Pelham School Committee Meeting

001you're good okay all right good evening everyone i will call this meeting of the pellet school committee to order at 6 30 and we'll start with roll call attendance ron ron here brenda barlow present and hall present okay i am a little rusty and we're using a new system so bear with me i'm going to do my best tonight first up we will approve the minutes um sarah best was on the ball and pointed out that the july first minutes they have the right date but the actual content of the minutes is not correct so i let sasha know so when we get those tracked down we can do that those at the next meeting so the only ones um that are ready to be approved tonight are those from june 22nd so any questions

002comments edits to those going once okay um all right i well i'll make a motion so i move to approve the minutes of june 22nd 2021 is there a second second all right thank you brenda um okay we'll do a roll call vote uh run menino why margaret stands her eye sarah best kenny i brenda farlow i and hall i um okay next up is public comment and i will remember how to share my screen sorry i'm getting a message um okay i'm gonna try this yes okay um i'm gonna make this this is probably really small right can people see this if there is a way to zoom in a little bit i can see it but i think if someone was was viewing from a different device they might have a harder time

003okay um i think it's um in the yep there you go okay thank you yeah that's perfect that's better okay all right so this is what i emailed to folks earlier and for those watching um there this is also posted on the board doc site okay it was just that one and you know as i was going through this again i just realized it does reference some charts i will send those separately and i can post them to the board doc site um so it there wouldn't have been enough time to go through this in three minutes but i can send you the charts referenced um okay next up is superintendents update sure uh i'll be very brief um kind of try to promote a brief meeting tonight thinking that yom kippur starts in in

004not that long so uh both for myself but also for viewers um so i think i'll just uh want to acknowledge mickey darling who's here and justin artesia is not who have taken on the additional responsibility of being leaders in the building during a pandemic so uh you know really really appreciate them and their love of pelham is what brought them to do that and uh you know i think it's been really important that for the palm community that they have known uh good people leaving the school so i just want to start by acknowledging that um you know they're being supported uh with mentorship and both from you know people in the district but also outside the district because we want to give both mickey and jess the tools to be successful this year

005uh in their roles so uh share deep appreciation for them stepping in uh at uncertain times uh and things keep on changing uh i've been a pelham i think three times since the school year started i believe that's right you know do appreciate all the time that students are spending outside a really creative idea to put some of the cafeteria tables under the 10 and i saw those used when i was there last week this week last week one of those two um really well and you know really appreciate that focus on outdoor education that certainly was involved last spring uh and we're seeing continued in the fall it's also nice having all the students back you know pelham was pretty high in terms of uh in-person instruction last spring but um we're even higher

006now so really uh all that work has been critical we've welcomed a tremendous number of new students not just the kindergartners but a lot of new school choice students as well as students who moved into pelham uh who have joined our school this year so that's been really nice to see and kudos to the staff for trying to balance all the things and i think you know maybe one one note on that is just um making sure that we're acknowledging all the staff in different ways um because it's not easy to do what they're doing right now one staff member were able to honor yesterday as i was able to come up to pelham and for all the nurses and all the districts that i served we had flowers and chocolate that we brought because

007the nurses are really carrying so much of the stress and anxiety of everybody of this of the staff of families of students um and that's not an easy role to be in so you know i just really wanted to note that and you know we put it on our social media and i don't think we've ever had a facebook post with more likes and shares um and all the time i've been here than that acknowledgement of the the nursing staff so for nurse katie we really do appreciate all the work she's doing um we have unfortunately had two cases this week um positive cases at pelham school that'll be reported on the public dashboard from destie um tomorrow the second case may have actually missed the timeline the deadline of getting that i checked with

008davis moreland on that um this is sadly consistent with other schools in our area you know neighboring district i've talked to their superintendent today she told me that they have had three cases so far this year in a similarly small school um you know and and that's a real challenge you know our mitigation measures uh it's why we reinforce those mitigation measures and charlie and i talked a lot today actually um about just kind of reminding folks of those measures because i think you know to be blunt as adults have gotten vaccinated it's gotten a little easier to relax those measures if you looked at the public data today from massachusetts there's 2 700 new cases which is the the most in a very very long time and you know fortunately the cases we've had

009in the district for the most part the districts have been relatively mild in terms of symptoms um but you know we want to reduce the cases we can and i'll be putting out a message on friday and the daily uh in the weekly update really encouraging folks of any vaccination status to limit their time in indoor spaces that are unmasked um what we're finding more generally not because of compelling is a lot of the cases when the contract tracer does their work uh both us as well as neighboring districts and across the state it comes from social settings inside and i don't mean like umass parties like that's not what i'm experiencing our staff our students being connected to our parents being connected to it's much more like oh my you know aunt came over

010we were all vaccinated so we decided to you could fill in the blank and and you know so it's not that people are engaging in poor behavior but i think the delta variant is forcing us to really rethink a lot of what you know felt safe in the spring for vaccinated folks and maybe the summer and uh and think a little bit differently about that so that's really where we are um uh oh the last thing i'll mention and ms darling may also touch on this is we do have an open house date uh we are planning to do that virtually for some of the reasons i just mentioned and we'll do it as opposed to last year we'll do it in a synchronous way so that people are able to interact and there's two-way

011communication between the teachers and staff members before we transition to the principles update i don't know if there was any questions for me yeah wrong good what is the current enrollment of the pelham school the current enrollment ms darling i think will be closer to than me so i think that's a unless or other question it's a perfect segue ron we planted you to ask that question thank you so much uh to transition to ms darling with the principals update go ahead mickey okay so um the current enrollment is 117 kiddos there are 53 percent pelham residents and 47 school choice which is about what um miss lee presented as a possibility for this year um we did get some more school choice right at the last minute so that was excluding um in kindergarten

