001[Music] good evening everyone i'd like to call the april 4th meeting of the dartmouth school committee to order i'd like to ask everyone to please rise for the pledge of allegiance nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you everyone this uh media the dartmouth school committee uh we'll be rebroadcast i'd like to mine everyone on dc tv channels 9 on wednesday and thursday at 5 p.m friday at 6 a.m saturday at 8 a.m sunday at 2 p.m it will also be rebroadcast on dc tv 18 on monday and saturday at 12 p.m thursday at 3 p.m i'd like to ask just remind everyone to please silence your cell phones and then ask ms genther for a roll call please shannon jenkins here mary wait here kathleen emerald here john nunes chris
002oliver here all right so um i'm going to start this evening we have public comment on the agenda we have a couple things on the agenda that maybe we're not ready for yet so i'm going to ask us to skip down to approval over the minutes and i will entertain a motion uh for approval of the regular session minutes for march uh 21st 2020. so moved second all right so i have a promotion by mr oliver a second by mr nunes is there any further discussion on the motion hearing none all in favor aye opposed abstention all right so miss amber all abstains it's four in favor with one abstention uh next i'll entertain a motion to approve the public comment session minutes of march 22nd 2020. so moved all right of a motion by
003mr nunes a second by miss wait is there any further discussion on the motion hearing none all in favor aye opposed abstention well although i did i guess whatever you feel comfortable with miss amarillo then i approve okay so we have five in favor uh that passes unanimously uh next i would like to hand it over uh to mr kiley so that we could take a moment to recognize the many years of service to our district from mr richard pereira rick you want to come on up thank you so i was uh i was going through looking at all the projects that we've completed through the years and i estimated that rick has been a part of more than 80 million dollars worth of projects here and i'm probably underestimating that um there's you know
004a lot of work that he did before i uh you know before i came on board but in looking at it he built new with this building he improved all our older buildings extended the life of all of these buildings greatly during his tenure and at the same time managed to keep us afloat day you know day after day with emergencies that never seem to never seem to end so we really appreciate that um you know rick uh dedicated himself to finding a way to make whatever we need happen and um i just really can't thank him enough for being so dedicated um throughout all these all these events through the years [Music] he's had so many nights of sleep interrupted through the years i'm sure he's not going to miss that and he's still
005helping us out so today rick was uh helping with a uh with a sewer problem um you know top on his list but he had a big smile on his face and i think the difference is that he knows he can go home at some point and not have to deal with this anymore and uh and so he can have that smile on his face but uh but really it's been an amazing run for rick um and really his commitment to our operation is second to none he's gone above and beyond i can't say enough to you know to thank him enough for uh for all he's done so i appreciate it rick thank you thank you very much just want to appreciate one thing people have asked me over the years how how did
006you do it well very simple support and that's number one i've had support from school committees over the years superintendents business managers that have just been there right along never fight me always were there to help me said what do you want what do you need and that makes the difference right there because if we were in a system that didn't have a good quality of personnel to keep things afloat and add support i can't do half the things i did so as simple as that and the last person i want to thank the most is my wife jeannie because she was the one that i dragged you out tonight to bring it here because this is my last hour and hopefully you know now we get to do things so i just want to
007bring along and say thank you for everything you've done the sleepless nights and all that i just want to say thank you very much and god bless have a good day oh you don't get to leave yet you don't get to leave yet now you got to let all of us say nice things about you so i'll start maybe at that end of the table with mr oliver thank you dr jenkins so first of all i don't know if mr kylie mentioned it but for everyone watching at home mr ferreira is our or was our facilities director here for at the dartmouth public schools and first of all i got to also say that i'm i'm happy that you're still sticking around uh that you're for a little while anyway right but no honestly rick
008it's been it's been an honor and a pleasure uh knowing you and you know having the opportunity to do some projects with you everywhere i go there's a common theme that i've found the past nine years i've been on the committee is that when you when you talk to whether it's school personnel or town officials or town employees that there's always a common theme about how well our our maintenance department always ran and always and continues to run and i think that's that's an a testament to you um and to the team that you had developed here um and you know just i have no doubt all those um nights of snowstorms and early mornings in all the projects like mr kylie said it's just amazing and we're very fortunate to have you on board
009so um i hope you get to enjoy your retirement um and you know thank you for all your service thank you appreciate it mr nunes yeah thank you you know uh one of the things that rick has that uh people may not know is a number of licenses trade licenses type of deal and has been able to save this district tremendous amounts of money being able to do the little things type of deal and i remember a number of years ago we had put new windows in at the quinn school and tim cahill who was the receiver general came down to present us with the check that even though he gave us the check it still took a another year to get the money tight type of deal and he took a walk through the
010school and he was impressed with the inside of what the quinton school looked how it looked and you know and such and you were explaining to him what was going on and he sat there and said you know what we've got green money what do we need you know what does this school need and you never missed a beat you set a new roof and this was in september and that october town meeting passed the roof you know and you know we ended up getting a new roof for the state kicked in a tremendous amount of money on you know that and i've been here at night with events going on and you come walking in with your wife and your granddaughter because there's been a problem during the day and you're back to check
011on it to make sure it's been fixed and it's working so that there's not a problem in the school tomorrow when everybody shows up and the little things and it's appreciated and thank you for all of that my friend that's thank you very much i appreciate that yeah yeah i don't know what more i can say other than what my colleagues already expressed to you but uh when jim was describing you know all of the projects you know my tenure here is only not as long obviously as as my colleagues but um extending the life of our current buildings is what an understatement uh you have just done magic with your team and i just love how humble and the credit you give to the people that support and and that are under you around
012you i'm sure you know but i just certainly hope that you enjoy um glad you're sticking around to be helpful and there is something special when you know you can just go home right he makes you wanna yeah definitely a big difference uh but we are very lucky to have had you um and continue to have your support in this community um so thank you this is a well-deserved honor appreciate it miss wait yes and again like picking piggybacking on to what my colleagues said you know again i haven't been on this board very long but i certainly spent my time at mello at the high school and i always heard your name and like how is he here again whether i was at the middle school or at de mello or at the high
