Pelham School Committee Meeting

001you're good okay all right seeing the presence of a quorum i'll call to order this meeting of the pelham school committee at 6 32 and we'll start with roll call attendance ron menino present sarah best kenny president margaret stanton present brenda barlow present and hall present um all right next up is approving the minutes so we have everything except um january 14th that was a cielo just hasn't had a chance to get to that yet so we can take care of that next month um so we can just go in order starting with august 6th any questions comments yep margaret you're muted margaret just a typo um under preschool discussion in the second line it says continent i think it should be contingent oh yeah yes thank you and on the on the next paragraph

002um about midway the line starts and we could vote to have this run in no the i'm sorry the next line down could call this hiatus and not say we are terminating yes yeah i have that too okay yeah any other comments corrections um i had just one it just looks like after the vote then there's two more sentences starting with mr menino asked if this fee and it is both i i just had already voted i don't i think maybe that was pulled over from something else or ron do you remember asking i don't remember yeah i did not check the tape i i mean it seems like it should be deleted that maybe it was just something does anyone have any objection to yeah i think that just happened before we voted i

003think we did have that conversation about it but i think that happened previously okay okay so maybe we could just move it just squishy switch maybe anything else on august 6th okay um and we can we can do the vote on these as a as a whole package right okay all right so let's move on to august 14th any corrections comments on these last chance okay i did not have any either um okay september 22nd i thought i had one um oh i just had one small typo progress on various things had less meanings it should be meaning that was my only correction anyone else okay great um all right the 27th october 27th uh yeah margaret go ahead you're muted margaret i'm sorry that's fine you do a good job of muting yourself it's

004just the unmuting part well then i forget to un i forget to mute myself again um on the third page of that and that first at that first section at the top third line miss dancer said there was a study done for hold harmless and groups advocating for getting rid of this i think it was for not getting rid of this oh yes good yep and then i just had a question about some text in that next paragraph okay which which text specifically oh the last sentence i guess we have 70 students 72 students who live in pelham and 40 are school choice i think it should be and 40 who are school choice is that 100 right yeah that's better 72 from pelham and 40 who are school choice yep okay so adding the

005who okay okay thank you um i had so um in five a the second sentence of that first paragraph um based on that meeting i believe that sentence should read we are in a place of concern for how much for how many funds we are using so that's when we were talking about the dwindling uh school choice revolving fund so i'd like to just delete that not um [Music] and then in b in the health metrics i just wanted to clarify because we had brought that up but it says but we it says but we have been granted negotiation authority from the region for discussion i think we just we are allowed to discuss it but we have no negotiation authority so we should i just want to clarify that in a minute that was

006all i had on that any other comments or questions on the 27th of october okay and then the last stop is um december 3rd i had nothing on this one anyone have yep margaret i'm sorry don't apologize no no use me i'm not i'm unmuted um just three there were three typos is all um uh a number five second paragraph mr menino asked about the nine new students not yet yep and under budget update second paragraph first line our our spending today not our sending to date yeah and in the very last line um i think i just think eight is in there one time too many we get federal aid rural aid it should just be we get federal rural aid i think yes okay that's it sounds good all right anything else all

007right i will take a motion to approve these minutes uh actually no i'll just make the motion okay uh i move that we approve the minutes of august 6th august 14th september 22nd october 27th and december 3rd 2020 has amended is there a second second oh by the whole gang uh okay i'm gonna go with brenda on this one okay move by hall seconded by barlow and we'll do a roll call vote ron yes yay all of it okay sarah best kenny i margaret stance or i brenda barlow i and hall i okay we did it we approved the minutes good job um all right next up is public comment we did have one um mike is just going to pull it up so we can scroll through okay thank you all right that was

008it for public comment um next up superintendent updates i'll be very brief um the uh just want to share that i was uh really enjoyed uh kindergarten had an art show an outdoor art show uh last month i think i'm looking at miss lee but um and it was fabulous just seeing families and kids walking through how the art was displayed out on the playground just a really creative uh way to do things it was cold and there was still happy kids and happy families uh i want to thank sage um and will for putting that on because i know it was greatly appreciated by by folks in our community um but leah i know has a more extensive list of updates that she's going to give so it's okay i'll pass it on to

009lee all right great you're up late okay well i'll try and be brief as well um so i'll go through student staff and families with my usual frame so starting with students we've been experimenting with holding some in-person recess meetups that are totally optional during the midday break time did the first round of those in january were on the second round of them now in february and they're going great we've got anywhere from you know about a third to half of classes coming with the exception of fifth grade sarah best don't worry we're gonna try again um where we had a shockingly low turnout but we're gonna keep at it but um you know as long as the weather holds i'm happy to continue holding those it's really nice i think for the kids and

010for the adults to get a little bit of socially distanced time out on the playground and i'm also continuing virtual snack time with me so students have the option of you know having a little bit of social unstructured time with me there either online or on the playground let's see our february all school read is a beautiful book it's called the undefeated it's a poem by kwame alexander and it lines up with our celebrations of black history month and are learning about all different elements of black history so our staff have been continuing our focus on emotional well-being through a few different projects and initiatives this month so we started some small social emotional skills groups in early february based on some of the data that we collected earlier in the winter and we're also

011doing some work as a staff to look at just some school-wide trends so yesterday we had a staff meeting and we looked at some attendance data that we've collected looking at what we're noticing in the morning versus the afternoon versus specials kind of parsed out by grade level to look a little bit deeper at how our students are engaging with our current learning model and if there are any barriers that we can lower for students to be engaging more fully with each other and with their teachers so sort of connected to that work we started to do some relationship mapping using a tool from desi where we really look at every student in the building and identify the different adults that they've fostered relationships with with the goal of making sure every student has a

012trusted adult in the building whether it's a classroom teacher a specialist a para professional an administrator and then identifying any any opportunities where we can be building more connections with students and then we also did some celebrations of learning about uh what learning that we're doing about black history month and during black history month so as a staff we made a jam board together which we do with our students all the time but it was really fun as a staff to kind of pull some images together and to do some some collaborative sharing and i just want to do a huge thank you to all of the readers from our community who participated in the african-american read-in yesterday we had lots of folks both from amherst and pelham parents community members friends of the school

013drop in and read stories with kids and i think it was one of the highest turnouts that we've had in the past few years and i think being able to do it online was great and i'd love to continue having that option moving forward if folks can't come to the school in future years it would be great to have them connect virtually just to have as many readers as we can so it's a really fun event thank you to everyone who was a reader um and speaking of reading we if in case anyone needs a book for over the february break we're going to be meeting on the monday after we get back from break monday the 22nd to talk about bettina loves book we want to do more than survive it's about abolitionist teaching

014and celebrating black culture and black joy and it's going to be a great discussion so all are welcome and i finally want to thank the pto who are meeting right now um for supporting our black history month celebrations they were able to identify as a program that looks really amazing about storytelling and song and black culture that our students are going to be able to engage with when we get back from the break at the end of the month so we're just moving right along busy as always um but it's been a great couple weeks and i think everybody's ready for a vacation week great thank you so much lee any questions for lee all right terrific um okay so mike do you want to let folks back in and then just gonna do um

015and so maybe i'll queue it up for tim who will queue it up for mira um okay i'll just say briefly uh for people who weren't on the committee uh a couple years ago that um the curriculum we're talking about was approved a couple years two years ago um i think that's right um by the pelham school committee and so this is doesn't require the same kind of vote or it's not the same process when we're adopting curriculum the curriculum is this is about expanding it to third and fourth grade so you might remember very comprehensive detailed um slide decks and lots of work that happened a couple years ago and you're not going to see that tonight because there's no vote needed but we did feel like it was important for the school committee

