001okay so we're live so this is mike morris um superintendent of schools here for the amherst palm regional school district thank you for joining us uh we really appreciate uh this opportunity to have a town hall and to present a little bit and mostly to do question and answer and gather feedback uh from the community and uh basically what's going to happen here in a second we'll do introductions but the chair of the regional school committee will lead a presentation a brief one about a priorities document that was presented on tuesday night at the region at the joint school committee meeting um and then really that should by about 5 15 we should be into question and answer and we have a nice team of people here who can respond to different questions myself included
002and we just ask that people be respectful and follow typical norms of behavior in terms of asking questions we really appreciate we had a session on the elementary schools this morning and we had fantastic questions and really great dialogue the way you put questions in if this is your first time on a live stream on youtube is on the right side of your screen you should see i think it says say something or it has a blank screen and you can type your question in there uh and we'll try to respond as best we can we a large number of questions in the afternoon session we got to most but not all but we did collect them and we can address them over time and again the majority of the this meeting is intended to
003be interactive and to gather your feedback thoughts questions and ideas so with that i'll uh actually uh then sarah she can introduce herself we can just go in order and then we'll get going with the presentation all right thanks good evening everyone i'm sarah hall chair of the pelham school committee hello everyone i'm tiffany thibodeau a middle school math teacher hi i'm allison mcdonald i'm from emerson i am the chair of the amherst school committee and the amherst pelham regional school committee when we go down like it's the brady bunch and we'll go to simon hi simon lutz i'm the social studies department head at the high school and a long time social studies teacher hi i'm peter dunling i'm vice chair of the amherst school committee and a member of the emerson palm regional
004school committee hi i'm margaret stancer i'm a member of the pelham school committee and also the vice chair of the regional school committee good evening everybody my name is joe consolino i'm the nurse manager for the school district thanks everyone so i'm going to turn it over to miss mcdonald uh chair mcdonald uh who's going to other school members may jump in but going to facilitate a description of the priorities document that was discussed on tuesday night at school committee okay i'm sharing my screen is that uh nope large enough okay uh so welcome everybody um for those that uh watched our meeting or watched the recording of our meeting um from tuesday evening this will be familiar this is a draft of um what we both hear a framework for planning but it's it's
005really sort of a guiding principles document um for our school committees to um share and help guide uh dr morris and the district in developing our plans for returning to school amid this health crisis in the fall um we discussed at length and i will call attention to the very big red letters at the top that this is a draft this is not carved in stone um we are continuing to discuss that we want to hear from you all today and we will be continuing to discuss this on on tuesday of next week at our next joint meeting um we've also prepared this in the context of a best-case scenario in terms of our uh regional public health guidance this is not necessarily as as we talked about on tuesday when we're not in the
006situation that we are hearing about from other parts of the country such as florida and texas um and so all of this is really predicated on what is our current health situation in our region not necessarily what's happening in the the you know far far away states but right here um what we started with um is is really our three overall goals um and number one of these is to protect staff and student safety our second goal is to maximize in-person learning time while maintaining six feet of physical distance and third to invest in and deliver the highest quality distance learning experience possible with regard to the staff and student safety we know that this is the conditions are are changing and will continue to change throughout the school year so number one in terms
007of staff and student safety we want to make sure that we're contin we're tracking weighing and continuing monitoring the available public health guidance to protect the safety of our students and staff we are going to be looking to the guidance from centers for disease control or the cdc and as dr morris earlier talked in our earlier town hall today we're looking primarily to the guidance that we received from cdc back in may and not any potential revisions that might be coming out soon we're also looking at guidance from american academy of pediatrics our state department of public health as well as our local and regional public health officials we'll plan our district plans for reopening will be informed by the guidance from the state department of land monetary and secondary education um and particularly with
008regard to their requirement that we submit three plans um for uh for schools the reopening plan will be designed as much as possible with requirements that at least six foot physical distance is maintained between all individuals that all staff and students in grades 2 through 12 as well as younger grades of feasible wear facial coverings as much as possible and that all staff and students will engage in frequent hand washing and hand sanitizing we also want to ensure that the district plans district plans will provide accommodations for students and staff who have underlying medical conditions with regard to distance learning sorry in-person learning um the first two bullet bullet items um pertain to sort of time in school with in-person learning and i will say that all of these um this isn't necessarily an either
009or these are the principles for in you know in the case of a hybrid learning plan the in-person learning and the distance learning are both are both true right um so with regard to elementary students including those in the common nantes program in amherst we want to ensure that we're providing in-person learning um and this is a discussion point that we're still having with the school committee whether it's four to five days per week or 80 to 100 of school days and a particular um note for our secondary schools that middle school and high school students are provided in person learning at least again this is the discussion point whether it's two days per week or 40 percent of school time um also for our special education english language learner students and others that require
010in specialized interventions we want to provide as much in-person learning time as possible we want to ensure that we have opportunities for outdoor learning and we want to ensure that our hybrid and in-person learning approaches include plans for transitions to fully distance learning when our health conditions in our local area necessitate either school closure or other disruptions to in-person learning we also want to ensure that staff and teachers are provided the support in both time and training to adapt to the requirements of in-person physically distanced learning environments with regard to distance learning we as our committees have talked about wanting this to be greatly improved from the emergency remote learning that we implemented in spring 2020 and should ensure consistency across instructional approaches within schools employ instructional models that are well suited for distance learning
011environment offer appropriate levels of challenge for every student and incorporate both synchronous and asynchronous approaches our models for distance learning should be developed for all grades in preparation for potential disruptions to hybrid or in-person learning plans should be created to support and train staff students and families in the instructional tools and technologies that we'll be using for distance learning districts and districts should ensure that all students have devices and access to internet to support engagement with distance learning and the teachers and staff will be provided support in time and professional development to adapt to distance learning instructional models so that is um again our draft document and um hope to hear some discussion and questions about these this evening okay dr morris do you want me to get straight into the questions yes that would