013school you know you and your team were you know everywhere and anywhere you know whenever anything was needed so um certainly you've been a real treasure for this town so thank you and i hope you and your wife get to do some amazing things on your you know retirement so i'll just echo what my colleagues have said um you know i remember we had i don't know one of the building consultants in in one of the years that we've been on here and i remember them being shocked when we told them how old the building was because they said we've never seen a building this building right still fairly new we think of it as new but from an architect's perspective not so new and they were shocked at how good it looked and to
014me that was a real testament to the work that your crew does because these are people that go around the school districts and look at buildings and they were just completely blown away and impressed by how good of a job had been done with this building in keeping it looking new and fresh um and i just want to you know sort of amplify one of the things that mr noon said and miss amarillo said about not only extending the life of the this building but saving this town money um your crew has and you have done a lot with a little um lots of project that that might have had to been bid out you guys took on in the summer and i think sometimes the community doesn't really see that but that's i think
015why we wanted to have you here because we all deeply appreciate the work that you've done we're sad to see you go but we hope you have a an amazing retirement so thank you so much thank you and on top of that i just want to reiterate one thing you did say you're being left in good hands the crew that's there now is an excellent crew i've had excellent crews right along from the time i started the time i finished right down to the custodians uh all my guys the maintenance guys there and the support staff from you guys that's what makes it very very easy 30 years went by very quickly and jim's right we did about 80 to 100 million dollars worth of improvements and you know i didn't do that by myself
016trust me that was with a lot of help you know so i just want to say thank you very much thank you thank you we appreciate it thank you thank you thank you [Applause] all right so the next item on our agenda is we've set aside about 10 minutes for public comment if anyone in the audience would like to speak on any of the items in the agenda on our agenda for the evening i would ask you invite you up to the podium i'd ask you to state your name and share your comments with us hello my name is shelly dang respected school committee members i would like to have some comments on the equality and the diversity subcommittee which going to be discussed tonight from the charges that i got from december 7th for
017this subcommittee i would like to know that is the same charge is going to be used for the subcommittee this time and where these charges came from uh who and what defending defining the cultural aspect of dartmouth please differentiate between equality and the equity please explain what exactly is equality under inclusion length and why this is the only nice subcommittee been limited to find the best practice research and innovative message to be implemented in dartmouth school district please provide suggestions for members in this community who believes that truth is exclusive and constant and suggest how to be inclusive to commit community members and the parents who do not want their religious and moral conviction being diluted in the end as a non-time resident in dharmos and with 20 years of higher education experience under immigrants
018from a diverse cultural background i would very much like to be considered to serve in this subcommittee thank you anyone else would like to make a comment about anything on tonight's agenda item please step up to the podium and introduce yourself hello i am lynn turner i'm here to speak about the equality and diversity subcommittee that's listed on the agenda under old business i have a concern that it has the title equality and diversity when all of the charges for this subcommittee to work on use the word equity in fact the word equity is listed seven times in the eight charges for this subcommittee and equality is not listed once not even once our constitution clearly states that we are all created equal it says that because we should not discriminate against individuals based on
019sex race or creed the fact that we are created equal allows us to strive for excellence and anything we want to achieve equity has a very different meaning equity allows for discrimination by giving special privileges to groups of people based on things like race sex or beliefs in an effort to obtain an equal outcome it is similar to everyone getting an award of equal value and not having anyone stick out as excellent equity is also ripe for racism by dividing people into little social or racial groups and focusing on differences i even watched uh lessons of how to teach this on video clips from desi is desi telling our school board to sneak equity the word equity under the word equality how divisive and misleading it is to have these words hiding under the blanket
020of equality this subcommittee is also lacking transparency i had to capture a screenshot of the charges during a diversity and equity diversity and equality zoom meeting because i could not find the charges document anywhere on our school's website if you would like to see these charges i have them posted on my vote lynn turner facebook page the charges are powerful because they include funding these efforts both for our students and for our teachers on number five it states make recommendations to the school committee on equity diversity and inclusion through the district with regard to allocation of resources ongoing activities and strategic investments to shape future direction number six is recommend practices and policies to provide ongoing professional development for staff and training for our students and families in issues of diversity and equity i am
021guessing that number seven is why they are trying to erase the dartmouth indian logo on number seven it states the charge is educate and inform the community on equity diversity and inclusion issues recently i was there was an equity loving committee member that took digs at me on facebook saying that she didn't like that i am for all children i can assure you that i am and equality is for all children regardless of race sex or creed it ensures that each individual can thrive and reach their highest potential the american dream i find the charges of this committee to be misleading and if not even deceitful and unconstitutional i urge that this committee not reinstate the equity equality and diversity subcommittee today other comments please step to the podium share your name share your thoughts
022[Applause] hello my name is jeannie tripp i'm a parent i am a registered voter i have lived in this town for 50 plus years my husband's family goes back generations i grew up in this town i went to dartmouth schools my three children graduated dartmouth schools and i can tell you that yes children can be tough and the kids make little groups of their own that's been throughout the generations we never had these type of things come up when my kids were grown up or when i was growing up if you're from dartmouth you know the music department mrs boulay she would kill herself to get a poor child a violin so they could play violin if it was sports and you couldn't afford the registration fees i don't care who you are where you
023came from what color you are what nationality what your background is it didn't matter the parents the faculty the people involved in these groups stepped up for these kids they always have that's what this town is which is why we support the indian it means something it is a strong value that we've all had i grew up with it my kids grew up with it maybe i'm not native american or indigenous as people would like to call it today but i'm not politically correct i'm just a dartmouth resident who cares about my town and the future generations that are coming after us thank you i appreciate it other comments please step to the microphone share your name share your thoughts good evening all rene vieira co-president educators association i'm jody parisi so when we met
