001all right we're live okay uh so sing a presence of a quorum called to order the meeting of the policy subcommittee of the regional school committee um at 605 pm on wednesday june 9th and uh i guess we should we need to take roll call attendance um carrie i carry a present debbie debbie present and allison present um we have oops sorry i need to download and then go back to the agenda separately sorry um do we have minutes to approve we do did i don't remember if i sent the minutes or not i made the minutes but i probably forgot to email them to you okay so no minutes to um no minutes to approve tonight um but the uh first item that we are reviewing is the draft of the proposed policy um
002for a vendor diversity and commitment to that diversity i should say and i wonder since that we haven't shared that i can share that on screen so that if anybody's watching it they can see it and i need to make sure it's gotten oh there window okay because it's like i don't want to share my whole screen okay there are you seeing the word duck i am okay i'll add it to the stream do you want me to show just the document so it's larger for people or do you want to stay on the screen um we can stay on the screen okay you'd be weird if people see just the document you know um i can make the words bigger though let me okay okay so this um the the request was um from
003our assistant superintendent dorian cunningham was to create a policy that requires contractors and vendors to share the same commitment to diversity and inclusion and equity that the district does so this is the draft that um debbie thank you very much for doing the research for us to review i don't know if it would be helpful for me to share my thinking on how i put the draft together that would be great okay um i apologize one of my dogs has decided to bark so that'll be in the background but i took the opening paragraph the language is um almost directly from policy acb which is our affirmative action on cultural diversity policy um that particular policy um i think gets toward what we're wanting to do with our vendors um from there i used language
004that is already in existence in some of our documents that we use when we requesting vendors to put in bids so the bullet points um the first bullet point comes from that and then the second bullet point i just based on what i know to be our goal in the district so that's it thank you for putting this together debbie i'm sorry i said you're welcome but i'm muted because of my job i'm going to um pull out of the stream for a moment and go let her out of her crate and then i will be right back okay sorry i'm just reading do do you have any um i'm just wondering oh good perfect timing [Music] i don't feel like i have any um ads i think this is um so yes thank you
005thank you debbie for for doing this work and um and pulling that in i think that that approach of pulling in from the um what we put into our rfps or ifbs um makes perfect sense um and if this strikes me as in line with the spirit of doreen's request as well yeah i don't have any changes to suggest i think it's likely doreen or the committee the larger committee will have ideas of ways to modify or change it but i mean this seems like a really great starting point and thanks yeah well now i apologize for the drinking in the background okay super quiet but if you'd like um i could share this with doreen tomorrow at work ask her to go over it see if she has any suggestions that she would like
006us to include before we turn it over to the full committee but um i have a feeling she'll probably be pretty happy with it i think it incorporates most of what she's looking for but of course she may have ideas that i'm not thinking of so i'm happy to share it with her tomorrow great next step and are there any legal implications here where we'd want to hey run it by anybody outside of uh like i'm thinking about the mark terry's and well i spoke to doug slaughter he's the one who gave me the language for bullet point one from our ifbs and he suggested that once we have something finalized before we send it to the full committee we send it to mark terry just to make sure that we're not stepping on any
007legal problems um he didn't think if doug didn't think it would be a problem he thought that this could easily be added into everything that we send out right now it's only in the ifbs but he said it should be in rfps and everything that we do and he didn't see a problem okay okay so our next steps on this will be um that uh debbie will share this with dorian um for her input um and pending that edit um we can incorporate it i think at the end of our meeting today we can talk about whether we want to meet once more um before the meeting on the 29th um no because this is not being on the meeting um there's there's no way that we'll be able to get it in for the
00829th because um the the regionals my only question was if we want to have a first read for the school committee on the 29th or if we want to wait for a first read for the school committee until when we reconvene in the fall so we can circle back on that afterward um anything more on this one so the other items we had was other um welcome steven um i've been watching for quite a while did you have any are you um so if you've been watching do you have any comments on the policy that we that i was just sharing on the screen i do not okay i'm sorry if you were were down there and i didn't see you i'm distracted by my very loud and obnoxious dogs yeah i got to watch
