Dartmouth School Committee Meeting, March 7, 2022

001[Music] so [Music] good evening everyone i'd like to call the march 7th meeting of the dartmouth school committee to order um please stand for the pledge of allegiance [Music] one nation miss ganther can we have a roll call please shannon jenkins here mary wait here kathleen emerald here john nunes chris oliver here i'd like to remind everyone that this meeting is being streamed on the dhs tv media youtube channel you can find that at youtube.com slash ghs tv media the meeting will also be rebroadcast on dc tv channels 9 on wednesday and thursday at 5 pm friday at 6 a.m saturday at 8 a.m and sunday at 2 p.m it will also be rebroadcast on channel 18 on monday and saturday at noon and thursday at three and i'd just like to remind our audience

002members um and committee members i always forget to silence your cell phones if you have them um okay so the first item on our agenda is public comment we've set aside 10 minutes for public comment on any of the items that are on our agenda for the evening if you would like to make a comment i welcome you to step up to the microphone state your name and share your thoughts please all right so if we have no takers going once going twice all right so the next item on our agenda um is the approval of the regular session minutes for february 14 2021 i'll entertain a a motion to approve those minutes second all right so i have a motion by mr news the second by miss amaral is there any further discussion on

003that issue hearing none all in favor opposed extensions so that motion carries unanimously next on our agenda is our student representative report um and evan garcia is joining us again and evan i understand this is going to be your last meeting with us yeah it is all right well we'll let you go and then we'll say nice things about you after you're done talking so we'll we'll let you go first okay thank you dr jenkins since coming back from february vacation students and staff have successfully adjusted to our school's new optional masking policy additionally our extremely successful winter sports season is wrapping up several of our track athletes competed at state level meets while three school records were broken james martin broke the 55 meter record not once but twice and mia carter kate smith

004madison stott and srell lawton all beat the 4x200 relay record our girls basketball team qualified for the miaa tournament and had an outstanding victory last week against burlington high their season ended with a fierce match against top-seeded norwood high school our boys basketball team season is also over after many competitive and action-packed games our hockey team ended their regular season by winning the spartan the spartin cup and qualifying for the miaa tournament they defeated westwood high school on saturday in an extremely intense game they will be facing duxbury high school at 7 20 on wednesday at the bog in kingston massachusetts in what will be a must-watch game great job to all of our winter student athletes for what was a phenomenal season last week was both busy and exciting for our tv media program

005which hosted wpri 12's kate walsh on friday to talk to our students about what it's like to work in the media on saturday the students then visited harvard university to watch the production of the harvard versus dartmouth basketball game our deca team has been very successful recently as well and they are currently hard at work in preparation for their state conference which will be held this thursday good luck to all of those competing our illumineers robotics team placed 7th out of 20th in their qualifying competition while they're consistently inconsistent there were not mine robotics team placed third in that competition as well that robotics team then had a great performance at their state level competition last week in which they finished 7th out of 32 teams tedx dhs is returning to dartmouth high school later

006this month it's scheduled for friday march 21st right now excuse me friday march 25th right now but the official date will be released later this week community members can watch our students present their talks on dhs tv media's youtube page students can now sign up for spring athletics with offerings in unified track spring track tennis softball baseball lacrosse and sailing informational meetings will be held during pace and after school this week and next week tomorrow dartmouth high school will host dartmouth middle school's 8th graders the future class of 2026 so that they can go on student-led tours and hear directly from students about courses and activities here at dhs this is just one aspect of dartmouth high school's efforts to support the transition from middle school to high school dartmouth's finest will be held on

007march 18th at 6 30 p.m in the dhs auditorium we have 14 contestants this year and a variety of talents and i promise you that this will be a great show that you won't want to miss you also don't want to miss the national honor societies volleyball tournament it will be held on tuesday march 15th in the gym last but not least the dartmouth education association is hosting their spelling bee on march 24th at 7pm i can promise that it will be amazing this is my final school committee meeting as dartmouth high's student representative and i want to thank all of you for your kindness and support over the last two years i have really enjoyed serving as a voice for dartmouth high school during such a consequential period thank you again and that concludes

