001[Music] good good to go all right like to call this meeting of B Bo Regional school committee to border uh is there anyone here for public comments nope okay uh no public comments so uh I have a prepared statement I'd like to read and uh we're GNA keep this short uh we have another meeting starting no later than 5:30 so not a meeting but a workshop so I'd like to read this and go ahead there's a few things here I'd like to say so thank you everyone for joining us on the stream and in the room here tonight the last couple weeks have been a little little confusing to say the least so I'd like to clear up a few items that came about from our last meetings uh and I consider what I'm about
002to say as sort of a resetting of expectations around the school committee uh so one point of misunderstanding that's come about from for some people I think is the actual role that the school committee as the ultimate governing body for the district plays so I would like to uh State a statement from the Massachusetts website according to desie the school committee has oversight and responsibility for the school system it sets the direction in which the system must go and establishes criteria to determine if its goals and policies are being met in practice this means we cover a few different areas we hire and oversee the superintendent of the schools we set District policy and we vote on The District's budget the committee is an elected position from the towns it is not appointed by anyone
003not the superintendent nor anyone else several recent events have brought some members of the public in to question this role so I'm hoping to clear the air tonight first the committee sets policy and some of these policies cover its ultimate responsibility and oversight of curriculum finances behavior and special education so for example when a Committee Member asks for a list of materials or books it's not an attempt to ban these materials it's simply an attempt to learn more about the schools and what's provided book Banning has been a popular topic online in our community recently and with some members of the public in our meetings uh so I'd like to reaffirm for all those who are confused that the committee as far as I know it has no intention of banning any book or material
004I do understand your concern though so I would like to offer to anyone who is still feeling that there might be materials that you think that the committee might be interested in Banning please come talk to us about this let us know your specific concerns and let's have a conversation about it uh but I personally know no plans to ban anything by this committee that's Point number one on that to me uh next I had at our last meeting we had uh several students from Tanto came and they presented and I had inv the screen is died good we good to go was that first part caught or should I yeah it was it I stopped you all right so it seems the stream is back up so I'll continue uh so I had invited
005those students to come back here tonight to have a conversation uh but they understandably respectfully dis cined uh but it was brought to my attention that uh our conversation at our last meeting didn't go as smoothly as it could have so uh during this presentation the curriculum director had the three Tanto students read her slides to us and then we had a conversation uh it didn't go very smoothly that was my fault and I take responsibility for that for some background on this during the agenda preparation for that meeting I had asked superintendent Costello to ask our curriculum director to present to the committee on how they balanced the state's requirement for uh to incorporate Dei philosophies into their curriculum selection and how they balance that with the need to focus on and improve academic
006performance I think the committee was surprised that the Tanto students were here to present but as the meeting went on I think we're looking forward to hearing their specific experiences in our district around this topic I know this is a sensitive subject but the intent was to have a conversation with the administration about the practice of selecting curriculum to present to the school committee for approval and how these state requirements impact student academic achievement the conversation did not go perfectly there wasn't much of a conversation but I personally did have some questions to ask during that presentation uh after the meeting I considered how my questions to the administration and the presenters didn't necessarily come out as smoothly as they had formed in my head when I wanted to address them go figure uh I
007do take responsibility for my questions to the presenters and to the students if in any way they felt slighted or uncomfortable I'm sorry for that I find it's best to have direct conversations even when the subject matter can be a bit uncomfortable and I recognize that it wasn't perfect but I'm responsible for how my questions came across sometimes in these meetings with our unscripted conversations we may not always be at our best and I think this happens in the outside world too at our jobs your job my job everybody's job I want want to clear that up tonight I hope this can be a moment where everyone realizes that when we step back and reflect on things we can realize that maybe we weren't in our best in some areas but it doesn't hurt to
008revisit things and try to make good so that is the second point I'd like to make the third point I would like to make is a big one I want to address another item that came out of that meeting last or October 10th the committee received an email from the co-president of the special education parents advisory Council cpac's Jessica Meltzer Jessica's email said in part and I'll quote anyone who is white heterosexual and neurotypical is tremendously privileged in our society and District that's the end of the quote the emphasis there was on and District so you all know I replied to this email and when I did reply I made a mistake I did not clarify that my words reflect my personal opinion and not a statement from the school committee this committee did not
009uh discuss a response to this email I want to be very clear when I said that the cpac's co-president Jessica meltzer's comments to the committee were racist and bigoted I said that as myself this is not the stance of the committee I said these comments and I stand by them discriminatory language has no place in this district and on this we have in fact discussed voted on an adopted policy to this effect I hope this clarifies the issue for bbaa executive councel which also questioned the authority of the school committee chair to ask the superintendent to look into possible conflicts with CPAC in these discriminatory comments and then asked a very simple question to the individual committee members um but I stand by that these earlier comments are mine and not the Committees to be
010clear there are my comments that claim the CAC president's words our racist position to have and not a statement of the committee if any individual committee members want to respond or to the bbea executive council's email that's your choice it's up to you in my experience children do not make such comparisons about race or sexual orientation but so long as we have adults who continue to insist on separating humans into different groups based on characteristics that they are born with such as skin color or sexual orientation and promoting that this is either good or bad we will continue to have problems in the world that revolve around these characteristics this is my personal opinion not the committee's opinion and it's this belief that drove my response to the CPAC co-president while classifying Kirk comments as
011racist and bigoted that's all I'd like to say on that if anyone would like to say anything please feel free yep okay so as everyone knows I was pretty vocal before I joined the school committe again these comments are my own not reflecting the school committee's position uh I was pretty vocal and I was disappointed with the electronic communications replies to any of those Communications it wasn't until I joined the committee that the electronic communications policy I read in full which limits individual people to reply to with any substantial content outside discussion of the open committee open meeting law so as a parent a graduate toono and Community member of this District diversity Equity inclusion are of utmost importance to me in the values I hold no member of this District be staff or student
012or parent should feel any less represented comfortable engaged or welcome based on their religion skin color social economic status sexual orientation gender or any other identity professionally I've served an extremely diverse culture Cal and racial patient population at Community Health Center in W for 11 years personally I have loved ones that are gay transgender and of different racial backgrounds I'm fiercely protective of them and their children and I'm fiercely protective of this district and the environment that the staff has tried to create for their students in these schools in our district as I said in the 101023 meeting last week representation does matter would anyone else like to say anything okay um that's all we have on the agenda for tonight so motion to adjourn this meeting so Lori Julie second all in favor against
013all right so our meeting is adjourned thank you very much anybody want to take a quick break before we get are they ready to start now we are absolutely ready but we have uh sandwiches so if anybody wants a sandwich before the worksh my cheese and crackers are I know