024last time we asked a number of questions regarding uh the items on the budget and uh recognizing that mr kylie wasn't here we're um you know looking forward to getting some of those answers this evening um but there were a couple of um other comments that we'd like to make on behalf of some of our colleagues let me go first yeah okay so i do believe school committee members that you have received some information from one of our ele instructors our um carrie dejesus and she can't make it here this evening but she wanted to just thank you for hopefully receiving the letter that she sent and for giving it some thought so i'm just going to read her statement i want to thank you for the opportunity to address the decision to eliminate the
025fourth english language education teacher position in the district i hope you were able to read my email detailing the need to reinstate this position based on the increase of english learners both at demelo and parter schools since september the creation of the fourth ele teacher position provided stability and consistency of ele instruction both at potter and cushman it also allowed dartmouth to move towards providing english learners the ele instruction minutes recommended by desi eliminating that position is once again resulting in english learners not receiving the english language instruction to which they are entitled i do thank you for your thoughtful consideration in meeting the needs of our current and future english learners carey de jesus it was also brought to our attention that when trying to fill staffing shortages within the speech therapy department lack
026of consultation or collaboration with existing speech staff raised some concerns in regard to staff licensure and supervision requirements ensuring that district speech therapy needs would be met with type of personnel being hired while considering the level of supervision needed for that staff due to administrative decisions the department continues to be technically short-staffed as there are a high number of speech therapy staff but a shortage of speech therapy language pathologists the speech and language pathologists must meet the mandated level of supervision required for these additional staff manage the impact on their workload caused by supervising these staff outside of their contractual obligations meet the service delivery needs and administrative duties for example iep meetings evaluations consultations and provide services to highly complex populations the unintended consequences of these hires have resulted in the needs of the
027department still not being met as it is physically overstaffed resulting in wasted funds that could be used to hire the speech-language pathologist that the department actually needs thank you for your time thank you any further comments i'm christian silvera um i just i have two things quick i wanted to make sure that all members received my email that i had sent i don't know if you're able to provide a head nod or you know i know i had gotten one response well assuming that you all received it i just ask that you please consider everything that i had said in my email and if there are any members here tonight that did not receive it while you are all conversing later on i hope that one of you may read it aloud to the rest
028or summarize some of the points that i brought up thank you thank you any other comments for this evening all right see no further takers i'm going to send it over to our student i involve for her student representative report this evening hi everyone yes so since our last meeting it has been a really exciting and fun time here at dhs our music program continues to blow us away with our strong and captivating performances this past weekend our indoor color guard earned first place in the nes ba finals and our interpercussion and wins each took first place in their respective competitions on friday dartmouth high school and her best buddies program celebrated their first official day of kindness with random acts of kindness encouraged throughout the day and throughout our community spring athletics are underway
029with our girls lacrosse team having an incredible opening season with a win on friday at the dartmouth memorial stadium against bishop stang the dhs theater company is well into their rehearsals for the upcoming spring musical shrek we are all looking forward to their performances in early may the tedx dhs returns to dartmouth high school this friday april 8th some classes will even have the opportunity to the to attend the event live and members of the community can live stream the event to enjoy the hard work and thoughtful entertaining student presentations thank you thank you any questions or comments we know you probably have a busy evening so you're welcome to say but you're also welcome to go if you would like thank you i totally would i have a big test tomorrow i know good
030luck good luck thank you guys thank you thank you good luck all right moving on to old business we have our discussion and vote on our fiscal year 23 budget but first i'm going to turn it over to mr kiley he shared a memo with us outlining some answers to questions that were asked at the last meeting and so i'd like to give him a chance um to share those contents of that that memo with uh with the public thank you dr jenkins i guess first i'd just like to say um that we had a meeting with the finance committee which i attended mr nunes was there to support um last thursday and i thought it went very well they had some uh good thoughtful questions and uh they kept me up on the hot
031seat for for quite a while but um i'm hopeful and thankful for their for their time and consideration and hopefully they will support our budget moving forward so uh the at the public hearing which i regrettably couldn't be here but i did i did watch the whole thing there were a number of issues that were that were brought up and i'd just like to go through them and offer some information about each one student parking fees so eliminating student parking fees was a fifteen thousand four hundred dollar proposal it was included in our budget as a proposal for consideration it did not reach the level of recommendation to make it into our budget as it currently exists so i think and i had spoken with mr silvera uh following that meeting and made sure that
032he understood exactly where it was in the process the there was a question regarding the directors of teaching and learning um and stipends that relate to their work so and i think dr gifford may have actually followed up on this during that meeting but i'll just go back through to reiterate that we'll be maintaining the project time and ell coordinator stipends during fy23 and the other stipends relating to that transition process would not be would not be funded in the fy 23 budget assistant superintendent secretary to director teaching and learning secretary you before you i we had sent home a revision um the budget has been revised so that position is included as a superintendent secretary in the fy 23 proposed budget um and you have all those pages that are impacted and the budget
033online is also reflective of of those revisions esser so there i think the question was regarding acceleration academies in esser which are sort of intertwined but can be two separate things uh esser is supporting the acceleration academies our lots of programs that you know that we're currently running we are also receiving specific funds from the department of ed federal funds that relate directly to acceleration academies in addition to esser so as to how long that will be continued by the department of ed i'm not really sure i don't know we don't know yet what's going to happen for the summer but we're anxiously awaiting that but we did incorporate in the esser budget support for programs so that's that will be available to to help with that none of those funds are actually coming out
034of the fy 23 budget so the rbt issue i think that was partially clarified by dr gifford um but i will just say that the 49193 that's included in the fy 23 budget is for one staff member a registered behavior technician teacher assistant and uh training of three existing teacher assistants to become registered behavior technicians really looking to build some capacity in in in district to be able to address needs as they arise um so that is uh and there's so there's training cost and and uh stipends uh that would be for those folks uh as well assistant principal cushman this one was interesting because i'm they must have been written somewhere because i'm sure that um i'm sure that that um they must have seen it somewhere but um it hasn't existed since 2012.