012um as far as updates um so the i'll start with the kindergarten which was super fun the kindergarten screening we had outdoors all the teachers were in different spots mr laurie had the great idea of what's having the kindergarten olympics so we had t-shirts made by miss katherine we had masks made by miss leanne that all had olympic themes and the kids got medals at each teacher station where they did their kindergarten screening and it was a huge success um the parents seemed really happy we got to interact with the parents as well and everything was outside and the kindergarteners look super happy uh i've been in there a bunch it's really fun for me to be in the kindergarten because i've been in third and fourth and fifth grade for a long time so

013um they're really adorable and green trouble opening their milks and lunches and it's really fun to go in there and help um we have incorporated some of what ms lee brought last year with the morning announcements having the kids do the mornings announcements and they're loving it we've got mantra monday tricky tuesday with the riddle word of the day wednesday thankful thursday and um fun friday with a joke so they've really been enjoying the students have really been enjoying doing that um as mike mentioned most of our eating is outside of tables out there under the tent and then teachers have brought tarps and students have brought tables and each class has a different spot that they eat their lunch or their snack um and if if we have to eat inside we ask that

014kids kind of pull up their mask while they're chewing as much as possible and i think the kids have been doing a really great job with that i walk around and all the classroom all the kids have their masks on and that's really you know no one's complaining which is great the kids are really rising to the occasion um and it and it feels it's not normal but it feels sort of normal to have all the kids back in there they seem happy and knock on wood i haven't had a lot of like you know calls for unhappy kids so um the kids do seem really happy i'm gonna knock on wood um we are planning miss giselle and i are planning the latin heritage month reading for september 29th and we're having some latino

015heritage adults virtually or outside join us to read a book to the students so we're excited for our first annual event of that um we have a all school read aloud with the latino heritage theme and um so that's kind of the overview of the students the staff at our professional days we engaged in looking at our mission statement and really deciding whether or not it covers what we do at pelham and who we are and we decided we needed to change it we are much more focused as a staff just by our personalities on students mental health their social emotional social emotional learning and um equity so we're in the process of really tweaking that and making it our own to reflect what we're doing um we have a lot of new staff members

016that have joined us we have brene jackson our new executive assistant um she's here for the year as an interim secretary we have deandre henson who is our part-time counselor to fill the position because jess nardisi is doing part-time assistant principal of work and everybody has loved deandre he's been a great addition to our school and we have a new ot um chavez peters white we have a new psychologist peter um peter shea and we have a counseling intern abigail and i'm i'm didn't figure out how to pronounce this tartaran who's been working with jess as a interim i mean as a intern so that's really exciting we have a lot of people to support the mental health of our students which was a huge focus and it will be our our main focus this

017year because of covid we also have uh bright which is also working with the district to help out with trauma-informed teaching so we are looking forward to working with bright as far as families the back to school picnic was was a huge success lots of families came everyone looked really happy to see each other they were running around and the school bus pulled up with frozen treats for everyone which was really fun instead of ice cream truck it was ice cream school bus we have a trunk or treat scheduled um for in october i can't remember the exact date and um we're gonna have that outdoors we're not gonna be serving any food we will allow families to pass out candy but we're going to try and keep it as safe as possible and have

018everyone masked but that's a fan favorite so we want to keep that and i'm happy to say that the before and after school programs are up and running which is a very nice um you know addition to this year we didn't have them last year it's a huge equity piece that we're glad to bring back to pelham and almost i think over 50 students are enrolled in the after school program which the awesome ashley fuller is running and um it's just it they look happy they're outside most of the time and um yeah the kids love going there we might have 117 kids going there soon it's such a fan favorite so that is my update and any questions all right thank you so much mickey any any questions or comments for mickey all right

019thank you i mean i would just say you know from the parent perspective the return to school has been remarkably easy and seamless everything from like bus pickup to through the end of the day so i know it takes for for things to seem seamless like that it takes an enormous amount of work did i just share my screen accidentally um so thank you for all for everything you and everyone on the staff is doing to make that happen that's huge um okay next up is the sr3 presentation and there were some documents on board docs for folks to refer to so mike i'll go back to you on this one yep and i'll try to brief briefly do an overview and then i'll display the document that had the specific planned uses so we

020did a number of engagements including one specifically for pelham families that was not inclusive of the rest of the schools in the district because pelham is different um so that was a request that came in and mr ws moreland was able to accommodate it um and we summer she summarized the feedback uh and a four-page document i won't display but it was you know on the onboard docs on the public site um but i would i would like to display and go over um see if i can make that bigger i know i can um is what we plan to spend it on this year um so i just i'm gonna do the highlights some of the smaller ones i probably won't focus as much on the smaller dollar amounts but in general this would

021still leave a healthy balance for the next two years because we do have this these funds for three years we do have some of the sr2 funds the grant and it's noted at the top um remaining sr2 and sr3 but we know that needs will change obviously we're finding out that we're not done with covid by any stretch of the imagination um hopefully with the five to 11 year old vaccine on pace to get um approved sometime later this fall from what dr fauci and cdc director and fda directors have said hopefully that will help us in terms of some safety measures but the reality is right now than teachers being vaccinated we're still seeing high levels of spread within massachusetts and particularly in western massachusetts much more than eastern mass right now so going

022down the list we do have a certified nurse's assistant so we do have a medical waiting room that is staffed so if students or staff members display symptoms that are consistent with potential cove symptoms they have a place to go outside [Music] where students would be and staff would be typically located before they're picked up or leave the building i want to note that our cnas and pelham as well as all of our schools are incredibly helpful throughout the school day this is not certainly not the only thing they do and it's been a really valuable resource for us uh within pelham school to have the extra pair of hands when i was there last time i think the person was working in kindergarten helping out you know some of our youngest students and um

023they're not you know it's a medical waiting room that they go to when they're called to be there but um they're just they've been a great resource for us uh we are um there's a number of things on here that um are shared between the amber school so economy at scale means they end up being pretty small in pelham but around health and safety um so um when we talk about um you know individual desks because we're not using tables right now uh sanitizing supplies there are mind apps so just ways to communicate with families we are supporting staff you know beyond our employee assistant program because we know how challenging as i mentioned earlier this is but staff uh we have added some receptionist central office so that's a small portion as a small

