated the need for you know 280 a little over 280 000 worth of use and and you know the at the end of the year you know we sort of as we're squaring up the books we sort of look at at the use

024of of that funding and and we were in a circumstance where we didn't need to leverage that at to that to the extent we expected to and so we were just able to use less than we had um i will say and this is sort of a prelude into quarter one but just you know from an enrollment standpoint uh last time i looked you know we had been running in the low 40s for a number of school choice students and i believe this year we boosted back to about 50 which is kind of the target number that we're looking for to sort of sustain uh the revenue that we need and the sort of support for the school we need so i think just as an you know auxiliary piece of information uh you know

025the enrollment of school choice kids has gone back up to a level that's uh more sustainable for us so i think we're that's that's also another piece of good news around our sort of financial future well thanks again for the great news any questions for doug yes well yes thanks doug then i do i guess i'm a little maybe i'm uh a little more cynical than ron i think that you know there i think the reason that we've been you were that you have been so cautious is that we know that it's like one small thing can really shift things dramatically in one direction or the other and we're it's great that now we're in the good direction um so i do appreciate the caution that you took because i think we've learned from the

026past that it really is so important so i appreciate that diligence there um okay do you want to move on to so many 22. absolutely so first quarter's been you know uh tracking as we would hope it would um and so uh you know the expenses some of them are a little uh interesting to look at like uh uh like super dinner mentioned you know july and august we don't have a lot of people on the payroll so that that really only represents uh you know the month of september when everybody's back and and on the on the on the payroll so that the fact that our payroll is is only at 10 is is is actually what we hope it would be is is to be about that that percentage isn't as we play

027through the year uh it will track more to to the to the uh expected levels but you know uh we don't have and haven't had a ton of turnover in in pelham uh in our in our staff and so that helps uh our projections and our budgeting to to match up um and so i think the one thing i will note there is that our substitutes are fairly low at this point in year you know again we're taking a fairly cautious approach to how many extra people we bring into our buildings and and also just generally in the first month of school there's not a lot of absenteeism by any staff so so that's also you know it's tracking as expected and and uh hopefully we'll remain that way and folks will remain healthy and

028and we won't need uh to use our substitute lines uh too too much as we go through the year and and that'll help us out in other areas of our budget um as we look at the the other expense accounts uh there's really two areas that that you know sort of caught my eye administrative services and facilities management um they they often tend to be tracking uh ahead of schedule because there's some full year uh full year expenses we we sort of book at the beginning year uh you know software subscriptions uh we encumber funds for certain kinds of activities in in maintenance and facilities that that we use throughout the year so you know we we anticipate the need and and sort of uh uh secure the monies early so it looks like we're

029spending ahead of schedule but there there were a couple of uh a couple of bills in in those two areas that were a little higher than we expect so we'll we'll keep a close eye on those i'm not really worried about it i don't want to you know cause anybody to have any uh deep concern or panic relative to those yellow boxes on on the chart there but i but i just wanted to know to be clear that you know there are a couple expenses that have come in a little higher than what we had planned for and so that we are just going to keep a close eye on that and and look at other areas that might be coming in under budget to help um offset that a little bit but but in

030general uh the budget's tracking very well for the first quarter uh we're anticipating it's going to continue to track well at present and one thing that you know always helps your budget is this other bit of good news i have i'm full of good news i don't know that i'll always be able to do that but um there's a there is a grant program with the state called rural school aid and pelham tends to sit uh kind of on either side of the award non-award line so some years we get it some years we don't uh it turns out that this year we did get it and so we were notified recently of the 6 800 worth of of additional aid from the state is going to come to us uh for use in our

031school and that's that's really a helpful uh uh bit of income that that allows for some some supportive things that we might not be able to do otherwise or unexpected things that might crop up that that we need to uh you know take uh take care of in our budget and so that was a bit of good news i want to make sure to share it's not in this in this quarter one report but i did want to mention that that bit of good news has come along and like i said we don't always the state doesn't always fund that that program at a level that pelham you know qualifies uh we tend to sit on the bubble as as they say and and so some years we get it in some years we don't

