Pelham School Committee Meeting

001okay so i'm gonna call the pelham school committee meeting to order at 6 30 on may 19 2021 as per the governor's orders this is a virtual meeting so we'll go around and do roll call attendance ms hall paul president miss dancer stance are present mr menino menino present and miss kenny kenny present as i mentioned uh in a little bit this may be our last virtual meeting based on the governor's new order so we'll talk about that when i do superintendent update but for now uh for those of you who are watching the reason i'm calling the meeting to order is there was recently an election in pelham and every time after an election the superintendent plays the role of chair and i'm using that word intentionally just so that uh we can have

002the nominations for the new chair um and by now it doesn't mean that it can't be the person who was before but just it's it's considered a new election uh and vice chair and secretary in this situation in pelham uh but all i'm responsible for is running the election for the chair uh then we'll get on with our agenda tonight will be a brief meeting um i have a town hall on vaccines which i encourage everyone who is interested to attend so we'll we'll be closing up um at 7 30. i love this little power thing i've got going on by the way i've been chair for a little i'm sort of like feeling my oats on the uh chair part but i'll be glad to give it back to whoever wants so uh on

003that note um is there uh just the processes there's nominations for chairs you can nominate yourself you can nominate someone else i'll accept all the nominations and then ask for people to vote on who they'd like to be chair of the pelham school committee are there any nominations for chair i nominate miss hall is there a second okay see there's a second uh ms hall is that unmeniable to you yeah okay are there any other nominations seeing none we'll do a roll call vote um that the motion was for miss hall to be the chair of the palm school committee miss kenny kenny aye mr menino menino i miss dancer stance or i and miss hall hall okay very good congratulations thank you well thank you committee members with 90 votes i got five times

004more than i did the first time i was elected so i'm finally good congratulations thank you well thank you committee members with nine votes i got five times more than i did the first time i was elected so i'm very good congratulations yes yeah well thank you committee members with nine votes so someone has the youtube link on on their tab because this is uh like that's the time delay so there's about an eight second time gap between this and when it streams on youtube so i wonder if someone seems like it went away so when it inadvertently had the youtube link up that's what we were most likely hearing so since it seems quiet now i assume it's resolved okay let's do it okay um so we should also do the other uh committee

005responsibilities um so regional school committee it's our best i would like to volunteer it's not the right word nominate yourself yes okay that is the right word nominate myself i have been on the region of the past year and i would like to continue on there as uh we have some unfinished business and uh i also have a child now in the region a second though like to nominate miss spencer all right uh i should probably know this can we do this as well are there any other nominations first of all okay can we do this as one just emotion okay so i move um that sarah best and margaret uh continue on the regional school committee is there a second second all right um any further discussion all right we'll do a roll call

006vote sarah best uh kenny yes i have confidence in you keep going uh ron menino i margaret stancer oh hi and brenda brenda i okay um okay and then none of the others we need to vote for so i always offer up if anyone wants to represent the collaborative or represent pelham on the collaborative board that's what i thought okay um all right next up is approving the minutes we haven't started interrupt um i think vice chair and secretary probably unless i missed that oh no you didn't miss it i just okay that's right all right so our current vice chair is margaret or previously and secretary ron is that right i think so okay yeah just just for everyone you know the secretary's role is not to take minutes uh the secretary's role is

007that they serve on union 26 supervisor union 26 along with three members from the amherst school committee and three members from the pelham school committee the vice chair's primary responsibilities are if the chair is absent to do what the chair does in terms of running a meeting things like that oh the secretary okay okay nomination for ron secretary any other nominations for secretary okay um i second that any further discussion all right uh we'll do a rule call vote service kenny i ron melina why brenda barlow hi margaret mark stance or i and hall i and then for vice chair is there a nomination um i'll nominate myself unless somebody else wants to do it no all right i second that nomination any other vice chair nominations all right then we'll do a roll call

008vote for margaret as vice chair sarah best penny i ron marino okay i think we are done with that part mike did i miss anything else no okay um all right now we can move on to the approval of the minutes first up we have the march 11th meeting um any questions comments edits on those minutes margaret i think on both minutes that principal whiting jones should be added as an attendee oh yes and i think on the march 11th dr slaughter also be added because he participated i don't know if he was there all the time but he was there yep yeah certainly for the budget stuff yep okay and um on in the same minutes on the second page the paragraph second paragraph since film is not a title one school on the