009you walk away and go uncrate your dog i'm sorry i did miss you for a long time excellent um so we we also had um on our agenda to talk about um any policy referrals coming out of that um last regional meeting so the that one would be the subcommittee policy um and i had shared ahead of time a first proposal that is not i is i just took stab based on sort of the conversation that we had at the at the regional meeting there's no um i know we haven't had a chance to talk about it but i thought it might be easier to help us get started so let me just share that screen do you see that um debbie uh yes no i do i'm so sorry there we go so um
010this is our um current policy bdes on subcommittees um and in the green are the edits that that i started with as as a starting point to suggestion for modification um based on the masc reference policy i think also in my notes actually i'm going to move this so that i can see it myself um so i used to google me not um stream yard okay i made it too big on my screen so now i can't see it okay okay um in the in my comments on the side i think i i link to some of the um reference policies no i didn't but um that might have been in the other one so the first suggestion the the um uh again marked in green is in the first paragraph to right-size this policy
011to be just sub-committees of the school committee and create a separate policy for advisory committees and task force um and then the other thing that in the reference policy and then when i look at sort of other districts around the state and the online policy manuals most all of them actually spell out that it's a one-year appointment um if it's a standing subcommittee and we reappoint every year it's it's more of a formality um but i do think that it might be helpful for us to sort of codify that um in policy and the other change so in the first bullet is just again pulling out task force and pulling that in into a separate separate policy um our policy gave all authority to the chair um whereas the reference policy as well as most
012other districts say that it's actually subject to approval of the committee and i feel like that's we do that anyway so um i feel like that's important in case there's in case i decide to go rogue um you guys can um do that and then the other the other clarification here is just is to pull out that the subcommittees um are subcommittees of school committee and membership as school committee members and then again creating that sort of clarity that a subcommittee of school committee members and then the advisory committee policy would be um would have sort of broader membership directives or possibilities um and then the other thing that the reference policy calls out in specific is is really if there are standing subcommittees to include them and list them here um some districts include
013it in their just general subcommittee policy others have a separate policy that lists what the standing subcommittees are since we have close to 200 policies i'd be inclined to just keep it within this one versus adding another policy um so i just took language that i've seen in other um i think belchertown was one um that other districts sort of just saying there are forums standing subcommittees that remain in place until the annual reorganization meeting i pulled this these poli these subcommittees from our subcommittee spreadsheet as well as the description that's in those and one of the questions that i had also that i think is worth having the conversation at our full committee meeting is um to consider adjusting these to be a little bit more clear about what our what the committee the
014full committee expects from our subcommittees our standing subcommittees so as an example in other when you look at other districts when they're describing the budget subcommittee some say that the budget subcommittee actually reviews the annual budget our practice and the in our committee is that the whole committee reviews the budget and and weighs in we don't we don't delegate that necessarily exclusively to the subcommittee so some specifically call that out and don't even have a budget subcommittee others will have a budget subcommittee and the role that for the budget subcommittee is to work on the manage and create the timeline um for the overall budget process um including budget hearings and community um presentations um an engagement and sort of just managing that as opposed to being the responsible group for the reviewing um so
015that was that was one idea um sort of like that would be worth discussing um the policy committee is is no different that's not one that i would saw as ours being unique and different from other um districts the superintendent evaluation is one that it's a little bit different if you look at other districts they call it something else i'm not saying like i don't know that we need to call it something else but in addition to developing the guidelines the instrument and the timeline they also have the responsibility of proposing goals for the superintendent so starting at the beginning of the year managing the goal setting process as well as the evaluation process so that was another one that i wanted us to consider there so i'm done talking carrie so i had a
016couple of reactions to the draft the first one is just um i i like i'm not against the change where we say that it's only school committee members but i'm looking around the virtual table and i see debbie she's not a school committee member so but i've always really valued her participation on the committee her knowledge especially institutional knowledge that she brings to the to the to the table so i guess i i'm thinking i i don't i'm realizing also that i'm on officially you know i i think i'm on all of the standing committees yeah i it's i'm not i'm not a huge fan of that um as we talk about um anyways so but but i do have some thoughts on so so that's one thing but then i did have if you