032so we don't tend to budget for it um as a result of that so it's kind of found money and that's a helpful thing in any budget to to have that resource show up and be available for us um i think at this point you know like i said we're tracking well for the first quarter no real surprises there a couple areas i'm going to keep a close eye on as we move through the second quarter and and uh i have to answer any questions you all have okay thank you well i just i want you to embrace this feeling you have given this news you're super understated about it but like we're all smiling so just remember this any any questions comments for doug okay great thank you so much you're welcome thank you

033all okay next up is the sixth grade move to the middle school update all right go ahead sure so uh i think there's two things to share and one continued consistent recommendation that i'd make and doug you're welcome to stay on but you're also welcome to not if that works for you um so the amer school committee at the beginning of this month voted unanimously to have their sixth grade students move to the middle school pending a vote by the regional school committee in the fall of 2023 so not for the next school year but the school year after that the regional school committee had a discussion about this at their last meeting it'll be on the agenda for a potential vote um [Music] next week the vote language that was drafted not voted i

034want to be really clear but the vote language was drafted was not specific to amherst but was asking the region if they would ex accept sixth grade students from any member town that chose to send them um that doesn't push anybody to do anything i'll be at the leverage school committee next week and having the same conversation and frankly having the same recommendation even though they're not my it's not my school committee but they're asking me to come which is uh the small towns have very different uh incentives or disincentives about moving sixth grade in amherst two of the three critical variables don't apply uh in pelham those were a real acute space need i was on the phone with many many a couple principles this afternoon about the space needs in amherst and we

035don't have space for things like instrumental music we don't have space or in sufficient space you know looking at special education needs that's not the case in pelham you know frankly particularly with the additional space that's now used by art space needs aren't a concern you know for pelham the the other con other consideration in amherst is that there was a building there is a building project um there was some work done over the last three years about a compromised proposal that would have taken care of two of the buildings that were are out of date in amherst um all that's contingent on sixth grade moving to the middle school for that plan to move forward with the state with the msba that doesn't apply to pelham so my personal perspective is for pelham folks

036there's not the same incentive to move sixth grade to the middle school we could have a long conversation we probably should at some point about uh the the merits of that this you know larger discussion about sixth grade and about small school and if kids are in the same class for six years or seven years you know are they ready for different experiences i think there's a worthwhile conversation to have to me i don't think there's any timeline that the committee in my opinion the committee needs to to push that i do think that this is we're getting out of um the extent that we were in covet last year i don't think it's gone but it's a different world we're in and you know within a month i think um the kids in pelham

037with the exception of the kindergartners and maybe actually no including the kindergartners would uh potentially be have access to a vaccine so i think things are changing and we are recovering and i think our staff's doing a great job of kind of both academic and then kind of well-being and social emotional recovery that we're focused on students to me there's not the incentive or need to really push this conversation during this academic year uh particularly as the plans that are was voted by amherst aren't even happening for another year and a half so my recommendation of this committee is for me you know asking me to stay abreast and certainly sarah bess and um and margaret can can help with that but you know um as i'm on both the amherst and the regional committee

038i probably am the best person to to give updates um to the pelham committee you know maybe in super in the kind of category of superintendent updates i unless there's a desire for this committee to push the issue it's not an issue that i would recommend pushing you know at this point i think there's plenty of time to see what program is developed for sixth grade in the regional schools and i would actually argue that there's plenty of time even after that amherst if if the region votes to accept amherst sixth grade students even after that happens for pelham to consider it it doesn't have to be on the same timeline and and perhaps with my pelham superintendent hat on uh it gets a little confusing when i'm going back and forth in these three

039meetings um i might advocate or recommend advocating for your regional reps to make sure that the on-ramp if pelham was to decide you know it might be beneficial for some language and emotion to not preclude pelham's sixth grade students from joining at a later date in other words if the fall 2023 date isn't going to work for pelham fall 2025 a pelham school committee might make a different choice and you know preserving that option uh for the region to preserve that option for pelham to join later might be a good idea but i think at this point i don't see any reason to push this i don't see any reason for pelham to to unless unless the committee feels really strongly about it and i have not heard that from the committee um strong desire

040to send sixth grade to the middle school i'd rather focus on other things or it's our time in the school's time on other things as opposed to that point you know i think i could argue the opposite i could talk a lot about sixth grade in the middle school how common that is and the idea of a two-year middle school and some challenges that we continually experience there i just don't know that this is a time to really be pushing that um i think you have the the luxury i mean that word literally the luxury of waiting and seeing without a real external need or space facilities need to make a decision on this so i i would use the privilege you have of not needing to go quicker than you want to and and