008my final update thank you evans anybody have any comments or questions [Applause] go ahead kathleen you want to start yeah you've been it's always wonderful to hear the way in which you describe what's going on in high school uh and i was just sitting here of listening to every little word that you were saying um you know and my oldest is already she's 20 now and i just dawned on me not that not not literally but we're in we're in the sprint where you know we're coming on to the spring and into the spring and um after the last couple years we've had uh you know my life used to revolve around what sports she played or what activities she was in what club she was in from you know the fall the winter and

009the spring and you know i have a sixth grader and so i look forward to that coming up however she chooses to participate but um yeah it's just great to hear you talk about all the wonderful you know accomplishments and the activities that that students are are participating in and i um your service has been wonderful for our committee the way in which you describe like i said uh and i really look forward to seeing how you move into the world and and the future service that you will you know the contribution you'll make to our community and the greater community whatever that looks like um you know the future looks pretty bright for you so thank you so much you're welcome um yes so i was able to chat with you a little bit

010before the meeting was going so um evan has committed to holy cross which i think is really exciting um and i was curious do you have a major picked out i want to double major in political science and history yeah yes so as a former history teacher yay and i know you've already started clearly you started showing a a talent for that work and again i know your work over the summer as an intern at mr mcginnis's office so i i think yeah you're off to a great start we really can't wait to see you know what happens we hope you get back to uh to dartmouth and um maybe some days sit in one of these seats you know as as part of that process but we're we're really proud of you and thankful

011for all you've done and contributed over the last two years so thank you mr news yeah thank you madam chair evan congratulations and all the best to you it's been a pleasure you know watching over the past couple of years as you've given the report you've brought us a lot of information which is very much you know appreciated as to what's going on at the high school and i just want to take an opportunity to wish you good luck at the holy cross next year you know just remember you're a thousand feet in a year so it's a lot colder there than it is here yeah i know and you get more snow than we do here so i know i look at the the weather app sometimes and i get concerned [Laughter] too late

012now yeah is it too late now that that's it but uh seriously you know wish you nothing but the best and you know make us proud which i know you will do and come back and see us mr oliver thank you well congratulations as my colleagues have said i wish you the best evan it's been a pleasure having you with us um certainly i learned a lot about what's happening uh throughout the months uh at dartmouth high school i just i have a question for you i hope that's okay i'm putting you on this that's definitely okay um with your experience here being sitting up here um what's your biggest takeaway do you have any takeaways from this experience of serving to to represent dartmouth high school to the committee yeah well i mean this

013is a political body and i think when you think of politics today it's so divisive i mean when you look at cnn and fox news or whatever you watch there's so much you know just division and i think it's really nice to see that even when you all disagree you can always respect each other and really you know work hard to make the school system a better place for all of the students so i just really appreciate all of the work you guys put in as well so thank you that was very complimentary i didn't i didn't set him up for that [Laughter] well thank you very much i i certainly appreciate those uh those words and best of luck in your future in the efforts thank you so much thank you thanks i have

014to laugh i was doing reading today about student success and one of the things that recommended that um when you are when students are engaged in co-curricular activities you ask them to do like a one-minute writing or speaking exercise and one of the things you are supposed to ask them as a best practice is what's the biggest takeaway how does this tie mr oliver is engaging in best educational practices without even knowing it um but you know i'm i'm very glad that you've been part of this committee i appreciate your updates and your input on important issues um and you know as we've had conversations about a student representative you're just the kind of student that i thought would be great to have at the table someone who is interested in history and politics and

015is looking to do that for their career i think it is a great opportunity or something to be able to put on your resume i hope you have put this on your resume that you've served in this role because it is a good taste of sort of what local politics is all about so um we appreciate you being here i hope it was somewhat useful for you and thank you very much for your service yeah as i said thank you so much for having me thanks have a good day [Applause] all right so the next item on our agenda is the spotlight on kids at the dartmouth middle school i'll allow uh dr gifford's sure introduced i think mr ross is here yes exactly so tonight we have um assistant principal mr pete rossi uh

016with adam desjardins and jamie geil so they'll be presenting the good stuff that is going on at dartmouth middle school we'll let the crew get assembled here thank you very much for the opportunity we we appreciate this chance to put the spotlight on our engineering and technology program this evening we've got about a 10-minute uh presentation for you i'm going to make some introductions and then i'm going to get out of the way and let the talent take over to steal a phrase from mr nunes this this program is living the dream presently and we want to share with you uh all of the things that are going on within the classroom and uh the after school programs as well so with the eighth grade tonight if you could just raise your hand when i

