001good afternoon everyone thank you for joining us this is superintendent mike morris i really appreciate uh those of you who had made time we tried to figure a lunch hour that hopefully works for people to join this virtual meeting and what we're doing today is we're looking at three amherst elementary schools last spring we shared our thoughts of what was our plan uh for utilizing space given covid given some structural changes that have happened in multiple of our schools and we want to update the community before the school year started on what the plans are some things have changed we've had some slight movement in terms of enrollments and that affected things and make sure everyone feels uh knows what what the plan is for the current coming school year excuse me we will be
002sending a health and safety uh memo this afternoon to all families so today's really is focus on the space the health and safety memo will answer more of the health and safety questions so kind of the game plan is we'll have each school spend a couple minutes going over their map and uh then we'll take questions towards the end of each school and then maybe questions at the end to ask questions or make comments you see in the lower right-hand corner of your screen you should be able to type in a comment or a question and we'll try to get to as many as we can but again we thank you for being here so at this point i will introduce all three of our principles um so with us today are derek shea the
003principal of crocker farm school thank you for being here derek um michelle hernandez the principal of fort river school thanks michelle and nick yaffi the principal of wildwood school um while there are differences you're going to see a lot of overlap so our order we're going to go in alphabetical order had a little uh conversation about that earlier uh croco farm will go first then fort river then wildwood and i think nick has the sort of unfortunate or unfortunate part of saying oftentimes like michelle said or like derek said because there are more similarities than differences but there are differences and that's why we wanted to present all three maps uh for you this afternoon uh last comment is uh if anyone uh your friends or family that are missing this meeting that link that
004you're on that youtube link will it's auto recording and it will stay there indefinitely so you can certainly forward this this uh session to anyone who wants to hear about it but without further ado i'm going to bring up the map over at crocker farm and there we are so i'm going to remove michelle and nick from the stream at this point so it's just derek and myself and i think i'll probably make it full size so it's a little more viewable so derek thank you for being here and uh thank you for being excited to welcome students back about a week and a half from now uh and this gives a good snapshot of what they'll see as they come to a crocker farm for this coming school year so do you mind walking
005us through uh the map and where classrooms are where other um kind of critical pieces are at uh crocker farm school this year absolutely um so hopefully uh good afternoon everyone um hopefully everyone can hear me uh clearly um so i just want to first of all start with what you cannot see in the app and um uh and that's the outdoor uh property at crocker farm and all our schools but i'll just speak for crocker obviously so we're obviously off of uh um west street and chet street and um surrounding our school we have we have a massive outdoor property that is uh incredibly incredibly well utilized um by large numbers of obviously our teachers and staff so we do have the the the is it the luxury or the or the joy of
006having this like massive space um as we sort of continue to try and explore the outdoor space you know one of the things as we proceed in the future is is continuing to think about how he um to to sort of live outdoors and at least for example when it's like 90 odd degrees we probably have need a little bit more shade in in the outdoor areas to help us sort of be outside as more as we as as we can often as we can um but that's just a start to see like outdoors lots of action uh probably need a few tweaks just to help make outdoors work uh a little bit better um as you look at the map um the school i think was bill 66 if i'm correct mike um the
007the perimeter of the building um and then the on the the the top side here which would be the um north side um that's all classrooms all done that back hallway um so you'll see a whole series of classrooms that go from second grade all the way down to i think like third grade at the end there's actually a preschool classroom that we've um allocated to um our preschool friends i two of them room 22 and 24. i can talk about that in a second but mostly in the premiere of the school you'll see our classrooms we have 18 classrooms for next year um we also have a second floor which you can see um probably um in the purple which is off to the side um and so we'll have four classrooms up there
008that's where our sixth graders go um and we give them the sort of luxury of the space upstairs um classrooms are very similar in terms of size um picture window you know in in every classroom uh you know we're finding that in covert times we could do with the room's been a little bit bigger um but we've managed to to make it work um what you'll see in the interior parts of the school are much more the sort of small group instructional spaces um for things like um special education speech and language uh or gym uh or music room or art room are all uh in this interior part of the building right in the center um we have a cafeteria fairly large cafeteria over here on on the east side um we hope to