024part of that's a portion to pelham uh we have added some aids power in the process right now of adding some hvac staffing because we know that ventilation is so critical for us here um you can see there's a large purchase a large amount for outdoor seating so we ordered a large number of tents last monday uh they will be here making i think is finding this out live but that's okay i think a week from today uh they'll be arriving but they're they're not the big tent because that involves lots of approvals and uh these are relatively small either 10 by 10 or 12x10 1210s i cannot remember which one we went with but they're they're available for small group and it really expands some of our outdoor use and because they are smaller

025uh we can be a little more flexible with where they go to make sure we're not taking up too much space in the field or where kids play which is going to be a really large advantage so those will be here soon and also looking at benches and other things that ms darling is working with our facilities department and our finance department on and then also just some early literacy and math curriculum that we know that students had a very very different experience last year and so we were working with a number of different tools much like the amherst elementary schools to support students along the academic dimension so that's sort of the plan as it is i think the thing i said in the other two districts is we we expect this to be

026a plan that's revisited probably a couple times a year both by the committee and the community because we know needs will evolve and we want to make sure that we are aware of that one thing we're looking into and um was talking today just just right before this meeting actually was adding some contact tracer support that's specific to the district um so we do rely on our nurses as well as in many cases we get supported by the the lead nurse for the district robin supernod and the amherst health department even though it's pelham they help us out uh when we call them but you know i think with the number of cases rising we're recognizing how stressful that is for our nursing staff uh so you know that may be an additional cost or

027a small additional cost and there may be other things that miss darling mr desi and other staff members at pelham notice throughout the year that we want to make sure we're supporting so this is not a fixed list this is our plan for where we are right now uh what we believe will need in the future um so that's a kind of broad summary of the spending plan for year one but i want to stop and see if this question is from the committee mike would you mind not sharing anymore just oh yeah sorry about that no that's okay i'll do that right now okay um questions for mike i have a i have a couple so well and first of all actually i do just want to thank debbie for adding on a pelham

028specific one that was a request that came through me and at the last minute she added that and so the requester was grateful and it was i think it was a good opportunity to have a pelvic specific one so i think in her in the write-up she had hosted i think seven separate sessions um which is a lot of sessions so i appreciate that work um so i know i understand that this is a dynamic list and it will change and the guidance from desi was to like to spread it out right was that the initially what they had said so what is the i guess mechanically i mean when are the funds out the door is this like is the district spending money and then it's reimbursed with these funds or these funds that

029we have in hand now yeah so that's a great question so this is actually funds we have in hand now so it's not the fema reimbursement okay we're still female reimbursement continues um so even the contract tracer that i mentioned before when i was working with doug on this this afternoon that may end up just being a fema reimbursement so we may have to fund the funds but these have these funds like when when principal darling you know says i want pence there's a budget line attached that the money's here from the grant and we can spend so we're not in the reimbursement place that we were beginning of uh the pandemic where fema was reimbursing we had to pay money upfront and then you know frankly we got a number of things rejected up

030front and then when the president changed this isn't a political comment it's just factual that the rules change and what could be reimbursed and we ended up with across our three districts many hundreds of thousands of dollars of reimbursed funds that we weren't banking on um so when we get to fourth quarter budget uh which we'll do at our next meeting in october you'll see that the fiscal year ended in a remarkably strong place in pelham and there's multiple reasons but one is the reimbursements that happened either right at the end directly after the fiscal year ended but we still get the money and it's still attributed to the fiscal year that already ended so it ends up being a sort of strange fiscal phenomenon of getting money reimbursed after a fiscal year ends but

031you have to apply it to that fiscal year that's already over so we'll get into the weeds on that next month but um that's uh you know uh we still have access to that but this is really cash in hand okay so as long as the district is within the box what's allowed within that it's entirely discretionary correct and we we did apply for with these themes in mind since some of you may have met um which i'm not sure that was an amber specific meeting i believe she came to our grants manager um she does all the leg work on applying for the grant because even though the money's in hand you do have to apply not on each individual point with broad themes uh consistent with the deci guidance and and that was

032approved so at this point we're in pretty good shape they will audit us and make sure that we spent it in the way that we intended but um the the birth is the the birth is pretty wide uh on a lot of these items so you know we don't have to worry so much about whether things will be reimbursed or whether they'll be funded you know we feel pretty good about that okay and then in terms of i mean obviously there's not enough money to fund everything that everyone you know teachers administrators families want to fund and so once all of the feedback was in there was just it was it like some triage work to be like what's absolutely necessary and was there work was it also like what's directly related to covid stuff

033too it is we the orientation is on those two dimensions exactly again you're all like plants tonight you're doing a lot of the work for me so i appreciate it but really that's it is it you know do we need to do it and is it related to copenhagen enough where it's justifiable you know and okay the other thing to note is that over time if the tide hopefully turns and we're not having the same challenges with covet spread uh statewide or hopefully beyond statewide when we get to year two and three that's where we have a little more discretionary ability to to uh using existing funds and maybe ways that would be more connected some of the direct feedback that we thought was great ideas but we couldn't necessarily prioritize them when we're comparing

034against health and safety items got it okay yeah and part of that i have received some communications from a group of parents and teachers at pelham trying to raise some money for a new playground and figure that stuff out and that was one of the suggestions which understandably is not going to be quite as urgent as some of these like other hvac or you know nursing items right and there also is the community preservation act process that oftentimes playgrounds get funded through it's a different funding source from the from municipalities that many municipalities utilize that when they're looking for playground improvements um and it's not coming from the school's budget um or the typical capital budget and i don't want to do a whole thing on community i'm actually doug's going to be here next

