JLMSC

001we can start by um we can start by letting everybody know that um how grateful we are for the work that emma dragon is doing for the town and that's the reason that she's not here because she's working so hard on vaccine distribution and we're very grateful for for all of her dedicated work on that and hope to continue it with her the next thing that's on the agenda that we can talk about given that emma's not here to answer some of our questions about the vaccine as well as contact tracing or um long-term planning and this is something that i've been asking since october i think was when i first asked it um as far as substitutes so can you give us a sense of how many substitutes the district has per building currently

002i don't have that that information personally do you mean like substitutes that are actually working in buildings yeah that would be assigned to a building back in october i asked the question initially we were told that the district had uh three per building and then i think maybe december one of the times i asked again we were told there were two substitutes per building and just wanted to get an update on that as well as any contingency plans for when we are out of substitutes so what would the district do if there are not enough substitutes for coverage um you and i all of us know from working in schools for as long as we have that we typically in a day would need um more than two substitutes when we're not in a uh

003a pandemic so just wondering what the district's contingency plans would be if we are out of um coverage for classes yeah i definitely don't have an official answer on that okay um something else that i've been asking for since october was also about location for um staff to eat lunches so that they can continue to practice social distancing and do you know if there is a plan moving forward for that as we're looking to put more adults and as well as students in the buildings nothing that i've been apprised of yet i know our our department in the facilities department we actually just kind of put out a memo regarding that but aside from that now can you can you give us a little more like what what you're doing with your staff as far

004as um lunches so so that we can ensure social distancing it's so so i just want to preface it with it kind of works out differently for us because we have we probably have a lot more spaces available to us but it's it's essentially that that no two people should we'll be eating in the same place at the same time so for oh there we go there's stephen so for for instance a painter who has his own shop that's where he eats that sort of thing break rooms like communal break rooms we're not we're veering away from that hi stephen we're talking about some long-term planning um something that i've been asking for um information on since probably october were contingency plans for substitutes for um to ensure that we have enough coverage uh for

005staff in um in the cases of quarantining and just in the case of being out for illnesses so want to make sure that when we get people back into the buildings and get students back into the buildings we have the coverage that's needed to keep the buildings open so i don't know if you have anything that you could share about contingency plans for substitutes yes substitutes we really haven't gone there but that's an incredibly difficult thing to figure figure out i mean that you know where where do you get them and how do you how do they stay you know who i mean do you quarantine subs i mean what yeah you know what do you do to keep them from you know i don't know where you'd find them but so it is a

006difficult topic thanks stephen that and that's one of the reasons why i uh wanted to start discussing it back in october so that we would have some type of plan in place for that so this is a topic that we're going to need more discussion on because i think we can can we all agree that it is something that we would need uh some contingency plans for yeah definitely okay um as well as staff uh lunch spaces so that we can continue to have staff feel comfortable but also still be able to socially distance from each other the other thing that i wanted to ask and ben you might know the answer to this is i know that the transportation for students the the drop-off points might be changed for some buildings due to more

007families perhaps driving their students to school um can do you have any information on that yeah yeah like the the drop-off side of that right there at school yeah each school actually has has come up with their own plans like certain i know fort river actually had to go to the ex four river and wild with you know same layout both had to kind of go to the extent of actually marking where folks go out but yeah we've we've got pick up and drop off plans for each of the schools we had to do that before the first day that we opened initially do you know if those plans um are going to remain the same uh as we move toward again as we move towards getting more staff and more students into buildings are

008those plans going to remain the same are they going to change and where can people find those plans right so so far they they almost have to stay exactly the same they were they were basically set up for the best possible option as far as social distancing and being able to get our buses in and out safely it affects how our vans drop off as well but yeah i believe each school has them i'm not sure if they sent them out to parents but i can get i can get a like a firmed up answer on that that would be really good it would be really helpful yeah information um as somebody that works at crocker farm um i know that initially because that school is it is a little bit different because it's got

009the two uh driveways it's got one in the front off of west street and then it's got the shay street entrance in the back which is more like a horseshoe um in the past staff have used the back entrance um to park a lot a large number of staff have used that that area to park and um we had the front entrance and then there was uh parking up the driveway as well as to the side for preschool uh families to for them to drop off my one of my concern is that there will not be parking enough parking in the back because that's where the buses were were going to go do you know if that's going to continue that the buses will continue to use the shay street yep yep that that hasn't