009second line it says is a school with a population of large low-income students i think large and population need to be inverted yes a large population of low-income students yes thank you and i have one more on the next set of minutes um can we pause on that and just so we can we'll approve these and vote on them and then go to the next ones okay anything else on uh sarah best um so i have a couple um so on number four uh though they weren't lower hold on let me sorry i should have had this pulled up previously um do do do oh all right maybe someone else should go first and i will pull this up while i try to find it sorry no that's okay any other uh brenda go ahead

010this is just more of a typo but on that on that number four um on that fourth paragraph since pelham is not a title one school i think it's his title comma yes just okay yes agree thank you sarah best are you ready or should i see if anyone else take a minute okay sorry okay so um all right so i let's see i think so in number four there uh dr slaughter was talking about the budget implications and there we were talking about the um oh my notes have something about the rural reef grant that maybe we want to add something about that in there which helps prevent the loss of one of the full-time peras um i don't know maybe the 85 was so and then and b um i had written down

011that it was 88 returning to per in person so i don't know if that's uh you know it's three percent maybe it's like a happy kid or something um and then it mentions that there's some reshuffling going on which we might just want to clear up as it's the kids that are remaining remote are moving are being absorbed into the amherst remote classes rather than our students being shuffled into different classes just just for some some clarification um and then also in there it talks about the screening capabilities and the bandwidth um i think maybe if we just add something that says that it's the bandwidth of the internet there rather than um you know just for clarification um because it was uh and then let's see i wasn't sure what the k1 modifications were

012in that last it you know k1 grades will be adjusted with the k1 modifications i wasn't sure what that was referring to um and then i think on that on that one then it should be i actually don't remember um yeah i didn't have anything written down about k1 modification so i'm not sure what it was okay what it was referring to so maybe maybe just scratch it i'm not sure okay yeah um okay and that was all i had for this one okay great all right any other comments on march 11th okay um i move to approve the march 11th minutes as amended is there a second second all right um we'll do a roll call vote sarah best ron ron you're on mute i just want to menino why thank you brenda barlow

013i margaret stancer i and hawley okay um next up we'll do the april 14th minutes margaret i know you had a comment that i asked you to hold do you want to start sure again i think we need to add principal whiting jones to the list of attendees and this was the one oh now am i all messed up no three two i'm sorry that okay one sorry i've got my mixed up here too too just so eager to do this you know two three um i just want a typo under the school choice update um about halfway through the paragraph total number of school choice students including perspective since 40 i think it should be prospective uh yes i had that at it as well okay i think that's that and it and i

014yeah that's all i have okay sarah best uh okay so i have my other packet up i can try to be more succinct okay so in um let's see in the superintendent updates um i had that it was going smoothly with the buses and the pickups and the drop offs that they were not challenging and being a parent that has done both the bus and a drop-off situation i am super impressed so i think we need to make sure that it's in there that it's it's actually going really well and it's very organized um and then um in the last paragraph it says that our numbers from different sources uh regarding how much coping money it was from zero to 190 000 not a hundred thousand um in principles update um i have that it

015was all of the uh specials in the woods which included music it's just r and p are listed um and the further down in there there is um the next it's the open sci science uh ed grant um and let's see and then i think the last sentence about ms hollis if there are any data on positive cases was actually happened under the next um like under new and continuing business not up there not in the principal wedding jones update yeah you know what hearing you say that you're right that is my recollection as well i miss that yes i think it was later it was later on um thank you let's see and let's see um i also had that uh you know dr morris went out of his way to call out principal

016wedding jones on how uh her right-sized approach was really great for the students entering back into the classrooms and focusing on social emotional and then gradually re-entering into a focus on academics and i think we probably should recognize that as well because as a parent she's done a really good job with those pieces um and i was gonna make tea and then i didn't let's see i um and then i think it was brenda that asked about the safety protocols um and then let's see scrolling down a little bit later further into the school choice updates i have that there were 19 offers that went to kindergarten second third fourth and sixth grade and then waiting lists in kindergarten second third and fifth um so just updating those grade slots down there um and then