017scroll down to the committees i so i will say like when i was on the budget subcommittee with um sean mangano as the as the finance director we we did actually function where we'd meet prior to any budget hearing and we'd go over all of the materials it wasn't that so in the same way that the policy committee reviews the policy documents and then they get reviewed you know we're not the ones making the decisions and but we did actually meet with sean and we'd go over the documents and i think what happened was there was a change in finance directors at the same time the pandemic hit and the practices have have shifted over time so i don't know that our budget committee has functioned that much differently than um always i guess some
018of these like changes that have happened have been related to changes in personnel and changes and you know brought around by the pandemic um but and then again the audit piece i do think that i remember like meeting with the auditor as a member of the budget subcommittee um and we also have opeb which i'm also the chair i so that's another kind of sub thing out of the budget so i don't know if it's worth i'd be happy to like think through and flush out some of these standing ones a little bit more um and i'm open to kind of thinking through but i do i don't know if it's worth codifying the the the balance but it does seem kind of funny that i sit on all of these standing ones and i'm
019sure there are some anyway i i think we should codified like the annual you were asking the question about the annual revision of like looking at it and i think it is worth doing that annually to think about who's on which committees yeah it was a bit rambling but those are my my big reactions otherwise i think it makes a lot of sense what i'm thinking because i my understanding debbie is is actually the delegate of the superintendent as opposed to um and so and i think that's based off of um this this line that says committee chair and superintendent are ex-officio members of all subcommittees so i think we could sort of just spell that out and say that the committee chair and superintendent or their delegate i like that um because i i
020agree like and especially with the policy subcommittee it's important to have right i think and with the budget subcommittee you're going to have to have the finance director there right well they're there but are they a member oh that's true that's true um now the the one other thing too i am glad you brought up the opeb and and the audit because as i was going through our spreadsheet it's called our subcommittee spreadsheet and we talk about them as subcommittees and yet a lot of them are appointments or representatives or you know job like roles that we play and so i do i do think that it might be helpful for us to separate those out and sort of really be clear this is a subcommittee and that as we're delete this the committee is
021delegating the work of the committee to these groups to sort of progress them in between our meetings and then there's advisory committees and task forces that have a specific purpose and then there's appointments or you know um roles or liaisons that that we're required to and that's that's separate but they're not they're not subcommittees necessarily so that might be where like that's where cpac or bpac or um jlmsc or negotiations um you know there are there are representatives at the table for those particular meetings or um the collaborative education the um i had the question about the audit because in our spreadsheet it says that the chairs do that role but i i i mean i haven't been chair for very long but i didn't play that role um this this year or last year
022so that's what i wasn't really sure so i'm wondering if that actually the way you described that carry if that's actually part of the budget subcommittee i mean it was pre-pandemic i just remember meeting with sean as part of the budget committee and having the document shared with us and the findings i don't think eric was there so i don't know if you're still using the same spreadsheet that's the one i created um yeah okay if it is it's becau i put chairs there because that's what had been happening in the past um when i was asked to create the spreadsheet they asked me to list all the member the state the current members of the committee at that time and up to that point it had always been the chairs just meeting with the
023finance director to do the audit so i don't think there was any um i don't think it's codified that it has to be the chair i think they had just been volunteering to do it up to that point well part of the part of that too was that our friend trevor felt like he needed to go to every single sub community meeting and be on them so that's how that happened so um so i mean obviously these are decisions that the full committee will make um but just like thinking like do we want to propose that it's that it's a budget and audit subcommittee and combine those since it sounds like that aligns with some past practice sounds like we haven't we've depending on who's on the committee and who's in the finance office it
024it it varies um we don't have a consistent way so we could propose i would say whichever way makes no sense i think that makes sense personally i don't see why not yeah and see do you really only have three then the other ones like i said were um oh well so this is this is the the question mark right is then does um there was one called the data trends subcommittee that i think is dissolved um though it hasn't really officially been dissolved but that um uh that would be that's the only other one that's actually a subcommittee as opposed to there's representatives from the committee that are participating in another committee or another thing so that would be negotiations that had been listed as a negotiation subcommittee um jlmsc wasn't there um on