012be great all right so the first question is um on the high school for the floor plan um the performing arts wing uh not being included the question is will there still be performing arts classes next year at high school so we are receiving some guidance from the state as well as other authorities about that there are some um particularly around singing and some instruments that are doing them in person would we would have a hard time pulling that off with the public health guidance we have um the also the performing arts wing we'd have a hard time using for other spaces like other classes like the auditorium is huge it wouldn't really be an appropriate place so we are looking through uh the guidance that we receive from the state and from federal and
013state public health authorities but performing arts ends up being an area that it's um it butts up against or hits up against public health guidance in many many ways so that is one of the more complex uh areas to try to figure out how to do given the guidance that we've received so some areas i think we're the destiny the state is coming out with their guidance the next week or two uh but i have meetings with them weekly and there's a lot of concerns you may have seen even the national news about chorus and singing and what that does in terms of transmission rates so it is going to be a challenge for in-person education to include some of those performing art areas in a distance manner okay um there are some related questions
014about extracurricular activities in general so sports and performing arts and then also other electives so gym art orchestra choir so can you speak to that please yeah so where uh the miaa which is the mass i don't know the acronym i'll mess it up but they're the state organization that uh is in charge of sports is working again i know i got a survey from them this week they're working with the state and public health authorities about what to do about athletics and some of the extracurricular activities so we're looking for guidance so i don't have real clear information i will say that this week the governor came out not so much for fall but for summer with what is considered a contact sport and it included soccer and football and field hockey i believe
015and and other sports so again no decision made for fall but we'll hopefully get guidance in the next next week or two about some of those areas thanks do you anticipate having to eliminate some course options academic course options yeah so i think uh we're still looking at what to do with that and and some courses may be able to be taught in a virtual context that cannot be taught in a in person context and vice versa um so i know our high school team this multiple high school teams working on it actually this week they're looking at what schedule might work uh for high school and they're also looking at uh what courses could be taught in person versus would need to be virtual so we there's actually four groups working on that and
016one group is specific to the electives so a lot of the teachers are meeting with the administration at the high school and i got to sit on one of those meetings and people are doing really deep thinking good work about what we can pull off and how do we maintain the level of course offerings that's one of the hallmarks of our high school next question is can we have a plan flexible enough to allow more in-person time three to five days a week if conditions in massachusetts continue to improve i'll let the school committee weigh in on that i think um i mean i'm happy to keep talking but i wondered if anyone here wants to uh mention that actually hold on i'm sorry um simon wanted to jump in uh simon lutz and just
017talk a little bit about instructional strategies in a distance learning environment that came up um so i don't mean can we hold on that question and come back i'm sorry um there's simon hi yeah uh a a question popped up about um instructional strategies that could be used in a in a classroom environment that requires you know six foot distance physical distance between teachers students and you know and students themselves so this is an area that i'm i'm really concerned about when we go back and you know creates a lot of sort of anxiety um i know in my own sense of of good teaching and what best practices look like in a classroom um i think we're going to have to be really inventive um and maybe lean on the distance learning in this
018case because um all the things i think that make a classroom environment really engaging really dynamic a lot of those if not most of those tools are not necessarily going to be in our tool belt the kinds of um you know get kids in small groups to put their heads together to solve problems uh working with kids one-on-one where you're standing sort of right next to them and helping them work through really difficult questions the kinds of things that require you to close physical space are not going to be available to us as teachers so i think it really speaks to the need to a make sure our distance learning plan is really strong but b how do we bring technology into the classroom that can also help close some of that physical space so
019i'm really looking forward and hopefully we can get some really strong professional development that both helps us think through how do we create that same kind of dynamism in the classroom in in a distance learning model i think that's really critical to have that as uh available to everyone and then also if and when we do return to the classroom we also have uh you know built our capacity our skill in closing physical distance through technology because i'm afraid there's going to be a lot of leaning on really sort of stiff traditional teacher center modes of instruction with all the safety requirements of the six foot limit and masks and you can't see folks faces so i know that's a it's certainly an area that's causing teachers a lot of stress and anxiety and concern
020at the moment great thank you simon appreciate it um so peter sorry to interrupt you okay um so just on the question of could we ever get to three to five days so i mean i think the committee in general in previous meetings has been pretty clear that we want to make sure that anything that we do is is um responding to the changing pandemic status and so that could be responding to a worsening status in which we need to go all or or or near all fully remote but it could also be responding to a positive status i mean we're in a much different state of understanding the science than we were four months ago when this all when this all hit so it's not inconceivable that four months from now we could be
021in an improved state you know that that being said we do have some pretty hard obstacles to overcome at the region to get there our transportation definitely does not uh handle more than 50-ish percent of students uh at the six foot distance uh and neither would our our buildings more than 50-60 percent so you know it would i can't imagine a situation where we're at three to five days a week uh without that six-foot distance that we've been so resolute about uh changing um and and that changing in the consensus scientific opinion okay thanks uh the next question is about how in this district our response will be different from things in the boston area and just noting that hampshire county reality is very different in this state than even hampden county jill do you
022want to speak a little bit to that um um response in regards to i think what i think what i took away from the the commoner question is this that our the infection rate locally is um much lower than the boston area of massachusetts including i think in this area we peaked a lot um later than the boston area and it there it could be due to a number of factors which i will never know and the state will probably never know um but we go by the guidance of what dph gives us and the local board of health um for any of the regulations that we need to put in place for going forward um and i'm waiting we are waiting for a lot of those recommendations to come down from department of ed
023and in conjunction with um department of public health for any of the um you know the health related protocols and that kind of stuff so that's that's more to come i've asked for it numerous times from the state level on certain protocols that we need to put in place for the fall and i've kept kept being told that it's it's coming it's coming it's coming so yeah but we i we follow what dph guides us um and it's no different than you know how boston handles things it's just we we peaked a lot later and our you know our case count is is at a different rate than in a in a closer knit city than uh you know like boston compared to you know amherst and that kind of stuff thanks um have we
