Policy Subcommittee Meeting

001okay okay good so uh we have a quorum of the subcommittee and so i'm calling us to order we'll take a roll call attendance um debbie debbie here carrie uh carrie presump and allison present um so we have two oh steven is here in the outer room i'm going to add him yay yay can you hear us stephen i can now thanks um so we have two items uh on our agenda and i sorry i forgot to pull it up ahead of time um i don't remember which order they're in um actually we have three items we also wanted to review our minutes thanks um debbie for sending those along i think sure one of them was name titled june 14th but was actually a duplicate i realized oh i sent them they are exactly

002the same yeah oh my gosh so we can review um the may 27th tonight okay it's really short so if you haven't had a chance to read it i'm sure you can skim it right now i didn't i read it i didn't have any edits yeah it looks good um i move that we approve our minutes from thursday may 27th is our second second um so uh mcdonald's second by spitzer and we'll roll call um miss pitzer uh sponsor i um mr sullivan solo and i miss westmoreland westmoreland i when mcdonald died the minutes are approved unanimously so we'll look at the june 14th ones at a future meeting um next up if it's okay with folks i thought we could talk quickly about this subcommittee policy since they're it that probably would be super

003quick um i will share my screen i made that couple edits that came up at our meeting oops i need to move it are you seeing the the oh let me add it it's showing up down here now there we go so we had um my notes had two small um changes to our policy bde subcommittees instead of i'm committing ourselves to doing it at an annual organizational meeting to tweak that to give us a little bit of flexibility there so i just changed that to annually and then the other one was changing character to charge any other edits that we'd like to propose to take back oh i need to change this to three um okay so no other edits and we can take this back to the full committee okay and there were

004no edits on the other uh policy so did any of any of us have any edits that we wanted to consider for that other bdf i think is what it was called no okay okay great so we'll move on uh to the other policy um that we proposed uh for the vendor diversity and i'm that we have feedback from ms cunningham we do um she likes it except she says she feels it needs to go a step further and require vendors to rather than just sign a statement that they have a commitment to diversity and equity she feels they need to actually answer questions um around diversity and equity she did not suggest what the questions would be and i would think that even if if we do decide to go that route and have

005them um answer questions that probably wouldn't be part of the policy i assume it would be in policy that they have to um answer these questions and then the questions would be done as um by the superintendent's office or by ms cunningham's office but that was really her only um feedback would it be helpful if i shared my screen to see that okay debbie can you broadcast so so would it be a second item here so in addition to the language contracts shall include a statement affirming the applicant's commitment to cultural diversity that must be signed by the application of applicant or their representative that's sorry it's a bit small on my screen i have a copy here if this is a google doc would you mind putting the link in the chat just so

006we could look at it in full size on our screen um it's a word doc but let me hurt it i think i can convert it sorry i'm just having trouble or is is it an email i don't think we got it but you know since no not since the first not to be sent out for the last one and for folks if anybody's watching this i will share this with the policy subcommittee and then remove permissions after this meeting so that um we don't continue to deliberate uncommon i think we could make it so we can't even edit it too where we could just view it right good point so i just put the link in the chat i'll change the permissions okay thank you now i can see it so it could be

007um we could put it as a as another numbered item here right or we could add it as a line in one perhaps we could um perhaps we could make another number point and make what's currently there is number one number two and prior to that have something about people any vendor has to complete um trying to think of how to word it i'm wondering if is this an assessment of their cultural diversity policy i mean i feel like it's almost um is that was that i didn't have an opportunity to act with uh like was she thinking that these questions would be to get at practices would they be getting at the you know trying to actually get to the core like if they have a policy like get to the meat of the

008policy like i'm just curious about what the questions we're supposed to be assessing oh i'm sorry allison no go ahead i took from what she said at the meeting she attended that she i think that if they have already written a policy that outlines their um commitment to diversity and equity i took it that presenting that policy would be fine but if they don't have a policy she would like for there to be questions that they can answer to demonstrate that they have a commitment to diversity and equity [Music] i think a lot of i would assume that if you're working with a professional organization and attorneys practice something like that they're probably already gonna have a statement of uh their values around diversity and equity i would think that some especially some small companies

009might not have something like that and i think those are the ones that she would like to see um [Music] doing filling out some questions she didn't say how many questions i would think just maybe a couple um i'm trying to i know we have um diversity uh questions on our applications for people who apply for positions in the district um it's been a very long time since i've actually seen how those are written since i'm not in the hr department but i think she would probably want something along those lines so i i took the liberty of adding a suggestion in here so that it says that um all invitations for bids and contracts shall include a set of questions and require a statement demonstrating and affirming the applicant vendor's commitment to cultural diversity