041perhaps re-engaging this topic more fully next fall sorry that was long-winded but it's taken a lot of my time so i'm really focused on on this particular topic but you know certainly the committee could disagree with me we certainly can continue to engage uh and go down that road you know i've talked to principal darling about this i think uh we're in the same place that you know i think the things we're focusing on in pelham right now are the things that we should be focusing on uh in pelham right now and i think there'll be a time where a program of studies is developed uh that i think is the right time for pelham folks to to be able to consider it so i'll stop talking and see if there's comments or questions and

042if i'm misreading the committee please tell me i'm misreading the committee right please tell me like no we really want to push this sixth grade point and i'm actually really happy to talk about that i just for me for pelham with that superintendent out on um i i i'm not sure now is the time sarah best and then ron um so i a couple of things i love the idea of you keeping us up to date in the superintendent's report i think that would be a great way for us to keep um paying attention to what's going on in amherst i think that would be really helpful um i also like your idea of making of you know having some language at the regional level to make sure that if pelham is interested at a

043future date um that that is something that's already built in to the system um and i agree i think at this time i i don't think this is something that pelham um needs to focus time and energy um on at this point i think um the staff at pelham has been doing a great job helping the kids get back into their new kind of normal and routines in our post-covered or whatever this is it's not really postcode still perfect but less have to be stuck at home covered i guess i don't know so i i think pelham staff is doing a fantastic job and we should give them the space and time to do that um i think that's that's in the best interest of our kids um so yeah that's where i think that's

044where i'm at at this point anyway thanks there best ron i certainly don't want the committee to make a vote one way or the other right now for the last three years i've continued to say what do the parents think should we encourage the parent it's on their minds they read the newspaper uh people are talking about the moves the sixth grade to the middle school now is the time to gather a public opinion maybe we should encourage parents to send emails in the public comments section maybe we should schedule some type of open forum the way we did for the change in the sex education classes now is it's on people's minds now why not create some kind of mechanism for finding out what parents think i mean i think it's clear i've expressed

045my doubts and they're mainly around safety i don't think you should put a 12 year old on the same school bus as the 18 year old it's an invitation for mayhem perhaps bullying has disappeared from the school bus but i remember it did exist when i was back then um i don't somehow there should be we should gather information now from the parents if the parents want it i i have no kid in school now uh if the parents are favorite well i'll vote in favor of it but i don't know whether the parents favor it but we can't find out unless we ask them that's my position okay thank you ron brenda um i also agree that you know it makes sense for us to wait considering that we have the advantage to do

046so um i think it's really critical that we get parent feedback but i would caution that we want to make sure that we're really clear about the benefits of the academic program and also uh maybe the financial ramifications of doing that before we just let them jump in um and and and get their feedback now but i i do agree with ron that we have heard for some families that they think we're voting soon or they think that because of all the conversations amherst is happening we're on the same timeline and i think it'd be important to to make it clear folks that we're not on the same timeline um also i think it's a critical that um we we do try to allow them space to give their feedback before it's too late to

047join amherst for fall of 2023 in case there are lots of families who who are really pro moving the sixth grade to the middle school i don't know what that's a kind of a delicate timeline to trying to get the sweet spot of getting their their feedback while they have enough information to to give that kind of feedback right thank you margaret go ahead um a couple of comments um along the lines of of what you just said brenda i perhaps the timeline will become evident as we continue to get updates from mike you know that that as things develop and amherst it will become obvious maybe when we want to have a discussion in pelham the other thing as one of the regional reps to from pelham um one of the questions that seems

048to come up because people are reading and they think that as a regional rep we i am voting to move the sixth grade in pelham to the middle school that is not the case and we have this discussion at the region because it's a little bit confusing when you're a regional rep about where's your hat and really where the discussion led us is that as part of the region what we have to decide is is it beneficial for the seventh and eighth graders at the middle school to have the sixth graders move to the middle school has nothing to do with the sixth graders and the advantages or disadvantages for them we're simply voting for the region should we bring the sixth graders into the region and i think that's really it was confusing for