025that list because i was using the last one and then i forgot to include that but that would be another example of like yeah there's a that's a there's a standing appointment but it's not really a subcommittee and those were the only two um uh sctf was the other one and they think it's sort of in that one um just from conversations with the current co-chairs of that the desire is to keep that as sort of an advisory committee with sort of with membership beyond the the school committee members only so that's why that's not here yeah the so the the data trends subcommittee that was that was rick hood that was really pushing that one and really since he left we really haven't had any data that we can oh oh you got muted
026oh i got muted we have nothing going on that we can trend the data not even the this the high school and their yeah and i think that that's something that we can talk about as a committee and it struck me as that might be one that becomes an advisory committee just the sort of the way it was described was to create sort of that process um what do what do we think about proposing the superintendent evaluation committee to encompass also the goal setting or do we want to keep that i think in the past couple years it's been the chair it's interesting i'm looking at the list on the masc and they have the personnel and policy subcommittee um i do anyway i was just it's funny to see how other places do it
027because it looks like masc rolls the evaluation into the the policy one we could have even just two um i i think i don't know i kind of like how it's worked i mean in the past i'm not i don't i don't i guess part of me is like if it's not broke don't fix it yeah like if there's a reason to do it i think that makes that like i'd be happy to bring the question to the full committee and people have an issue with how it's been going in the past but otherwise it kind of like the way it's i mean i know somebody must be working with the superintendent to set those initial goals but i feel like it's actually been a fairly generative process where we all get together and talk
028it out yeah yeah really um sorry i was gonna say i i agree and of course it's the makeup of our current committee but we are a committee that that we all like to dig into a lot of these topics and and and collaborate on them so i i do feel like there's there's certain certain things that do take a chunk of time outside of the committee to do the work and progress the work in between committee meetings and that's sort of where i went and and yet there's so much that the full committee does like to discuss and and deliberate because i you see some some committees are really designed that their subcommittees are where the business is happening and that the full committee meetings are more report outs and and approvals as opposed
029to deliberation and i don't see that as a fit with our our personality is a committee so debbie sorry no that's fine i was just going to say i think doing setting the goals with the chairs ensures that the pelham school committee the amherst school committee and the regional school committee are all going to be represented equally in setting the goals and it gives those other committees an opportunity to talk through with the superintendent if they have goals specific to their committees so to me that's why it makes sense for it to be the chairs doing that initial part yeah good point [Music] any other thoughts on the edits here the only thing i just thought of was something stephen said the other night about the policy subcommittee having a representative from another policy the
030evaluation committee having representatives from each district and i i wasn't even aware of that but it seems like for the reasons debbie just um brought up it might be good to put that make that explicit so there's people remember that because i don't know where that's written i'll keep your money for two more years before i'm done i'm just trying to say membership is the prize yeah that whole thing came about after we met with the msac rep for about four hours one night and when went over all of the how how poorly we were actually doing on our superintendent evaluations because people were doing their own nobody was following the rules we didn't even know what the rules were so that's how this thing came apart and then it was audra gracinski and emily
031marriott that really i mean he spent hours on this thing putting it together yes they did okay i do wonder i wonder if we should have sort of a a statement here that says each subcommittee should have representatives from more than one member town just just to avoid it being all amherst does that happen at all i'm trying to think of like the budget's pretty well balanced you're right that we do have um yep the one thing i would say there though is part of it always depends on the makeup of the committee and if you have a committee that's really collegial and wants to make sure all the towns are represented that's great but if you end up with a committee that say there's a chair who for some reason wants to freeze out
032one of the towns that chair would not be required by this policy to make sure that all the towns are represented um so that would be my only concern about not including language around equal representation yeah because i wonder if that um would help like i mean this is different this is saying that there needs to be four four members of the evaluation subcommittee versus but i do think like you know i remember what if we should state it as a goal rather than a record i'm just thinking about um like i'm thinking i don't want to make steven have to be on every single subcommittee because he's the only representative yeah that's that's the other problem you the for leopard and shoots berry their representatives would be terribly overworked and i think they already