017let's see i think at the end brenda asked about how class sizes were um managed to make sure there was still enough spaces uh for residents if they you know tell them kids if they move back moved into town at the end um and that you know we cap the classes at 20 to make make sure that there's still space and we can honor the way our school is it's lovely small classes um and then in the fall discussion um said we will be greater than three feet in like next to last paragraph but i don't think dr moore is committed to any of that he was pretty careful with his probably and maybes so we might want to just make that less of a definite and more of a we'll try to okay yeah

018maybe we expect to be yeah yep yep exactly okay um and in future agenda planning um miss spitzer of amherst and then i think margaret said she'd take the lead for pelham in connecting with uh carrie on that uh and then i think that's it okay all right thank you anything else on the april 14th minutes all right i moved to approve the april 14th 2021 minutes as amended is there a second second second all right i will do a roll call vote service kenny ron menina brenda barlow i margaret it's dancer i and hall i um okay next up public comment i did not receive any public comment um so i will turn it over to you mike for the superintendent update yep i will be very brief uh so i had a great

019time got to visit with principal wedding jones this morning in pelham uh walked in got to see some instrumental music going on outside which was lovely uh serenaded on my way into pelham which is a nice way to come in and uh you know was able to see a couple different classrooms as well as you know walk through the school and see some of the outdoor spaces and you know just really happy faces you know um and it you know i think as compared to maybe the last time we spoke it feels a little more like um school you know i think um you know i think you know kind of some of the notes that was just we're just being commented on you know the beginning was definitely a very developmentally appropriate response of

020uh making sure we had our protocols both from health and safety but also just kids not being in school for a while and safety and security not not literal physical safety or cobit safety but just feelings of security and community and i walked in rooms and there was math going on right and very you know the math you would want to see right in in different grade levels and so it's really really nice to see um the work of the school and just just the positive energy you know that's going on it just feels really calm as well and i know that's a sort of funny word to use but i think the nature of sort of the potting that happens there's just less movement you know between rooms and you know it it does

021feel really calm in the hallways not that it was ever crazy in pelham but but i do feel a substantive difference uh from from when we were here pre-covert to now so a couple minutes the teachers uh all the educators and the staff for doing such a nice job the only other thing i mentioned which i sort of loosely talked about at the beginning is i was on a conference call today with desi and this may be the last virtual meeting school committee meeting that we're able to have given the governor's uh orders changing we'll get confirmation of that in the next couple weeks but i think anything in the month of june may have to be in person so you know we'll work on you know all the logistics on that end uh and

022how we're going to do that um sometime soon but just just wanted no one to be surprised that the next meeting you see may have a location and that's not a url um so that's going to be a change for all of us you know there are some people advocating for the governor to extend that emergency power for a little bit longer um feedback i heard today is governor's not particularly interested in doing that um and you know we'll just have to work i'll work with the chair on the protocols for us if indeed we are our next meeting is in person so i just didn't want to come as a surprise um that if you see the top of the sheet you really want to take a look next time instead of just assuming

023you're going to click through um five minutes before and i'll turn it over to okay to principal whiting jones yeah thank you so i just i want to echo um what superintendent morris said and the school definitely feels like good old-fashioned school and um the energy in the building is really good um so we've been you know trying to make up for lost time and do a lot of community building practices with our in-person students so we've been doing morning announcements which are student-led and every day we read a poem which has been a really nice opportunity for students to get a little bit of practice public speaking we reaffirm our pause values together every day recognize student birthdays and whatnot we've also dedicated every friday to a school spirit dress-up day and we've been

024rotating through a list of ideas that was generated by students and staff so last week was dress up like your favorite book character or movie character day and recently we were all we were for the very first time this year able to gather as a whole school outside masked and distanced um to introduce the georgia malcolm social justice award and to surprise miss georgia and you know mark the moment for her her graduation i wanted to share with you a project that our sixth graders have been doing and it's it's pretty amazing so they've been working with their peers at fort river on a civic literacy project and the students were able to choose what it was they wanted to study and learn more about so so our class at pelham chose that they wanted