049me and i think it's been confusing for people in pelham when they're reading in the newspaper so that was helpful for me the discussion we had thanks margaret ron i haven't been zooming in on the regional meetings margaret say that before your vote uh at the regional school committee meeting let the public know why you're doing it oh i will be voting as a region member not as a pelham member but say that uh maybe sure oh i see so that if people from pelham are listening then sure absolutely my god i wonder if um whether it's chair hall and i or maybe miss dancer and i or some combination can put something in with ms darling's permission in the kind of pelham press just clarifying some of these points um because i think what

050what the common thread i heard from all the committee members who have commented today it is just around communication i'm using my words i didn't hear that explicitly that word explicitly but just that the pelham community knows you know the kind of the core things they need to know are a at this point pelham sixth grade students there are no direct plans for pelham sixth grade students to move uh b that that we will come back to that point next fall and if people have opinions on that they can share them by emailing school committee at arps.org or here's how they do public comment um and see you know we are aware of conversations going on in the you know other communities um but that you know the last point that margaret was just making

051with mr menino that the pelham reps in the region are making a decision only about the region that decision doesn't make doesn't have an impact on pelham sixth grade students so they seem like the three points that need to be clarified and i just wonder if if again with the permission of miss darling if we put something in the pelham press that way it gives people an opportunity to weigh in if they choose to weigh in as mr menino indicated it lets them know a timeline of when as a committee i think will come back to this point you cop topic more definitively um and also lets them know that the regional members aren't voting on pelham sixth grade because i think you're right that there's a going to be a point of confusion so

052i don't know if that would sort of accomplish what i what i you know i think i'm hearing from uh the committee um in terms of communication making sure everyone in the pelham school community is aware of what is happening and what's not happening because i agree with a lot of the comments that are implying that there's some confusion because i think that it's a confusing situation right the three districts thing uh there's times where it works really smoothly and then there's times where it's messy and this is a mucky one you know i didn't want to and i didn't mean to volunteer you for that sarah but i just wondered if there was some communication that that could go out um and i'm happy to to work on it but i think because it's

053a committee decision you know it might be good to come from the committee right no i mean i didn't feel volunteered that was actually going to be one of my comments i have been getting um emails from people in some cases with opinions on it wanting to share those and in other cases just curious you know i would say the most the category of most people is someone with a kid in like grade four or below and they're just like looking ahead just curious because they saw something in the gazette um so for sure i think um communicating widely to the school community is a great idea um i think probably mickey's newsletter has the best list of people um for that i don't so i'm not i'm not entirely sure how i feel i'm

054just gonna throw this out there like you know seeing doug's presentation tonight and how long our meetings have been and talking about like we're at this place where things are kind of at a low roar and we don't we don't have a controversial issue right now we don't have anything that's taking a ton of time i'm not entirely convinced that the latency approach is best i don't i mean because the bottom assuming that the region votes to accept sixth graders then it's happening right so the program is going to be like what are the mechanics what are the details i mean i can't imagine that there's gonna be like that a district would suddenly back out because i was like oh they decided not to teach math to sixth graders right like you know it

055will i don't know i i mean i could be convinced to start talking about it now i mean i think also people want to know there's been so much uncertainty in the lives of students and teachers and their parents i think the idea of having certainty about fall 2023 sooner rather than later might provide some level of comfort and just kind of knowing what to picture um i could be talked out of that i think i'm just i don't know we just never we never know what's going to come up and so to take advantage of times when like the budget is looking pretty good and there's nothing really big going on i'm i'm just throwing that out there wrong i agree the sooner the better a discussion takes place the better off we'll all

056be margaret um i guess i just have a question because right now we really know nothing about the academic program the rental you know what kind of financial agreement has to be made to rent the middle school space there's so much that's unknown i guess is why i think maybe it would be better to wait a little while because we don't really have a lot to say to them um at this point in time i guess that's how i feel thank you margaret sarah best and then ron i think um kind of piggybacking on what margaret just said um so the if amherst moves their sixth graders they're not part of the region they're still part of amherst so what happens then if say pelham 6th graders go also to the middle school then how

057does that work is there a separate pelham classroom that only keeps pelham kids in it so then they're still part of the pelham school district or are the amherst and pelham kids co-mingled together because there's different programming right between the different schools and and how does that work does pelham just get usurped because there are more amherst kids and then we don't know then then they're just part of that curriculum like i have concern for our pelham students um you know we've developed some great programs at pelham and being able to continue to have them benefit from those um and and there's there's just i don't i guess i don't understand how it will work if the sixth graders are not part of the region they're still part of their sending districts like whatever the