035time and that might be a very reasonable topic for him to go over i know in one of my other districts we are looking to apply for community preservation act funds to support renovation or improvement of playground spaces and that may be something the school committee wants to take a look at okay all right thank you sorry i just asked a lot of questions in a row any other questions from other committee members okay great all right well thank you for that um okay next up is vaccine mandates yeah so i want to just keep the pelham committee abreast these are these are all regional items um so certainly uh margaret or sarah bess can jump in if you'd prefer or i can just try to roll through where we are but just i'm trying

036to keep the other the full committees uh abreast of the conversations of the region guessing that silence means that people are comfortable with me rolling i will continue keep your mic on just go yeah so a week from um tomorrow night there's a regional school committee meeting um there'll be two items on the agenda one is um was discussed actually both were discussed last week at the regional meeting one is amanda a potential vaccine mandate for staff and so that is an item that may actually get voted by the school committee next thursday uh be or at least up for a vote um next thursday i want to note that pelham school we have uh surveyed staff and over 90 of pelham school staff is fully vaccinated um and that number will go slightly up

037uh very shortly actually with people who are you know going through their second shots and they're waiting two weeks after the second shot so uh you know i think you know just bluntly i think the impact on pelham is relatively low um and i think we have the data to support that if you look at a lot of public employers who have put vaccine mandates they're not much different they're no different than where pelham is because there are religious and um health exemptions or medical exemptions so pelham's in really good shape with that um i'm not trying to sway votes either way from her sarah best by any stretch but i think it's important to note that if we were home school was at 50 vaccination rate i might feel really differently about in potential

038impact either way as it is i think there there's little to no impact for me um and so um that's where we are with the staff vaccine potential mandate and before i go on i see a hand up so maybe i'll pause yeah ron go ahead uh when do we as a committee discuss the mandate for the school of pelham so that when i we could stop now or i could talk about the student one but this is an opportunity for you to do exactly that's one of the reasons on the agenda tonight is that sarah besson excuse me ms canyon we're going to be informal tonight sarah bess and margaret will hear any feedback from the rest of the committee and bring it back to the region next week well when it comes to

039the vote i support a mandate that's it yeah i mean i i can't say it any better i strongly support a vaccine mandate i also strongly support a vaccine mandate and there you go you got the feedback from the non-regional members of pelham process works right um and you know and i think what i you know miss cunningham and i were on the phone this afternoon with um our the attorney the counsel for the district and you know we are trying to figure out how to do the legal exemptions and do them with fidelity because there are people with legitimate reasons for exemptions and one of the things that's worth noting is for people who are not fully vaccinated now we've asked them s is not probably the right verb uh we've mandated that they

040wear can 95 masks when they're in the school and that when they're eating or have their masks off in the school that they'd be 10 feet away from anybody else so i do feel like we have the health and safety measures for staff members who eventually will not get you know we'll have reasons to receive exemptions that keeps themselves and other people safe and i think it's just an important note that um no one's at a hundred percent right um those exemptions are there for a reason um i talked to one such staff member in one of my districts i won't be as specific to mention which one uh confidentiality this person uh would love to get vaccinated feels really uh unsafe that they're not vaccinated and yet medically would have to i won't go

041into details out of confidentiality medically it's very very difficult for this person to get vaccinated um and um you know is really unhappy about the current situation and we want to respect an honor that um for some folks this isn't a possibility and therefore we're putting in place you know controls uh and supports to keep themselves safe as well as everybody around them so i think it's important to note the mandate it's also important to note that there is no 100 or that i haven't seen a public employer get to 100 because of exemptions that are legally required um and we want to make sure we're also supporting the health of everybody that ways too sorry can i ask one in terms of how like the definition of staff so it would be all teachers

042and para educators all administrators in a school like is it how far out does it go like what a contractor who comes into the school for some reason for a role but they need to also so we had a lot of conversation about that these topics at the last regional meeting the draft policy would say anyone who works in our building school buildings inside the school buildings we did try to work out something exempting some contractors because there was a feeling like if someone a contractor is coming in to fix a ventilation problem for instance and they themselves aren't vaccinated what's how is that keeping anyone safe if they're not interacting around staff or students um yeah and then sorry i meant more like someone on a contact contract basis who was working with children

043oh yes yeah not yet so okay yeah i mean we had a we had an outside contractor not working with kids but working in around the building conversation with the region my apologies okay all right thank you any other questions on that one brenda just want to check in about bus drivers so uh that's a complicated conversation we also had at the regional level um [Music] we have some bus drivers who work for our district and they both are bus drivers as well as work in the schools on doing facilities maintenance work throughout the day and uh we also have contracted bus drivers who never come in contact with or never come into our buildings so there's two different sets of bus drivers that we have that work for the district the buses in general

044and we're reminding our contractors of that um as well as our own are almost pretty good but with the windows open it's estimated that the air change rate and this is from joseph allen at harvard is between 25 and 40. uh air means an hour which i mean it's not quite outside but it's pretty close um so by that reason we're not doing the advice we've got is not to contract trace the bus uh because everyone's wearing a mask and the air exchange rate is so high um so the other practical conundrum that we find ourselves in and plus is a is an acute example but there are other ones is uh if our bus drivers for instance if we lost bus drivers there's not a we don't have enough now right and i think

045everyone's seeing them who's struggling and if we for some reason we lost a couple bus drivers then we would be adding and over packing buses to get kids to school uh bus drivers are never close contacts are never extended you know within three feet of anyone on our buses and so from a safety perspective you have to write as a cost benefit and you know just very honestly i'd rather have more bus drivers and fewer kids on buses we're not experiencing you know transmission uh if honestly if transmission on buses was a real problem after the last 18 months we would have we would know that not just locally but beyond um so at this point it's talking about people who enter the buildings um not people on buses which is um at dph wise