025to learn about a proposed construction project in northampton it was discovered that the site of the roundabout that was being proposed was on on top of what was an ancient indigenous village and so our students and staff really um really got into the grassroots organizing so they they invited experts in to learn about archaeology and indigenous people and legislation and and city planning um you know they they designed and wrote petitions and made flyers and um you know met with community organizers and they spoke at public meetings and uh just this week the massachusetts department of transportation announced that they are going to pause that construction project in order to reflect and take a more culturally inclusive um approach so our sixth graders you know really got to see that community organizing and civic engagement

026like in a really tangible way um so it's it's really exciting um and then the last update that i'll share with you um as many of you know i will be leaving pelham school at the end of this year um it's an unexpected event in a year of unexpected events so i'll be moving with my family to new york city and i'm trying to get excited about that i know you all know that i'm a you know i'm a western mass girl and i'm a nature person so i'm trying to think about all the amazing restaurants that i'll be able to go to at some point um and you know but this is this has been a really unique year to be an educator and as i said to the staff i just i can't

027imagine have having navigated it with a better crew of people um the staff and the students and the families in pelham have been extraordinarily supportive and welcoming um and all said and done i think it's been a pretty amazing year so i'm looking forward to wrapping up the year with the staff and students in a really joyful celebratory way and i want to also make myself available and supportive for the transition for who whoever will occupy the office next i want to make that feel as seamless as possible all right thank you any questions for lee all right well you know i for one will be really sad to see you go i completely understand that life can take you in unexpected directions but i mean it really was a hell of a year and

028it just seems like from the very beginning you just came in with your whole self and gave a lot to the job for a shorter period of time than what you expected and then what we wanted but you really did give a lot in this one year and i really appreciate that all right next up new and continuing business um first item is the uh superintendent evaluation tool um so this uh sorry i always have to ask this we need to vote that we are going to use this tool is that right okay all right um so or margaret do you have something smarter to say than yeah well i don't know about smarter i'm pretty sure um i i would just like to say that at the joint region amherst meeting last night we

029we voted to accept this with um one change and that is the elimination of items 19 and 20. um the feeling was they're sort of redundant um you know you've already sort of done these things and so we voted to eliminate those two uh items so um [Music] i don't know what pelham wants to do but but i will share that with you oh okay that is good to know i just um mike from your perspective does it matter if we deviate a little from the instrument that jesse puts out there no it doesn't matter for you flexible we had that yeah we had a brief conversation uh last night um as miss dancer said and you know i think whatever streamline it makes sense for the kitty is totally i'm very comfortable with okay

030all right um i mean if that's the case and then you know given how we tried to have the goals for the three committees aligned it does from my perspective it seems like it does make sense then to also have the evaluation instrument aligned in the same way so um all right any any questions on the evaluation tool before we vote on it margaret yep i might just add for anyone who hasn't done the evaluation before it's a survey monkey is the tool being used and and i just mentioned the timeline so there will be a joint meeting of all three committees to hear dr morris's presentation of the artifacts for the evaluation and that will be i think on the 15th we will have one week to complete the evaluation so they will be

031due on the 22nd and then um chair mcdonald and i will be and probably she'll do most of it sort of compiling everything creating a report and that will be presented on the 29th of may for a vote um on the final evaluation okay did you mean june 29th yeah sorry all right um okay yeah and yes i guess if i'm channeling peter demling i would also say if you have not done the evaluation before like this tool is the outline for it but you should not feel too bound by it as you as you fill it out um like the areas for being able to write freely and um you know share your actual thoughts okay um i moved to accept this evaluation instrument last items 19 and 20. is there a second second

032all right any further discussion okay sarah best kenny aye ron medina brenda oh you're on youtube sorry okay margaret santa i and paul i um okay thanks and thanks for that background margaret um all right stimulus grant update this will be very brief uh the i was at a desi conference call today they said that dollar amounts and some information will be come out monday the 24th uh for the sr3 or stimulus grant funds uh there will be some webinars towards the end of next week doug i'm telling you this live because i didn't get a chance to move to you on thursday and friday so you know some point that thursday or friday they'll have multiple opportunities for webinars um i think they won't even be able to accept grant applications until some point