016to see an update it's a really nice brief slide deck that i think captures some of the key parts of the curriculum at grade three and four and then be able to ask any questions of of tim or mira uh we thought that was important but just i wanted to just cut the distinction between a couple years ago and where we are today this is really a brief relatively brief agenda item especially in comparison to last go-round and i really want to thank mira and elin who's in the green room here for their continued work on this it's such a benefit to pelham school to have folks in our community who are working collaboratively with our staff on incredibly important topics um mira if you want me to bring up slides when when you're up

017i'm i'm happy for you to do it but if it's easier just to be able to speak to them i have two screens here so it doesn't doesn't affect me too much so whatever is easier for you mira is fine with me um but i'll turn it over to tim oh mirror i'm sorry i didn't hear your response that would be great mike yeah absolutely so i'll turn it over to tim though i may have stolen some of his thunder i apologize if i did that tim but uh tim is our curriculum coordinator for those in the public who don't know tim but um you can take it away tim all right thanks mike um and and thank you everyone for having us here tonight it's um it it frankly it's always a pleasure when

018i get to come to the telen school committee um it's it always feels like a nice conversation um which is also true whenever i get to work with pelham school um and so um mike gave you the background some of you were on the school committee when the k-2 curriculum was approved so you're very familiar with it others were involved in the the school community even if you weren't on the committee um this has been something that both the the staff and families have been very enthusiastic about at the k to two level and uh mira while and her um cohort have been able to write um lessons for grades three and four and so that's what you'll hear about tonight um you'll also hear that there's been a name change it was known as

019the ski curriculum it's g-e-e and i'll let mira explain the the name change in the process too uh so without further ado uh i'll i'll introduce mariwell um and she can give you her background as well thank you so much tim and thank you all for having me here tonight um my name is mira weil i am a doctoral student at umass in the health promotion and policy department and as mike was saying i have had the great pleasure to be working with you all the pelham community for coming on four years now so you may have remembered this curriculum as ski the sexuality and gender education and empowerment curriculum um but we decided that that didn't fully encompass what this curriculum was about so we decided to change the name to let's talk and

020let's there it's such an acronym let's stands for liberatory education tools and talk stands for teach affirm learn and know and we changed the name because we felt it uh was more representative of what this curriculum's actually about and also a bit more welcoming because some people uh feel nervous when they hear the word sexuality so it's now called let's talk and i'm going to keep this very brief i was told max 10 minutes so i'm gonna be succinct and i'm going on the assumption that all of you have had the opportunity to review the lessons for grades three and four that were shared with you last week hopefully that's true okay next slide please so i wanted to start with a little bit of the pedagogy which i think is especially relevant right now

021in the midst of the social climate that we're in so we bring a liberatory framework to all of our curriculum development and what that means is that we hold an anti-racist perspective the lessons are queer and trans affirming and body positive what that looks like is that the resources and activities in this curriculum reflect diverse peoples there's different skin colors and cultures and we incorporate messaging that offers a liberatory framework by introducing classroom practices and communication strategies that promote anti-racism body positivity and help to shine a light on what are often unconscious assumptions and biases so in this way the let's talk curriculum is a really great accompaniment to other lessons and classroom practices that focus on anti-racism next slide please this curriculum was developed to be transformative it was not designed to just be

022picked up and taught without first looking at ourselves the adults involved in either facilitating this curriculum or who have children who are going to be part of it so the content really encourages us as teachers facilitators parents and caregivers to engage deeply in our own self-reflection around sexuality and pleasure consent gender roles whiteness racism and to grow and evolve ourselves toward more justice openness equity love and kindness and to share that evolution with our children so it's about personal and social transformation next slide please the curriculum emphasizes using inclusive language which for most of us requires relearning or rewiring long-held habits for example we learn that instead of saying boys and girls we say students or everybody instead of dividing the class by sex or gender which inherently makes students who are non-binary trans or

023unsure and questioning invisible to use other attributes like shirt color or age or first letter of first names and this is important again because in order to have all students really feel welcome and and seen in the classroom we need to use language that includes them so that's a little bit about the pedagogy next slide please so lessons for grades three and four follow the same structure as lessons for grades k through two they all have a stated objective they start with recommended readings and videos then there's exercises and warm-ups that are either embodiment or arts based or sometimes both there's a vocabulary section there's one or two developmentally appropriate activities and there's then there's a closing reflection activity that helps integrate information that was shared during the lesson also each lesson has an associated

024take-home letter for families that outlines the objective discusses the activities provides the vocabulary definitions and the readings so that families can really stay connected with what their child or children are learning in this curriculum okay next slide please i'm just going to go quickly through the titles of the lessons um the new lessons are going to be in bold and again all of these lessons are updated so that the content the readings the videos the activities are developmentally appropriate so they they're not the same as the kindergarten through grade two um but there's a similar objective for the lessons that are not in bold so there's five new lessons there's an introduction to the unit learning about bodies getting to know me gender listening and intuition consent and boundaries next slide please now we get

025into some of the new ones self-love and appreciation what is family friendships and feelings puberty cycles and periods how babies are made next slide please sexuality me and the media and yay i'm unique so then just to summarize the five new lessons next slide please are self-love and appreciation what is family puberty cycles and periods which is for grade four although the grade three teacher can decide to offer that lesson if it feels developmentally appropriate for the students that year and me and the media and that's it all right can we take oh there we go all right thank you so much mira um all right do folks have questions for amira or tim yeah ron go ahead i assume that just like the old program there will be teacher training for these units yes

026and we actually already conducted um six hours of professional development for the kindergarten through fifth grade teachers a couple of weeks ago on these lessons and when is it scheduled to be put into the classroom that is a question for me i believe so all of the lessons are really slated to be taught in the spring and for the end of the year so what has worked for k through 2 is to really spend the first part of the year establishing a class community where the class can have really open honest dialogue and then dive into some of these conversations in a collaborative way starting usually in april so that way they have enough space to really take time for all of the lessons and they've established the trust in community in order to make

027them meaningful i would not recommend that students and teachers jump into this on september 1st so i think it's worked so far for students to do these lessons in the spring and that's what the third and fourth grade teachers are thinking as they're planning for the next few months of instruction too thank you sure um question for you mira can you i know you did some evaluation and surveys as part of the first rollout for k-2 can you just talk a little bit about what you learned as part of that i mean i'm sure it was a ton so this doesn't have to be a really long answer but just what you learned and how that informs how you're doing the three to four expansion yeah yeah that's a great question um so we learned

028a lot of specifics from the teachers that really guided our revisions we did a pretty extensive revision of the k-2 lessons over the past summer and the previous spring so a lot of the evaluation the classroom observation that we were able to do before you know covid stopped in person instruction and then interviews with the teachers um really guided revisions and encouraged us to keep developing the curriculum because we were hearing from um the k through two teachers how successful it was and after the second year of implementation how much they noticed the change in the students and the the increased comfort level with the content after just one year of prior instruction um and then i was able to do interviews with some of the older grade teachers who were expressing a real need

029and wish for um some support around the content that was that was just like naturally arising in their classrooms so i would say that and and then the interviews that i was able to do with parents and caregivers i mean they were just overwhelmingly positive i i was hearing so much appreciation for this curriculum and um some of the ways that people were noticing changes in the school sort of culture and how the parents on the playground and just in social conversations that there was a lot more ease of discussion and a lot more discussion period around things like consent and sexuality and that it was feeling really good so i know that's very brief sarah i don't know if that happens yeah no that it really does yeah i mean the only negative thing

030i heard was from my own third grader who missed grade three and was kind of like what's going on like what's happening here so that was the only negative feedback is like uh tick-tock we need more of these uh well and so actually the the second part of what you said i guess leads into a question that i have for you lee about this like as you know about the k through two and then it's starting in three and four is that it seems like a lot of this stuff there's a lot of room to kind of incorporate what's being learned into a lot of other areas of the curriculum are teachers talking about that and is that something that's encouraged absolutely i think the framework to really understand um or the framework that the