046is considered a really separate setting from being in buildings but that was a you know people felt differently about that uh at the school committee meeting at the region and so i think it remains to be seen how that all lands thank you for that explanation yeah no problem really good question and certainly one that we regional school committee uh colleagues uh will have to sort through uh whether it's you know next thursday or a future meeting for not getting to resolution at that point any other vaccine mandate questions so if i can go on to student uh this doesn't apply right now to pelham but i think it is worth mentioning um so uh what happened because this is actually an interesting the unique amherst pelham situation so at the regional meeting last week

047uh the regional school committee encouraged uh or agreed to send an email to the amber board of health inquiring this is now remember it's a regional meeting so all the regional school buildings are located in the town of amherst uh whether the amherst board of health as per regional school committee policy they defer all decisions on immunization and requirements to the board of health the board of health to my surprise i think from a timeline perspective considered it the next night as a topic not reasonably anticipated in 48 hours and felt really strongly on the topic and voted to add the a vaccine requirement for the code vaccines that were fully approved by the fda which at the current time is only 16 plus the regional school committee next week with a lot of press

048watching probably more people than right now um i'm confident of that uh we'll be considering the amherst board of health push the timeline question and implementation questions to the school committee but they voted 4-0 unanimously obviously affirmatively to add the fully approved fda vaccine to the student immunization requirements for students at the regional level at this point there are no students in pelham who are 16 plus so it doesn't apply to students at pelham i think it is worth noting that anticipated the next month or two that the 12 plus vaccine will be starting to it's expected that the emergency use authorization will go away and that the pfizer vaccine will receive full approval for 12 plus at that point this may become a live issue for us in pelham because we will have a

049number of sixth graders who have already turned 12. 12 and i think it is a topic that we will have to discuss it's a really strange um governance challenge because while the regional schools are located in the town of amherst obviously pelham school is not uh and the pelham board of health has not weighed in on this question so it puts us in a sort of logistical uh governance log jam which we're all familiar with working in the multiple districts that we have here i think the the difference with this one is it's i've never done anything where i got two calls from different globe reporters and a call from the boston herald reporter on the same day so the exposure and uh interest in this and it got picked up by the associated press

050with my tweet i'm so unpopular on social media and my tweet was in associated presses bizarre moment all i did was literally tweet out what the voter health voted just to clarify because i was getting a lot of questions as to what happened at this meeting and it was i did not express an opinion in the tweet but it became very popular so i think there is a lot of attention and focus on this so i do probably think that uh as the regional committee sorts out its timeline it may be worth it a few people meeting the palm school committee you know perhaps having a formal check-in with the pillar board of health to see where they sit on this question um you know los angeles for instance uh approved uh voted last week

051to approve the vaccine for 12 plus which is different than what the amherst border health did puerto rico has had this approved since july for 12 plus they have the highest 12 to 18 vaccination rate in the country as a result um so i think it's it's it's certainly a hot button issue for many people it's nothing that the pelham school committee i think thankfully has to manage at the moment or the fellow board of health but i i think we may get a month from now and we may be in different territory based on how quickly the fda completes its full review of the 12 to 15 vaccine and whether that receives full fda approval so it's just something to be aware of you know whether pelham chooses to be aligned with the regional

052schools in the amherst elementary schools is obviously up to the town town pelham and the board of health and you all um but i thought it was important before we get to that place for this committee to hear the full explanation and and how you all are situated in this okay and what was the response in amherst just generally aaron are there i've only gotten positive responses but it also hasn't gone into effect yet so it's uh i mean the reality is in amherst uh 82 percent of our 12th amherst and pelham i'm sorry um they're that is different from lebanon shoots very but in emerson pelham 82 of our 12 to 15 year olds are already fully vaccinated it's a fabulous number way above the state average of 69 yeah there's a big difference

053between 82 and 90 something right i don't want to minimize that and and what i said at the region got me in a little trouble but i'm going to say again because i think it's actually true is what we're experiencing is not adult in schools more generally not our school but in schools in general we're not seeing much adult to kid spread right we have that you know kind of cdc case study in california that showed it but in general this is out of school spread indoor settings uh where people are people who go to the movies together who are unmasked um and you know at the high school level people who carpool together right the kids are driving that's where we're seeing a lot of close contacts we're not seeing as many close contacts

054that's adult student and so i do worry more about the student-to-student transmission than adult-to-student transmission because you know when our adults go home at the end of the day they go home at the end of the day when our kids go home at the end of the day they do things together right and that's wonderful we want them to do things together that's not a complete um so so i uh you know my experience last year as well as this year is that the students who student close contact often not in the school setting is is a higher concern to me than the person in front of the room teaching a group of students than going home at the end of the day you know all while mastering the day so it is something i

055feel strongly about as a concern about student student transmission i think it's going to be a very very long time that's a not a good way to say it i think it's going to be quite a quite a while before the 5 to 11 vaccine once approved for emergency use is fully approved so i do think you know for most of pelham school it's quite a long time before we have to have this conversation it's really about whether helen wants to do anything with 12 year olds uh the sixth graders um in this area um because i do think that is likely to happen relatively soon um not soon where i think any actions are required tonight uh but it may be something that people want to come back to after the region sets its

056timeline okay that's helpful thank you sorry for a lot of you know it's just something obviously people like ms darling and i think about all the time you know and staff and families think about our time you know and i will say just anecdotally um and then we can drop and move on it's very different at the middle school in high school in terms of the comfort level of staff and comfort level of students people are still really good about following the protocols but when you have environment where more than 80 percent of the people in total are vaccinated there is there is a level of comfort that is not in any of the elementary schools in amsterdam that i see um it's not that things aren't going really well in those schools but it's

057very very different you know and i think like many of us who are vaccinated i still am very conservative with my personal life and what risks i take i've been inside anywhere in 18 months that was never my thing anyway so that's okay i'm not saying good bad whatever but there's a different comfort level for me personally being vaccinated than there is i wasn't vaccinated and i think that's terrible phrasing but that's contagious right you have an environment where most people are vaccinated and you know you wonder about getting too comfortable but there's there's a level of um kind of uh bringing down some of the intensity uh that that i found to be very different just even convocation felt very different for the secondary elementary staff because they're working in such different environments now