010changed it's been long enough now that i don't have it exactly in my head like like the general picture but yeah it's going to be about the same and the like the parking coming up the hill and the like parking by pre-k and all that is going to be utilized more than it has been in the past okay um my understanding is that staff would not be parking because knowing um the buses need that they need the space to turn right yes yeah correct so do you have a set do you know and you don't have to give me like the exact number but an estimate of how many parking spaces are available in the front so that uh going up to the west street i actually should have it exact but i yeah i

011i will venture a guess i i definitely should have an answer basically yeah i just wanna would um you know you know that i i'm a planner and yeah mr and i are both numbers people so just trying to get ahead of this and and wondering do we have enough parking spaces in the west street side to accommodate all of the cars uh for staff if we're gonna have full staff there so that i guess that's my question yeah i was gonna say that part i actually can speak to okay that came up during the planning phase and the answer was yes more than right it's it's gonna be different than it has been in the past but yeah there's so there are enough um spaces for all st if all staff are in the

012building correct to park and in the on the west street yep parking okay good that i think that's what i wanted to know yeah all right um someone's calling me from canada i don't know who i think it's one of those calls you don't want to pick up um so i guess uh krista do you have any other questions for long-term planning more on the secondary school level um i'm i'm thinking about the location for lunches for for staff and um the plan that you have in place sounds really good for your for your staff i just it sounds like best case scenario and as we're thinking ahead to long-term planning finding ways to replicate what you're doing would be really would be really good so um i'm i really i just want i guess

013this is an appreciation i appreciate how much thought you put into um how you planned having facilities um people having the safest possible lunches they can have we've just seen so many outbreaks that happen around the break room and i i appreciate that you've thought so far in advance on that one i just hope there's a way that we can find to replicate something similar when we start increasing numbers in the buildings um for locations for for students having lunches in locations for staff so that we're reducing that that risk we know that's one of the riskiest times in our day um the time when the masks come off to eat um so uh i guess as we think ahead finding ways to to replicate that plan would be amazing yeah any any input i

014could provide i'm more than willing to help with excellent um i guess um a related question is the the tents are all down for the the winter season i'm assuming that's why they're down when is the planned date to have the tents all put back up is that after the i don't even know how you planned that is it after the snow season is it when do those go back up it's it's going to take a a bit of guesswork and a bit of luck provided that the the winner plays out like it has been so far which i mean this is new england so it'd be ridiculous to play it based on that but provided that it did work out that way we're probably another month or two away we could probably realistically do

015it in about march is it the snow load on the tents that's the worry or frozen ground which is the all of it yeah well yeah mostly the the snow load side so so from the manufacturer we got a bunch of wonderful specs and they've assured us that it'll work out that way but we we decided that the risk isn't worth yeah you know worth trusting with what a manufacturer says when they're selling you something basically okay because i i know in the early plans having access to those tents was really important for thinking about students and eating lunch and the priority was to have as much outside eating time as possible in the tents so knowing when those tents come back up is is helpful for knowing when we can have those best possible

016scenarios for eating again absolutely excellent thanks i've got a funny question about tents union 28 we had all four schools had purchased tents this fall past fall and it turns out none of them were flame retardant so i'm just curious if the if the fire department has checked out your attempts to make sure they're flame retardant we had to send them all back and now we have none yeah i don't know if you followed the uh the drama that was the tents of amherst that's what i'm calling it but um yeah so i went through a planning board hearing the permitting process in an inspection process and that was a so knowing that i was going to have to do that that was the first thing that we we had to do was to make

017sure that we had the documentation but yeah what one of these days when you have time i'll i'll explain the entire process to you it was a thorough i'll say thorough i don't want to open on that but yeah it was thorough all right stephen do you have anything that you would like to bring up for long-term planning okay do you want to switch over to facilities yeah i just that substitutes is a real you know that we really gotta start would start with that now because that that is a key thing there's the uh the number of substitutes that you have per billing and also the issue with contact tracing when you've got a substitute that might move from room to room throughout the day which happens often or a substitute that may need

018to switch and move from building to building due to staffing levels or shortages so there's a few different pieces to that puzzle that really should be looked at and again that's why we've been asking these questions since uh since october in addition to that too gene is getting substitutes trained in what the protocols are for when masks can be on and off and i'm those whatever the protocols are may be slightly different based on age of the students or capacity of the classroom and so knowing what kind of training additional training substitutes will need to be able to implement um safety protocol is really going to take time it's going to we're going to need time to know what those are and time to train whatever subs we have to know what what to do