031lessons provide to really understand your identity and how that shapes how you see the world has so many applications and i really appreciate that there's you know pieces about media literacy woven into the curriculum and anti-racism and intersectionality of identity and those are conversations that we're having not just in social studies but every time you sit down to read a piece of literature and you talk about the identity of the person who wrote it and how that shapes the narratives that they write you know they're just there's so many parallels that you can make across the curriculum and i think this kind of learning at a really foundational time sets students up to be aware of potential biases or lenses that they have as they move through the world so i think generally it it's

032part of the foundational skill building while students are also learning the foundational literacy and math skills they're also learning foundational skills about how to build interpersonal intelligence and social awareness with the world around them too so um in that way i do think it has very broad applications great okay other questions anything else yeah brenda oh i guess two things first of all thank you mira for this it's i think it's so fantastic i have two children one in second grade who has participated in a couple of years um and then i have a fifth grader who has not and it's really interesting to navigate conversations in the household when you have one son who's very comfortable with some of these concepts have been reinforced and the other who hasn't benefited from from those education

033so i do hope that you know you're able to continue and i know the original plan was to continue to develop something more comprehensive um maybe to sixth grade or beyond um so just a thank you and then i just it's a question for lee i'm just curious because the the the new topic of puberty was brought up and certainly that's that's something that all kids need to learn about and i'm just curious about what is happening for fifth and sixth grade around some of those issues so that was something that came up in the training that we did in january and talking with the fifth grade teacher and really craving some materials that align with what students are learning about in kindergarten through you know second grade and then you know hopefully third and

034fourth grade two and really continuing those on so um i know that the the intention is to extend you know extend the curriculum um all the way up through sixth grade and so right now the resources that we have to teach about puberty um in fifth and sixth grade are the same ones that the teachers have utilized in the past and so while they align with what their count you know the teachers counterparts and amherst are using um they don't necessarily vertically align with what students are learning at pelham and so the hope is to kind of calibrate in both directions so that we can bring some vertical alignment and create a continuous set of vocabulary and language um and then hopefully do some you know partnership with with peers and amherst so that students

035are students are getting some of the same exposure and experiences too and i know that's part of a longer term um longer term hope for the work does that answer your question bart and tim may be able to speak to a little bit more than me too thank you yeah tim do you mind jumping in just with a brief little bit about um some some similar or related work anyway maybe it's a better way to put it talking about at the upper grades uh in one of our schools in amherst sure um it's no surprise to anyone i mean this has been a topic that has come up and the the curriculum that that lee referenced that that's the one that's been used by teachers for a number of years is is the same as

036what the amherst schools have um and it's i mean interestingly in in the world of curriculum it's not necessarily that old but in in the world of the way people's views and understandings of these topics um have evolved it it feels very old at this point um and and and just sort of as a side note we're also we're sort of working ahead of the curve and that the state has not updated its curriculum frameworks on health i think since 1999 um so which might as well be like a millennia ago at this point um so at one of the amherst schools at crocker farm a couple of years ago sort of as this was going on at pelham um that this concern came up around the the curriculum that fifth and sixth graders got

037which was puberty and sexuality and more the traditional sense that that most of you would be familiar with um and and that largely grew out of um a concern for students who are who are non-binary who are questioning their gender and and how that curriculum didn't leave room for those students um and so some of the staff at crocker farm and i joined them for some of it and some parents who had some expertise um worked on some lessons to replace what what had been in use there um and in fact we went a little further there and that we expanded down into fourth grade um and so we ended up with a nice progression um in the same in a similar vein to what pelham has done and it was it was very funny

038and that pelham was starting at the at the lowest end at k12 crocker farm was starting at the at the upper end um and and i tried to sort of be a conduit to share some information on in between um and so where that will put us in terms of of amherst and that adjustment it remains to be seen um i think one thing that is very appealing about the work that that has been done in palum is that it is a very clear progression um and and kids are starting out learning the vocabulary the language how to interact with each other through these lessons in a way that it isn't something brand new at fourth grade um and and so it is it's something i would like to entertain with the principals and amherst

039um and the amherst school committee at some point down the road right thank you tim other questions anything else for tim or mira yeah sarah best um not so much a question as much just a comment that i just want to say thank you i think it is fantastic that poem starts this so early and so young and i think it gives great power to children um that carries with them that will carry with them through the rest of their lives um and i am i was excited when it was starting in the little grades and i was really sad that both my kids were gonna miss it and i'm really happy that it is expanding and i hope it continues to expand um because having a fifth grader also um and and an older

040daughter i i think i really think everybody benefits here so thank you so much for creating this program and having pelham be the place where it gets to start i think it's fantastic yes absolutely all right anything else okay yeah i mean i guess i'll just close by echoing sarah bess's comments it just i've never been on a school committee anywhere else but this does feel really unique to have community members come forward with a proposal to work in collaboration with the curriculum director at the district to implement this to then work so closely with teachers on training and making changes and then the evaluation and the expansion i mean it just seems like you really started from scratch to create you know that there was i remember that was part of when we initially

041talked about the the first round it's like there's nothing to start from that really works um and so i guess for this for the let's talk team to put all of this effort into our tiny little school and for us you know for parents like me to see the impact that it has in their own children and how it's changing school culture i mean that just especially nowadays when there's so much bad news it feels so great to be able to get an update like this to know it's expanding it's working teachers love it kids love it and like you're helping make them into good and whole little humans and that's really great so thanks for all of the work and feels really good to hear about this so thank you thanks so much it's

042such a deep source of joy for me good very good all right we do need to move on to other agenda items though but thank you so much for coming mira and tim and olin in the green room thank you okay um do you want to let oh yeah you want to let doug in and okay hi doug all right next up fy 21 second quarter budget yep and so we'll turn that over to doug he's got a number of items tonight and very smooth i should say by the chair being like we have so much bad news and then that's like the segway to doug coming in talking about budget so i didn't know yeah hey no pressure doug but uh we'll start with the fy 21 and then we'll gradually transition to thinking

043about things uh for the next fiscal year as well but i'll turn it over to you dr slaughter okay so i'll attempt to uh pull up the correct item for you guys to view and so hopefully this will display in just a moment uh and so hopefully can you can you all see that should i zoom in a little bit or or is that visible to everyone um i can zoom in a bit it looks okay to me i don't know if others have smaller screens but i would zoom i would zoom in a bit doug i'm on the youtube yeah that's that's probably one more dose of that that's how's that that's that's good i'm looking at the youtube screen as well for the viewers um that that looks um pretty viewable on the

044youtube screen so okay right the people can't see you but they know you're talking so that's all right so uh i'll just take you through the quarter two uh status of the budget uh for the current fiscal year um you know in general things are progressing as as uh as expected uh you know we have uh some unknowns in our budget this year as as you uh well know and expect but but we've uh we've had a budget freeze in place for a while now and that's going to help us out as far as getting from from beginning to end and still trying to stay on budget however there's a few things to keep an eye on so start first and talk about payroll i mean uh you know at this point in the year

045uh the percentage of our budget we would typically use under payroll would be about 50 um and we're a little under that which is expected um you know we had a um we've been you know sort of managing our costs in that regard and so we're we're right on tr right on track with regard to our regular payroll obviously our substitutes in overtime are well down and below what we normally would would have at this point a lot less you know there's just not the opportunity for absenteeism much less the uh incidents of it so uh those savings are going to help us out uh considerably as we go through the year but but uh the short story on on our payroll lines is that they're they're tracking as we expect them to um as

046we look at our expense lines you'll notice that there are two areas that that were highlighted at quarter one and and are highlighted again here uh that are not necessarily in a tremendous amount of trouble at the at the moment uh but as we look at potential uh expenses as we go through the rest of the year they they could prove problematic and so we want to keep a very close eye on those uh and that's in our in our special education area uh and as well as in our our facility management and what those really reflect is the the you know operating within the pandemic there are a number of costs we've had to take on uh there is a fair amount of of federal support to help us out with that um but