024considered the use of modular buildings for the high school we have a little bit um this as not is not a surprise modular buildings um are being pulled for lots of reasons these days they're also quite expensive um and they create some some space and some facilities challenges around access to water um you know and we can maybe manage that with some sanitizer so we have but you know we're what we found is that we're not if if we're maintaining a six foot distancing we're not one or two classrooms away from being able to pull off everybody in uh if we had a couple more modules we would need so many modulars that it's sort of hard to imagine how that would really move the needle much for us in terms of increasing the access
025of students to school will testing be required and the uh questioner points out that some students are not practicing social distancing now so joe do you want to speak to the density guidelines around um wellness checks and all that so the current guidance initially was thought that we were going to be doing temperature checks for every student coming in the building but that's actually um not the current guidance from dph and desi because there's so many false positives and false negatives going forward there's a range of thermometers that we could use um and through interviewing um just through this pandemic not everybody actually experiences a fever with this virus so we're we're going to go based on symptoms and do some type of symptom checker um which you'll actually rely on the parents um of
026these students to attest that they are well enough to be in school along with staff um and you know you know go from there um and you know we will not be doing any type of you know physical screening you know we will keep keep eyes on kids as they walk in the building and if they seem symptomatic then they will go right to the nurse's office for an evaluation but um that's again we're waiting for that specific guidance from from the state so and then i do see another question about status of ppe um we took a proactive approach in our district to secure the majority of the ppe requirements that deci had put out um probably about a month ago to get about 90 of what the state is requiring and we already
027have that physically in house in the district right now so we're waiting on a few things but most of what's required is already physically in amherst as we speak okay i'm going to skip ahead a little bit because there's some related sort of specific health questions about options for people who may be vulnerable to covet or may have a family member who is yeah and so um you know it just was on a conference call with desi today um and they were really clear that students will have the opportunity you know in that situation to not attend school and the school districts are still responsible uh for um educating them including if they have special needs or um english language learner 504 plan et cetera we also have surveyed staff and are working on that
028front as well so i um we'll have more to share on that probably in the next week or two uh because all this is sort of fast moving you know for instance i mentioned this morning we got our special ed guidance this morning right as the show was starting so i got i read the executive summary and then you know the elementary show started so uh we um we uh you know the short story is no one will be forced to go to school um and that we are responsible you know for virtual education needs the same at the high school level 990 hours and the curriculum standards uh will need to be met in a different way in the spring where this the time on learning requirements were nodding were not consistent with how
029they typically are uh we had reduced standards uh that that was that were happening that's not true for next year so for students and regardless of the situation why they're in a virtual environment whether it's choice or health needs they will need to have full access to the curriculum next question is about in-person instruction can you speak about the in-person instructional strategies that can be used when students must be separated by at least six feet without any shared materials and with a teacher six feet away so i'm wondering if tiffany and uh simon not that they're i want to really i appreciate their uh presence uh on this i'm not at all uh saying that they have all the answers but one of the reasons we invited them to come in is because they're knowledgeable
030and i know they're two excellent educators done a lot of thinking about this um but not that they've actually done this so i want to really caution uh my introduction but i don't know if tiffany or simon if you have um some thoughts that you want to share sure um i felt like um simon really captured it a lot when he um spoke earlier um but i think that's one of the the questions that teachers right now are sort of thinking about um with our administrators and we're trying to figure out um how to make a really robust um a distance learning really um curriculum that can also be used in the classroom um and noticing that when we went to the emergency closure and the spring that the thing that was missing was that
031interaction of with students um and being able to sort of answer questions one-on-one so we really do have to get creative about how to be able to do that within a classroom and really relying on technology and maybe a little bit more than we would have in the during a normal school year um as we try to support students and simon i don't know if there's anything more you want to add to that yeah i think um i saw another sort of related question about um just the challenge that teachers are going to face in trying to have sort of multiple courses of study all going at the same time right we can imagine there's two cohorts of students that are going to come in front of you during the week so you're going to
032have to manage those two programs kids are going to be it looks like the proposal says 60 of the time so the majority of their time will be distance so you're going to have a distance learning program that you're going to have to manage for them despite the fact that 80 of your time will be classroom time if the kids are you know only have 20 percent of their time is is or 40 of their time is classroom time so there's that that disproportion that's going to need to be managed and then there's going to be this cohort of kids that you know for for good reasons can't be in or in the school building so they're going to be full-time distance learning so i think it really points to the need so that we
033don't leave anybody behind to have a really really strong i think our our focus needs to be on building and while i think we did some some things well in the spring building on and improving our distance learning model um so that you know given the majority of kids time is going to be distance um there's going to be some kids that are never in the school building um and that i think the in-class time is going to be about sort of enhancing hopefully the the distance learning platform that's put in place but there is a lot of work to be done um in really strengthening that distance learning platform and building on on the successes that we have in that we had in the spring but also recognizing the real deficiencies that were there
034as well that i know i felt as a teacher you know there's about 15 you know thousand things i would do differently now that uh you know i've done it once and could go back and make different choices but i'd really like to to sort of stress to administrators in the school committee how important it is going to be to put together a really robust strong meaningful distance learning program that takes you know that both trains the teachers but that also you know leverages the expertise that we have in in the middle of the high school thank you and this next one is actually a bit related um in terms of distance learning and having something more robust is will there be training offered to teachers for remote learning and is there a commitment to
035synchronous learning um so i can take that one on um so the short answer is yes the expectation that i received uh from desi is very clear that when we talk about 990 hours that it's it is synchronous that it's direct instruction so how that works we're all trying to think about and you know i know some places have trying to say you know can you have synchronous you can can you have virtual teachers and in-person teachers and they're actually not teaching the same thing so you know the example simon used before that no one's having to do both because there's only there's only so much one person can do right so in the example simon used where teachers in teaching students live four days a week they can't also be in charge of the