035the early childhood it's been the early childhood coordinator since then and it is the reason that the early childhood coordinator is funded at the level it is in the budget is because the idea special ed grant covers most covers a good portion of that salary so 58 000 is what's funded in the fy 23 budget special education administration costs okay so special education administration costs actually increased by essentially the cost of living the projected cost of living increase for salaries nothing else in fy 23 impacted those costs we did reclassify a person to a more appropriate so the assistant pupil support services administrator was classified in with outreach workers which really doesn't make sense it never made sense and i finally fixed it and moved it and so it does it maybe could be perceived
036that that was an increase but it was not uh esser again um so i believe the question here was how is esser intertwined with the fy 23 proposed budget so we are funding approximately a million and a half dollars of staff and expenses in fy 23 in the esser budget so that will be we're currently in fy 22 using the sr2 grant um it's and we used a little of the sr1 grant to finish that off um we will in in fy23 and fy24 be using the ester 2 grant that's a 3 grand sorry um two and we will exhaust the sr3 grant at that at that point uh it actually is available to us till december of 2024. so there could be a little spillover into the next fiscal year if we're lucky enough
037to have any money left but that's um you know that's that's how that works um that's a quick question so how many staff are we funding from that partial so parts of 16 staff significant that's huge i mean it's it's been something you know that that committee members have commented on i think i've commented on publicly i'm and i know dr gifford has as well we're certainly concerned about that i know we've talked about how that's going to impact us moving forward because it's it's it's a lot of money and uh it is going to go away so we do have to note that i believe you gave us a full account of the employees that are here yeah no i know i'm just trying to get a reminder yeah no i don't know we've
038done that several times uh instruction administration costs so uh all right so the the change there is really the the two director of teaching and learning positions and the elimination of the assistant superintendent position um and i mentioned the reclass of the assistant pupil support services administrator which was in the outreach worker category into the instruction administration category where it's more appropriate for it to be um i think those those were the the comments or questions that that were raised during the public budget hearings be happy to answer any questions questions comments from my committee members so i'm good i mean i i just want to thank you for in response to christian's advocacy around the parking passes i do thank you for responding to me i missed it for a few days but um
039feeling better and you know it's tough it's you know it makes a great case and i my hope would be that as we move forward i mean we're in kind of stark times we've got these partial 16 positions that are funded and that money is going to poof potentially go well as we know as we stand now go away but i would like to see that continue to uh you know to be removed i just very impressed with his research and his advocacy around that um and i and i have i have concerns about the el ely positions and uh it's my understanding and and it was sort of referenced in the in the email that we we received um that the numbers are going up and when you talk about equity and supporting students
040needs uh it's concerning and i hope that we don't um you know dismiss the fact that that might be that needs to be potentially revisited so that we don't um that those students aren't impacted in what they they need to receive um but thank you for this your response to a lot of it it's budget is always tough and it's uh there's a lot of conflicting priorities absolutely you know it's competing priorities and we're you know we're fortunate that we have we do have a lot of support um you know from the community and obviously our budget request right now is at 4.7 percent um i know through my discussions with the administration and the town that we've spent a lot of time talking about this and and they've been very supportive of us um
041and i hope that the boards follow suit uh you know and support us through a pretty challenging time financially but but yeah i mean there's there's no doubt that we have to prioritize um in order to make this happen other questions or comments yes go ahead mr oliver thank you dr jenkins um so a few a few things um one i'm going to um disagree with probably some of my fellow colleagues that i would personally like to see the fifteen thousand four hundred dollars striked out of the budget um i think between school whether it's school choice funding or whether it's finding the money in our operating budget i think that's a small a small dollar amount considering our overall budget and some of the um some of the lines that we have so that's
042just just my thoughts on that in regards to the teaching and learning stipends i'm going to go back to my my statements at one of our previous meetings that i'm all for these positions however i would like to see the salary range and not just for these two positions but i think it's good municipal finance practices as well as good business practices and we are charged with budget and policy that the superintendent of schools come to the school committee to ask for parameters for salaries for non-union positions i'm not saying that we need to set the exact salary but i think it's good business practice that we have some kind of parameters that we agree on because that is one of our charges the school committee is budget and so once again i will say
043that i'm not comfortable with the salaries i'd like to see some concrete figures that's not to say that i'm not opposed to approving the budget this evening it's just i would like to see some concrete figures to go along with this from other school districts i know dr gifford had presented them she didn't present them but she she let us know that they're all over the place i would like to see some actual numbers on that and i would also like to see if we are gonna if the committee's pleasure is to continue with with you know the salary range in the ballpark of 140 that these stipends be included in those positions um there is absolutely no reason why if we're paying someone 140 000 a year that these that some of these positions
044or these stipends can't be rolled into that so that's what i have for that in regards to one of the um the comments made during public comment tonight can i don't know if you're able to mr kylie elaborate a little bit on the sl the um slp and the slpas i assume as to i i could offer a little bit on it um so i know that uh that hiring slpa slps pathologists has been very challenging and there have been times where we have had to address needs by hiring a assistant speech language pathology assistants and i understand that that's the concern uh you know before us though that was expressed tonight and and we're cognizant of that um and we have made attempts to try and address the staff several attempts to try and
045address the staffing in that department um and continue to so i i can't i don't have a lot of specifics on that tonight but um it is accurate that we have had to address needs with assistance which do require supervision by the pathologists which does take time out of their day so we're aware of that um and have tried to address it we've posted jobs and not filled them for us jobs far slps for slps now and shame on me i guess for not knowing this but our slps on i i know they're under the general bargaining contract but is there any kind of additional monies they're teaching salaries they're just straight teaching salaries yeah incorporated there okay assistance is different assistants are paid under teaching assistant um contract with a stipend okay on top
046of that so i guess is there i know this is a this isn't a dartmouth problem the right this is a bigger problem with speech language pathologists so you know i don't know if there's anything we can do to make ourselves more attractive that's but i appreciate the follow-up mr kylie and all the work that's uh put into here so other than the fact that i would like to see the parking fees eliminated um you know that would be the only change that i would ask everyone to consider thank you other comments or questions mr nunes yeah thank you madam chair but unfortunately i'm gonna disagree with my esteemed colleague here big surprise the uh i think the packing fees are fine i've said before and i'll say it again is you know we the