047it may or may not materialize fully and so we're keeping a close eye on those two areas of the budget um the other areas are tracking pretty much as as would be expected uh you know they're at 50 or a little bit lower than that obviously uh you know that those areas that are tracking below are are in good shape and will be able to help us out as we as we go through the rest of the year uh in an area like uh administrative services which looks you know at 73 percent spending at the mid-year point looks a bit concerning but actually it's not that includes several things that we purchased at the beginning of the year uh and pay for the year like software licenses and the type so and types of things

048like that so those are those are actually uh still on budget not problematic in that regard the the uh the other thing i'll mention is that uh as i said before there's a number of things that are covered related spending that we've we've done uh the the process by which we're using federal uh monies uh a couple of them are direct grants and some of them are uh reimbursement processes and so we filed through fema through the town and and uh the cares act to get reimbursement for things and so uh it's a little bit of a slow process for one thing so our our true picture will will hopefully become more clear as we uh as we go through and and finish up the third quarter and begin the the fourth quarter um but

049also with reimbursement process there are things that are presumed to be eligible but once the the folks at fema take a look uh they may deem them ineligible and so as a result there are things that we will ultimately have to carry within our own operating budget uh and and so that's why again like i said we've highlighted those in red just so that we're aware that there may be uh a significant amount of of cost that we're going to have to to uh contend with by the end of the year nonetheless i think at this point you know given the information we know at this time how the reimbursements have gone today what funds are available to us uh you know i think we're still okay and we'll know a lot more when we

050when we take a closer look at third quarter but i don't have any uh overly i'm certainly concerned i want to keep a very close eye on it but i don't have any uh outsized worry uh relative to to our budget for the for this year so far um so i think i'll pause there and see if there are any particular questions that anyone has and i think since i can't see anyone so just speak up uh if you have a question relative to the the quarter two uh numbers and presentation okay any questions for doug thank you too no okay all right thank you so i wonder if i should just keep rolling or if the would like to to talk about or introduce the the budget conversation i believe that's next on the

051agenda yep yeah go ahead mike yep so um first i just want to note it's a budget hearing but we did not receive any public comments or comments for the hearing uh on the budget so just want to note that uh for people who are on the committee just as a reminder budget hearing allows for what's pretty typical for you all which is some give and take uh and and time for dr saul to present uh as well as ask questions and you know the idea is that we would take that feedback and if there's any adjustments to be made we'd have time to make them before the march meeting which is when the budget would get voted by the pelham school committee so we sort of did some introductory meetings uh set the stage

052for budget tonight's the hearing and march would be the vote i think it's worth mentioning in addition dr slaughter lee and myself dougly and myself had a third of our optional budget meetings with staff series we'd love not to have these meetings with staff but the situation sort of called for it so we did meet with staff on tuesday we shared orally what's in this presentation because we thought it was really important for staff to hear that before a public dialogue occurred on that and had some good dialogue and we had some private conversations with staff members who would be directly affected by some of the reductions in the budget so i think it's just important context of where we're situated and how we're communicating this information the short story and doug will do the

053longer one is that there's no surprises here we've been talking for the last couple months about the challenges in the pelham pelham budget um you know the the saving grace continues to be that we do have a steady stream of income coming in for the rental of the gym and we also don't have any uh charter school students that we know of right and that reported december indicated that was still zero um and we still have a pretty decent operating uh budget operating budget problem you know and having 40 choice students is just simply not sustainable and we share this with staff on tuesday it's no one's fault it's a situation that we find ourselves in uh but it's a significant situation that we're we find ourselves in and uh doug will talk about this

054year's budget cuts which are painful um and you know again going from more pleasant news to less pleasant news um in this agenda item but i think what i shared with staff is it something's got to give here long term that either we need to increase the number of school choice students or the school is not sustainable so you know we do have a roughly 50 000 deficit that we're looking at for next year that's a huge number for pelham public school for a very small uh and wonderful school and we were forced to make reductions we would not want to make um and but there's not i mean we many a couple of you have been on this a while if there was any fat to trim which i don't think that really ever

055wasn't pelham but if there was any it's long gone so we're really cutting unfortunately people who work directly with students because there's nowhere else to go on on the budget so i just want to do that framing i know dr slaughter will go through the details then we can open up for dialogue and discussion but i did want to give both the process update and then the gestalt of where we're headed um and then doug can go through again a number of the how we got here in much more detail so with that i'll turn it over to you doug if that's okay great thank you is currently my screen shared is that is that correct or is it not no i will reshare it uh yeah i i'm in control of that one two

056i think ah wise there we there we go okay and again i'll make this a little bit larger it's a lot of numbers uh you know and and i don't expect people to necessarily uh track them specifically and and identify exactly you know the changes and and that sort of thing what i'm showing here on page one is part of our our payroll changes from one year to the next uh and and and the sort of uh different areas of the budget in which you know we're staffing our our our school um as i move to the second page we sort of continue to finish through that and and what i really would point out on this is sort of uh this area down here at the bottom of the second page which is talking

057about sort of the totality of the change in our budget uh relative to staffing uh and what those costs are and and you know large share of our budget is is driven by the people that that do the work and it's a people business and and so it's not surprising to see uh the size of increase that we see there from from our staffing and this this doesn't capture all of the staffing expense it captures uh you know sort of some of some of the raw payroll uh expense but but uh there are some other aspects around benefits and and and some other uh components of staffing costs that are not here uh but will show up as we proceed through but but in general you see that uh you know year-over-year changes is going

058to have uh is going to be driven largely by um you know our payroll changes in our staff as we go uh as i go to the next page here and and feel free to sort of shout out and stop me if you need me to to slow down and talk about something in space you know in specifics that you you see as we get into the expenses uh you know by and large we've held everything as flat as possible uh what we're seeing here in this area right here is the fact that we had the news that that the superintendent spoke about about not having any charter students so we've taken out that expense for for fiscal uh uh 22 and we also have fewer choice students out of our district and so that's

059also reflected here uh so that that uh you know helped our budget by almost thirty thousand dollars just a little bit less uh the increase in information systems is a shift uh in in putting some what were formerly capital items into the budget um and i'll speak to that a little bit when we when we get to capital but but essentially that's a a cart's worth of chromebooks uh that we're needing to purchase uh i spoke with the finance um committee chair and and he's aware of that increase and planning on having that uh sort of jump in in the base level budget for the for the school uh so that would be you know in addition to sort of the the normal expected amount of increase uh in in tax revenues that would be

060used so he's he's prepared for that for that number to show up and be there and and uh so that won't come as a surprise um and then i'll shift here to the last page of the sort of budget uh and you see the the remainder of the uh the expenses utilities are going to go up there are some that are going up more than others um you know we have uh you know the the water and sewers is definitely going up in a more significant way than than it has in recent years our health insurance costs are are presuming to be a very modest increase we have a firmer number than when we last spoke on this uh we have an actual increase of 1.11 uh in fiscal 22 uh so that's been factored

061in uh so it has a very modest impact on the on the totality of of the budget as far as the the health insurance is concerned um excuse me um other retirement benefits etc that we're we're tracking we have taken into account here as well and and of course you know under that control accounts that's where we put the the things we don't know as much about at this time but we know we need to put some some placeholders in it carries some information and about uh some some contingency planning in a variety of ways and so we have some some resources applied to that um but what you see at the very bottom here is that the the net increase over the course of uh the current fiscal year next fiscal year nets out

062to be about about forty six thousand dollars worth of increase and in a typical year that would be uh you know a modest and an appropriate amount of of increase that could be uh handled fairly well by the by the pelham uh you know increases in property tax and that sort of thing what's not shown on here and was demonstrated when we last spoke on the topic is what's happened on the revenue side of things well chapter 70 has gone up a little bit and that helps us out uh you know the new projections have come out with the governor's budget which came out on the 27th of january uh you know our need to reduce our use of of school choice funding uh is a pretty significant uh negative impact on our ability to