036virtual piece um so i've seen some creative things some coming from other states of how to share that workload with virtual teachers and in-person teachers and it provides a little more choice too because you'll need teachers to do both you'll need teachers who want to be in the school and then and teachers who either because of health reasons or other reasons and are going to be teaching virtually but i think the synchronous piece is something that is really clear that that needs to happen next year in different ways than what we did in an emergency and i think one of the things i've said at school committee multiple times is there's a really difference between emergency uh vert distance learning and virtual education and we were in an emergency in march right we closed before
037the state closed we closed for two weeks then it grew then it grew and we didn't really know when it was going to end and that's a really uh different um different piece um than how we would approach the distance part in the fall next one is a specific question with gene jones's resignation what is the plan for leadership next year yep so uh the short story is that in the next week or two we'll be sharing more of that um and we are working you know we're very fortunate to have an incredibly strong leadership team in terms of mickey gramaci and talib sadiq at the high school um and we'll be announcing that uh well before um principal jones departure in two weeks or two weeks from tomorrow um so be on the lookout
038we'll communicate that as soon as we can and uh we'll we'll we'll do that um i actually didn't answer the second part of the prior question ms hall so let me go back to it because some of it was about training but but also the pieces and one of the reasons we're trying to continue uh our work um on these is that we really need to figure out what the model is going to be so we can provide the the right training so even you know where simon was talking before about you know teacher teaching in school two days a week how's that work we have to actually know what our model is and then know who's doing what and then we can provide the training and i think the challenge for uh all of
039us and i mean just in this district collectively is um this is not an this is there's no playbook for this this situation right if there is no one's found it right and and so uh we're going as fast as we can but not we don't want to go faster than um and not take into account all the feedback and that's why we're having sessions like today yeah um all right i'm going to jump ahead of you because i think that answered a few questions about specifics that we just don't know the model yet and so we can't really answer questions about specific schedule changes but there is a question about communication with parents how will parents be notified of students are completing assignments and attending remote sessions under the remote learning plan so um
040you know it's not something that necessarily we have i can't answer really clearly but uh actually simon can so i'll let him do that um yeah more knowledge yeah we have i think we've had we had some success with this um in the spring at least at the high school um you know one of the the key ways at least in in tracking parents being able to track whether or not um distance learning assignments were being completed was through the use of of the power school grade book um we you know devised a pretty simple and we were in in a credit no credit situation but a pretty simple set of symbols that allowed us parents to check in with the grade book and see if an assignment was either completed or missing or you
041know in some state of incomplete and we were posting assignments uh inclusion of assignments weekly so there was a sort of easy online way to track at least completion of assignments given that synchronous learning wasn't required there wasn't a sort of attendance pieces being kept but i could imagine that that would be a pretty simple procedure too to set up some sort of attendance system um and then lastly i know that um at least teachers in my department worked really hard to try to communicate with families when when students were we're not present we're not completing assignments and we're not checking in um and to communicate directly with families when that wasn't taking place so i think you know i think we have some we have some pretty solid systems in place we can certainly
042strengthen them um as we move to something that's more robust online but i think we've got a good place to start and build on absolutely thank you simon and i i feel like um at the middle school we were we didn't use power school um during the spring semester um trying to figure out the right balance between um being at the middle school age um and what type of communication we wanted to provide to them so it's been mostly uh feedback to assignments that were completed and emails home to families and also trying to balance the amount of communication that also went home to families so that uh we're not bombarding you with with way too much information from all of the many different classes that students take uh but i do imagine that in
043this new distance learning model that the power school power school would be the primary way that we would be communicating with families about what students have turned in and what's been graded or assessed in that way in addition to general means of communication like emails that families and teachers tend to use and if i could add just very briefly and less articulately than simon and tiffany um you know if we are in whatever version of distance or virtual next year there will be grades there will be attendance taken in a formal way we took attendance more to identify who wasn't there i got very clear direction on that on the last few conference calls with desi uh the curriculum standards will be taught um in the in for instance the middle school until the very
044very end of or maybe three quarters of the way through this spring the director from deci was to review prior taught content that will not be the case uh in in the fall for anyone involved in distance learning so i do think you know the systems that people are more familiar with will be a better fit next year because it'll look much more similar to the typical school year even at the high school there was uh you know desi's guidance last year was about half a day's worth of work that will not be the guidance that we receive again the 990 hours i have no indication actually a pretty strong indication that won't change um you know whether it's in person or in distance or in hybrid next year so i think that'll really look
045more similar to families and i think to staff as well i know you know i'm not going to put tiffany on the spot but i heard from many middle school teachers last year it was only so long at a middle school level you can re-teach prior talk concepts and tiffany teaches math so she's i talked to her about it i don't know how she did it she did it but uh at some point you got to do more than just review and so um i think that was because of the crisis situation and certainly the pandemic isn't gone but we're now we we know more than we did then i think simon spoke to this earlier and um so i do think it would be really significant for significantly different just in that domain as
046well in terms of the expectation the mandatory attendance the grades and and the full range of the curriculum being taught again and no matter which model in person fully virtual or a hybrid model that's that would be the responsibility um i i want to add to that just as one comment ms hall related um you know room for catch up for those students who are not successfully engaged in distance learning and that there's gonna need to be a lot of that um you know and i wasn't and in privy i should have said that slightly differently i think the expectation is that standards will be taught we know that there was learning loss this spring um just based on a whole range of factors based on individual factors based on situational factors and so uh
047i i don't think we can start day one as if nothing happened i wasn't trying to suggest that but i think the piece is there's no uh sort of gating mechanism there where the way there was in the spring of you know don't teach new concepts you know that that's not um going to be a gate or a hurdle that anyone has to jump over in the fall okay um the next there's a couple uh that we sort of have touched on but this was a little more specific are there options for families or staff who have a reason to not return will there be choices for them yeah so um we surveyed on the staff side we surveyed staff of anyone who has a condition we use the cdc guidance again the original one