047uh parking is a privilege and and such and we paid almost four million dollars for bus transportation so if with all due respect you don't wish to pay the parking fee we have fantastic bus transportation that you're more than welcome to take advantage of in general the budget overall my compliments to mr kylie sitting waiting to go to the finance committee the other night i said to him i said listen just you're aware i says i've looked at the budget and unfortunately i'm not going to chew up two hours of your time because i really don't have any questions it was really cut and dry and my compliments to the administration the budget subcommittee for for their work on on putting it together would i like to see the ell uh ele i should say
048my fault english language learner stay yes i would you know is that something that maybe we can fund in with the uh essa grants sure okay fine but uh you know there's a lot of work that goes into the this budget and a lot of time so i will defer to uh administration and such on that thank you any other comments i'll just can i answer the question um did we eliminate the fees for high school transcripts this year we in in the next uh school year there will be no fees for transfer so for me right i see those two fees as problematic i see that transcript fee is much more deeply problematic than the parking fee children should not have to pay to get transcripts if they want to apply to college so
049i don't necessarily disagree that we might want to move towards right reducing the parking fee or getting there but i think we've made an important first step by by eliminating that transcript fee and i think we have to phase these in so for me this year the removal of the transcript fee for next year removing that burden from our graduating seniors i think is a positive first step and so i would agree with mr nunes that i think i'm willing to keep it where it is to keep that parking fee sort of in the parking lot and remember that you know we might have to slowly chip away and and get to it but i just want to highlight that it's not that we're not listening to students or trying to make it easier on
050our students we have removed a fee that students currently are paying so i'll disagree with mr oliver i'm my number one i'll agree with mr oliver on my number two we have a fiduciary responsibility as members of the school committee we okay any increase in salary for every employee in this district our hands are tied if the initial salary is set outside of our purview because we can't go down right we can never go down i mean i suppose we could but i'm not sure i want to go there so i think it's super important that decisions about where to hire people come by us because it it has impacts those decisions have impacts on our budget so i 100 agree with you that i think i don't want to necessarily delay approval of the
051budget but i do want that to come back to us because that's part of the way we have to control the budget we do that with all of the other salaries in the district i see no reason why initial salary should be any different so those are my sort of two thoughts the third one is i will echo my colleagues thanks for putting together the budget i know it's a lot of work um it is a delicate balancing act i wish we had more money i think mr nunes often talks about how much more money we would have if we were just at average spending we wouldn't have parking fees if that was 10 million but who's counting right so um i appreciate all the work that goes into balancing the tough decisions that need
052to be made um so if there's no further comments just go ahead thank you just and also just to to mr kylie is a great job thursday night with the fincom you know answering questions that they posed to him and they were a wide variety of questions on anything and everything from transportation to building age to you know classroom teachers and such so and he had all the answers which was good so just thank you my compliments appreciate it there's not many times when he doesn't have the answer no there isn't no thank you all right so if there's no further comment i will entertain a motion to approve the fiscal year 23 budget appropriation for the potter school classroom teachers and the hundred amount of two thousand dollar forty two thousand and twenty three
053dollars so moved second all right so i have a motion by mr nunes a second by miss waite is there any further discussion on the item hearing none all in favor aye opposed abstention one abstention all right so that passes four approvals and one abstention from mr oliver next i will entertain a motion to approve the fiscal year 23 budget appropriation for the total budget excluding the item voted individually in the previous motion and the amount of 47 million 382 dollars and 82 cents good so moved second all right so i have a motion by mr nunes a second by mr oliver any further discussion hearing none all in favor aye aye opposed that motion carries unanimously thank you everyone thank you mr kylie thank you all right so the next item on our agenda
054is discussion of the equality and diversity and subcommittee um i do want to make one clarification for the record the charge of the committee has been was publicly voted on by the school committee in a public meeting that charge is posted on our website in the december 7 2020 minutes so those that charge is publicly available if anybody would like to see it i welcome them to go look at our minutes that are available on the dartmouth school committee website having corrected the record on that we can open it up for discussion i think perhaps the first item if i if i can maybe structure our debate is to maybe talk about um well i guess the first question is whether we want to continue the committee right if the vote on that is no
055we don't have to have discussion about anything else so we should probably start with that sort of big picture first personally i think there are some issues that came up i mean i think in the um the the meeting on the 22nd i'm reading dates i think despite disagreement across different sides of the debate there is some consensus about moving forward with developing some more curriculum developing partnership um that i think we can all agree on that that that should be done maybe that's the charge of this committee maybe it's the charge of a different committee to do that um i think there are some other things that the committee could work on um but i will sort of open up the conversation for my fellow committee members with that first sort of question about
056whether we want to continue the diversity inequality committee thoughts right miss amarill i mean i i will start i and uh i would say i would like us to continue it i would like us to uh you know change the name to what would be traditionally a dei committee i think that it is an important conversation as a parent of a young man who receives significant special education needs that is an equity problem that is an equity conversation and those in our district who are like him who are more vulnerable than him who have different needs whether they are uh students with who with um uh who undiagnosed learning needs those students and those families um need to be considered and thought about in our charge and that is i'm sorry i'm passionate about it
057it i'm highly offended to hear anyone question whether or not equity is important within a school district where there are students that range from the most vulnerable to the most successful and who learn with ease they're in my family i've got three of them i've got three different learners one of them is voting tomorrow he can't tell me when he's got a hurt on his knee but his needs are just as important as my oldest who valued her ap classes and so i'm sorry i think we should continue with this committee thank you miss amarell mr nunes or mr oliver i think i saw both of your hands go up yeah well i think the uh i'm tossed with with this and kathleen i appreciate your passion no doubt about it um change it to
058equity i could i can live with that i really could i really could uh because i think we all have to we're all equal in this in this profession and with what we are content and need to do i know i spoke when we were putting this committee together about trying to not make it too big type of deal and i still kind of stick with that that idea my question becomes is you know as as we go back you know and i will apologize i i think i've seen some emails and again i threw them into the folder but i don't think i printed them which is my own fault you know the uh community members that we have right now they still they the two community members i yeah i i would say