017call it we have uh kelsey riley we have seth vasconceles we've got brian we we've got lily scarapony and we've got ahmad rami i'm going to hand this over now to mr desjardins and mr jamie geil as they are the teachers here for this program pleasure thank you very much school committee for hosting us and thank you to our building admin as well um before i let these students talk because that's who we really want to hear from um before i begin though i just want to talk about our partnership with the navy the naval undersea warfare center education division we work out of the branch out of newport rhode island that branch has been absolutely fantastic for us we have so far brought in a total of about over 40 thousand dollars in terms

018of educational materials technology tools all sorts of wonderful things they've also brought with us a well probably about five or six different engineers that have come in um have taught the students a lot of various things in some of the after school programs they've also helped with our partnership with first robotics the same first robotics that operates here at the high school we run the lower division into there we operate a really nice feeding program to help feed the high school and the program's been absolutely wonderful it teaches kids a lot of great wonderful skills a lot of awesome leadership skills but even then just life skills on using tools you know teaching kids how to use power tools is always a very interesting endeavor as you can imagine um and i i love every

019second of it as does mr gile so we can't talk enough about how great that program is i'm just going to pass it off to mr gile who'll see speak a few things and then we're going to have some of our students come up and talk about the great things that they do thank you yeah so before before we have the kids come up i'm going to leave this up here for you guys so you can just use this one i just want to say it's been nice to have everybody support our admin the navy uh the dartmouth education foundation when we have new ideas we want to change what we're doing with our curricula you know we want to get new stuff uh there always seems to be some place to get it and

020it's not a matter of if we can do it it's when so that's been it's been really nice and now we'll have the kids tell you about some of the things that we've been doing okay so in seventh grade we learned about forces the forces that act on bridges that that are basically everywhere so like we learned about torsion torsion tension sheer and compression uh our project was to build a bridge like this that could hold upwards of like 60 pounds which is insane once you consider that this bridge is entirely made of balsa wood which is the flimsiest thing on planet earth so we had so we had to do that it was really fun to learn about the different types of bridges we built a truss bridge which has this pattern on it

021yeah and it was insane to see how much these bridges could hold like when we put them under the press they started collapsing after 40 50 60 pounds and it was really fun overall fun process to do um so in eighth grade we were tasked with designing a multi-tool we acted like designers that were hired by idea which is the ripoff version of ikea and the whole point of the project was to come up with a tool that would be shipped with the furniture that idea sold there were certain requirements that we had to follow and it had to be like a certain size and it had to have the logo on it it also had to kind of be small and practical so that it could come with the parts tinkercad was used to

022design the tools and then we later tested them in class to make sure that they were functional which is what this is um so in seventh grade we were also learning about the different forms of communication and one of those forms is smartphones i'm sure most people have them and it's a very good form of communication and um so we are designing them on tinkercat which um it's like a 3d printing sort of and it's so fun to design them because like you can like experiment with it and like play with it play around with it it's also fun to like design stuff with different things for example if you're designing it for a photographer you need to include more like storage if you're designing it for a teenager also more storage so this is

023one of the example phones i'm not really sure so they haven't uh they're just doing the project the first time and that was not quite complete but if you could see it up close it has all the ports and they've decided where the plugins go and eventually and at the end of the project we're also going to make a short commercial trying to sell the phone to our specific group so this is going to be a model house and this is kind of like an unfinished model for it um so right now we just have the back wall and two of the sidewalls we're not completely finished this is gonna be the top part of it with the roof uh there's gonna be like trusses that run across the roof to support it make sure

024it doesn't collapse uh there's also subflooring and this i forget the name of it the joists of the of the floor the flooring so it doesn't collapse as well um the walls don't really have anything else except the skinning for it that's pretty much else that's going to be added to it there's going to be no other it's like ceiling it's going to be an open ceiling on the house and what is it there's only going to be a few windows in a door there's four roles to the designing of this house there are the contractor lead carpenter designer and structural engineer i'm the designer of the project out of the four people that i'm working with and my job is to design the furniture of the house and the furniture will be used to