058the money i think will be the easier part to figure out right like you have these many kids this is how many kids it is it's whatever but as far as the educational practices how how is that gonna how how will that work out right go ahead i don't have a clean and easy answer but i do think that's probably my personal opinion is that's probably a topic that is worth talking about this year you know um i don't worth is not the right word i apologize for that i think that's a topic that's where we can talk about and we don't need more information than what we have now because i think there's a there's a number of different ways that one could approach that topic that you describe sarah best like that's not

059something that i think we need to wait for more programming information that's a core principle about does the pelham school district want to work with the amherst school district on a 6th grade program if so how would that be organized i mean i think if pelham 6th grade programming was literally moving i'm just going to use names because we're in pelham like margaret's class to the middle school there's not a lot of upside to that right um i would argue probably there's almost no upside to literally trans you know taking this classroom and moving it to a different space you know i think really the interesting part and perhaps the part that is worth talking about in terms of weighing cost benefits or you know positives negatives however you want to phrase it is really

060integrating into a larger group of students with a larger set of programming you know so even if we don't know what the programming is i do think from a process perspective the point miss kenny makes is probably one that we could and probably should have that conversation the front end even if we don't exactly know what the programming is because we have a general sense good enough where we could that that's going to be the biggest delta right is um not in a one teacher one classroom model but a model where people kids have different teachers for different subjects and that sort of thing and i'm not trying to weigh positive or negative but that's a core principle change that um probably is worth uh having discussion i think it gets to ms hall's point

061of not waiting too long while we do have space that's a foundational question for for pelham sixth grade that that doesn't exist in amherst right what that model is looks different but they're already changing classes in amherst sixth grade in the elementary level right that's already a con a practice that's in place right now that's not true in pelham um so i think you know my personal opinion is i think that's a good topic to dig on dig in on this year because i think it would really probably be one of multiple forks in the road for you all in your consideration yeah thanks mike ron i agree with margaret as there are details we can't share with the parents now but there'll always be details and there's no reason why we can't talk to

062parents now and talk to them later this can be a continuous process and if give them let's say six month updates on our plan i always assumed that the sixth grade was going to be integrated with all the other sixth grade students if we're just going to move the ms lights classroom to the middle school that that's educationally unsound as far as i'm concerned uh there are a lot of things that parents care about uh if you asked me in 1997 when this was there was talk about this in 1997. uh i didn't want my daughter to go to the big bad big school down the hill i wanted her to stay in the safety and comfort of a small school up the hill my daughter just agreed with me she wanted to have the

063sixth grade at the middle school well i for safety reasons i said no and that that's an opinion i'd like to hear from most parents whether they they're comfortable with i like the pelham school i volunteered at the pelham school for 10 years it's a family it's cozy it's comfortable and i i'd hate to lose that and i don't know how many other parents agree with me maybe they don't care but i'd like to know what they think thanks i i mean i've been i've been a one-note person on this for three years but that's my opinion thanks ron margaret did you yeah go ahead margaret yeah i guess i would just say that um mike made a very uh convincing statement about what would be good to to do this year and and i

064would i would agree with that okay thank you yeah i mean i think having this conversation i i guess maybe maybe what i don't love is the idea of deciding to wait until next fall maybe taking a little bit more of an incremental approach of like well here's this one kind of fundamental question that we can discuss now and bringing that up as as relevant in meetings and then maybe as we get updates if there are specific elements that we learn that it's like oh well this is something that we should either make sure that we communicate to folks or this is something that we should definitely discuss now because this will inform these other things i mean i you know i i don't want to nickel and dime this issue to death and be

065talking about it for hours at every single meeting um but i think sort of having this pause and being like all right we'll talk about it in september might be might also be a little too far on the other end mickey go ahead um i just want to say one thing um i think whatever we decide to talk about it i think it'd be really great just because of the uncertainty of covid and kids and stress and anxiety to um have the fifth grade parents tell their fifth graders that it's not going to happen next year like i just think that message should somehow get out as well just because they're probably hearing about it sure yeah i think that's a great point thank you yeah mike yeah i think maybe if we come back