033in june and we have till october to fulfill to do an application the one thing i do know is that there is a public engagement process required probably involves a public hearing or something like that and their strong recommendation was not to be in a rush to figure this out how to spend it because there's lots of unknowns as we head towards next year and they had a recommendation not a not a requirement a recommendation really to think about this engaging the communities in the fall early fall when people are more attuned and people know what the plans are for the school so that's what i know at this point but we'll find out a little more next week and then increasingly more and i'll share that with the committee as the information comes to

034us okay great any any questions on the stimulus grant all right so more on that later um discussion of sixth grade moving over to the middle school sure so what i'd like to do is and i know we're short on time but i think i can briefly summarize the discussion at the regional level sarah bess and margaret please do jump in with what i missed um but we've talked about this now twice at the regional level including last night so it's fresh in our minds as well as two weeks prior and you know i think couple important contextual factors the first is that um for years and years and years that i went to four town meetings uh the four towns being amherst pelham levitt and shootsbury we talked about the regional budget there would

035be elected officials not necessarily from the school committee every year who would say can we fit all the sixth graders in the middle school can we fit all the middle schools in the high school and it was really framed as an efficiency perspective and every time myself or my predecessor say no i don't think we can but you know i don't you know it's like kind of like not not sure but enrollments have declined so in 2018 i kept on getting that question enrollments were going down i requested at that point for the regional district uh to have a facilities use study to be able to answer those questions with an architect on board who could do real analysis and what he found or they found i should say was that the middle school could

036not fit in the high school without spending um tens of millions of dollars however sixth grade could fit in the middle school without without an expense there may be preferred expenses but that the sixth grade could fit in the middle school um without without a financial implications at least on the operational side right there there may be some questions about the multiple districts and all that but we wouldn't need to build anything or renovate anything we had enough space at the middle school and that that's sort of consistent with what we thought you know this school i mean now you know used to host over 600 students if the sixth graders came it would be under 600 students so we sort of had an assumption that that might be the case but um you know

037they wrote a 600 page document with lovely maps and all that and you know that link's on our website and so after that at the april 9th meeting of 2019 at the region we created a middle school grade span advisory board and so that was a group of about 25 individuals included teachers in the middle school the elementary from shoots man leverage and pelham sixth grade teacher was margaret was involved in that as well um parents and the community members also were part of that group and the goal was to see you know what do we think what are the factors it wasn't to make a recommendation but what are the factors uh that we should be considering that group made a 50-page report so we're good at accumulating paper um that has lots of

038valuable content and input on it i think allison macdonald was the school committee rep on that group and that also is sits on our website and if anyone can't find it just let me know i can send it i think importantly we also visited jfk middle school which is in northampton it's a sixth through eighth grade middle school and honestly more than even the facilitated work seeing a school the way the kids frankly look like our kids the curriculum looks like our curriculum in broad ways and being able to talk to we talked to parents the pgo came in uh we talked to teachers and educators throughout the day as well as the principal got a torah walked in classrooms that was really eye-opening for the people who went on that group went on that

039tour so fast forward we were supposed to bring this back and present and then the pandemic hit and so everything slowed down quite a bit but this report was presented two weeks ago at the regional school committee that the group worked on and really the primary factors that we were considering are one what are the educational well-being factors so there's some very real implications you know the research is is not sort of unconclusive uh we have a very atypical model so less than 20 percent of schools in massachusetts as well as the country have a k-6 7 8 9 12 model it was much more common in the 60s and 70s in a junior high model and as the junior high model went uh was was found to be lacking places went to a middle

040school model added sixth grade so that the students would have three years that it wasn't a quote-unquote commuter school that students weren't either just coming or going but they built a more of a relationship from adolescent but it's really hard to study that in a really empiric way so you know you could read you know research that sort of hints at one thing hints at another but as opposed to like late start or something like that where it's an easier problem to study this is a really complicated one because a number of factors unrelated to grade span configuration are really hard to parse out at the amherst level space is a huge consideration so that's driving a lot of the thinking of amherst as well as timing so we're not at all thinking of of

041pushing sixth graders uh district-wide to the middle school for next year but i know you know the conversation was can we make a decision uh at the regional level you know roughly in the next eight to nine months so that if it's going to happen the following year we have enough time to plan and put together a program that we feel good about so the region and i use this language intentionally because it was used at the meeting ascended to open the door for the elementary committees to see if elementary groups if excuse me to see if elementary committees wanted to explore this there was no um imposition on elementary committees to do anything at all really it's about the door being opened and if no one greets the door then that's that's all the