025test if the base of the house is going to keep them up and i'm going to be using a website called thinkercad to 3d model them and print a lamp a side table and a little couch and we'll be using like a quaker kind of to put the house on with the furniture inside and it'll shake the stuff around see if it'll work so that was the main objective of it thank you thank you um so sea perch is one of the few after-school programs that are offered in the middle school and currently we're building underwater robots with naval engineers and it's a really fun experience and you really get to appreciate how much effort engineers put into the stuff that they're making um you get to use power tools and you learn about uh

026electro electricity electrical engineering it's extremely hands-on and i believe you learn a lot as you advance through the building steps everyone in the after school program always looks like they're enjoying themselves uh we all met in the fall in to compete in fll which is called the first lego league competition that happens yearly because of the limited number of teams due to pandemic fll was canceled this year so we hosted a competition with regional teams at the middle school and we placed in second this fall the tasks were based on transporting cargo we split we all split up into three groups and built different parts for different tasks on the table here's an example of one of the tasks we did go ahead so hold on first so the table is usually much bigger than

027this we just brought it closer to the microphone don't do this every night um so the table is much bigger there's usually not a lot more tasks so rather than bring the whole thing and take the time to set it up we just brought the engine part of the tasks where the robot needs to turn the engine over so he's got to run that yeah i'll turn it around i think if you put it maybe right up could you put it right up here so we can see it right we can put it right here yeah right over here if you want you might be able to capture it up close view probably but that's okay [Laughter] that's great wow this is second so one of the team members that couldn't be here tonight uh

028rio falk built this real quick because that you know we're not meeting right now and we wanted something to bring so so this is this is rio that uh concludes the presentation if you have any questions for the kids of the teachers uh feel free mr news thank you madam chair just curious the the bridge did it hold 60 pounds yes it is can i ask anyone who answers the question to step up to the microphone so our people in the audience can hear us at the home audience yes it did hold up 60 pounds in fact i think the record was 88 pounds for the bridge just that size yeah just this size fantastic thank you good job other questions comments mr oliver thank you dr jenkins so i love to hear anytime there's

029collab collaboration happening i think that's an awesome thing and to to have this kind of relationship that you do it sounds like with the naval undersea uh program and have those engineers come in and speak to you in addition to bringing in funds or or materials for the projects is is wonderful i guess my question is is so there i i heard an after-school program and then i also heard this is part of the the class as well so can we just speak to the differences like what what is done in the classroom versus specifically the after school programs what's offering um sure absolutely so currently uh the navy since the hardware that they provide us a lot of 3d printers later laser cutters tools uh things like that um that's primarily used mostly in

030the classroom um in terms of engineers coming in we come in we have a couple of different after-school programs we do have the robotics lego league that we talked about we have the underwater robots we also run a marble course which is a little different but a lot of physics and engineering that we use for that and then also the navy this year has added in a metal jewelry working class um where kids are actually firing their own metal um and making their own jewelry pieces well very cool cool thank you very much any time and great presentation to all of you this way yeah i just wanted to extend on that so how did this um program in this relationship um with the the navy how did that how was that established i think

031i mean i think it's clearly amazing and i have to imagine it came from your initiative so i'd love to hear a little bit more uh yeah so uh thankfully for uh myself i you know the man with connections i supposedly um when i was in college i was actually doing a lot of underwater robotics things and i was able to partner up with them um it also helped too that i have a parent that worked at the navy base at the time um so i was able to get involved with that and then over time especially you know with our classroom i just was thrilled with the stuff they were doing in new bedford fall river newport public schools and i decided i kind of wanted to bring it over here and they were

032more than willing to help us out well i'm very glad you have those connections so thank you for it sounds like a great program it looks like everyone's enjoying it like tremendously i mean it's to me it's you know again it speaks to that hands-on you know really i mean you're combining so many different elements the physics and the math and then you know again using hand tools i mean just that for uh i mean i'm not sure anybody would trust me around us all so i'm just really impressed by everything that these you know these kiddos are doing i'm you know it's uh it's really exciting to hear and the skills that they're going to come into the high school with um so thank you for all your hard work and uh kids keep