066to the communication piece because i think um i think this has been really helpful conversation for me uh i do wonder i'm gonna kind of limit my number of things but maybe the thing to share with the community is to ms darling's point that there's no consideration of moving sixth grade for next year just because there is none i don't think i don't hear any interest in the community i mean in this committee and i actually don't think the region would accept that regardless i don't want to speak for that committee but i think there's been no interest in pushing that timeline quicker at the regional level i haven't heard any dialogue on that um so i think answering that one and communicating that to your point mickey i think makes a lot of sense

067and and i think just letting them know that you know this is going to be no decision will be made very soon but if people have feedback leaving them those avenues of school committee at arps.org or public comment maybe that's a simple enough message you know to give is that there's no consideration of moving sixth grade next year conversation will happen you know no decision will be made even for the future year in the next month or two but if people do have um comments they'd like to make they can give them that pathway i don't know how people feel about that kind of simple communication i don't think it's controversial i think it's factual um would that be something that the committee is comfortable with yes for sure yeah yeah and i think too

068just that you know this question of fifth grade too and i know in some of the public comment that we got that was sort of sent to all the committees wasn't really relevant to pelham you know there was some concern about like oh you're gonna tell fifth graders that year like surprise this is your last year at the school i don't know to me that's another reason i think to like know as far ahead of time as is possible if that is i don't know i just think having that certainty um would would help everyone teachers other parents kids stakeholders generally okay so next steps then sort of a factual communication to the school community so that everyone's aware of what you know next year will be status quo um and then taking up these

069kind of fundamental questions that we can discuss locally and then the rest of it will be like as we learn more we can re-engage in this question as it makes sense does that feel right to folks okay all right anything else on grade six after this vigorous debate okay great thank you everyone okay next up is superintendent goals they are the attachment is in the agenda yep i will try to see if i can bring that up oh okay thank you yep there we go and this is a draft i'll bring it back next month um for a vote based on any feedback i receive you can see that there's four goals i'm not going to go through every bulleted point but just continue the progress on dei and diversity equity inclusion [Music] some of

070these goals are consistent across all districts which was the intent and the feedback i received from multiple committees the second is um really thinking through and mickey spoke a bit about this uh the we're in year academic year three of the pandemic and just trying to think through uh collaborating with the public health folks on health and safety measures you know at some point in the future we'll probably i don't think it'll be next month but you know i imagine that at some point we're going to be talking about relaxing some of the measures we have you know i think probably at some point during this academic year we're going to have some of those conversations and so it's going to be really critically important that we'll continue to uh be having those conversations in

071public um you know mickey mentioned the covert relief funds um and that we are still you know fine-tuning the start time and you know while that's a regional issue with fee in theory it's had an impact on the elementary schools so when we get to the winter and early spring we want to survey all families and all students and all staff members about how they're experiencing any changes because it pelham is different right it's starting earlier it's ending earlier has functional changes in terms of when staff members meet with each other and when faculty meeting is and a whole range of factors that we want to get solicit feedback on the third goal is around budget planning and communication um and so while we are feeling great with dr slaughter's reports tonight we're still going

072to have a budget year and we're still going to have to make some difficult decisions um hopefully less difficult than in the past but who knows about the budget and and that never ceases to be or it's never unimportant i think in pelham and the last one is the curriculum instruction one the two areas are that we do have we have a new dyslexia screener and process that's uh via state regulation that we're implementing and we're also looking at the elementary math program so this is something that actually we've gotten some comments about over the years some some i think declining satisfaction with everyday math which is our current math program and uh from film staff as well not just pelham um families and so we are looking to complete a curricular review of that

073and starting that actually in uh the near future in terms of at least setting up the process where we'll get feedback from staff and families look at what's out there it's been a long time that we've been with everyday math and there's new products out there uh for consideration so those are the standards that oh i didn't include the standard for the last goal i apologize i'm looking for the next page but it doesn't exist so i can add that when we get to the final version of this document but i wanted to gather any feedback from the committee before i draft the final version all right thank you questions edits comments for my kind of schools mike could you stop sharing thank you bless you center best anything okay oh ron go ahead it