010that must be signed by the applicant or their representative maybe it's not require a shall include a set of questions one reason i was thinking it might be a separate bullet is then we could work in something that says if a vendor or organization already has a statement or policy regarding their commitment to diversity and equity that must be submitted in lieu of such a policy they must answer a set of questions um so it's getting kind of long there i'm wondering if it should be a separate bullet ah or we could even have like a one a and one b i could see right right that's a good idea too it's like a bullet assemble it for the questions and it's a bullet for the quality yeah that's a really good idea but the

011statement shall include we could have like semicolon one a something i mean my computer is very slow i type something and it takes like a couple of seconds before it shows up i wonder if i did it in my document if it was faster [Music] i've hit indent three times now and it's not going uh it's probably because you're doing it as a suggestion instead of a direct edit once the suggestion is accepted it'll probably end it nope so much for my thoughts there huh i wonder why it's not important okay what was your suggestion maybe um i'm trying to remember i i'm sorry i can't read that on the screen i think it would be a set of questions so okay in in in the abs there we go the vendor does not have

012a cultural diversity policy or statement right um and i would think this if we're going to have this in it would be a and the one you already wrote would be b because what we're going to say is i want to see what you're saying never mind in the absence of a statement or policy so i wonder if it could be something like the vendor will be required to submit their statement of diversity i'm not sure we call it some statement of diversity in the absence of such a statement the vendor will need to answer a that will be required to answer a set of questions assessing the vendor's commitment to cultural diversity that yes that sounds good out of questions assessing the vendor's commitment to cultural diversity and maybe it should be applicant instead

013of them yeah we can word i mean i feel free to let you edit those types of things um and instead of just saying in the absence of a statement this could be in b it could start out saying the applicant slash vendor shall submit their policy or statement their statement or policy commitment to cultural diversity period in the absence of such a statement or policy the applicant will be required to respond so this this statement in in a is actually that is saying that the district will put will write the statement right and include it in the rfps and that the applicant has to sign that statement to say that they're committed to that so yes doreen didn't feel that that was a strong enough requirement so she wants to see did she did

014she say she wanted to see a policy and she actually what she said was she thought they should have to answer questions when we first met with her um in our policy subcommittee meeting she had said she thought they needed to answer questions if they didn't have already have a policy got it so maybe you know i'm just wondering it feels like at least my opinion is it feels like if they have already gone to the trouble of developing their policy or statement around diversity and equity that shows that they have such a commitment and i feel that they should be able to submit that as um sorry they should be able to submit that um dory may not agree so i don't know you know at what point we i i don't know at

015what point we decide how we're going to write it and just turn it over to the full committee [Music] i mean i have one thought which is that if we just make it the applicant will be required to respond to a set of questions assessing the applicant's commitment to cultural diversity then doreen has the liberty to make those questions one submit policy or you know a concrete question about the organization right if we take out the like submission then we could leave it more flexible for hr to determine but i mean i'm assuming we're gonna have to one concern i have is um this i don't know how this is going to be enforced um and i'm one thing i think we're going to have to do is if we decide that if the school

016committee looks at this and and likes that and i have no problem with asking them to answer questions i just think we need to have an attorney look at it to say whether that's something we can require um i would assume we can do business or choose not to do business with whoever um but can we if folks are coming in at a lower price i feel like that's the other thing i don't i think there's a lot of things that are yeah our hands are tied in a lot of ways um that's my only concern i know i can see exactly what doreen's trying to get to here um but this hasn't been passed by uh mark terry our attorney and the language that was in bullet number one to start with had been

017passed by doug slaughter and he said that it would fit very well within what we're already doing in some of our in our ifbs invitations for bids and we could expand it to the rfps and other contracts without a problem i don't know about the center questions piece well there there are um yeah nevermind it's gonna there's there's state policies regarding supplier diversity um that we we could adopt that language but that doesn't get at this this is different this is not saying that we're committed to hiring vendors with a diverse staff were talking about their commitment to cultural diversity and this includes individuals correct that was my understanding anyone my understanding from doreen was she would like to see this apply to anyone who is contracted to be a vendor for the school so

018i don't see this as you know when we say applicants um i don't see that as applicants for say a teaching job right but an applicant to say provide vegetables for our food services department that would include them now i think this is going to be tricky to i mean the question i think really gets to how will we respond if somebody doesn't answer the questions in a way that corresponds with the district's goal i mean i mean that's why the nature of the questions actually matter so say i'm i'm just totally hypothetical but like the supreme court's rulings recently on like in favor of religious liberty around issues right btq plus right so like if our statement and the way we're defining it says that i don't think we're going to get constitutional i'm