048as mrs mcdonald suggested we don't know what's coming out but the one that seems perhaps issued with less political pressure i'll put it that way and staff members who will have that will make a determination uh we had some of those conversations actually just this week with human resources and we'll be getting back in touch with people in the next couple days it's a little unclear what documentation may be needed but anyone who fits those categories absolutely will be given an alternate assignment um you know and in this case likely a virtual assignment for that and for students the same way you know students will my understanding from the stages will have a full range of options whether they have a health condition or not um and so we need to provide virtual for that
049um for those students and again you know this is all a moving target i heard information about this i had a conference call from 11 to 11 45 this morning before this other one and i think one of the things that's really hard is it's it's july 9th and and this is not a faulting the state but everything continues to evolve over time so i'd love to have all the answers to all these questions um and so um you know and i see a comment if any people didn't fill out that survey please shoot me an email if you're a staff member and and didn't get that or we're away or whatever um but i think i'll turn it back to you ms hall okay thanks um so there's a specific question about students with
050a 504 plan in place of how they will be supported so uh you know this document and i'm not all the way through it that i received from desi earlier today about students with special needs which is both those with ieps as well as 504 plans all those plans need to be followed whether the students are in person or in virtual so as i got it at 11 o'clock today i'm not as informed to answer directly but you know i did hear that today very clearly that ieps and 504s will need to be followed there may need to be some adjustments based on a virtual environment if that's either what a student chooses or if based on a hybrid or live model but the students needs need to be met there was another question about
051students in pip program more intensive needs the one thing i can say is that in the desi document that they are the highest priority students to have in-person learning according to desi i'll say personally i really agree with that those are students who are less likely to have full range of the curriculum in a virtual context exactly how we implement that i think is is remains to be seen but from desi's point of view and the even on the draft document from the school committee there's a lot of mention of that that there are some students who virtual education is a better fit for and for some students that's a much harder fit we do have ppe that's designed particularly for students for adults working with students with more intensive special needs including isolation gowns
052um k95 can 95 mass joe can go over if there's more questions on that but [Music] but yes absolutely um and um so i just want to acknowledge that question seem related to the 504 so sorry to get ahead of you sarah no no no that's okay um so yeah there were some questions about masks about what is the mass requirement and then the question of you know keeping kids in them all day if that is the requirement so i'll turn to jill for that so the current guidance from dusty that we have right now is anyone that's in grade 2 and up will be required to wear a mask during the school day um we don't we don't have a specific plan vision as to how that's going to look we do know that
053there's incorporated in that guidance that there will be mass breaks kids will be going outside there'll be various times where kids will be able to take the mask off um and give their face a break um and a chance to breathe um there will be some kids that fall into the guidance where they are not required to wear a mask based on either a medical condition or a physical condition that prevents them from putting it on appropriately or being able to take it off safely and the same thing goes with staff too we will be asking families to provide masks or a facial covering for all students and for staff and we have ordered a supply of extras in case those need to be replaced during the school day and the grades that are kindergarten
054first under second grade those are recommended and that was addressed in the earlier um earlier town hall but um they got we're going by the guidance um and we're gonna and enforce it as much as we can um and hopefully that you know the kids will be able to comply with it we do have um we are looking at options for um some of the students that are um hearing impaired and their classmates so we're looking at alternative mask options for those children um and the staff that work with those kids as well too okay thank you jill and before we go to you simon um there is another mask-related question uh why did the district buy a hundred thousand masks um yes they thought that we were providing masks what type did we buy
055and how we approach kids who can't find or afford them so the formula the calculation that i went through with um superintendent morris is the department of ed they sent out guidance as to purchase specific number of masks per student per week um masks per staff member per week and then there it trickled down based on the position that you um played in the school district whether it's a nursing role um you know a supportive staff member and so based on those figures we actually scaled down the number of masks of traditional surgical masks for the adults um down by one per person per week and upped it for this for the students um department of ed wanted one per student per week and we upped it to two per student per week um and
056that's the the number that we ended up coming up with with the total number of students in district and staff and district so we have a supply of regular surgical masks adult size and pediatric size for our younger students can 95 masks those will be issued to anyone that works in departments of nursing special education that are involved with students with more higher intensive needs our some of our transportation staff and some of our custodial staff and then we have face shields and eye protection and there's a whole list but the the huge number was based on the calculation and the formulation that department that gave us thanks all right go ahead simon thanks um so you know the issue of of masks and and ppe um you know i just want to give voice
057to a concern that you know i'm hearing from a lot of a lot of teachers around this issue and especially around sort of getting kids and teenagers at early adolescence and later adolescence to sort of comply with this um and how potentially stressful and time-consuming that might be um you know i think wearing masks and staying apart from their friends and sort of going against every fiber of being when it comes to to adolescence um and i i worry and i know others worry that school might just become this sort of constant battle to and to enforce you know ppe and wass wearing and six foot physical distancing so you know i saw some other questions about you know what can folks do to support teachers you know i think we are going to have
058to build if we do go back to the classroom we're going to have to build a really really strong culture of personal safety um and that could that there's a role for the classroom teacher in that but it is a wider wider um challenge that buildings in the district in i'm not just secondary at elementary level too are really going to have to to confront and support from home um you know and parents uh in in in making that consistent and effective is going to be essential element of it but i do really want to um part of this is figuring out distance learning um part of this is also figuring out how do we create a culture of a school a culture in the school that that really embraces the safety of everyone and
059these measures um when we know that it's gonna be really hard for teenagers to do this yeah and i'll jump in and i agree with everything simon said and you know certainly i saw a question about disciplinary consequences and that is the feedback i'm getting from from the department is that it'd be like any other article of closing that's required to be on during the school day um and we have consequences when students don't follow those regulations and that the same would apply for masks you know and there is some acknowledgement that mass breaks do need to happen um and you know throughout the day for both for staff and students but the expectation would be in uh with administrative support for teachers so it's not all on the classroom teacher as simon indicated i