058where one's working environment where most people are vaccinated adults and kids and and obviously they'll immediately level uh just the adults so sorry for being long-winded but i think it's just it experiencing what i'm experiencing right now is it's um it's always like three districts right but most of the time i don't think about it that way except when i'm with you all and we're going budget or things like that right now i have two really different districts and um i've never experienced anything like this that way so yeah no i think that context is really important right like the the feel the vibe the anxiety that people have and how that impacts the district i think that's actually really important for this community to know about in an unfiltered way so i appreciate that

059um okay anything else on vaccine mandates before we move on okay uh next up has to do with our meetings and um continuing to do them remotely or moving to in person i we have i believe we have until april 2022 was that the date yes so we could we could be in compliance and continue remotely through april 2022 um with the option of going in person um so i mean for now i guess i'll start by just or mike do you want to tee anything else up yeah i want to share something because i've done a lot of thinking about this at all the districts so here's what i would say i'm not going to weigh in on an opinion other than say i'm fine either way i'm in person in schools every single

060day it's not something that uh i have particular feelings about the thing i would say is i would really recommend if you want to do in person we use the gym because uh when we have you never know when there's gonna be a lot of people coming for public comment my concern personally is that if we end up in the community room that uh if we ever have lots of people meeting which happens from time to time that both they and we would be distanced we also haven't um you know the gym has been tested for ventilation the ventilation as we talked about last year is particularly good in that space um and i i don't think we'd have enough people at a meeting that couldn't be distanced in the gym you know if we

061do then we've got a different problem on our hands right um and so um whatever you this group wants to do is 100 fine with me but i think we're going to do in person we really would need the full gym space i know most of the time there'll be very few people here like right now i think there's two or three people watching this virtual meeting um and i know it feels like you know large volume space for that many people but we just you never know you can't predict how many people are going to come and i think from a safety perspective we want to have the most most available space uh for people who came uh from a health and safety perspective yes agreed um all right well so i guess i'd

062like to give community members a chance to weigh in on how they feel about this margaret um i would be in favor of continuing with our virtual meetings i think they work just fine so that's my opinion okay thank you ron i like the virtual meeting format because it invites community participation more people through the meeting hello yes thank you brenda go ahead i mean i could go either way but until my kids can get vaccinated i like the comfort of being able to you know be virtual although you know i know we can't extend that comfort to everyone so i'm also mindful of that yep sarah best no pressure you do not have to weigh them but i just make sure you can be heard i i don't really have any feelings either way

063i think uh i guess i would lean slightly more towards virtual just because that's what we decided at the regional level and additionally there's no visitors allowed in the school building right now so just to be have the continuity of that but i'm i'm perfectly comfortable meeting in person if that's at some point what we would like to do okay great yeah i mean i i think i i like ron's point about the public participation for sure as someone who's been gathering public comment um for the past 18 months i've had a dramatic increase in people who have shared public comments since it went remote um and the fact that it's up on the screen and then posted publicly i have received communications from people indicating that like they've gone back and looked at meetings

064that were posted on youtube to see what the deliberation was on a particular issue and have then shared public comment um so and i i think it does seem like the deliberation that we can have in terms of like quality of discussion doesn't suffer virtually um i miss you guys don't get me wrong it would be great to see everyone in person when i feel safe and people are all vaccinated as their kids are um but yeah i mean i think that the the engagement level does seem really really different and so i would want to stick with virtual for as long as we could and then would want to maybe you know talk about ways that we could encourage the same level of participation even when we're back in person um because i think

065that part's really important mike just one thing to acknowledge the points that were raised i mean i think what's unique about pelham meetings compared to the amherst in the region since they were referenced by uh other committee members is that they weren't televised right if you wanted to go to tell a meeting it meant you came to the fellow meeting and if you had something else to do than that that night you're reading minutes which melee is awesome we'll have great minutes but it's not the same as watching the deliberation to your point so i think that is a unique aspect and benefit to pelham staying remote is that it does provide more authentic access for the public uh because of the video component yep i agree um so sorry i should know this do

066we need to vote on this like affirmatively or if i mean it does seem like the consensus is stick with the status quo yeah it doesn't require a formal vote um unless there was real disagreement and i'm not hearing unless i'm hearing the group wrong i think everybody okay really good word okay all right so next month i'll see you all in your home offices and obviously and i guess that the last thing i would say on this to committee members is to the extent that something changes or you feel like this needs to be different tell me and we'll put it back on the agenda and discuss it again um okay possible sixth grade oh sorry brenda go ahead all right just a quick thing when we do go to talk about it maybe

067in april when it comes up maybe would it be possible for us to consider a way that we could televise it or make it accessible to other parents that i'd hate to lose although that family engagement right i yes i'm gonna let i mean because i don't know but i share i share your interest in that might go ahead and yeah and the way it works with amherst in the region uh which is going to be comparable in pelham is that we have a relationship and a contract actually with the town of amherst hammers community television which is amherst media that requires them to videotape our meetings we don't we support them to videotape it but really really they do the work of doing that and then set up within the high school which some

068of you have been to the high school library where there's cameras that are built in so it makes it much easier that way we don't have any similar setup in pelham with cameras built in either the gym or the community room so i think it's a good copy to come back to maybe in the winter to see you know what's possible i don't know if there's an interest in the town of pelham some of the other public meetings being televised or you know um because you're not right you're not the only game in town in terms of public boards and pelham that have you know weighty decisions and um so you know i think it is worth coming back to because i know in pelham like i mentioned it is it's particularly valuable to have