009use that this year for a small number of students who would go and perhaps need to eat there when when we won't use a classroom or when the weather's pretty rough outside um in previous iterations we had up to 100 students in there obviously that won't happen this year our library is way over here in the east side we have an absolute beautiful library design wise we kind of wish it was in the middle it is what it is it's a beautiful space right here in the front in the red you'll see some like first grade classrooms kindergarten next to them um things that we are struggling with a little bit and i did mention earlier and i love our pre-k friends pre-k has a very uh growing population and i think we're looking at
010possibly adding another classroom this year to sixth classroom so there's clearly six rooms designated for preschool and small group instructional spaces we struggle to find space for our part-time staff you know speech and language ot psychologist type folks we have a medical waiting room this year that is in um this east side here i believe it's in the green color um that the previous iteration was like our family meeting community room so it feels a little um sad to have lost that room um and it's something that as we go forward we would always want to have like a community meeting room our instrumental music folks are struggling they have a tiny little room right next to that green room room 49 it's very difficult to see it's actually not to scale that map the
011map completely because it's much it's about half the size of the green room next year um so that's a struggle um and in our after school program we'll probably get like anywhere from eight to 100 students who come to after school and we're trying to figure it right now in terms of the cafeteria and other things how to how to make all of that work um i mean i do think we've got a beautiful school i think probably any given time about 360 students in the property makes it a little tight because you're probably talking anywhere from 80 to 100 staff so so that's a fairly large number in a relatively small size school um yeah i mean i think there's a few things that can get fixed over the next few years we have
012cubbies inside classrooms that take up you know two meters by 11 meters of space that we could probably you know change there's definitely some tweaks that need to be adjusted we'll get some roof issues that need sorting out um but overall you know we love our space and we're hoping we're going to continue to improve it and make it relevant and better over the next few years thank you so much derek um if i could just add one or two things or just prompt changes do you mind speaking to the change uh the computer lab what was the computer lab that was one and the other one was about the gym yeah compared to when students were in studio in school in the spring and how those rooms are going to be utilized a little
013differently as well yeah i mean so the computer lab which is on the again on the east side here i can probably point to it um it looks like the color is uh like a light pink color i'm not really good with the color i think yeah i think you get it um so previous life that was a computer lab with like 20 like stations you know like um desktops very difficult to have any flexibility with that space um and so we will remove the desktop tops um laptop stuff and it's it's another room that we're going to try and use is like a multi-purpose room and again we're trying to be very efficient here and smart about things so we're going to use the room during the day in the middle of the day
014for like lunch for for staff lunches because we need a place for staff to have lunch um um we're going to use it perhaps for some meeting times for some testing times for some kids to do in small group instructional times it'll be a multi-purpose space it's not a huge room but i think we're trying to get the right furniture in there to make it to make it work the gym uh which is agreeing over here on the the west side the gym um we're just about finished cleaning the gym of all of the materials that were taken at our classrooms in the last 18 months so excuse the phone's ringing um this whole sort of de-densification of this school the gym was just like from floor to top full of stuff we're in the
015last little eighth corner of the gym trying to uh take some stuff out um and the hot would be that we can utilize the gym um as the school year starts we were not able to use it at all when we were in the property last year like the cafeteria because the cafeteria was also a place that still is probably half full of stuff hoping to clear that up in the next week but again we're hoping to get our gym back working and perhaps we would use it for some larger scale meetings after school let's get some possibilities um but we really need it back in in action pretty soon thank you derek i think the only thing i'll add is that both spaces also didn't have ventilation that met our standards last year and
016so our facilities team spent a lot of time uh spring and summer and putting in um pretty large a little noisy um our purification units that that now meet our standard so that was the other reason we weren't able to use them last year was uh we have high standards for the ventilation a room we have uh kids in and they weren't there last year but they are this year so thank you derek i think we'll make a quick transition we'll do questions at the end if that's okay with you derek yes thank you and i'm going to bring michelle hernandez on who is the principal at fort river and if i can figure out this system a little better than i am at the moment there we go um so there's fort river school