063to move ahead and and sustain the school in exactly the same way we have it now in in and continue the level services and so as a result of those losses in in a you know ability to support the budget with with school choice revenues um also a small downturn in in medicaid we we perform services uh that are eligible for medicaid reimbursement uh those have have dropped uh by being remote over the last year or so and so that impacts our ability to to fund our school as well and and so both of those in combination have created uh essentially this this uh roughly fifty thousand dollars of of of shortfall of revenues against uh against uh expenses uh and knowing what the town you know in in saying that in is an understanding

064of what the the town can't afford relative to its tax base uh in in the coming year and so on this last slide uh we've articulated the sort of specifics of of what's going to need to happen relative to our our staffing uh in order to to sort of make our budget work for fiscal 22 and i think what i'll do at this point is i'll stop and and perhaps let the superintendent or or uh uh principal white and jones uh speak to these particulars a little bit more uh and and the process that we came to to identify these these areas of reduction yeah i can i can do that um so there's three cuts uh budget reductions that are listed um and they're all painful you know they're all not things we would

065do otherwise um so i'll start from the bottom of this list so we currently have two days a week of music which is 0.4 fte and this reduction would shift that so it'd be one day of music which would be 0.2 left and you know this is a really difficult to cut um we the we have outstanding staff at pelham school which makes it that much harder we did need to hit a cut number and because we have instrumental music as well as classroom music we do feel like um compared to some of our neighboring schools both in amherst and other small rural schools um that this was an area that we could align but this is not something we would do if if our budget got 14 000 better we'd be having a different

066conversation just to be put put it very bluntly similarly with the other cuts the library para educators there are two part-time para educators who work with the school in the town and um similar to the music staff we tried to see what could we maintain that we could so maintaining one of the part-time library educators allows for still access for pelham students the library but it will reduce the programming that's possible because of the reduction in staffing and finally uh it's sort of a hard one to describe regular special ed but we we looked at our student caseload and our special ed case load and this will stretch our educator and professional staff quite thin next year but we feel like we can meet the iep grid times without having an additional power educator in

067the building so that's how we got to 46 000 of cuts a 1.47 fte reduction at the school and um these are these are not easy they will have an impact on our students and staff and community um but we we do need to but you know we're trying to do what we need to do to meet the benchmark that the town has set and we know the town has worked with us successfully in the past in a couple very difficult situations and we we understand that right now the school is not sustainable financially and um you know we'd love to make it sustainable on the revenue side by bringing in more choice as that hasn't been possible this year for a whole host of reasons to increase our choice numbers you know this is

068the the other side of how to make it sustainable um so these these reductions are unfortunate and you know i think i can speak a little bit more to the choice piece a little later in the agenda where you have a different topic talking about next year and how we could maybe start that recruitment process uh for next year perhaps sooner but these are the the budget reductions that we are forced to make and this is what we're proposing to you this evening and for the regional members i want to apologize because you've had two out of the last three nights looking at pretty significant budget reductions in two of the districts you work for so i just want to make a particular note for margaret and sarah best that it's been a long week

069for you both looking at these types of things at the pre at the k-12 level from from pelham helm all the way up to the region um so i apologize i wish we're having different conversations but this is where we are okay thank you doug and mike um all right so i guess let's start any any questions on you know numbers any clarification needed uh yeah let's go sarah best and then ron uh i just have a quick question about the medicaid reimbursement so because we're in remote now we're obviously not providing those services that can then be reimbursed um when we do go back to in person i assume the school is still responsible for providing said resources whatever they are and then will that reimbursement money come back is that i'm i mean

070i'm sure it's a state like i'm sure it's delayed some very unfortunate amount of time um but so i guess that's my question right so like we go back to school and we're in person and those services resume therefore that reimbursement resumes that's correct and we we have some services we're still providing it's just not quite as many as we were oh yeah yeah i wasn't saying that they were all gone and like never to be seen again i just was asking like i i know there are some things you just can't do when you're in remote so right that's right and and i think that once uh once we return to in-person you know uh school it'll be a lot easier to you know get back to the level of uh service that we

071traditionally had and and there is a significant just to answer the other part of your question you know there is a pretty significant lag in you know when the services are offered when we submit the paperwork when we get paid so we try to you know sort of uh keep that in mind when when doing our budgeting as well um traditionally about ten thousand ten thousand five hundred the number um and we're estimating about fifty five hundred uh as as the expected revenue there um it's a much bigger set of numbers obviously in in the region as as you saw the other night but but just for the the other members of the committee and and i haven't had those up in front of you in a while so i just would mention that thank

072you oh i had a one more question if that's all right if i can keep going so i also saw on there um the transfer transportation so that hold on i i have to look at my other screen so i can see it with where did you go transportation okay so on the last page the nope never mind i think i confused things we're all good moving on thank you all right ron go ahead we're going to discuss uh school choice in greater detail later this evening oh yeah go ahead we can definitely talk and talk about it now um i i was going to mention it but this is certainly part and parcel of the situation we're in so you know you should feel in my opinion being able to talk about it i'm

073not sure this is correct but last year when i was talking to people in the building they seem to suggest that a great deal of the diversity in pelham school came from school choice students i don't know if that's correct but are we going to experience a decrease in diversity as we lose our school choice base i can i can respond to that so i think uh the school has more racial and ethnic diversity than the town in general um some of that is based on the age factor that's it's not an uncommon phenomenon in massachusetts where uh you know the other district i work in um also has the same phenomena where if you look at the the racial dis demographics uh of the town versus the students in the school you'll see a

074distinction uh but i think you're right to note that there are significant amount of school choice students who do contribute to the the greater diversity of our student body um so i think you know this is a financial picture and we're worried about school choice uh financially but i think you raise a lot of other non-financial impacts that having a reduced number of school choices students have and i think it's i appreciate you doing that ron it's a really important point to come back to disappears and people want to join the pelham school from around the region again when does that take place uh when does school choice election take place by families so school choice uh will be something this committee considers probably at their next meeting there'll be a school choice hearing uh

075perhaps even a vote at the next meeting and i think when we talk about the fall semester which is on the agenda tonight i think we should we should have a bit of a conversation about uh how the palm school committee feels about that and um i think that might influence what we can do in terms of advertising for choice thank you other questions um i have one i i know i feel like i always bring this up um just i'm sure because of past experience just having zero in charter tuition makes me nervous it just given what's happened in the past with the process should i just get over that no no no uh it's something we struggle with i think yeah where our budget was unless dire straits then we would have a

076placeholder there as a security blanket yeah for us um we don't feel like there's another twenty thousand dollars to cut this year um i think if we really were to get charter students we'd have to look look at our choice reserve account um to cover and then plan ahead for the next year after because that first year you pretty much get covered from reimbursement it's really the second year that that number hits you so we do have a little bit of a breathing room in terms of the charter reimbursement uh but you're right we i would love to what we would typically do and honestly what's the best practice to do would be to have a placeholder in there and then if it doesn't come then that rolls back into the school choice account um

077it's hard to figure out where those twenty thousand thousand dollars will come from in the current situation right yeah and i'm not yes no i'm not suggesting you are just explaining right now yeah yeah okay but i guess but your second part and i just want to make sure i'm fully clear so to the extent we do get unexpected charter students it's not like then in the middle of next year there would have to be further staffing cuts to respond to that that's what it could come out of the revolving fund in an emergency basically yeah i think that's what we'd have to do okay all right yeah which then contributes a larger financial picture but it would not involve like yeah right oh yeah to be clear none of it is good it's just

078what's less bad well put okay um all right any other questions comments okay um well thanks for this uh that's really hard i know that like the impact certainly on individual teachers but also on you know kind of the pelham family and the closeness of the school i'm sure just makes news like this really really difficult on everyone um so that really hits home um i think too you know just hearing everything that doug and mike the two of you say i mean not to minimize this at all but this and worse is really what we're in for if things continue is that a fair statement i don't see where the other funding sources not school choice comes in to help right you know i mean the student opportunity act is not going to have