069these videos in the youtube and i can go in and see how many views and you'd be surprised how many views tell them school community meetings that had over and i'm not talking about the joint ones i mean just purely pelham school committee meetings people really do go back and watch um i make no judgement about that i'm just reporting the facts um of what i see so i think there really is a lot of value to your point brenda yeah and i think i mean it maybe it's worth even as a starting point like i'm not sure what the select board is doing now but i mean this might be something that they've thought of and if they're you know we could pull resources across the various boards and committees in pelham so that's

070yeah i think that's a good idea brenda um okay sixth grade move to the middle school um can we mike do you want to start with an update on where things stand in amherst in the region i'm actually ready to do an update and a recommendation if that's okay to make a recommendation meaning okay let's hear it no no i'll do the update first because the context matters so next tuesday night amherst is having its second forum um and so um the uh around sixth grade to the middle school the three factors that i presented in amherst that are really critical as well as i've shared at the region uh for the amherst elementary schools are one because they have this problem an acute space problem in the amherst elementary schools uh two is that

071they have a building project is uh there's aspects of it that are contingent on this decision so it is you know i'm encouraging them to make a decision in a very timely manner they're planning to vote on october 5th one way or the other and the third is that there are some educational benefits you know there's a reason why uh most of our com pure institutions both are minority student achievement network schools our peer institutions uh in districts in massachusetts like northampton which we visited but also uh cambridge you know if you look at where we could compare ourselves to or almost all are all eight to five six to eight with the exception of brookline i believe which is um k-8 um it's it's organization and that's what having a two-year middle school is

072is a real challenge you know adolescents go in and by the time they go in and get comfortable they're already thinking about high school and so i think those are the three reasons that were shared that i shared with the committee there's a public posting of a recommendation i have for that committee because i have a presentation to it we'll see where they go with that recommendation um but i do my recommendation for pelham is given everything that pelham is managing right now in terms of the pandemic um you know fantastic leadership you know team that's coming in but is in an interim role uh and we'll see how what how that develops over time this is not something i would recommend the pelham school committee take up at this time i think if it

073is the case that amherst chooses to go forward i think waiting to see what the program is and then making the determination of whether pelham would want to join in that would be my recommendation i don't have any sense that levert and shootsberry are going to be engaging in in real discussions about this change anytime soon so it's not like just pelham would be having a k-6 model um i think if we weren't in a pandemic perhaps i'd feel slightly differently but i do feel like there's enough going on in pelham to focus on that we can you know engage in this conversation a year or two from now when we get a real sense of what the deliverables are what the program is um but at the current time i don't think it's um

074it's gonna take a lot of energy and attention and to me i don't think the benefit right now is there right out of those three elements i mentioned at amherst acute space needs um a building project and then the educational model only one applies to pella and i think there's some benefits and and having a rich discussion about the educational model but what's pushing things in amherst is number one and number two the fact that we don't have cafeterias where kids are eating in music i mean kids are learning and you know we've converted cafeterias music room and art rooms into classrooms we have a hard time finding pullout spaces none of those variables are truman pelham and they have a building project where a decision needs to be made in the next couple months

075and what direction they're heading in it's not that i think it's a bad idea or a good idea for pelham six pages ago i'm i'm right now i don't have a strong opinion either way they could see benefits and drawbacks i just don't think this is the focus that we need to have in pelham right now and i think when if amherst decides to send it six grades and the programs developed i think that would be the right time for pelham to engage about is this something we want to do because right now it's very theoretical right um you know we're very clear that if the amherst school committee votes to move forward in the region supports that will then develop the program not the other way around um and you know that's not true

076in pelham so you know i think with all the things going on right now my feeling is don't rush things that don't need to be rushed uh an amherst i don't feel rushed because we've been talking about it for a long time uh in pelham we haven't had that many conversations it would feel rushed for me to to think that we would be making a decision or you would be making decisions soon uh you you don't have those factors um and so you know without you know becoming a broken record my recommendation is keep abreast of the situation keep updated you know whether it's me or sarah bess or margaret at the regional level how that's going but uh i would i would push on this one until we have a better sense of what

077amherst is planning to do and then more specifically what the program is it might be really attractive you might say oh we think our sixth graders would really benefit from having this world language program and this maker space but we don't really know exactly what that program is going to look like right now and so you know really my advice is not that we commit to never having sixth grade go up i think that would be uh too early to say that but that wait till more knowns uh more variables are known and then re-engage the conversation perhaps literally a year from now so if that's where i am in terms of recommendations you all you can tell me to you know that's not consistent with where you want me to do but that's just

078where i'm sitting at the moment okay questions for mike or comments on this ron go ahead well it seems like we've been discussing this on and off for the past three years my only point is that i'd like to hear from them parents what they think about you that's all i want to hear from them if they support it i support it if they don't support it i don't support it that's all mike can i comment on that i see so i think i'm totally aligned with what you said ron and my feeling is right now we don't even have enough content to share with pelham parents and i think that's really where i was at like you know when a program if a program if and when a program's developed then we can say

079do you like a option a which is what we're doing now or option b this fully flushed out program of studies but right now we would really be not able to have that second option so clear and because there are there isn't the pressure that there is in amherst because of those other factors um i think you're right i should be more explicit to say when we engage in it engaging all stakeholders but i want to have more content with which to engage the stakeholders that we have at the moment thank you other than amherst is doing it or not i don't think that's good enough you know could i ask a question so we and maybe this is something that's still up for debate and amherst in the region it in terms of timing

080i mean is it possible that in fall of 2022 there could be amherst sixth graders in the middle school like could it happen that quickly uh it could my recommendation which is now online so there's no surprise is that um is to move the sixth grade um of ambers for the fall of three now you all been mostly been around long enough that my job is to recommend right that's where my job begins and ends sometimes so i can't predict what the amherst school committee whether they will want to move sixth grade and what their timeline is but uh my recommendation is to move it for a whole bunch of reasons i'll get into and that with that committee but the timeline that um and this is on the on our website on the uh