059i think they both have we've also received some emails i know but so i think i don't think we're ready to appoint them no i'm not ready i'm not ready to do that but that was my question is you know and i apologize if they did leave at least one of them did i'm not sure about the other i'd have to go back and look yeah i've got to do the same too so that's it right i think uh i don't know i'm i'm still tossed of this and i i think i would like to to to see where this committee is going to go you know in the in the in the future what you know what what you're going to talk about and what you're going to try and what's going to try
060to be tackled you know that type of thing i mean i'll just leave it a dab mr oliver you had your hand up i did so i guess from my i i 100 agree that i think we need to move forward with with continuing a committee i guess the questions that i have are more around the the direction that the committee goes in and the topics that that are discussed um however in in this you know world and climate that we're living in um i think it's very important um that you know we have these conversations and we try to we try to make dartmouth public schools um you know a better place for for everyone and you know be able to meet and service the needs of all of our students so i would
061be certainly be on board for continuing this committee but i you know we really got to look at our administration or our district liaisons to the committee i i think too we need to lean on them some more um and you know from some of the topics that may come forward um so i'd like to see it's a long way of saying i'd like to see it continue okay uh miss wait yeah so i've put a little thought into this as well um i think that when i when again it was a tough first goal at you know the committee certainly when we were you know dealing with covid and the committee kind of meet in person we know a lot of that work is really important to you know get to know people and
062we're meeting in an open meeting forum which is i think difficult to be clear all of the meetings were open and streamed no i know no one involved no no absolutely yeah record on that no absolutely so i think um and that needed to be done i think it was a it's a difficult task the way it was set up so possibly like you know again the charges that we had i think were you know well thought out but we may need to go about it in a different way um bringing in particular you know i had an idea about bringing in each school let's say you know to mellow and they can share with us what they're doing in the school because they know what the work is being done they can share what
063their school improvement plan is around these issues of diversity equity inclusion how they're trying to accomplish that and then you know those members who are part of that board under open meeting can ask them questions so they're not you know being tasked with doing research on their own which i think is a challenge when you have these members who are coming in who are you know maybe members of community or this not to go and find out you know what exactly is happening in a school i think that's uh that's difficult i think it'll be a nice time for tamela say like this is for example to say this is what we're doing this is you know what we'd like to see you know this is you know we can also find out these are
064some of the best practices that we've learned about you know with whether it's dealing with diversity race inclusion these are facilities we need you know and then you know going through each of the schools and then you know even bringing in like our you know athletic director do we have accessible seating at our facilities you know i know that was an issue with one of our band shows that um someone came in with someone in a wheelchair and they were you know a grandparent they didn't know you know again it was difficult for that person to find out where to go so there's a lot of different issues but i think if we i think being you know redirecting it so that you know we're having the the people whether that the curriculum folks who
065are coming in as you know or the individual administrators and staff of schools like maybe we have a different school come in or group you know each meeting however whether it's quarterly bi-monthly you know i think that would just be a process that might make it easier for this to work to get done and then you know once you listen to all the electric schools i think we could say like oh look quinn is doing this that's great you know maybe you know we can add a diversity library at quinn like we have it de mel you know just some of those kinds of things so that's just you know where i was leaning in terms of the procedure but i would like to see it continue obviously but so i would i would like
066to see the committee continue and i 100 agree with with miss ambrell um i also don't think i could support an approach by school and here's why because i think we need to focus on specific issues and what the say climate is for specific sort of learners in our schools and people who work here one of the things that we're doing on campus is we're doing a climate survey to understand um how students staff faculty feel about our institution to identify any issues so do our students who are receiving special services and their parents do they do they feel safe i know we've had issues with that do they feel supported and i would like to see uh sort of tackle those sorts of issues where we can provide input for for instance i'm just
067following on miss amaral's thoughts right if the first issue we tackled was how do our students who are receiving special services feel included what are best practices we can ask people from schools but we can also receive input from the community and identify where some of the the the weak spots are i do think that um part of our sort of our plan and is about communication and so providing avenues for people to have input and communicate about this i think would be good um so so i i would like to see it continue as well and it sounds like there's maybe some consensus about that mr nunes is on the fence but that's fine so i think it seems like the committee i'm getting a sense of the committee here that we want to
068sort of move forward where we may con contemplate a change to the name to more accurately reflect the charge in terms of composition my inclination is that right now it is predominantly staffed by people who work in or employed by the schools and to me that seems appropriate because we're getting into some matters right that are the purview of administration and teachers and so i feel that predominantly administer we have two administrators three staff members two students right two school committee to community i think that balance seems about right to me like i didn't wouldn't want to tip it so there's more school committee members or even more community members because it's about things that the administration and the staff have sort of control over but i'm open to other arguments about how we might
069change the composition of the committee if people think we ought to i'm not talking about the people who are in those seats right i'm more talking about the seats that are on the committee because i think since the terms have expired we have to do a whole new call yeah yeah right um so what i want to focus our discussion on right now is do we think the composition of the committee is right we have two administrators two school committee members three staff members two students and two community members mr nunes yeah i think the the if you want to do anything else maybe you and you got 11 so you want to try to keep it odd maybe you add a couple more community members keyword maybe that's discussion for another time you can't
070add another school committee member because now you got a quorum so we still we we're still subject to open meeting no no no no no no no no no no no no you're not listening to what i'm saying right you got a quorum right so the three committee members could make a vote and we own it that's true so true you don't want it you don't want to go there right that type of type of deal so my only thought would be if you know when it you know read the tea leaves john you're going to see that this committee is going to continue so which is fine and i'm good with i i can live with that but i think maybe we want to think about maybe adding two more committee community members period
071and then maybe taking a step back and again i don't know the two students from the high school that we have i don't know what their class year is i think they're both they both may be seniors okay so maybe we wanna maybe want to look at maybe making it available to juniors so that you have a little bit of continuity or a junior and a senior so that as one leaves you know the junior moves up and then you put a point another june that type of deal so that you're not always having to sit here and bring you know the two students up to speed as to what's going on that that's my thought mr oliver i'm just going to agree with everything mr news said [Laughter] i agree it's amarillo oh wow