079a significant influence on pelham you don't the district doesn't have the demographics where it would it would affect things i don't think chapter 70 even if it was increased a hundred dollars per student or something like that which is not it's not going to make a big enough difference it's really the school survives the structure of the school fiscally survives on having you know more choice students i mean you know just to put quantify so this is staff i think on tuesday if we had 10 more choice students we'd be making zero budget cuts we'd be even right so if we had 50 we'd probably to be to the good a little bit because of special ed increment and other things and that's usually where we were at until this year we were usually at

080around 50 until last year and this year and at that level the school's pretty sustainable it's not like you know that we have this new expenses but um at 40 student school choice students the numbers don't add up and that's what we're facing this year and that's that's really the challenge um and you know it's it's been hardly has done a great job and she's recruited a couple school choice students but for many elementary families the reality is in a remote model um we're a unique district right now that's in a remote model at the elementary school and it's very very challenging to to attract school choice families when we're in remote or there's no guarantee of being back in person that's not to criticize anyone you know the district for the moa it's not

081going to get into any of those things but there is a practical reality uh that it makes it very challenging uh for us right now right yeah i don't mean to be the horse and make you keep saying that because i just think it's really important that to understand that that this is i think there's just seems to always be a sense that like well the district and the town always kind of figure it out and i think we're kind of beyond that now without kind of substantial changes so okay um all right anything else on fy22 okay um all right um okay next up volunteer in-person learn oh wait sir oh no first i just wanted to say um you know these suck not for like lack of a better term these are really

082really crummy poem is a fabulous school and part of what makes us fabulous is our tight-knit community and the thought of losing some of those people is just really sad um and i also wanted to say thank you to lee and to doug and to mike because i know these conversations are really crummy we've had a lot of them lately and having to have those conversations on the other side where it directly affects students and their families and teachers and the people who we all work with and see all the time like that's crummy thank you for doing it i guess yes great um all right return to in-person learning update i think i think the next agenda item is fy22 preschool discussion and vote yeah you know what you don't think that you read

083that nice job sorry um yes okay so um yes we had talked last month about that and we were kind of putting it off i mean i wonder given other agenda items if this is something i mean certainly we can discuss but if maybe uh holding off on a vote makes sense yeah go ahead mike i actually wonder if just out of respect for dr slaughter and this is my fault in putting together the agenda so i own it if we could do capital and then he could perhaps go on his merry way i think that's a great idea is that okay with you doug all right uh okay so put a pin in preschool capital plan all right i'm gonna share my screen again i've got to find the right uh item to share

084here um it's all set to take a little mental break sorry i figured trying to get out earlier was preferable it absolutely is i'm just uh trying to to uh to shift gears here a little bit sorry um so uh i believe when we when we spoke in in um in december and hopefully you can you see this and this is not terribly uh an interesting slide but i put it up just for for reference in some ways for myself uh in december we spoke about capital and i said well it's likely this is going to change pretty significantly uh you know we had uh identified some network switches uh some school security upgrades some some computer replacements and uh some interior renovations and upgrades uh that we needed to do in a capital plan

085and it uh you know we we we have subsequently revised this i've had uh some some uh uh dialogue with the with again with the chair of the fights committee in pelham uh and partly because of changing circumstances we don't need the network switches at this point in time that was contingent upon some some work that the town of amherst is going to do that would would positively impact uh the the palm school but it that works going to be delayed a little bit so that is coming off but as a result and then the capital plan is changed a little bit i'm going to switch and show you in a even less uh clear or or less uh dramatic fashion sort of where where we've landed relative to the capital needs for the coming

086year so the school security grade upgrades are are still in there we have a little bit of a previous capital item that that is going to support this project as well the back door on the building needs uh needs it's hardware replaced and there's some other uh control panel upgrades to the security system the school that that are uh already to be addressed and that's a that's a pretty significant one it also uh uh that that door that is uh needing some some work also has uh handicap access and so it's a it's a critical uh entryway for for folks who are are mobility impaired to to get to the building and access that into the building and so it's an important upgrade in that regard um the interior renovations and upgrades uh again this

087this um this ask for four thousand dollars is an is an augmentation to some existing funding uh to to finish some projects that we have started and and uh some aspects and took a little more revenue than we thought and so uh hopefully this will get uh the gymnasium painted so that's the hope there um and then as as you all know uh you know there was a study done a couple years ago regarding ada uh needs at the school and in the most recent uh fiscal year there was a a ten thousand dollar uh capital item for ada improvements uh we're working on some of those at this point there's more things on the list and so we thought we'd ask for another uh 5 000 in in capital money to continue to address

088uh ada uh issues that were itemized in in that list um unfortunately i didn't get a chance to connect with the the uh the facilities director to to get a more specific list of of projects that he's thinking about and and working on um but i should be getting that uh certainly to you guys and and uh to the finance committee as well and in well in advance of of uptown meetings so that people have particular questions about how we're progressing against that reports recommendations we'll we'll be able to see that and so uh it's a fairly modest series of asks this year but i think uh some some significant things that are that are going to be addressed by virtue of uh of these capital items i think i'll stop there and see if

089you have questions about those okay can we just stop sharing just so we can see one another sorry there we go um yes sarah best go ahead um so i guess my only question is the network switches that would do great things to improve the internet at poem correct yeah ultimately so uh just to sort of paint the larger picture uh the town of amherst is in process of of uh installing i guess uh what's called what they used to call an inet it's a fiber optic uh high-speed internet loop within the town of amherst and they have uh assets uh you know water and water treatment facilities in in impelling so they're they're going to be running some of that high speed uh you know fiber optic network up into pelham right next to

090the school um but it's that section that sort of spur that that heads into pelham is is not part of the first phase of their of their project and so it's been delayed um it actually has a really strong benefit ultimately to to uh to film school because uh if the school is able to connect into it um the current uh cost that we're incurring uh year over year to to cover some of our internet access for the school would be significantly reduced and so it's it's kind of a win-win but it's going to be delayed a little bit until the town of emerson kind of gets their piece done and then we might need to invest in those switches at that point and uh and then we'll ultimately sort of realize some of the

091savings in the in the year-over-year operating cost of the of the high-speed internet so it's it's coming but not yet on that okay yeah i was also thinking about you know i guess teacher and student quality of life with the internet there because i know there are some days where um you know teachers have to teach from the building and it's really hard you know they end up having to keep their screens off because things are too glitchy and that is a feels like a really big ask for them to keep doing that so i just want to make sure that as soon as we can add you know advocate for them that they need quality internet if you know it would have been great if it was last year but you know these things

092happen so just as long as it stays on the you know yeah i think the chain on it i guess yeah the changing nature of school and and how we do uh the things we do in school whether we're in a remote circumstance or not definitely are more and more dependent upon uh high quality and high speed internet and so uh exactly hopefully what we have is is is an essential thing that's going to need to happen it's it's an infrastructure step that uh that parallels anything else we do in our infrastructure uh in in the building so it is definitely a direction we need to go ultimately okay great thank you other capital questions um i just i my recollection and i could be off on this i thought i thought part of the

093thing with the ada stuff is that we didn't get around to the 10 000 from the warrant last year um and so that's why it was still out i mean is the thinking that there's the capacity to then to complete fifteen thousand dollars worth of work if so a covered related thing why it couldn't get done last year so the the ten thousand dollars was was uh was voted by town meeting this last spring which or really was june so it was almost summer um and so that that's money available currently and so we are you know chipping away at some ada projects this year a little bit um we'll probably get more uh you know i don't say aggressive but but more active in those projects this year but but this will be you