033having fun thank you yeah i really not much to add to what my colleagues have shared but what i was most impressed with um being uncomfortable public speaking the ability for you to sure you had some notes but most of you didn't even look at your notes and even if you did good for you because that's what they're there for but you clearly were are so engaged and interested and and just you know living and breathing this these activities and this learning that you're doing i was quite impressed with your ability to articulate your project um and and kind of coming back to maybe you forget a word and then it's it's there and you know it because you're doing it and that was quite impressive for middle school students and very good that's all

034great yeah thank you very much it was really fun to hear from you all it sounds like some really exciting projects and i'm glad to see you all working on these things and engaging the students with this this kind of work is super important so thank you thank you perfect thank you for having me everyone thank you thank you have a great night guys [Applause] all right and then our students you don't have to stay if you'd like to leave you're welcome to leave if your ride is here or whatnot um you're welcome to go at any at any point in time you don't have to stay you're welcome to go we know you have a busy night they're nervous right it's really okay all right so the next item on our agenda is old

035business with a fiscal year 23 budget um i will turn it over to mr kiley thank you dr jenkins so during the budget discussion at the last school committee meeting on february 14th committee asked for some additional information i provided the committee with information regarding enrollment trends going back 20 years i provided you with the breakdown of the esser funding um there was also a question regarding health insurance and we have some i guess fairly positive news that we've received since uh since that last meeting that the increase for next year will be 2.2 percent so it is an increase but it could be worse could be worse yeah a little bit worse yeah um you would also ask for job descriptions uh regarding the directors of uh teaching and learning and dr gifford provided

036those to you so i guess first i mean we'd be happy to discuss any budget information questions you might have um but certainly you know we could address any of those particular documents as well that we provided mr nunes thank you madam chair uh thank you mr kylie for the information and uh dr gifford for the two job descriptions uh i don't have a problem with either one of the job descriptions so i thought they were very thorough it was great to see that there's cross-referencing between both of them you know working in uh tandem and overseeing each other uh you know the esser grants i think you know is you know that funding is where it's going is kind of basically i think what we talked about back in the fall uh and i

037think at that time we talked about the fact that it was going to be a fluid document depending where it ended up and what we had to do so you know i'm i'm good with that question i have is have you heard anything from cip committee yet nothing nothing interesting i have um i actually the director of budget and finance for the town did reach out to me regarding meeting with the finance committee on the budget not on capital um and at this point i said well we you know the school committee has yet to really have any significant amount of uh discussion or deliberation regarding the budget we wouldn't be ready yet and that i'd let them know when we might be um but i certainly don't want to jump in uh you know

038a finance committee meeting without you folks having had the opportunity to um you know to weigh in and make sure that we answer any questions that you might have so um so that's where we are with that i the mr barnes did promise me a um a town financial projection um which i expect any time now but i i was hoping i'd have it for tonight but i don't have it um you know it's an important item yeah you know for context okay okay i'm good thank you other questions i haven't mr oliver thank you dr jenkins so um thank you for providing all the information uh dr gifford as well as uh mr kiley for all the requests that we had my questions overseeing looking at the two new positions that we're breaking up

039well the one position that we're bringing up to two just a couple of just a couple of thoughts on this is i see in the line item budget that one's uh budgeted at 120 and the other one's at 116 i believe is that is that what we're thinking for uh the salary range is that the max salary range where where are we at at that no we're actually thinking more than that and as i said to you in an email um we put an estimate an estimate in the budgets for various positions but depending on obviously who applies the credentials they have the experience it could certainly increase by that and um mr kylie's making adjustments and room for that so where would the additional funding be coming from are they grant for grants or

040because it's budgeted in the um in the operating budget the lines at 116 and 120. right so actually so the the budget lines historically for the director of teaching and learning salary are net of um our net of grant funding so i mean it might be helpful for me to provide a breakdown for you so you can understand where it was in um in the fy 22 budget because what we budgeted in fy 22 was for an assistant superintendent that was at the time the the you know thought in our request less grant funding so um we actually only budgeted a hundred thousand dollars in the fy 22 operating budget for that position we then in fy 23 have budgeted for mrs oliveira's salary up until when she leaves in mid-september the two position new

041positions and then less less grant funding so reduced by grant funding so i can provide you with a little breakdown of that just so you can visualize it it's actually pretty easy if you put it on paper but not as easy if you don't know you know you have to talk it through but um so i'd be happy to provide that for you okay um so just a couple more things um so so with that being said uh because these are i'm first of all i'm all for these positions i i think they're needed i love the idea of breaking them up i think that makes a lot of sense um have we done because these are new positions and you know we oversee the policy in the budget has there been any kind of