033have uh sometimes you know this is already like the region as i guess it is for us too but um i forgot who made the comment the other day but just the sense that they felt like volunteering for me being on the region was service enough to their right right and that's true you're right about that that as a regional member they are part of the whole body so they're representing their talents in that way what's funny for me is i feel like i'm a member of the regional school community in the shootsbury school committee because we meet once a month for 45 minutes is more like a subcommittee [Music] it is fun though being the one rep from a town because i'm being hammered now because there is that growing it i think it's
034about 120 votes now it's not enough to push them over the top but they really are pushing for that 100 statutory and they're all mad at me because i'm sticking to the 55 and 65. now does this language work membership on each subcommittee should strive to include representatives from at least two member towns or districts maybe it should be district towns remember times yeah i like that okay good um so we can include that one um for first read and discussion and then i also this one is very straightforward i literally just this is just the reference policy from masc um for us to to consider um so this is the advisory committees to the school committee and this is intended to include things like the sctf where membership can include individuals be beyond school
035committee members or delegates of the superintendent so that's that's where that phrase comes in when we say residents if somebody is a parent of like a choice student i i guess i was just thinking of like the the definition like how do we draw the boundaries for residents right what i did sorry i should say this is the um the model policy and what i added um i replaced the model policy language sorry i didn't include track changes but um i replaced the model policy which talked about um staff members being appointed at the discretion or recommendation of the superintendent and just copied the language that we have in our current in our current subcommittee policy i just copied that from here and inserted it into the advisory committee but i have that same question
036carrie um was do we want to limit it to just residents or should it be residents and guardians of students i think that makes i mean you know somebody from a town that's not included in a region wants to be a member because they have a connection to the schools directly through their their family or you know like i don't know it's just worth considering because i could see it arising as something what if you use language like um members of the broader arps community that would take in parents and guardians from anywhere that would take in you know a grandparent who has um an interest in it in a special um maybe some special skills that they could bring to it or a member of the business community um that's connected with the schools
037in some way or i don't know if you think that language is too um open to interpretation but that's one thought it's true about parents for school choice kids because it was either two or three years ago that the entire pelham pto or pgo whatever it is was all school choice parents i wonder if we could suggest the guardian language or something similar to that and then see if how the full committee feels about it or another interested party i think resident is too specific but i'm i don't want to make it completely wide open but i wonder if they're if they're all being appointed then it would be somebody having some weighing kind of what the and i think we should not use family members just to be inclusive or like guardians or family
038members just for i don't know what's the language we usually use around we usually we have been using parents or caregivers okay um so that that's that's the interesting thing that i i wonder about is do we want to say caregivers because that could include babysitters that are after school only and i don't know that's i mean in this particular case that's i'm i'm not objecting to the use of the that phrase but what if somebody's a would would guardian that would include foster care parents yeah i wouldn't think so yes because they're legal guardians okay should we be really and maybe we don't need to be but should we really specific and say residents of the four member towns it doesn't matter i'm just thinking of like if i were on the amarristor pelham
039it i'm just thinking like the enrollment working group which was an amherst specific thing would we would that would we want it like trying to think like relevant umber town or um um or maybe it doesn't matter because it'll work itself out hmm no you i mean that's a really good point it says we include but then it doesn't say it has to include right and right i think um we could add something that says membership requirements will be determined you know will be i guess that's point four right so the appointments made by the committee so that's true and then the committee can have a discussion um right because it's it's still it's it doesn't say that the committee has to accept anybody that so if it's an amherst only it's a if it's
040an advisory committee to the amherst school committee the the amber school committee could decide we only want amherst residents or or parents of amherst students right shhh we could just say of where appropriate i don't know right it says staff and members and students may also may be appointed to the committees where appropriate um um i'm gonna you know what i'm gonna um take this off um residence oops that one in the residents um residents of the four arps member towns parents or guardians of current arp students staff members and students and staff members and students also may be appointed to committees where appropriate i think you could even take out the and before staff and just put a comma after correct i like that okay so again this is sort of saying that it's