042feedback the region needs if there are communities who do want to at least look at this more closely the region is open to that discussion even if not all the towns uh would participate i think particularly notable was uh in shootsbury and lebanon the representatives talked about they didn't think those particular towns would be quickly moved their sixth graders to a middle school but they were very open to the concept of a three-year middle school even if their students did not participate at the beginning so you know it doesn't have to be all or none it could be it could be somewhere in between uh one town or two towns that were interested so that's sort of where we are so the questions opposed to you which i don't think you need to don't feel

043like there's urgency to say yay or nay tonight um is you know how does pelham feel about this you know what are some factors a pelham would want to think about you know in my sense amherst has some really acute space issues that don't exist in the other three towns so they may be on a little bit of a faster timeline because the urgency is there whereas the other towns i think um space wouldn't be the primary consideration uh in terms of considering sixth grade to middle schools it would be solely about the educational program and and you know com that comparison so sarah bess margaret how'd i do what am i missing i think you covered it pretty well i mean region we just said yes we're open to having this discussion amherst seemed

044like they were ready to be having their discussion in their uh elementary committee uh leveraging shoots barry said sure go ahead but we're probably not interested and uh tom said we're talking about it tomorrow we'll tell you later yeah and so i think you know in terms of grade size again because in 18 minutes we really will have to close the meeting tonight and there's a couple other things we want to talk about i wonder you know if it's okay with chair hall if we just give everyone a minute to comment at least some of their initial thoughts so at least everyone in the committee can hear what each other's thinking if there is a desire to come back and talk more we could schedule another meeting certainly in june or we could tack it

045on to the existing joint meetings that already exist but i don't want anyone to tell them to feel like tonight's the night where you have to decide whether you want to engage because i don't personally i don't believe there's that time from my perspective there's not that same time pressure uh for pelham as there is an amherst um i think it's much more analogous to shoots around leverage where um i think probably a thoughtful longitudinal discussion is probably in pelham's best interest yep yeah i think i think that's great i think we can go around the horn and yeah just to be clear that like what you your opinions anything you express tonight you don't have to stick to that thing you can certainly evolve and it's more about just whether or not you want

046to discuss it and initial thoughts but we're you know i anyway will not hold you to anything um well i don't maybe sarah best and or or margaret maybe one of you could go first only because you've been engaged in this issue a little bit longer and then it would give the rest of us a minute i guess my feeling is it would be appropriate to have a discussion um i don't think i would say tonight that i would agree or not agree that we should do it but i do think that having a discussion would be appropriate okay thank you sarah best um so i mean sure i think we can have the discussion i think that's fine i think more discussion is probably better than less discussion um but i am not currently

047interested in sending sixth graders to the middle school i don't think it is the right choice um for pelham at this time nor do i think it's necessarily the right choice for kids of that age um my personal children right now bracket that so i have uh one ending fifth grade and one just finishing seventh grade so i kind of bookend it and um with kids who were very fortunate i have very high functioning articulate children and both of them have said that they do not feel like that this would be a good idea um so i those are my personal feelings but like i said i think having the conversation and have being able to engage people about it is perfectly good i am not the only person with an opinion um so i'm

048i'm happy to have discussion and we'll have open ears in it but at this moment i do not feel like it is a good choice for our children or our school okay thank you uh brenda um okay well um you know i went to a small school similar to pelham and i was one of those sixth graders who went to the seventh and so i guess i i think that different kids are different certainly my fifth grader would probably love to go to seventh grade that small town uh school is just outgrowing it and though so i think that there's different kids who have different needs one thing that i just am kind of chewing on and thinking about is you know if all of the umer's kids are all sixth grade at the middle

049school together the seventh and eighth graders then they're going to be at a different rate of development than the pelham kids and then when the pelham kids join later it might really impact their social groups and their their developments i just think we might want to just consider that and maybe talk about it more in depth okay great thank you wrong well i think it should be discussed i've we've talked about this for about three years and every time i've said when will the pelham parents have a chance to chime in i think this discussion should have pelham parents what do the pelham parents want i want to know that i don't know what they want maybe they're all in favor of the sixth grade movie maybe they're not i'd like to hear from that