017i'm going to make it even a bit larger so i think it's more viewable if you are watching and double click on your youtube screen it'll maximize it on your phone tablet or device so just if you're looking to make it larger but michelle if you're able to walk us through a little bit of what fort river will look like this year and say that more formally welcome to the district we've really been thrilled to work with you since you started this month um and or at the end of last month and uh you know really hit the ground running with lots of thoughts and and some tweaks that made um this map look perhaps a little better than when we were presented in the spring so really appreciate your creativity michelle thanks mike thanks
018and and and i i'm feeling super humbled and excited about um starting here with with uh you know fort river and and being part of amherst community now i'm really looking forward to a positive year and with that said like you know let's look at the the calendar i'm sorry the the map i did when i thought i did make a few changes um everything of course benefiting learning spaces for students and of course having giving teachers a private lounge where they felt safe that and had some time they would have some private time to have their meals um so if you're looking at the um the map all the classrooms um are in the outdoor i'm sorry at the perimeter of the building um and so they all have large windows of exterior exits
019and that kind of promotes the outside learning that we want to promote this year for fort river i'm giving the teachers easy access to get outside and have the students be outside fresh air and social distance the all of the classrooms have stayed the same with the exception of one of the fifth grade classrooms that we have moved over if you see by that kitchen area right next to that top one henry fifth grade we kind of added another fifth grade right under it so that all fifth grade classrooms would be together it would be easier for them than to collaborate and continue and promote that student learning we've also moved some of the specials classroom we when i first looked at at the at the map i noticed that the library was really congested
020it wasn't being used last year and i really wanted to promote that library this year with students but of course there was way too many people housed in that library we had art music the tech teacher all housed in that library really not giving the librarian enough space for students in there so we have moved music and tech out if you look at the map they're right under k1 right in that cluster of kinder k1k2k3 music and tech have now their own space music teacher now students will be able to go into a music classroom which they did not have before the tech teacher will still continue pushing in but that area there now is the space where that tech teacher can keep all their his equipment um in one central location we've also given
021the art teacher her own classroom so if you look at the map and right at at the bottom of at this uh h2 sixth grade um right next door is a singer um for art class that used to be that fifth grade that we moved over into that fifth grade cluster by the kitchen um so now our class has her own space um and students will have that travel time to go there also we just feel that promoting some kind of movement throughout the day will will keep the students engaged and and um and give them a different environment throughout the day not only in the classroom but now moving to their specials and then going outside right um we did keep in the center of the school we did keep you know there's there's
022the specialized um classrooms that are like this for special ed um l classes the math interventions reading specialist otpt all of that is still you know some testing rooms that's still in the center of the building those are those smaller offices um right by the library on either side of the library all those class all those offices there are still staying the same with those um specialized teachers um we did move bright if you see right inside you see right above the bathrooms bright program now has their own room and we have moved everyone out of that inner teacher lounge area that now it's the teacher lounge it that was full of offices we've moved everyone out there minimizing any traffic through there so that the teachers can then go in there and have their
023lunch and they there's absolutely no um traffic going through that inner um classroom um we're now this year we're going to be using the gym we are in the process of cleaning it out we're about 50 done clearing out the gym um and it will will probably be done um by the first week of student return and um so for the first week the gym teacher will be taking if if the if the weather allows the gym will be outside for the students for the very first week and and you know as as long as the the weather allows there the gym is going to be outside um but that gym area now is being cleared out like i said 50 and that will be another area that will be used not only for only
024for the students but also like if we have big staff meetings things like that same thing that they're doing at cracker barrel with their gym we're going to be doing the same at ours as far as like lunch and stuff the students will have that one cafeteria only it will only house one classroom at a time but other classrooms that have lunch at the same time will either eat um in their classrooms or they will have outdoor time to have their lunches outdoor we're really promoting as much outdoor time as possible of course weather permitting um and then our after school program um we will be taking about 40 kids and after school program and the areas that they will be using is the orange cafeteria the library and the gym area um for the