094know uh added to that for continued work in the in the coming fiscal year so they'll work together on it but it'll be ongoing process okay great yeah and it would be helpful to have that detail of the anticipated projects whenever it's ready just because sometimes those questions do come up at town meeting right okay thanks okay doug you i think are free to go thank you good to see you all good take care um okay so going back up to preschool so we had talked about this last month having the conversation of when would we we be ready to make a decision on whether or not to open it up knowing what we knew from last year that folks would not pay for remote preschool and then making the decision we made this year

095um so i mean so that's why we were discussing it kind of you know sooner rather than later so that preschool families who need to make decisions know what they're in for um but you know then we also have this discussion of next year so um i guess i'll leave it to you know other folks if they feel like we would want to talk about this more and vote on something tonight or hold off for a month um with the other things we're working on yep ron go ahead i think it's been adequately discussed we know what we need to do i'd be in favor of voting tonight okay yep sarah best i am going to have to respectfully disagree i think we need to make a decision about what our k through 6 grade

096is going to look going to look like before we can decide whether or not there's going to be a preschool that's i like i love the preschool program i wanted to be there but if we're not having k through six in the building definitely then it's hard to have preschool in there i i think we are green i thought we're going to get rid of the preschool period yeah well so i mean that's that's the discussion and you know i think i didn't tee it up that clearly i think if we're moving if we're looking in agenda item g to make a motion about what we expect for next year if we are hoping to plan for full in-person instruction next year if we can feel confident about that sooner rather than later maybe there

097is a possibility for the preschool i'm not i'm not yet advocating one way or the other i just don't know if there's how many problems we can make or if i mean i don't i i think there's it's a challenging balance we are certainly not going to be we will not be able to make a decision with perfect information because we will never have perfect information i thought we discussed the revenues would be inadequate to support the expenses to be incurred in offering this pre-school program and therefore we wanted to eliminate the preschool program for one year for one year this would be the case whether or not there was in-person learning from k-6 maybe i'm wrong but i thought that's what my recollection is okay i i thought it was more about the potential

098for a remote preschool environment if the school was not open but and well i i yeah mike go ahead yeah i think there's a couple things here um so i think i was thinking about this this topic before the meeting quite a bit because there's the other topic that we have i don't know if it's right after it or soon after about um the school year discussion um for next year i think the challenge on timing is that um if we wait too long to make the decision the decision sort of gets made for us because peaceful families will find places for their children for next year because most i think just about all the preschools i know in the area are open some close a little bit in december but they're open so i

099think i don't think there needs to be a vote tonight but i do want to note that from a timeline perspective things are going to get tight so i think we probably do need to make a decision even if the decision is let's see if we get people to enroll like i don't know what that decision looks like next month but but i think that's the variable separate from the financial separate from com you know uh what's our program look like do we have an agreement to move forward all those other things um you know if we if we decide in may we'd like to open the preschool i just i fear we won't have enough students to make it worthwhile so i'm not pushing to vote tonight that's not where i was going um

100but i think there are a real timeline just the logistical practical concerns about that yes agreed yep ron go ahead if you want to wait a month it's fine by me but i don't think the decision is going to change any right yeah no and i mean i yes we originally i think we're going to do it in march and i was the one that was like no let's do it in february let's get it on the agenda in february um right i mean i um [Music] i guess i mean lee i'm sort of putting you on the spot here so i mean for as a practical perspective it seems like it could be challenging even if we were to be able to tell you what k through 6 would look like in march that

101seems like that would be hard then to kind of figure out enrollment for the preschool for the fall is that fair i think that's fair i mean the because we're talking about a few different things we're talking about um staffing so figuring out the logistics of who the adults would be who would be working with the children the programming um and what that's going to look like the um the physical safety constraints and what that's going to look like and then how we're going to be supportive of very young children um in a bill you know if we're in person in the fall in a building with much older children who may have different physical safety you know parameters i i don't know how well two and three-year-olds do with masks but you know i

102so they do all those little minutia of logistical things to really be um figuring out and then creating that plan collaboratively with staff which is the way i'd like to do it um all of that is going to take time and then the other piece is around you know ensuring that the program would be financially viable um you know and i'll echo what mike said that you know some families have reached out to me to to ask if the program is going to be open and pretty much everyone has said we're looking at programs in the area we're trying to make our plans for the fall i think families are are really trying to plan now so um i whatever you want me to do i will make it work if you tell me in

103june we're running a preschool i will we will figure out a way to do it but i think to really do it well takes a takes time and to collaborate takes time um so as much time as you can give us to to to do things well um i would be great but um that's just my two cents i don't know if i answered your question no you did and i yes no i mean i know that was a it was a hard question um but no i appreciate your honesty about that um yeah um yeah brenda go ahead okay so i guess i have a couple questions but the first one i guess is more for us just to think about if you know k through cruise 6 weren't in the building would any

104of us you know would we want to have consider having pre-k in the building because it seems like we'd need to make the decision to get the families like you know sooner to be financially viable um wait so sorry me just to clarify the question meaning if k through six were not in the building having a preschool that did go into the building yes i don't i think if all of k-6 were not in the building we would not be able to do that right that would mean that there was something else in place where for some reason it was not allowed and then that would also apply to preschool because of staffing and union issues or trying to figure out like you know how can we make this decision before we you know before

105we can actually make the decisions about fall for the regular group of kids it just seems like putting the part before the horse or yeah mike yeah so i think that it's a great point i think what we're running into is that you've got multiple sets of decisions and the one around preschool is needs to be really timely and it it's hard i think this is really i don't want to put words into lee's mouth but what i got from what lee said not her words but what i interpreted or what i learned was that there's some decisions that can't wait till other decisions happen and preschool may be one of those decisions you know so if we have everything over like we know our k-6 program in may even if we there's a conversation

106tonight you know knowing really what the program is that's going to be too late to make a decision on preschool um so i think that's that's where we're running into some logistical problems it's not for lack of interest or dedication but um to commit to it for families who are looking for a place for their three and four and five-year-old we need to be able to commit to it and so that's hard to fully commit to until we have lots of other things figured out and i think that's where i think we're struggling and to mr mino's point that's why i wouldn't suggest that any permanent decision happens now but i think that that's where we struggle because the reality is programming a preschool especially during covet times it's no small feat um and people

107are going to ask a lot of questions if i was a prospective parent uh even if lee's like yeah we'll be in person next year and they've got you know parents with guardians and caretakers would want to have a lot of questions and we may not have answers in time for them to actually feel good about registering their kid and i think that's the conflict that we're facing is uh not a dedication or lack of dedication the program but how do we make which decisions when and they're all contingent on each other and that's where uh in a in a tough fiscal time that's where we're struggling about you know what's the level of risk that we'd have if we commit to the program and can't actually fill the program like what happens with that

108we've already committed to that so i don't know if that made it helped at all but i think that's where we're all feeling really there's the cognitive dissonance for me and myself i would say because we not for these issues we'd be like in the middle of planning now but we we're not we can't pretend that those issues aren't there they're real and that's where we're struggling okay sarah best go ahead so um looking at this or maybe i i changed my eye sentences right i'm looking at this more as like a continuation of our hiatus from last year because we cannot necessarily offer full-time in-person high-quality preschool program like we did pre-covet times right this is just a continuation of our covid hiatus is that more like along the lines of what we're thinking

109about okay well then i feel like i can vote on it i could vote on it as well okay yeah all right any other [Music] questions or anything before that it's just one clarifying question so the budget that we just discussed am i correct in thinking that there was no preschool expenses in that budget right that's correct yeah and the preschool was always intended to be self-sufficient so if there was expenses there would be you know the the tuition would offset it um so if if the committee wants to make a different decision we can we can do that um the staff notification deadlines that's where it gets a little tricky for us because once we commit to staff on april 1st or april 15th they always get mixed up i apologize we we commit

110to them you know and and i think that's where uh that's where it gets a little tricky for us in terms of having everything sorted out by that date okay all right i will take a motion on the preschool i think nobody wants to make this motion so i will bite the bullet and say i move that we extend our preschool covid hiatus for another school year with a exceptionally very very heavy heart this is yucky more yucky copiness but i guess that is my motion extend our preschool covid hiatus all right second all right moved by kenny seconded by stancer any further discussion okay so we'll do a roll call vote uh ron medina why sarah best kenny i very sadly okay margaret stancer i and brenda barlow i and i all right thank