050hear from them have an open meeting have a hearing or whatever and maybe the middle school including sixth grade is a popular model but popular does it make something right and then i've expressed my reservations on safety i mean i don't want to be uh a hovering pair ex-parent but pelham for example pelham has never had a problem with vaping but the middle school closed their bathrooms because there was vaping problems i don't want our sixth graders to be exposed to vaping and other issues of safety that i'm concerned about the academics are are debatable so i think we should have discussion on all these issues including parental involvement i want to see some kind of parental involvement okay great thank you um [Music] i will be brief yes we should clearly talk about it

051and people have a lot of opinions and i think if we learn more um i think that will help guide the conversation so yes i think we should talk about it um so yeah i guess we'll we'll just oh sorry mike go ahead i was going to say this is good feedback for me i think because i am working with the task uh two school crew members from amherst where we have a little working group and we met this week i think some of the engagement pieces in amherst you know i'd be happy to bring back to the pelham school committee to see if you know that made sense like you know we may be looking at a survey or something that you know so the pelham doesn't have to duplicate the efforts uh or

052maybe adjust some of the questions because it's a different community but i think um you know this gives me what i need to then go back and i can you know perhaps work through the chair uh with engagements as they come up and nothing's gonna happen next week right there's enough other things that's going on at the end of the year we're not uh at least i'm not interested in trying to push uh that button but i think this gives uh gives me what i need and i can definitely bring it back to the full committee but you know if the committee agrees just work through the chair with any of the pieces we're working on in amherst and and can bring them back to pelham okay that sounds great okay thank you um okay

053next up is principal search mrs carr mike do you want to start or okay no sprite to miss cunningham thanks for being here miss daniel you're up hi thank you everyone so as principal whiting jones just mentioned she will be leaving at the end of this school year and i'd like to thank you miss whiting jones for all the work you have done at pelham this past year your contribution to the planning and resumption of learning for students the collaborative spirit you've shown with the staff and your colleagues have really been appreciated and so with that said we posted the position for an interim principal with a closing date of may 28th we will contact um staff caregivers and you know anyone who's interested to ask for volunteers to join both the screening and the

054interview committee i know some individuals have already reached out to me to say that they're interested in being on any committee possible and in volunteering in any way possible we currently do have applicants and we have individuals who have reached out to express interest in applying for the position okay that's great can you can you give a sense just of timing so it closes the the posting closes may 28th so to the extent that things go as planned and they almost never do what would be your like without going through i mean you know i know last time around you had all the specific dates for each milestone but i guess maybe skipping ahead to like when when do you think we'd get to the place where um you'd like to make an announcement for

055an intern well we are looking for the person to start july 1st okay so we are hoping to make the announcement much much earlier than that okay all right great yeah any other questions for miss cunningham okay all right well i mean i have every confidence last time around you really that your process was really great i know this will be a little bit different but i appreciate your work on this okay uh third quarter budget so uh actually i have good news this may be the best third quarter report you ever see from me hopefully it will be the short story is with the with the spinning uh freeze that we put in place by virtue of a lot of unknowns and what we might experience as far as expenses uh you know that's

056held our budget uh you know under uh the expected uh so normally in the third quarter you'd like to be about 75 of your spending we're under that by quite a bit we're about 67 uh a couple of areas like special education and facilities where we thought we might have extraordinary expenses relative to the pandemic have uh not proved to materialize so that's been helpful as far as keeping us under budget and i expect us to finish the year under budget and and uh and be able to you know meet the needs as as we go in person as we have over the last a few weeks so i think that it's good news now stop there answer any questions you might have okay great any questions for doug can you just say that exact

057whole thing over again exactly as you said it i mean that was great just full repeat we'll have to go on the we'll have to go to the video and okay um all right well thanks for that um okay so future agenda planning um so we have some evaluation related meetings coming up i guess for the next pelham only meeting um in june that would be um we talk about sixth grade to the middle school what i'm blanking on other things i feel like we've just already mentioned things that i'm missing that would really be it sarah best i think we were going to talk more about whatever was happening with the um kobe money or the great funding the stimulus grant yeah if there was an update on that but i i think that