025for after school program and then our medical waiting um room is right next to the nurse if you see right up right by the principal's office right by my office is the nurse and right across the hall is that medical waiting room and some of the interior testing rooms that were right by the main office i think i think i covered everything i think you did um the only thing i'll add much like derek said is that fort river has lots and lots of outdoor space that will be utilized it's very fortunate that it's flat and hopefully it doesn't rain too much bad day to talk about it with a lot of rain coming in the next day or two but we want to we want to support outdoor education as much as possible the
026only other piece i want to add those fort river families who are here may remember that last year we had a failure terminal failure of the cooling unit on the roof we thanks to our facilities team from quick order right before heatwave installed a a unit that was a ground based unit and that is the plan for fall to continue with that unit it actually pumps out a lot more air and a lot more cooler air so it's helping us with ventilation as well as cooling so we're going to continue with that and then over before next spring we'll make a permanent decision for what uh fort river schooling will look like but we do not have any concerns about cooling at the river this year it worked very well having been a former fort
027river teacher when i was hearing complaints on a hot day that it was too cold inside that was a really novel thing i think mr shea who worked at fort river could also have a good chuckle about that we were back there in the early 2000s and that was not the concern so our current systems are working and are durable and that is the plan moving forward i said there was a question i think i tried to answer but the orange rooms are the commandantes rooms so because in the combinators program there's two classrooms um half day english half day and spanish they're just noted that way and we are now up to kindergarten first and second grade as that program grows over time i think it is worth noting for everyone on the call
028that uh fort river situation will get more complex over time unless there are other changes because uh fort river is adding a classroom each year because the kaminantes program means that that we have three or maybe perhaps even uh one grade level four classrooms um as it goes up so just something to be aware of that over time we i think principal hernandez did a great job figuring out creative space but but there is some finite limit on that and we do have concerns moving forward in that and last but not least we'll bring up mr yaffi hi nick how are you very good mike all right let me see if i can successfully navigate to your map yes i'm gonna need my glasses i think so okay well let me help you by making
029it a little bit larger so as hi everyone out there i can't see you but i know you're there um and as mike said at the beginning there's a lot of similarities between the schools and how we're solving problems and some unique uh differences on behalf of all three of us and the entire staff as as derek mentioned and michelle too like thank you to our custodial staff this has been an enormous undertaking uh to find stuff to welcome people back who were remote and get it in the proper places because at wildwood we really had to do some creative thinking i think there was only uh one teaching team and the two kindergartens that stayed in the same place so it's been a lot of moving of stuff but we are getting things settled
030so if you if you look at it you know like fort river you can see um six half these on one side and six halves these on the other the former quads are now these beautiful huge spaces and on one side with um you have our second grade first grade and then one third grade now at the far end and then on the other side you have the two third grades three fourth grades and one fifth grade so that left the question like where do we put the other fifth and sixth grade classrooms and so creatively uh we came up with some different solutions so we have uh two fifth grades the remaining two fifth grades are in adjacent so like michelle was doing and derek we're trying to keep in terms of collaboration and
031teachers working together the the grade level classrooms together so we have actually a husband and wife team side by side with uh mr owen in the art room and this being owen in what used to be our ell space um so these are three classrooms that are have walls and windows and really work well so then we had to figure out what our solution is both for ell and and also for music because the former music room now has one of the sixth grade classrooms i'll get to that later but i just want to point out the sixth grades are close together we have one one sixth grade classroom in the music room one in a cafeteria that has a bank of windows and a door to the outside and the other sixth grade classroom
032is now in a kindergarten which also is self-contained with a bank of windows so they're close to each other because in our sixth grade model they move from classroom to classroom uh to take math in one room ela and another science in another so going back to the solution in every solution there's also some advantages so with ell not having a space that's just their classroom each ell teacher is embedded and we're going to be enhancing our co-teaching model for ell um so they're embedded in halfsies and the hamsi's really are work well for co-teaching because the teacher can be in the back of the room but also co-teaching everybody and then have small pull out but they don't have to leave the classroom itself are our very creative art and music teachers they have
033a home base in the back of the library which was our former maker space which is now moved to the front of the library and they'll be doing push in into the classrooms also as michelle said you know and derek said too encouraging people to go outside as much as possible but we also now have freed up a cafeteria cafeteria 2 in the middle now will serve as a breakout room for the adjacent sixth grade but also for the art and music teacher when they as we move into more extended projects they'll be able to bring classes there for especially in art where you have large-scale projects over time whether it's print making and then she can have things uh dry and it'll be available the next time she comes in the remaining cafeteria is