060fully agree and endorse everything simon said okay great so there are a bunch of questions up there about if someone at the school tests positive if a student or a teacher does or someone in someone's home what will be the process for notifying others and then will there be any contact tracing protocol so that is to be determined um again i'm waiting for guidance from deci and department of public health um on the exact steps that we need to take on um the wording of notification um there there will be a plan in place um and it will all depend on how well this six foot of physical distance is maintained and who we can identify as a potential potentially have been exposed to the virus um and how that all trickles down um if
061say for instance if somebody um if somebody's family member tests positive um it would be on the onus of that family to notify the school district that there's a positive case in their house and that would probably come through my office or through um the amherst health department so that we can notify the the appropriate parties um in the school building um and there would probably be a general notification and it's going to come from the guidance that jesse is going to give us as to the steps to take um and it will also be guided from how the health department and am responses to hold to handle all that kind of stuff um they will do most of the contact tracing if it's an amherst resident um and i will help you know give
062them any of the information that they need but you know that's that whole plan i've asked for from the state level and they said it's it's coming it's coming so i wish i had the answer now but i don't great okay a question came up on mcas will that be a requirement that is not a local decision so um that's a state level decision that we don't have clarity on to date okay um all right uh will school lunch be provided and will there be any assistance for food at home during the school year so school lunch will be provided we're not using the cafeterias and i know the high school has already developed sort of a plan for how that would go it would be lunches would be had in classroom spaces not um
063in the class in the cafeteria because again we don't want cohorts of students um congregating together outside the the kind of courses that they're in and beyond that we don't have plans yet because we have to sort of figure out what the model is um this question also came up this morning about the use the potential use of umass buildings could we just address that at this one sure so uh you know we're in constant communication with umass on a whole range of factors uh including last night and this morning and um it's it's not um um i'm not going to make it umass i mean just college and universities decisions um may necessitate that or may create open space but the idea is that they the the ones even that are opening are preventing
064outsiders from coming on campus uh and much in the same way that we wouldn't have visitors in our buildings next year they're in the same same boat as well so it doesn't look like a really super viable strategy to have some of our students over on a campus when they're trying to keep their campus only to campus personnel um and then another question on space can you talk about the use of the tents and what those are for yeah so we do want our two tents um to go behind the school you know to school the size of the high school and one for the middle school at the middle school you know it's a smaller school so the idea is that teachers could rotate through who choose to uh and and be teaching outside
065the 30 by 30 sim it's actually slightly larger than the typical spaces at the middle school and high school and so it does provide more opportunities for outdoor outdoor education okay great um and then there's a few questions about you know the whole like the hybrid model and doing in person and distance and how can how can one human do basically two full jobs yeah and i agree with those concerns and i think that's really where we have to get a sense of what the model is and what our staffing model is and who's working virtually and who's working in person so that we can actually put that in place i mean i'll be the first to say i don't think it's a reasonable model you know it's sort of what simon started with i'm
066gonna go if it's okay to piggyback off your comment a half an hour ago or so um you know if someone's teaching in person even if it's two two groups two days a week that person can't have other responsibilities teach virtually just doesn't work right so we will need a cadre of people who are teaching online and um and then if people are teaching in person they can't have dual responsibilities to do that and so that's where we have to be really creative in our models and i think there's really some some tension in that about um students who students who also want to be in the building and students who want to receive distance learning um you know and i my hope i guess is that we can match those up reasonably well the
067students who do feel like there's a benefit to some in person uh you know have that opportunity and students who feel like they want to have families who want to have all virtual they'll have that opportunity as well but you know i think in the next couple weeks we'll be talking about that i'll be talking about that at the school committee level you know i don't want to put any of you in that you may not talk about it i don't know that's your choice but i'll be bringing up some different things and you know the high school scheduling group for instance and the similar ones starting at the middle school they're looking at different models that might uh contribute or create some conditions by which that's a little more possible especially for the in-school
068part because we were you know currently at both schools we have a what's called a seven drop one schedule which means students take seven courses and six meet every day and one drops that's not a viable schedule particularly at the high school level with a number of electives from a public health perspective we can't do that i'm going to be first to say like that's not an option it's off the table so we are looking at other models that uh would have fewer transitions for students and faculty during the day and um and that's we're still in in process on that right um there's some questions about how much of the curriculum can be covered in a year and will it be you know regardless of the model will the full curriculum be covered yeah
069that's that's going to be the expectation is that where students are receiving 990 hours of instructional content um and exactly what that looks like and how that goes is the challenge that we have to work on and then there's questions about i mean understanding that a lot of this can't be answered about you know what would a typical in-person day look like how would students at the school be set up would they be in cohorts and stay together what would that scheduling be like will it start later and earlier um will the same classes be taught so a lot of questions just on like a typical day of in-person learning if we do that yeah so that's again the schedule we're looking for in general uh what people would notice as a difference is they'd
070be in fewer cohorts over the course of the day both at the middle school and high school there certainly are implications for that at both levels um at the middle school with the team model it's a little easier to imagine how that might work because students there there's a little more capacity at the middle school level for a cohort to stay together at the high school there is no team model and with the range of electives that's again why you know a full schedule change would would need to occur to make it um based on all the guidance we're getting from all the sources that miss mcdonald said at the beginning um and um so so again i think it would look like you know simon described physically in classes how students would look and