111you everyone um okay next up volunteer return to in-person learning update so we're going to speak to this a lot more on tuesday night at the joint meeting but i think the short story is we had been assured a survey to all pelham staff about their interest in returning uh around march first and um at this point we're still compiling the data and there's some conditionals you know because there's a comment section so we're sorting through uh what was intended by some of the comments to make sure we're cl we we really understand what staff intend to do and we'll have a lot more to share on tuesday night so uh i think we can keep this agenda point if it's okay with the committee pretty brief because we get a much more thorough presentation

112on tuesday okay um yeah and so the thinking being that does tuesday give enough time to like you will have gone through by then and we'll have numbers and okay yep um okay thank you uh okay capital plan we did um 2021 2022 school year discussion um so relevant to many other agenda items tonight and i had sent around a proposed motion that you'll note says when do you mike could you pull it up really quickly um so this motion was discussed at um the regional school committee meeting on tuesday um and so and was shared with me and it will be this item will be on the agenda um our joint meeting next tuesday so we wanted to have a chance to discuss it now so um just that to the extent that vaccines

113are available and public health guidelines are adhered to that and we would change this obviously to pelham public school would provide full-time in-person learning for the 2021-2022 school year and that the superintendent would manage this in collaboration with um public health officials so the you know the question of kind of why talk about this now why bring up this motion now from our other and actually mike i think probably we dig it down so we can see each other um you know clearly in terms of very specific to pelham our ongoing financial viability depends on increased school choice enrollment and i think if we are going to attract school choice families um they need to know what the plan is for the next school year um [Music] we also saw from the one public comment

114certainly that is not a survey of all families but so anecdotal information that families are right now in the process of having to make really difficult choices and private schools or charter schools or school choice applications for other districts you know now is the time when families are considering those um and that you know i think to show that we are making some progress that we're focused on in person learning as much as possible for next calendar year um i think could be important so this so for tonight it's more just discussing this language um we're not voting on it but again it will come up at our joint meeting and will possibly be voted on then um and so and i i wasn't at or nor did i watch the joint meeting so i

115don't know sarah best or margaret if there's any parts of that discussion that came up that you'd want to share here that are relevant or if other folks have questions or comments i i don't think i have anything necessarily to bring forward from that i uh i i think the concern is similar at the regional level um when we think about who's who might come back or who might not come back next year um i guess that's really all i have to say about what we talked about serious uh the only other thing i have written down is that um how inefficient it is to run parallel programs to have both in person and virtual and that when we're already at a place where you know finances are crunched and um that we we just

116don't have the money to run both sure yeah right yep margaret so one question that has come to my mind um or maybe something mike that you could speak to a little bit since the meeting the other night is how does this tie into negotiations with the union i know that the moa ends in june so what happens with all of that for next year do you have any ideas so as you noted the memorandum of agreement ends on june 30th it's only for the current school year and i think you know even for my cover well i think it'd be i'm trying to be cautious of not negotiating in public and that's why i'm being really you know i'm being trying to think about what i want to say before i say it um

117i think it's the motion as written sets a clear directive to me as well as a negotiating team on perhaps what's non-negotiable in negotiations that's probably as much as i will uh can say uh it's an awkward worded sentence i know but um i think that helps me thank you okay yep wrong yep go ahead ron well i'm not on the negotiate uh i think it's important to support the men of the the motion only because the public wants to know what's going to happen in the fall passage of this motion would indicate that's what we want to happen as far as the vaccine is concerned all teachers should be vaccinated by the second week of march i'm i had my first shot i'm at 80. but the teachers were put below 65 year olds

118but those people should all be taken care of by around the first week of march so teachers and staff are in the the cohort that follow 65 year olds they should all be taken care of in terms of vaccinations by the second shot come from april so that they will be protected plus we have all those protocols in place we have all those thousands of mass that were given to us uh the uh headgear that was given to us the the hand sanitizer that we purchased the ventilation program that's been taking place i i think it it'll be a safe learning environment and i think it's important so more pelham parents don't send their kids to private school to let them know right away that the school committee supports uh full in-person learning as of

119september but that's just my opinion okay thanks ron brenda just to add to that you know we may only have had one public comment tonight but just anecdotally i know several other families who are really struggling and they really care about pelham and they really want to stay at pelham and i think acknowledging that that we've had a rough year acknowledging that we're committed to in-person learning and fall would go a long way for a lot of families and could really um make a huge difference yeah yeah i mean i think of oh yeah go ahead mike no you can go first so just two things one on the vaccine timeline that i don't know if you saw the government said today that they're they've good news on the vaccine is that um vaccines is

120that what was thought to be 300 million people in america uh would have doses by the end of august is now the end of july and another point that was supposed to be the end of june is now the end of may um so production seems like it's ramping up i mean in massachusetts i saw that you know we've about a million a little less 900 some odd thousand people have been vaccinated and a quarter million were in the last seven days so we are seeing a pretty significant uptick in that and educators were like two groups away um i was in a conference call with desi today and they talked about that timeline um so um i think you know folks should feel confident i feel confident i shouldn't say folks should i feel

121confident that the vaccine will be available to all educators and i think just about all adults from what we're hearing today from the biden administration well before september and i think the other thing point i just want to make is that i'm trying to be really careful my language and i'm not trying to correct anyone's language but i think people have the opportunity to be vaccinated i can't guarantee that everyone will be vaccinated um and there's a real significant distinction there um you know i know from hospitals and other settings where there was a an assumption that almost everyone would want to get vaccinated and what they found in massachusetts is that you know they're about 80 right but they're not 100 right and i know people locally who work in our local hospitals here

122in springfield and northampton who have indicated that so i just want to caution us that i think everyone have the opportunity to be vaccinated uh in terms of the adults um but but we can't guarantee that and um yeah i'll leave it there yep i don't have the language in front of me anymore but um i i think it says the opportunity right so it's okay great thank you the languages has been made available that's the language in there yeah i mean so and i think that it is you know signaling to the community you know the existing community but also i think giving lee the ability to as you know as she gets phone calls that she can say this is what the priority is and and by the way we have awesome ventilation

123have you seen our gym and we have this really great let's talk curriculum and people love it you know it's like i i don't mean to make you out to be like some super salesy like you're an educator and an administrator so but you know i think it can it can help you know i don't think people are just gonna flock to pelham only because of let's talk but i think that this could also send a message and would give uh would give you lee a little kind of armor to be able to say that these are the things we care about safety for sure but also these other things um okay well so again it will be on the agenda on tuesday to be discussed further and in the joint setting um all right

124anything else on that okay warrants i have two tonight um i authorized by my signature to payroll in the amount of 58 332.82 and that was dated february 10 2021 and i signed it on february 5th 2021 and i authorized by my signature to payables in the amount of seven thousand thirty two dollars and forty four cents for the warrant dated february 10 2021 that included general fund expenses of 3754.48 grant fund expenses of one thousand two hundred and twenty dollars and ninety six cents and um two thousand fifty seven dollars from an fy 2021 article that's referred to as other fund um and i signed that on february 10th that's it for warrants um we do not have any oh wait do we no we um i know there is a gift um but

125it's not well it's not on here maybe it just hasn't gone through the treasurer's office yet is that possible it is possible and if you uh get in touch with doug he can give you and i can do it for you but he can give you a more clear answer on that okay and i can check in with him um so it'll get on for next month okay so stay tuned for a gift next month um and that is it so i will take a motion to adjourn i'll make a return i move to a journal school committee meeting second move my health second advice no brother discussion um okay ron monino i sarah best kenny i margaret stands for eye brenda and hall i we are adjourned thank you so much everybody have a

126good night you