034going to be used for staff lunches both cafeterias will be used by our after school program as well as the gym for after school we have a variety of small group areas uh our cater to intervention team now has been moved into what used to be the green room um that's here thank you mike and now we'll have smaller green rooms along the side you can see mike they're kind of next to the library there i can't put my finger there you go yes and a green room for those of you that don't know is to get yourself into the green zone so it's really a take a break spot um monitored by our therapeutic team to help kids when they just need a break and they need to get themselves into that green zone
035where they're calm self-regulated and ready to go back into the classroom our tech teacher like at fort river and crocker farm will be doing push in into the classrooms and has a home base here with what is called our grades three to six intervention our math and reading specialists so one thing and you look at the map that i realize that i'll be emphasizing with our staff is is we're all going to need to be flexible we're all going to need to as we say to the kids get along be nice to each other be kind because we're all coming back you know in some cases we have staff members and children and families who haven't been back in 18 months so this will be a really great way for us to model what we
036want to see with kids mike did i cover everything dude anything i think you got it all um so i'm actually gonna take the map down add your colleagues back to the call and see if there's any questions that um any of the viewers would have about um here we go uh about in the maps or kind of how the flow is going to work or how students will go i mean i think as we're waiting for people to perhaps weigh in with questions i want to note um there is um it is tight in our schools you know i think we've had declining enrollment for for many years for over 20 years and we've i think made thanks to principles really good use of space over time and we've had a pretty good luxury
037people may not think that but compared to other schools of having lots of small group spaces lots of pull-out spaces that were really optimal and i think this uh covid and the changes particularly at fort river and wildwood have really challenged us and parker farmer's had space and challenges for since i was a principal and that was that was quite a while ago so it's it's you know it's tighter at crocker farm than it has been but it's not as new and at fort river and wildwood you know we have had you know pretty sufficient space uh for a long time and this is definitely getting quite tight um you know you may have noticed that the exception of a couple classes at crocker farm pretty much everybody's eating in their classroom which means food's
038delivered it's a little bit of a different process and some of that is just there's no space that we could keep kids distance if they're eating inside other than the classroom there's not a space to go to i think people principals are working really hard on the after school programs i know that's a major interest particularly with the chance change and start time earlier end time to provide space that is needed for the aftercare programs which do such great work with our children but that is also another piece that is going to be challenging um for the year so um i'll stop talking now and see if there's um any questions or comments i think the one about fort river was answered um while people are thinking of questions maybe the only other thing that
039i was thinking is could each of you talk or maybe one of you could speak to the group just about arrival um just you know where do students go when they get to school we've seen the maps but maybe talking through that a little bit i know mr shea thinks a lot about this one as do his colleagues but um do you mind talking a little bit about when students arrive the plan for where they would go i said i sure mind jumping in quick so um i we i was just writing a little thought about this um so last year um we had reversed our arrival and departure process because we had all the cars come to the front of the property and the west street entrance and all the buses to the shea
040street um we're going to reverse back to what we had some previous iterations um and the reason being is that we now have a larger number of buses coming back to the property and i won't say hopefully because it's not what i mean but it is challenging to have you know 100 150 cars come to the property our schools are not particularly well designed to have large you know flow of cars so our hope is that is that cars will enter through the shea street engines and arrive at school similar to last year where you know you get around a circle you you don't actually park you know it's a flowing moving um piece where your student will get met by someone and then go straight to class um and and the goal would be
041to arrive you know again if you're driving the goal would be and we'll send this as a letter no earlier than 8 10 a.m so you know 8 10 i'll say 8 25 would be arrival for cars and that'll be similar for buses probably 8 10 through 8 20. um but we're trying to keep the separation of buses and car traffic so that we can you know have the most enhanced you know safe arrival departure procedure i think in the afternoons we're talking about the younger students been dismissed at 2 and the upper grades 240 buses will leave the property no later than no later than 2 45. yeah and that'll um there'll be uh the bus routes will be out in the next couple days um just putting fine touch i think you know