071maybe i'll bring up that image in a second of how desks could be arranged at a secondary level but i think practically you would have fewer inner actions with different groups again to reduce based on the public health guidance that we've received this next question i think is more for school committee members is there a date by which parents can expect to receive a definitive district educational plan for fall 2020. so i'll i'll start and i i can see that uh mr dumbling is is raring to jump in as well but um uh we were asked this this morning and um we don't have a definite update um but it is going to be as soon as as possible um we are continuing to discuss our priorities the school committee priorities at our meeting next
072week um and hopefully finalize those to help guide the the district in finalizing models um and then the following week on the i think that's the 21st is when um we are planning to hear from uh from dr morris in the district about what those instructional models learning models will look like for the fall um there's still i would say a lot of um gray because we there's still some key pieces of information that we're missing from from deci um not least of which is transportation guidance um so it's tough to say a definitive commit to a definitive date today until we know when we're going to have all that information but we're moving as quickly as possible so that we can begin the hard work so that you the district and the educators can
073begin the hard work of preparing for whatever that model is as well as any training and and support that is needed to be ready to go um when we come back to school so i'll also look if mr demilling or miss stance or miss hall would like to add anything i i think that's very well put um i i would be disappointed in our committees if if we couldn't get this done by the the week of the 21st of july um and it's and it's really for the reason you mentioned you know what this is such a seismic change to learning that that our teachers need the training and ramp up time in order to deliver this effectively like we do not want to set our teachers up to fail and we don't want to
074set our students up to fail and we're right as of tonight we're we're about eight weeks or less away from the start of school and we still it's been frustrating for the school committee to be frank that we're missing still multiple key people of guidance from the state which is why we are way ahead of the curve compared to other communities in massachusetts that being said i feel like we're already late uh and so um you know i i feel like this the sooner the better that we the school committee can finalize its framework then the sooner the district can finalize its model and then people will actually know what the final details all these excellent questions that we can't answer because all these details are in place you know will be there so you
075know i i also would want to add to that um you know you're one of your comments miss mcdonald the very beginning this framework is a draft it doesn't have to be settled very quickly but it is a draft this is a very active conversation uh you know for my own part i'm not settled on all the details in this draft and we still continue to get really thoughtful input and feedback from teachers parents members of the public across all ranges of this um so i would say keep that coming it's drinking from the fire hose but it's exact exactly what we need right now okay this was touched on a little bit but there do seem to be a number of specific questions about um just recording classes in real time installation of cameras
076um so can you just talk about that specifically please yeah so i can so it does create challenges i saw some of those uh comments as well any video that includes a student whether their voice or their image is a student record so any time that's recorded you need permission to share that with others the way our middle school and high school teachers teach is not that they stand in front of the room and talk for 50 some odd minutes right it's interactive and so recording lessons that involve students being in the room does create some student privacy issues that are quite challenging to overcome because if one student says they're not willing to have that shared then then it doesn't work so that is one of their the real challenges of recording live classes
077where there are students in the room for use is that it um you know that yeah it creates a private legal privacy challenge and that's a difficult one to overcome there's some questions about flexibility and timing so when would families need to opt in or out of in-person learning if that's what happens and is there the ability to change that choice at some point so this is a really important question that i know is driving a lot of uh my colleagues um we've spent a lot of time thinking about this because if you want to plan for one model and you're going to have some students in distance some students in person there's changes and we're really focused on the cdc guidelines for space at some point you can't make that change very easily i
078mean moving to remote probably is an easier change to moving in person so we may have um i don't this isn't all mapped out but it's uh we may have a thicker bar to start virtual and come back into a live class than going the other way uh because we we can't create new sections and uh you know the public health piece is huge i mean i saw some comments before i just want to and i know it's 5 58 so running out of time but you know one of the other pieces that uh rubber roy clark our uh facilities director is working on is and i spoke about this at the earlier one so i'll try to be briefer is that we want to increase ventilation so any rooms that don't have windows will
079not be used so with the middle school there's a significant number of classrooms that don't have windows those are those will not be used for students they may be teacher offices or one teacher uses it but they won't be used as multi-person spaces i think the second variable is that typically we use the ashrae standards that balance ventilation and airflow with energy efficiency based on again nationally accepted standards and we're really gonna have to shift that to increase the velocity of the use of unit events as well as when they start when they turn off each day and so we are looking actively at how to do that which spaces have the best air flow and highlighting those spaces and so i do think it's a really critical piece to consider for all of us
080when we think about health and safety we talked about mass and outdoor spaces but we also have to really focus on how do we improve the ventilation of indoor spaces and and what indoor spaces are we saying we won't use in the middle school unfortunately from a space perspective has a significant number of spaces maybe it's worth just briefly if i can pull it up sharing that screen of the middle school map if you don't mind miss mcdonald and miss hall just to show how many how it impacts things is that okay with you um so let me see if i can do this quickly and if i can't then there we are um so you can see and let me make it larger you can see on the map for that middle school you
081know these are exterior spaces to do windows this room c4a actually does have a window it doesn't look like it on this kind of very simple map but you've got all these full-size classrooms and the interior of the building they don't have windows and when we've looked at it and talked to the amherst health department as well as rupert as well as jill we've opted not to use those spaces in the fall so i think we are looking both at indoor spaces and outdoor spaces and all those pieces around the health and safety of our faculty and students i know we're getting close there are a few more that i think we can get to is that okay with folks if we just do a couple more okay um one of them was around communication
082with families who have children with ieps or other special needs will there be more direct communication with those families yes and we've been trying to have surveys and other tools for now i think as we develop an articulated plan we will and dr brady works with cpac which is a wonderful organization the special ed parent advisory council i think mr demling is one of the school committee reps to that and you know like even the special ed guidance today the moment it came out forwarded to the cpac president so uh you know i can't communicate that to dr brady into cpac and think about how to do that differently but there will be a lot more individual communication as we actually develop a specific plan for people's consideration okay great um there were questions about