042salary surveys done for curriculum directors um i'm trying to remember we have access to that through the mass association usually uh okay i can't remember if i looked at that recently like last year or okay really haven't to tell you the honest truth okay no not in preparation for this science preparation i i'd kind of i'd kind of like to see that because i i just i have some serious concerns with with salaries and it seems as and this is nothing against anyone it just seems to be that there's starting to become as as two percent on say a step five or six teacher versus two percent on a a high-level administrator is a big difference and it seems to be that there's a growing disparity disparity between our administrators and our teachers um and

043i wouldn't i honestly um you know with some of the research that i've done i wouldn't be comfortable going over you know 125. um that's just me i'm only one one member um but i i've you know at some point we've got to really really carefully look at these salaries and the other thing was that i had said i mentioned to you dr gifford was once again just me just my thoughts for what it's worth is i i'd love to see these positions you know that be based out of whether it's the high school middle school as well as one of the in one of the elementary schools and maybe have a day which they report to bush street but i you know in my experience i see curriculum directors working really diligently and hard

044with building administrators as well as teaching staff so i would like to see them out in the field as much as possible i i i'm glad you explained it because as i said to you i'm like i really don't get what you're talking about because um the person is the people now are housed at central office because they do so much more work with central office as well like especially even professional development planning um meeting with our leadership team like it's in and out of offices all day long you know i'm part of that as well especially since michelle left the residency reporting uh supervision just there's so many different tasks that happen but as far as being in the buildings um currently of course we just have tracy you know she does attend staff

045meeting she'll go to the cpt meetings she'll attend the teacher leader meetings at the high school etc so she is involved in that kind of work already without being physically in a building at all times so i just think as a um you know if they weren't in our building then i'm down way down in people i wouldn't have michelle's gone so if you take the two that we're trying to build out they're gone it's just then i'd be running back and forth to buildings and working so okay yeah but but the work itself does happen in the buildings as well so okay thank you yep you're welcome are we do we need to vote on these on these job descriptions because you put together the draft you sent us the information and i did

046post them today to tell you this yeah but i'm not sure um we're creating positions creating new positions it's kind of a split position so i guess you could to make it official that'd be great yeah would you like to make that motion now do we want to do that now for those for those job descriptions i'll make them i'll make the motion that we approve the um the two um new job positions for uh the uh element of the primary and then the secondary um directors of curriculum instruction and assessment all right so we have a motion by mr oliver a second by mr noon is there any discussion on that item i would just ask at what point um is this committee going to set parameters for salaries on these two new positions

047i just have to say i do have fear on that because again if i speak about my hope is that people in house are going to apply and i know what you're saying but with the contracts that have have been negotiated even with the daa for example with the assistant principal role the disparity that happens between a principal position and that so if one of those people applies they may already be making a certain salary that they're going to increase their days right their time well i guess they know what i mean i understand dr gifford but on the flip side then maybe they don't apply for it right but then we're not growing leaders i mean my position is trying to grow good leaders and keep them in the district and if it takes

048you know that that's my position no i i certainly respect it and i appreciate it um i'm just not comfortable in a salary range of 130 to 140 for these positions i'm not okay other comments yeah i mean unfortunately i'm going to disagree with my colleague here because big surprise i've agreed on a few things that's true i can't remember when but we have yeah but in all services i i think uh in no disrespect you know the old adage you pay peanuts you get monkeys and i don't mean that in a disrespectful way but i think we have to leave that salary scale scout salary range to you know dr gifford and mr kiley to to see who we've got yeah if if we're getting a teacher per se then you know the 116

049may 120 may work but if we're getting an administrator who's trying to build into a leadership role the 116 may not work so i think we have to we have to leave that open-ended and let just let the chips fall where they may i have this way i agree with uh john on this one i just um you know i think we're we we want great people into these roles we want to you know and again i just i i think would be helpful to see what comparative districts are offering i know you've said you've done a little bit of research there chris by the same token it's a unique position i'm not sure that how many other districts are offering this kind of position as well but i i think you know we get