058might be the only column okay only thing and i wonder um if i could jump in just whether that sixth grade piece there might be an interest in not the region but the elementary amherst committee of doing a joint meeting on that topic just because if we're both if both groups are planning engagements it might make you might we all work well together right and so it might uh be an efficient use of your all time to to be able to talk about it not that you're doing the same thing but if if you link the engagements together uh it might make things a little easier for you all um so you know not that it has to happen but if you wanted to connect with allison i know um she might be amenable to

059having that um at least that topic be a joint topic since it's it's got the same end in mind and it's not that either comedians make the same decisions but in terms of like how to engage the community because i heard that from almost everyone who spoke that there was an interest in engaging uh the pelham community they're having the same conversation in amherst um you know and i think if again if there's like survey tools and faq and website like why would we not make that same thing accessible to pelham um pelham families and to you all so you know just just food for thought doesn't have to be but um it might make sense um not really talking about the decision but about the engagement sarah the old topic of the integration of

060technology into the curriculum that's been raised before oh that's right yeah um and we could yeah i think that would be a pelham only thing and then you know maybe what we could do too depending on what if we do something joint with just amherst that maybe we would have a pelham thing before or after if that was going to be a more brief meeting um okay brenda i'm not sure if this makes sense depending on the timing but i've had some families ask questions about if masked mandates will change as our protocols in the schools and i don't know depending on when the meeting is if that makes sense but so if you're interested if students are going to continue to wear masks or if there's going to be a change on that based

061on the governor's announcements i mean my understanding was at least through the end of the year we were sticking with our current policies as already written am i yeah mike go ahead so um the all three committees passed a face covering policy that um right now is governing that um and so if the committee wanted to get together to discuss that you know i'm just being cautious because this is not a jedi item and i think you're probably brought it up like is this something you want to talk about and if that's something that this committee wanted to talk about then we could definitely put an agenda before the end of the year but it would really be a policy specific discussion about i can't remember the letters but i looked at them the other

062day um but it would be about the face covering policy and and when it would end particularly in the outside part which i think is what you're referencing so again that's for the committee if they want to take up that topic i guess i'll just say i don't think it's necessary that's really helpful so so i can answer we already have a policy in place at the end of the school year all right okay so stay tuned on various dates of joint things on the evaluation potentially joint on uh grade six and then some pelham only time as well okay anything else on agenda planning okay i have a few warrants but i can get them done in time i authorized by my signature uh to payroll in the amount of fifty eight thousand six

063hundred eighty three dollars and thirty three cents um for the warrant dated april 21st 2021 and i signed that on april 20th 2021 i authorized by my signature to payables on the amount of thirty two thousand seven hundred ninety seven hundred nine dollars and eighty five cents for the warrant dated april 22 2021 that included general fund expenses of eighty four dollars 31 eighty five cents grant fund expenses of eight hundred and twenty five and and grant fund expenses of eight hundred twenty five dollars and i signed that one on april 22nd um i authorized by my signature to payroll in the amount of sixty seven thousand seven hundred eighty one dollars and seventy six cents that was for a warrant dated may 5th 2021 and i signed it on may 3rd 2021 and finally

064i authorized payroll in the amount of fifty nine thousand six hundred two dollars and forty seven cents that was for updated may 19 2021 and i signed that on may 18 2021 um we don't have any gifts we're on time i sound like an auctioneer but we did it thank you very much and welcome all of you to join us at eight o'clock for if you have questions about the vaccine for yourself or for your children or you know other people we have a bunch of people much smarter than me uh who are going to be talking about this doctors include dickinson bay state and local pediatricians who are going to talk about very real issues and questions that we've i'm getting we're getting and that people have actually emailed in so really looking forward

065to the event and learning from them so i appreciate you allowing me to where's the tournament where's the link uh i will put it on the screen actually but uh it was uh it was emailed out to all families and stuff but they're really really good i'm representative dom is also who's the representative for pelham will also be present so if you give me one second i will make sure that you get it i mean you can do your things about you know but i'll i'll get it up in a second all right i moved to adjourn is there a second second all right we'll do a roll call vote service kenny aye ron menina brenda barlow i margaret uh stance or i and hall i we are adjourned and the link is in the

066chat all right thanks everyone good night take care good night