083um confirming staff and student access to all the technology they need for remote learning yeah so um you know thanks to our incredible pgos uh we were able to um you know and actually the secondary level we had a one-to-one program so chromebooks wasn't the challenge but it was hot mobile hotspots so we did purchase mobile hotspots and deliver them to all students and families we did individual reach outs phone calls and emails uh who requested them and so we'll need to continue and keep at that because our student body changes over the summer and over the course of the year and we did collect significant amount this year because they do need to be updated so some students are using them for summer school programs and we'll need to get them and update them
084but um it is something that we've recognized as a challenge in our survey data uh the vast majority of staff who responded uh indicated that they um [Music] had what they needed and we're following up with those a relatively small percentage who needed support and we do have some folks who who live in a space where even a mobile hotspot you know there are towns with no wi-fi access and no cell service and that's a harder not to crack for staff and we will have to try to do individual problem solving around that if they're working in a virtual environment okay um this question came out this morning as well the use of other spaces in the community that are available yeah so we have looked at other spaces in the community one of our
085challenges any space we use would require an administrator and a nurse to be on site and so the spaces we've looked at really didn't increase our classroom load significantly like it'd be like four classes in this space or three classes in that space so as we've looked we haven't been able to identify a space that has a critical mass of classroom spaces enough where we could justify it both financially and otherwise okay and then this question i'm curious about is there no such thing as snow days anymore that's actually an interesting topic and that we are actively talking about um at an administrative level and uh i'd like to see if we can shift that not just so i sleep later in the winter in the mornings but um i think that there'd be good
086reason in in even in a hybrid model to think really differently uh about what snow days are and how do we provide education differently so it's something we're actively thinking about deci require ended this year the kind of blizzard bag model that some districts were using i'll be honest in the past i was really down on blizzard bags particularly from an access point of certain students and how quickly we could transition them to online education we're in a little different world now so we are looking for guidance about the flexibility to do that and i'll just say you know not speaking for the school committee for myself i'm really open to that idea i think it makes a whole lot of sense and it provides us some flexibility that even if we are an in-person
087model at this point we have worked out a lot of those virtual the barriers to virtual education in different way than i could say a year ago so more soon on that that will require a state flexibility and we don't have that the blizzard bag is just basically a way it was the informal term that districts used for when it was a snow day that students did online learning or other learning activities to count to their 180 days of school all right and then i think maybe one to to end on that's come up a few times is how will we adjust to new information changing information about the science behind the virus and then information that is released or then gets adjusted yeah so i can i can respond to that so uh i
088will just say in the last week i've been on conference calls or individual phone conversations with doctors at bay state medical center with mass general the doctors were advising some folks at the state um i got an email today from someone at umass who's a specialist in airborne things because that's certainly a a focus and i think you know all that's really been critical so while we are talking about cdc guidance in terms of spacing there's nothing that i've read that convinces me that the school committee should change its tune in terms of sticking with six feet i know there's some people who disagree with that and we've read some documents but the individual compensations i'm having uh and i know others are having routinely uh you know jill has regular conference calls with the
089department of public health at the state so as the situation evolves i want people to know we are talking about the cdc guidelines because i think that's the best thing that we have at the moment but we're getting active information from the major teaching hospitals in massachusetts the department of public health and local experts including at umass down the road so it's um you know we are staying up with that and we're keeping up with it uh you know i know there's some comments i'm not going to just ref i'll just reference where to find it so we do get incredibly useful feedback from students about what does and doesn't work for them for distance learning i want to plug and if sasha is able to find it maybe can put the link on here
090our fall 2020 we have a specific website it has all the information it has the raw data from every survey that we've offered for students for families from staff members it also has a compilation and some analysis that's been completed in slide decks that were presented to the school committee so in terms of one-stop shopping i just really recommend that you have this site bookmarked and and that you're able to take advantage of that because there is an incredible amount of information that's on there and i'll put it on here as a comment and we'll continue to update it on a daily basis every time we do a survey our commitment is we're going to share it transparently with the community and i think particularly we have an amherst college intern who's fabulous and he
091did a lot of deep analysis of trends because when you look at the surveys you'll see some of the results are about 140 pages long and some people love that tiffany love looking at numbers and analyzing them and i love that i have a wonderful amherst college intern who can do some of that and and put together summaries of both qualitative and quantitative data um so you know that link is on there on the chat and so you know please take advantage of that one um uh as we go and i'll turn it back to ms hall or miss mcdonald okay thank you so yeah we're we are a little past time i sincerely apologize if i missed or kind of mischaracterized a question we are trying to we're saving these questions trying to incorporate
092them in our conversations in the future and maybe have a document that we can share to make sure all of your questions do get answered um so i will turn it back over to chair mcdonald thank you um and i was going down that we the same question was um asked uh in the in the earlier afternoon session um so we will be incorporating all of the comments and questions that we've been hearing in these in these two town halls in our discussions on tuesday and all future conversations um and i we also received a request to create an faq page um which we can absolutely do with and within that site that um dr morris and sasha shared in the chat so um i i will also second or plus two that um recommendation
093to bookmark that website because there is a lot of really great information there and as we progress through the rest of the summer more information will be there as well that will be your your best source um so thank you everybody and um uh please remember to um email us at any time school committee at arps.org um for a public comment for our meetings or just um in between we also have a phone line and where we're taking voice messages which are guaranteed to be coming to come in clear no blurriness whatsoever when when um during our meetings um and that uh phone number is included on all our agendas as well as um several of us have it on our facebook page i'm sorry allison just another note is if people if you know
094people who were hoping to be on this call and got you know uh it was a nice day out and that sucked them away lost track of time or uh you know we're tied up you know this same youtube link that everyone's watching uh it automatically records and all the information this whole show including you can see the live chat and everything is available so please feel free to share this if you found it helpful um or if there was points that you felt like someone else would benefit from seeing please do share that link out and it'll be up indefinitely and we all thank you for viewing we had a good audience about 200 people um so thank you all for hanging on thanks for tiffany and simon for spending an hour and 10
095minutes of their summer i know they're thinking about this stuff a lot but thank you for doing that and jalen and the school committee members as well thanks everybody