042perhaps the next day question came in so i want to get to that what are the spacing guidelines you're all using also if you've released any information about if there are student excuse me staff teacher vaccination requirements so the spacing piece what we're using is the cdc guidance which is a minimum of three feet when possible fortunately at the elementary level um relative to most districts we have very low class size so we're able to meet that three feet expectation uh in terms of the spacing guidelines in our classrooms some may be able to meet even a greater guideline particularly at fort river and at wildlife or space is a little more available in classrooms but we're following the guidance that we've received from public health authorities in terms of staff teacher vaccination requirements i
043think just two quick thoughts one is that um the vast majority of our staff and and teachers are reporting that they are vaccinated um and i believe that to be true based on the support we offered and how many people accessed it last year to get vaccinated that'll certainly be a topic on an upcoming school committee meeting certainly it's been in the news a lot and in massachusetts certainly yesterday's it was in news a lot this morning so i think that'll be something that is discussed at the school committee level and when information comes out on that we'll we'll be able to share it but i do i think it's worth noting that our vaccination numbers are very high in fact yesterday i think i shared this out in a different forum but we received
044our 12 to 15 year old vaccination numbers i know that doesn't affect many students yet in uh sixth grade but just as a sign of um how the community is supporting vaccination we had 80 of our 12 to 15 year olds vaccinated which is well above the state average of 63 and nationally that it's under 50 percent so our community is really supporting us um in that way you know i've been very public about being pro-vaccine um and um and i think the community has supported our efforts on that dimension um good question uh what does drop-off look like for kindergarteners the first week or two specifically fort river can parents park and walk kids to their rooms without going in so i think just one quick note and then and then i know michelle
045jump in and probably the colleagues as well is that uh in the information that will be emailed out this afternoon we will talk about visitors you know and we are um continuing to in most situations restrict visitors from entering the building but michelle why don't you jump in with thoughts about um what that looks like so for the drop-off especially for the kindergarten we are allowing the parents to to park and walk them um to the door we ask that the parents don't come into the building but you are absolutely allowed to walk to the door and drop them off at the door so we are allowing that um we'd like to keep it open for parents i could do that for the first week um to walk them through the door and then after
046uh kind of we start winning the students off of um having their parents walk through the door but whatever the parent feels is comfortable for them we are willing to to work with the parents to make sure that that both the parents and the company just as comfortable drops being dropped off especially in the younger grades yeah i'll just add that having been gone through this profit kindergartner it's generally much harder on the parent than it is on the kid so uh we want to acknowledge that it's not that no students struggle but but uh the tears usually come from the adults um more than the kids and i think i appreciate the flexibility to try to work that out but it's a hard thing you know it's it's thinking about the child school experience
047and what the next 13 years will look like so i want to empathize with a parent who asked their parent guardian who asked that question i think all three of us have been there on this call all four of us excuse me three of the three three of the principles in me and uh we're trying to you know balance that with also the the kind of safety um general parking lot safety as well as coveted safety concerns that we have but thanks for the question that was that was a good one other questions for anyone here well i think unless one comes in i want to thank everyone for viewing this again please feel free to share this if there are other questions that come in that are school specific uh please do get in
048touch with the principal i think you've already heard from all of them uh welcome you to the to the school year um and know that our whole team not just the people on this call but every staff member is actively and anxiously gearing up uh for what we are planning in terms of a great school year we know it's not the same school year um that we had a couple years ago and we're looking at this as opportunities outdoor learning being one which i think derek started us off i think that was the beginning of his talk about the building we're trying to find ways that what we're learning uh and what are things that we've learned over the course of pandemic that are making us rethink our approach to children this was a pretty
049nuts and bolts one on space but even within this one you can see that there's different opportunities we've accessed to try to improve the learning experience for all students in our district so again thanks so much and we hope you have a great uh i guess a week and a half so to speak uh hopefully get some nice warm weather get the kids swimming running around playing sports dancing whatever it is that they like so uh they get that and we look forward are really excited to to be greeting your students in a couple weeks but thanks again for joining us have a good rest of your day