019hoping we won't but i'm just putting out there that i could see some ways in which this could potentially be um tricky i don't but i don't know and that's why i think you're right debbie that would want to look at um getting a second an opinion from the attorney just to to make sure we're not going waiting into territory where we're getting in trouble um so like if we can make this like a strong preference if we can't make it an actual like are there degrees of which we could enforce this would be right follow-up questions with the attorney i do feel like this the way at least be is phrased right now it's not actually saying how they need to respond it just says they have to respond right exactly so it's it

020and it doesn't actually say how that information will be used or whether it will be is just saying that we're going to have these questions and they have to respond right now the implementation is the tricky thing right right and and i agree we should run this by um mark terry to um sort of get sort of a you know make sure that it's worded in a way that gets up the intent without sort of right adding layers that we can't enforce and honestly mark terry may say he would need to see the questions in order to let us know whether it's something that could be enforced i also feel like there may be members of the school committee who would honestly want to know what those questions are before they vote on whether or

021not the policy i mean i'm i i fully i yeah i'm full confidence in in um miss kind of him but at the same time you know this will go beyond her tenure right becoming policy so it would be cure i don't i don't know so there's like this balancing act between wanting to give freedom to books and also just well i for instance i one thing i would be concerned about is i wouldn't want someone say who's a local vendor and a small company to feel like oh i don't have much diversity in my staff because i'm small i won't even bother to apply they're not going to take me so somehow i would like to see a way to get at knowing that our vendors share our commitment but not accidentally discouraging vendors

022who might feel that they either can't answer those questions the way we would want them answered or and i don't mean that as in they can't answer the way we want them answered because they don't agree with it i mean they may feel like oh i don't have enough knowledge about cultural diversity to answer these the way i should i don't know i just have a little bit of concern it does make me wonder if i mean i'm not against how it's written now but i mean one solution to that kind of thing would be having some sort of tiered policy so like if it's a contract above a certain amount or like if there's a certain level of professionalism if you're getting a big contract you know if you're an offender versus if you're

023you know the person who's retiring to like i don't know a plumber or something for the you know i know we're outsourcing a lot of our right no what do we call it our facilities facilities work yes thank you so so some of those facilities people were contracting with maybe very small like single single person or family level kind of workers and so that may be harder to enforce i don't know that i'm just wondering if we're overthinking this a little bit um probably no because i'm just wondering if we just rephrase a so that it it's it's a little bit more loosely defined as to whether it's a statement that they sign or questions but rather say um rephrase it so that it encompasses a statement or questions but some way like it that

024it shall include language um to the language that affirms um or what was the word that i had before not um demonstrates language to demonstrate and affirm the applicant's vendor's shared commitment to cultural diversity um that must be signed and completed or signed by the applicant of their representative and just leave it at that because that like or some way to phrase it so that it could be questions or it could be a statement but what we're what we're what we're getting at is is that we're saying that our requests for proposals and invitations to bids have to include a requirement for a demonstrated you know that they demonstrate alignment with our district commitment to cultural diversity how that's in there and how that's implemented doesn't have to necessarily be in the policy as long

025as we're saying that there has to be a mechanism within this rfp process to measure that [Music] that makes sense so would you be how does that change so is this the wording that shall um do we take out the termination language then or is that i had put the termination language language in thinking that um i guess without some consequence it feels like this is a policy with no teeth but i don't know that's the piece that that may be wonky but like the all invitations for biz requests for proposals and contracts shall include a statement or questions affirming the applicant's vendor's and it must be completed and should i say a statement or um responses to questions affirming instead of just questions responses to questions well this this the way this is worded

026is that the the statement is our statement we're giving the statement right telling them to sign our statement so write their pledge um so that's why i think it's tricky when we put them together because if you take out and say questions affirming the applicant's commitment that doesn't make sense okay to be responsible two questions um and see the statement that i'm referencing there the statement affirming the applicant's commitment is already in our ifbs so it exists encounters shall require the oops i did not mean yes the applicant [Music] or vendor to demonstrate [Music] air but what if it said to demonstrate in writing their commitment to cultural diversity um whoops i see you know i i understand her i understand dorian's asked for questions that it should be more and i find that a

027little i'd say it should be either or because i in my mind if we have a statement and we're requiring people to sign and commit themselves to that and and there's a termination clause around that that's pretty pretty serious um and i'm not sure that the questions but i mean it opens up this whole other sort of quite like well what are the questions um right or you know so i wonder if it's like by um it shall require the applicant vendor to demonstrate their commitment to cultural diversity by signing a statement or providing information as requested see the the signing of the statement she didn't feel was enough to me if i were if i were filling out an application to become a vendor for the district it would feel much more serious to