081on the school committee website on the board docs um where we post our meetings is to uh have that transition happen for the fall frankly so what the this committee decides to do is they'll decide on october 5th um yeah i mean i guess because then i mean at that point in order for us if we were going to engage in this we would have to do it on this somewhat speculative basis if if there was going to be some decision made in time to get pelham kids into the middle school in the fall right yeah i mean could could pelham sixth graders choice into the amherst middle school if that was an option for them who had families i mean i just knowing the like choice numbers and these like how our enrollment numbers

082can really shift our budget like it does have an impact and if there were like groups of families who were like i want to do one drop-off this year i'm going to choice my pelham 6th grader into the middle school i mean that could have an impact it could so here's what i'd say we'll see what the amherst school committee does uh if they do go with my recommendation i think if we engage a year from now in this conversation that would still be enough time to make that transition for fall of 23. it doesn't it does in other words it doesn't preclude things can happen a lot quicker in pelham than they can in amherst that's a loaded statement but i'll just leave it there can you say that at your next first meeting

083too that would be awesome because the scale is different right um oh yeah i get myself in trouble um but um but i i don't i don't i don't think waiting a bit precludes pelham from making a similar decision and frankly probably on a similar timeline because it's such a small number of students i just think giving it some time to play out uh was only going to benefit the conversation and then when pelham families and staff engage in it they'll be they'll be responding to something that feels very real um instead of something that feels more in theory because you know then you know it doesn't you know my experience is uh people will engage better when they know exactly what the program is and what the choices are right yes yeah because there's

084not this other urgent piece around space and a building project that is pushing uh for a decision need to be made sooner sure right okay brenda go ahead i just want to sort of piggyback on what you were saying though because i think it's it's really critical that we also do a thorough analysis of how it would impact our budget you know we always are having pretty extreme budget issues thinking about our school choice and so definitely i definitely support having more information before we bring that to the parents but i think we would need to maybe at that time really think about the the overall sort of budgetary implications yes true thank you okay so wait and see for now and you know when amherst makes decisions and we have more information we can

085go from there can i just make one uh just comment i do notice that there's some people putting on the chat you know much like public comment um school committees can't respond to it's not a public forum right now um so i just want to note that i am seeing the comments uh in the chat but based on policy we wouldn't be uh responding to comments that are made publicly but if people do have feedback for the committee they can email uh with a note this is for the palm school committee schoolcommittee.arts.org i'll put it in the chat uh that i see people commenting or they can email me which is morris m arps.org if it's a comment more from me so um i don't want people to feel like they're being ignored um but

086when we do have public you know town hall events we do respond to chat but uh as meetings are happening um certainly any feedback's welcome but uh based on school committee policy we don't um we're not able to take uh unless it's listed as such public comments throughout the meeting okay oh this is in the okay yes okay well i would echo that yes for sure uh email me as well or in my you can also comment to the school committee on our website um okay um all right next up is technology at the middle school um but actually there was a request to remove this item so i'm happy to do that if anyone would like to continue with it we can but unless anyone has anything to say we'll just move on okay

087um okay warrants i have a whole bunch um mickey and mike i don't you know if you want to leave for this part that's fine it's it's me like facing sideways and reading for a little while so bear with me um okay they did not okay um i authorized by my signature to payables in the um or sorry to payroll in the amount of fifty five thousand nine sixty five um and that was dated june 30th 2021 and i signed that on uh july 1st 2021. um i authorized by my signature to payables in the amount of 69 557.95 for the warrant dated june 25th this included general fund expenses of 718.13 grant fund expenses of eleven thousand three hundred and thirty six dollars and eight cents and fiscal 21 articles um of one thousand

088five hundred three dollars and seventy four cents and i signed that on july 18th i authorized by my signature to payables and the amount of uh oh okay no this is a different one fifty one thousand nine thirty three thirty four for the warrant dated june 29th 2021 that included general fund expenses of fifty one thousand nine thirty three thirty four and i signed that on july thirtieth twenty twenty one i authorized by my signature uh payroll in the amount of forty seven thousand one ninety two and 83 cents uh for a warrant dated july 28 2021 and i signed that on august 4th 2021 i authorized by my signature payroll in the amount of dollars and 54 cents that was a warrant dated july 14 2021 and i signed that on august august 4th

0892021 i authorized by my signature payroll in the amount of 47 249.18 was for a warrant dated august 11 2021 and i signed it on august 6th 6th i i authorized by my signature to payables and the amount of 44 dollars and eighty two cents for the warrant dated august 19 2021 that included general fund expenses of thirty eight thousand one ninety seven thirty two and grant fund expenses of six thousand one hundred forty three dollars and fifty cents and i signed that on august 21st and then finally um i authorized my signature to payroll in the amount of sixty two thousand one hundred eighty seven dollars and two cents that was for a warrant dated september 1821 and i signed that on september 7th 2021 any questions now you know why people watch our

090meetings and they go back that's why um okay and then so our last item is to accept gifts and we have two gifts one of them from our own committee member ron menino for mr laurie's kindergarten classroom for one thousand dollars so just before we vote on that a huge thank you for such a generous gift that i am certain will go to good use um so i am thrilled about that and then stop and shop a plus rewards of 416.93 to the pelham principal at your discretion so any questions or comments on these gifts before we vote on them okay all right i will take a moment can we approve both at the same time can there be a single motion for both yes okay all right i will take a motion i move

091that we accept the gift i second that you can have a second all right any further discussion okay we'll do a roll call vote okay wrong menina why margaret stands her eye sarah best kenny i brenda barlow i and hall line all right well thank you this is great i know that um this will be this will make a lot of kids and teachers happy um okay is there a motion to adjourn [Music] i move to adjourn second all right ron monito i margaret stan sir i sarah best kenny i brenda barlow i and hall i all right we are adjourned thank you everyone thank you meline and we will see everyone in a month all right take care have a good night