019to keep our students safe all right um thanks stephen for facilities update ben thank you for sending the document um yeah there was one major part that i didn't put in there that i would be remiss in my duties both on the school committee and in my day job to mention and it's it's the it's a hard fact that so the the process of furloughing our staff has begun so i just want to point that out that you know as hard as we've been working there it's getting it's going to get a lot worse coming coming soon and i had some folks that wanted me to mention that here that because that does affect how we can be ready for schools to open um ben thank you um the custodian and maintenance staff and facility

020staff are are like the heart of the buildings yeah um they really are absolutely yeah and they they've been here throughout so if anyone noticed last night that i explained that my week sucked that's why my week sucked so i just wanted to point that out thank you thank you for sharing that um for the uh the update that you did send out would you be able to send us the actual nexus report so not the processed information data but the actual report that came from nexus if you could forward that to us that would be great yeah and and um so there was there was like we got a request in our department earlier in the week and then we got more data after so you guys will be getting the the the newer

021version of the raw data but yes yes we can provide that here that's looking at the facilities update it sounds like you had nexus back in to do some retests is that correct yep fantastic um yes getting the whatever data you have from nexus you you already know gene and i are uh all over the raw data um so we we just can't wait to see that so thank you so much i only have one other person throughout the course of the day who actually gets excited when this stuff comes in so it's refreshing oh this is gonna be like a holiday season for me again this is fantastic thank you one thing that i wanted to ask you i think we talked about it in december were the fact that there were some rooms

022that were not scheduled to be tested for air quality because they weren't slated to be used correct correct um would it be possible to get a list of those rooms by building yeah well yeah sure not the map but just a list of the room numbers by building yep yeah it's relatively easy because of the airflow list i mean airflow maps we can put it together a little bit um i would think that that some a list like that would also be helpful when you're thinking about planning out staff lunch locations as well yeah right because a lot of the areas we we weren't going to test if you only had one person in it it would i mean that you can't affect yourself right so if people were assigned to those rooms for lunch

023that's probably the best one of the best ways to go about it i think all right so that that would be great yeah look at that 444 um i think our our two other main things we wanted to talk about today again um were related to emma's work and since she's not with us because she's doing such fantastic work to roll out the vaccine for our first responders i think um we'll have to wait till we can snag her again to ask about vaccines and contact tracing but it's probably a good thing that she's busy not even probably it's absolutely a good thing that she's busy right now we're just so fortunate for her role in rolling out the vaccine for our county or being one of the main players and rolling it out we're

024just so fortunate to have that so um she's she's fantastic superstar and a dragon that's right and i remain optimistic um i know uh the superintendent shared that he was kind of um pleasantly surprised at the vaccine uh distribution and i i i think that we're going to see a ramp up over the next few weeks if something's going to change on the 20th i think to probably a little more efficient perhaps yeah not sure what it is yeah no i i will remain an optimist about this so and i appreciate all the work that both of you are doing not only on the school committee but also putting in the additional time to work on safety issues so all right um now do you still do you still stay on for questions i think

025we do for like another five minutes okay so this is the this is the part of the show that uh krista and i say goodbye all right have a good weekend me too all right sweet style your website oh okay any questions i'm not seeing anything the only thing popping up oh i guess for folks watching on youtube if you put a question in the comment section we'll be able to see it here but yeah the only thing i see is someone saying okay so what do you think we give it another two three all i can see is the note that sasha put up there yeah which says and we probably should read that okay so the nurse department has reached out to the central office to create a website that will assist staff

026with some concerns around mask protocols now good all right i guess we give it to 4 48 and then i have another hat to put on after this there's the lucky you how was the meeting last night it was it was good oh good yeah folks got to kind of air out some some grievances and concerns and then after that i got to wear another hat and go go coach some basketball so that was fun oh nice so are they playing with mask on or yeah we're just doing skills clinics we can't we're not even allowed to scrimmage or play one-on-one or anything so a lot of shooting a lot of dribbling hope there's more dribbling than shooting what about the passing thing somebody somebody somebody's got to learn how to pass the ball right

027right if you can uh you can catch the ball off the wall you can catch the ball anywhere somebody's got to be willing to give the ball up though yeah yeah it's important part of the game that's where short guys like me came in handy i'm down here too yeah all right so i'm not seeing any questions so i'm gonna wrap it up and then all right and we reconvene it's tuesday right thank you ben all right thank you have a great extended weekend you too just don't put the wrong hat on now just make sure you get the right one i'll try have a good one you too thank you