041one year and then you may be reappointed after one year was seven something from the um that one made me laugh i don't know it just seems kind of like a very um positivist statement as uh my actual everyone i'm i'm really curious as to the background of how that got in there yeah i almost wonder if it's too much i don't i don't know i it seems a little i don't know why should an emotion come into this i don't think we should be completely robotic um no um so it should include research in fact i don't know i mean i think it's just a funny statement i don't know yeah i i think it's yeah not having been part of the the policy group that drafted the reference policy um yeah i don't
042i get what it's like the way i interpret it is to say that it's not an advisory committee of just saying well what do you think right like it's not intended to be sort of focus groups like what is your reaction to this or what is your reaction to that but to actually be doing some doing some sort of compilation of um so maybe one of the way would be saying that like committees could committees will conduct research i mean i don't know will use how about committees will use research in fact to to as input for recommendations sure and it could be qualitative research or quantum yeah you could do a focus group and then come back to us and report them which found um advisory committees will use research in fact informing recommendations
043what if instead of the word fact you put the word data yeah i like that in fact it just feels accusatory somehow it does that's what i was thinking i didn't understand f responsibilities for the release of information in the press and i just was wasn't sure what is that maybe intended for sort of really serious advisory committees on something in case sort of the but i feel like it's almost unnecessary um i'm thinking it's in there for things like when you have a building committee um like for the building project that we're and right now sometimes they have the chair of that building committee actually have responsibility for talking to the press um and in most cases uh that wouldn't be the case it would be the school committee the school committee would still
044be the one to talk to the press or the superintendent so maybe it should say something like um well the way it's written it's just going back to six so each committee that's two well maybe what does it say i mean if you wanted to make it explicit you could say the school the you know the the chair will maintain their responsibility for release of information to the press unless otherwise instructed kind of thing yeah but i was thinking we could also just say responsibilities if any for the release of information to the press that's good i like that that way it keeps the syntax any other i feel like it's not worth worrying about it too much because i feel like somebody's going to have some feedback on this i think it's good i
045mean i think we've made some good updates and i think it it's still pretty well in its own to begin with yeah and i'm exhausted from our meeting last night i know i know and it's seven o'clock so oh um i remember debbie you you telling us at the very beginning that we're always very good at being one hour which is one hour exactly and i and you're right um okay so are we good for bringing these to the full committee um on the probably on the 29th um oh no wait uh we have it on the we have it on the next agenda i think next week um are we good for bringing these in for a first read i think they're ready okay great excellent well thank you um so do we want
046to um back to the question about um another possible meeting um the week of the 21st um and and i bring this up because i will say that i don't know where folks stand there is there is some sentiment from a that i've heard for wrapping this subcommittee discussion up this june um so that that would be the only thing is if it comes out that coming out of our full committee meet um meeting next week do we want to have a placeholder meeting for the week of the 21st in case the full committee wants us to make some refinements and consider it for a vote on the 29th [Music] are we meeting on the 22nd we are not um there was we almost were when but we moved the meeting to the 14th and
047so we have the um oh sorry the amherst committee might be correct because of the conversation that we had yesterday um but the region right now is not scheduled to meet on the 22nd the next right now the next region meeting is the 29th so i can't do the 24th or but i could probably do the 21st or 23rd potentially the 23rd is the employee recognition retirement event yeah i could do the 21st if people could do it i don't know they put on your calendar if we do the 21st could i make it could i request that it'd be at 6 30 instead of six it's just a little easier for my family that would work for me um yeah i find that 6 30 generally is is an easier time unfortunately it looks
048unfortunately for the next meeting we have to start at six but um the 21st yes 6 30 works for me does that work for you stephen okay is that the first day of summer it'll be the longest day of the year stay open talk about policy excellent okay great uh if there's nothing else um then i will move that we adjourn is there a second second and we'll take a roll call vote um debbie hi uh stephen hi harry hi and allison hi so we are returned thank you