072geez my concern is say we we when we do you know and again we're all doing our best to make the best decision here and um you know we're we are five folks with different sort of perspectives and it's wonderful most of the time but you know say the committee say john decides he wants to be nominated to be part of the committee and and mary or whatever and it's not me i i would really like us to save space for one of the community members to have a perspective or some experience with disability um and inclusion so that would just be important for me for the committee to consider if if i i'm willing to serve although quite exhausted mentally emotionally and physically these past three years but two and a half not three
073but i want to make sure that those voices are at the table because it's very important just wait yeah i i agree i think um you know we seem to be all in agreement as far as the composition of the you know the group and i thought we did a nice job trying to you know balance out to make sure that we had um different you know voices which is why we added an additional staff member too just to make sure that we had um different you know uh expertise you know brought to the community so so i'm gonna disagree only because i have concerns about having a majority of the committee not being employed by the school district that would be my concern i think there should be a majority on the committee that
074is employed because we're talking about sort of workplace issues and matters of curriculum and and that sort of stuff um so with if we expand i mean maybe we could go to three community members i'd be a little nervous about four about the balance of the composition of that committee given what it's sort of deciding as mr nunes points out i don't disagree with them we're walking a fine line between policy and curriculum and so to me i would tilt the balance more towards people sort of who are employed by the schools to make sure that the people that are at those conversations have have the stake in it so maybe we could consider rather than expanding community to four maybe to three i don't want to be like no on everything if you all
075vote for four that's fine i can count the votes right mr nunes read the tea leaves i can read the tea leaves too but that's my only concern about expanding um community membership to four well good mr madam chair you know and i understand what you're saying uh but with two administrators and three school staff you've got five if you have four community unless you're concerned about the students students committee members are not are not employees either so we're ex official employees so okay again i was just you know i understand where you're coming from right and again it's the pleasure of the committee on one vote if we want to expand to four community members that's fine um i would i would argue i see that you want to expand and that's fine with
076me i would argue for three yeah that's fine i'll split the difference with you okay so i'll make a i'll make a motion that we expand the uh the uh committee to uh be three uh community members okay do i have a second on that motion a second okay so i have a motion by mr newness the second by miss amarillo is there any further discussion on that part of the motion hearing none all in favor aye aye aye okay so i have a you know follow up so should we can we expand the staff to four and balance that is that um i think we're good i'm sorry i didn't hear what she asked if we could expand the staff to four i think i think we're good and i think we don't want
077to get it to get too big okay that's hard i was thinking the odd number that was the year well no i i got you but coming all right and i pull the heads up so i think what we've we've let me just sort of summarize where we're going to continue the committee or and expand the community membership i think next up we would the agreement was we're gonna have to do a call for all new membership but i don't think we're quite there yet right because we still need to revisit the charge right um and then the name yeah um right now the name is the i guess it's been the equality and diversity subcommittee um it is more traditional to miss amarillo's point to have a dei committee diversity equity and inclusion um
078let's discuss the name now and and sort of settle that or make a motion that we rename it the dei committee second all right so i have a motion by mr oliver a second by miss amaral is there any further discussion on that and just for the minutes diversity equity and inclusion i know we know what you meant but i just want to have that further record is there any further discussion on that hearing none all in favor all right okay so the charge um miss waite had sent a charge a draft charge around to dr gifford and myself dr gifford is out and sick i work it was just a working draft today anyway so so do we want to [Music] work from what was approved on december 7th do we want to and
079we keep drawing this out but i want to make sure we get it right do we want to wait and have ms wait circulate her draft and then we can read both the existing and her proposal and come ready to do that are we ready to do the charge tonight mr nunes uh with all due respect as you see i do not have a i don't have i don't have december 20th december 7 20 20 minutes in front of me so that's agreed that that's why i suggest that i think i think we've made some decisions right that we're going to continue the committee with the name we've changed the composition all right so check check check next item i will miss gentler could you circulate the december 7th meeting i may [Laughter] yeah could
080you re-email that to all of us as a reminder that we're gonna need to read those and then i copied you on the email from miss wait if you could do that when you forward miss wait's draft charge and then we'll have it all in one place and next meeting we can talk about the charge once we have the charge i believe then we can do a recall anyone who has i think put their name in i'm pointing out to the audience saying has put her name in already i think it's fine we can keep those in the hopper but then we'll put out also an official call if anyone else wants to put their name it as well and then we'll consider that does that work for everyone wait it does i'm just you
081know revisiting you know i guess as part of that the you know even though we're doing the charge i am still curious about you know defining the process because i think that's where we got caught up it seemed last time so and again if we're not going to school by school how are these members going to do that work you know are they going home and researching on their own and coming back are they you know so again just for next time to talk through that like actual process you know is i think an important piece of it too okay other comments questions concerns okay so the next item on our agenda is a discussion of our may meeting schedule all right so we have a meeting scheduled for april 25th the uh select board
082and the finance committee have asked for a joint meeting on the 9th of may mr kylie you were saying that you think we should attend this meeting yes well i i think given the our hope that you know we're going to gain support from the finance committee and the select board for the fy 23 budget i i think it would be advisable that we that we attend i'm fine with that i would just like to convey and maybe you or dr gifford could do this that in past joint meetings we've sat for like an hour of discussion of things that are like about i don't know the conservation commission no offense to the conservation commission but we don't have anything to do with the conservation commission so i would ask that the fincom and the
083select board arrange the agenda such that items relevant to the schools and the school committee come first um because then we can you know then we can sort of be done with with that portion of the meeting and not have to be there for things that we have no input on no purview over right so i would just ask that the other thing that i would ask is at least 48 hours before meeting to get meeting materials put to us in the past we have received meeting materials the day of the meeting some of us have jobs we can't read things during the middle of the day some of us have lives where it shows up as we get there they draw things being dropped in front so even if it is a draft it's
084not finalized we need something that to look at beforehand so that we're informed about what we're talking about when we go into that meeting and mr nance and also some type of an agenda as to what they're going to talk about i mean with all due respect as i've said before if they're going to start talking about finance policies and everything else we're out voted there's eight or nine finance committee members there's five members of border selectmen even for discussion purposes if we all vote no it passes so you know that type of deal i'd be happy to relate convey the sentiments of the committee to the town right so then the other question about our meeting schedule is we have a meeting scheduled for the monday after that so would we prefer to do