028me to sign a statement that says if we find that you don't hold these beliefs we're going to terminate your contract right that feels much more serious to me than answering some questions that i can make up any answer i want um i don't know i mean either one you're you're asking them to just respond in writing about their commitment whether it's a question where it's a they have to it or a statement that they have to agree to and sign to assign i mean i guess the difference is one is maybe it's instead of signing a statement it's providing a statement because then yeah write it themselves cultural diversity providing a statement of responding by providing a statement actually here to provide a statement affirming their commitment to cultural [Music] diversity they have to

029write it themselves um and and provide that [Music] and then what about the language allowing termination so okay i mean do we give them stock language then about the termination language it's not yeah um i think there's already stock language in our ifbs i'll double check that with done does that work that says the all ifbs and rfps and contracts shall require the applicant vendor to provide a statement affirming their commitment to cultural diversity um for contracts shall include language allowing termination of the contract if the applicant is found to be in violation of their agreement the assigned agreement statement sorry yeah so we're really just changing it to have them write the statement instead of us providing it yeah in some ways that allows people who already have a written statement or policy to

030say we have that here it is and put it in which i think it's good if they've already done that work i feel like they should be able to use that as their their proof right if they have the police policy already on the books it's pretty straightforward right [Music] i think the devil is going to be in in the implementation of this so yeah yeah for sure no i do wonder if well it'll be in the implementation but i could see like potentially somebody coming and saying do you have any guidance on language that you would like to see i i definitely i think that would be a good conversation to have i mean that that would have a positive thing if people engaged in a conversation with the district about their values that's

031not a bad thing the interesting thing will be if if someone either refuses to provide the statement or provides a statement that i mean i guess they i can't imagine someone providing a statement that would be overtly um racist or offensive but i could be surprised if someone did that but came in as the lowest bid what recourse do we have as a publicly funded organization so i think that's a question for mark terry now well i don't i don't think we can there's i mean the the purchasing um i don't know if it's guidance laws whatever but it says pretty much we have to go with the lowest bid regardless but it doesn't they still have to this is part of their application package but so it's information if we have two equal bids

032i suppose right right it almost makes me wonder if more what we want is like and i assume we have this debbie i'm kind of looking at you it's like it's it's more about in some ways like obviously we want to engage with vendors who who share the same values but it also sounded from my that initial conversation with doreen it was almost like there was conduct on the part of vendors that was problematic and it's almost like that the actual in practice would like to see a code of conduct on the part of vendors when they're interacting with our with our district and staff i mean right that's probably the wrong term like code of conduct but it's almost like the that might be like if somebody signs this statement and then one of

033their employees is on our campus and does something that's in violation of the statement well that person was acting as an individual or without where they are you know and it's tricky um you'd hate to i bet companies would be really wary of losing a contract on the part of one individual's bad behavior i don't know like i said it's going to be tricky to implement but if if this is what hr if this means doreen's requirements then i think it would be happy to give her the tools to do what she wants so the question is do you want me to take it back to doreen and talk to her about this discussion or do we want to take it to the full committee and get their input and perhaps invite doreen to speak

034i feel like we should probably get asked um mark terry to weigh in first okay um because i i wouldn't want if he if he would look at this and say hmm you know and i have some concerns we want to know that when we write to the full committee um because if we're having these questions right now did i freeze you did you are freezing yes we can still hear you just fine though okay yeah everything's frozen up okay nothing's clicking um yes i can okay so i just feel like we should the full committee will ask some of these same questions and so we might as well get them answered ahead of time and then we can use that to guide our further conversation with the committee and with doreen that's a good

035idea i can send it off to mark tomorrow that would be great so i will send this back um this edit back to you debbie great thank you okay anything looks like we lost our we lost you later she'll be back i bet not back yet i could text her if we needed to we'll give her a minute yeah we were i think we're at the end um oh she's texting me let me ask if there's anything more all right i think maybe we should just wrap up um okay let me do we have to schedule a future meeting i was going to say that's housekeeping so we can do that by email if you guys like okay okay great so i'm gonna um make a motion that we adjourned the policy subcommittee bye second

036i don't know if is one of us a vice chair i think you know we're just kind of taking it so then i'll just say uh all those in favor don't we have to do a roll call oh says spitzer eye westmoreland sullivan i act all right and i'll email you guys and allison and we'll find another time all right sounds good thank you debbie thank you