074seems that life goes in circles i remember when every day math was introduced this is called continuous improvement i guess you know if i could comment a bit on that i think it is we are trying to be more systemic about reviewing our curricula on a routine basis and trying to have a cycle for that um i think everyday math i think i think it's likely that we will be recommending a change to that but that's not a foregone conclusion but we haven't taken a deep look at everyday math in a couple years and for us it's just you know we're hearing some level of concerns particularly uh as the curriculum spirals and we're coming out of a pandemic that you know the people are struggling uh with the nature of a spiraling math curriculum

075um some people do really like it spiraling just means that you don't stay with the same topic all the time it means that it's intended to be cumulative so that you may have a topic for a certain amount of time but you're then going back to prior topics so i understand the philosophy but i think people are struggling with a less linear i think uh fair to say uh curriculum i think it was much better than what we had before so i'm not at all saying it was the wrong choice i think it's just things evolve and new products come out and new curricula come out and at this point when we you know bought into everyday math it was you know one of the two or three preeminent math curricula in the country that's

076no longer the case you know i had a conversation with someone actually used to work at the district but he's a math lead now at the department and he works with multiple districts and he's going to be supporting us who are going through curriculum review processes and um it was interesting here and he was part of the adoption here of everyday math which is kind of fascinating to talk to him about and at this point i'm not saying it's good bad you know no judgment about it but it's not one of the three or four curricula that districts somewhat ours are moving towards and i think we're learning more it's it's served a good purpose and it's i think just time for review so we are trying to be more systemic and more deliberate about

077looking at our curricula on a routine basis and seeing is it working for our students we did definitely see a saw a jump in our performance when we made that transition and it's you know i think our performance is is consistent now but it's not necessarily going up and that's what we want for our students so i think it's it's worthwhile to take the time and put the resources in for it yep run this may not be appropriate comment now but it reminded me of a newspaper article in the last couple of months where it said that the mcas scores went up during kovid was that do i recollect that correctly yeah that wasn't true for pelham so we were very consistent with the state average which saw um a modest decline in performance as

078would be predicted given the year we had last year so some of the other districts i work for had more atypical results i would also caution as i did at some of my other committee meetings that we had a lot of students choose not to take the test last year so okay i think the reliability of those results is questionable yeah anything else on goals okay um warrant reports okay this is me okay i've got um four tonight i authorized by my signature to payables and the amount of 40 132.70 for the warrant dated september 15 2021. that included general fund expenses of 586.25 revolving fund expenses of 306 dollars and five cents grant fund expenses of two thousand one hundred eighty dollars and forty one cents and sixty dollars in gifts and i signed

079that on the 15th of september um i authorized by my signature uh payroll in the amount of sixty two thousand one hundred eighty seven dollars and two cents that was for a warrant dated september 22nd and i signed that on september 17th i authorized by my signature to payables in the amount of forty three thousand four hundred twelve dollars and sixty six cents for the warranty to october fifth twenty twenty one that included general fund expenses of thirty seven thousand nine hundred seven dollars and twenty eight cents revolving fund expenses of 143.46 and grant fund expenses of 5244.26 um and other fund expenses of 117.66 oh sorry that was gifts that 117 escapes i signed that on october 7th last one i authored good job okay that was all the warrants uh we don't have

080any gifts to accept it's true i just wanted to briefly call it because i don't think it's freaking out being lost so i have a conflict on the third starting at eight o'clock which is our next meeting was scheduled for november third so um i could either meet on november 2nd which is election night but i don't think there's a huge election in pelham that i'm aware of or i could meet on the third but at about 7 45 7 50 i would probably have to depart the meeting so i don't know what works better for the committee members but um i just got received this conflict just came up last night and it's not something that i can change sure um that's did we schedule that because the other wednesdays were not good that

081just seems or maybe this one is just late it's just that that's so soon from now can we push it to later in november yep uh i don't have any conflicts any other wednesday in november okay i mean i wouldn't do it the night before thanksgiving because it's probably not you know not kosher with uh do you want to be anything we can make it fun i'm going nowhere so it'd be fine with me actually but uh but yeah i uh um we could certainly do it later in november um november 10th is that okay that would be my preference then okay thank you sorry about that no no that's okay all right i moved to a journal school committee meeting is there a second second all right i will take a roll call vote

082wrong menino brenda brenda i margaret margaret i and hawley we are adjourned thank you everyone have a good night good night everyone