085like in in the past we've done um our own meeting prior to the the joint meeting to get through any sort of needed business we might need to get through signing of warrants or any votes that might need to happen and so have those both on the ninth or do we want to do the ninth and keep the 16th what's the pleasure of the committee there or do we want to flip-flop and move to the ninth and go to the 23rd that's another option thoughts everyone's pulling out their calendars and that's why i've got mine out too so imagine i will not be able to make it on the 23rd i have a medical procedure that day but i will no longer be chair so that's okay i'll let you do that to me so
086we are meeting on the on the 25th of this month yes yes the the joint meeting is what the 9th may 9th the 9th okay i was writing down so the question is do we want we could do we'll probably want to do a joint meeting or at least post our own meeting before on the 9th just in case anything comes up but do we want to just do that we could do the 9th and the 23rd we could do the 9th and the 16th or we could just do the ninth well the 9th and 23rd would be the 9th and the 23rd does that work for everyone yeah because other than i mean other than that in all seriousness and i knew we're getting to the end of the year we are yeah okay
087yes the end of the school year type of deal we don't meet if we meet the ninth we don't meet till june six yeah okay so that yeah so so was it work for the committee to do the joint meeting on the ninth we'll probably post something maybe for a half hour before that just in case there's any anything we need to get through and then we'll meet and we'll do our own meeting on the 23rd that's it mr kylie maybe we can get the planning board room yes there we go okay so let me do okay okay so that having been said we can move on to new business um i don't think mr kelly i think the superintendent superintendent is out ill she didn't give anything to mr kylie i don't know if
088you have anything or just the uh you know we haven't met since the spelling bee so uh the spelling bee was great it was stereophage yeah which wasn't pronounced bacteriophage i don't think i don't think so maybe i misheard but it did seem like the science department had like slid some money they had a little advantage four words in that string that were you know very sciency right it just happened that way thank you to everyone who contributed and i still think i owe a check so if we have not done that yet mr nunes is the only one who's remembered to do that so i just pulled up the def uh website so i when i open up my computer remember that's a good idea perfect all right so yes that was an excellent
089evening thank you to everyone who participated and i believe our because we changed the timing this year because of the pandemic um the call for grants is actually going to open up quite soon so hopefully everyone in the schools will look for that um i also do not have anything to report and so i'll ask other members of the committee if they have other things to report miss amarillo i do uh i'm sorry i'm the special education sort of speaker tonight i'm not in any particular order i'm really excited to announce that we are so grateful first you hear it first that we will have the special education parent advisory council will once again convene in the fall and so on september 25th which is the sun oh gosh anyway september 25th we will have
090our eighth annual community southeastern massachusetts community resource and craft fair which is so needed and i just am so excited to be talking about this 20 we'll say 27 but uh and and planning and getting some really great well-rounded resources in the hands of our community so i'm so excited about that i get chills so and then tomorrow via zoom we have it on our facebook page the dartmouth cpac facebook page six to seven we have our annual parents rights in special education so if anyone is interested in learning more about you know those procedural safeguards and just the process and and the regulations for special education that is on zoom the link i think was emailed to everyone in district today everyone is welcome it's a webinar style so it's a listen back you
091don't really have to be on camera to to take notes um and just a reminder that we are also having on the 15th of april we close our annual parents satisfaction survey so that i don't have the link in front of me i was trying to get it and but that can also be found on our um facebook dartmouth cpac page and as of i'm gonna you know we were my family was ill as of a week and a half ago there were over 80 responses so that's a great indication that people really want to ha and and the and you know a very a good range of responses and um so far pretty positive i have to say but the folks have um the ability to also share some commentary and we've asked that
092they um take out any personal you know identifiable you know taking it out of the context of who they are and what school they're in in terms of the co the comments but those comments are really vital because we uh they you know themes come out of them and it helps the the district you know see those themes in terms of what what gaps there are or the perception or the climate in terms of what parents are feeling is happening versus um you know what we're trying to do or haven't quite succeeded at but those are my my updates thank you another updates mr nunes thank you man of chair a wonderful student rep talked about a color guy taking first place in nezba finals on sunday in their class which is good they're leaving
093tomorrow night for dayton ohio for wgi awesome they've got quarterfinals on thursdays semis on friday and finals on saturday so wish them good luck and safe travels this weekend saturday starting at three o'clock we're hosting uh nezma finals for percussion and that uh it'll be 15 it's in it's a nesba run show the music association will run the 50 50 raffle in the concession the dartmouth is the dartmouth uh wind ensemble will be on at 6 10 and percussion will be on at 7 30 with awards right after so wish those guys great good luck and ladies good luck they leave during school vacation on wednesday for dayton and they won't be back till late sunday from school vacation so safe travels to them also sticking with our percussion and wind ensemble our annual night
094of percussion is going to be uh thursday april 14th at seven o'clock so that'll be here uh and then they'll start out in the auditorium and then move over to the column lynch activity center and last but not least uh i happen to be i sit on the open space committee and i just want people to realize and that the survey that we worked on is on the town website so if you can take you know a few minutes and uh go in and answer it the committee would uh appreciate all your valued input thank you thank you mr nunes i will also uh remind everyone that tomorrow town elections thank you to everyone who is volunteering to serve our committee good luck to everyone wanting please turn out to vote tomorrow miss wait i
095was just gonna do um one last thing is that the high school open house that for incoming seventh and eighth graders was originally scheduled for thursday but because you know their conflicts with a middle school play that was moved until after vacation i believe it's the 21st i was trying to look it up on my my calendar but i couldn't see the 21st of school vacation i don't want to be whatever the i'm sorry i have it on my phone if i just couldn't get it up do you have it um if it's a week after vacation we can announce it at our meeting yes i can't get it up on my um for some reason my computer is frozen right now but that was good yeah i know they did she rescheduled it just
096yesterday and was sending it out you can announce that date if it's after break um yeah we can we can announce that i think it's that thursday after break but like i said okay what's happening with us i got one go ahead mr oliver thank you um so last but not least i was wondering if we could add for our god welling our next meeting agenda um if we could uh have discussion around the uh dartmouth indian doubt sure we can add that to the agenda the logo thank you much all right um our next meeting is on april 25th i will entertain a motion to adjourn so moved second all right so the motion by mr nunes the second by miss amarillo any further discussion hearing none all in favor hi hi opposed stains
097motion carries unanimously thank you everyone thank you [Music] oh