050a lot for what we spend in this district and i think at some point we we have to pay for quality folks like i i you know i don't want to say across the board i mean we have excellent teachers we have so many people who are working for in my mind not enough but i'm worried that if we will lose folks you know to your point to other administrative roles so um that would be you know i'm i'm hesitant to to limit to an unless i have a little bit more research around what those numbers would be and if it's really you know if i think i want to hear a little bit more and make sure that we have that openness so you can negotiate that's well i think we can just approve

051i'm fine with the proven job description as is and then we can come back with some some research with it yeah okay much more to add but i was i was thinking i did but you came circle with that like and i was just listening chris and i appreciate what you're saying um you know you pay peanuts but we do have excellent you know bang for our buck here and you know it could be a great opportunity for a teacher to kind of step into this role as a stepping stone as well and so i don't want to limit us on that in that end as well but um you know when we start looking at we should be across the board in terms of what can we afford and what what do we what

052how do we show our value with what we pay for a position but then therein lies the disparity i think that my colleague is referring to in terms of historically we we underpay our our teachers in this district comparatively so i would just want to kind of balance that out i would you know personally i was involved in a situation where an external hiring authority tried to clamp down on um on salaries for people coming into a certain role and then what happened when you do the math sometimes you're asking maybe someone to give more time that they're when you add the extra time that they're working and their salary it doesn't add up to a raise right you're actually working more that's my secret less money so i don't i don't want to want

053to hamstring dr gifford on that and um you know i do think developing internal leadership and internal talent is really important we want to reward people who do good work in this district that having been said i do understand mr oliver's concerns and so i think i think i would say is that i think what the committee is saying is to do sort of we hope that you do your fiduciary duty right that if the person comes in and their salary does warrant that level that is where we would prefer to be right if we have an exceptional candidate who's already making that money and we need to go a little higher i would be okay with it but i think our default has to be the lower end of the salary range we don't

054start from there we start we don't start from high we start from low that would be my personal preference yes i was just adding it you know i think the other acknowledgement is that you know we're really expanding a role here just you know certainly we're we're filling up this gas line i always talk about vertical articulation and that's something that's a gap but also there's a big pr component and that you know if you look at new bedford they're hiring their own pr people and these folks are actually you know and setting up a separate role for them and these folks are actually like taking on that role as part of this job description which is significant here because i think we've all acknowledged that this is a a space that we want to

055you know improve upon so um again just you know when we think about this it's not just about the curriculum piece it is this other you know significantly like pr you know reaching out to the community piece and so there is that other kind of new job that you know i don't know if that was part of um the existing with miss tracy's as much pretty much do it yeah yeah so yeah okay as for the pr piece have we ever considered going with an outside pr firm it's more money it's actually not that bad i've done my research it's actually not that bad um and it takes a lot off people's place it's true other questions so we have our our motion on the floor is there any other discussion about the job descriptions

056about the job descriptions the motion on the floor right now we'll come back to the budget after we take care of that motion all right hearing no further discussion all in favor aye opposed abstentions so that motion carries unanimously so we have approval for those job descriptions now we're back on to the budget um are there other questions about the budget well i'm waiting to see if anyone else does i'm going to ask a question mr colley so i just want to make sure i'm correct we have about it looks like in fiscal year 22 a little around a million a little over a million um in salaries on our esr grant right and that's that's about what we're saying same 16 fte a little bit of salary increases i just want to highlight that

057because it is two percent of our budget right that you know come around fiscal year 25 right that's our money's not there um yes that's 16 people that's a lot of people and none of these people i'm because our you know our viewers might not see this but they're special education teachers facilitators classroom teachers social workers guidance counselor instructional specialists teachers assistants nurse i mean these are not like fluff right these are providing core educational services they're necessary they're all necessary positions yeah absolutely that are being funded by grant money that was going to run out in a couple more fiscal years so i think we need to continue to highlight that i don't that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be doing this but i'm i tend to be fiscally conservative and this this makes

058me a little bit nervous i know we have to do it there's that's the only way you can spend this money it's not the only way but realistically there's only so much like after school programs and this and that you can do you really need people to do this work um but it puts us in somewhat of a precarious position right um and i just want to want to highlight that because it does make me a little nervous i'm sure it's mister yeah we're nervous we keep talking about it right absolutely it'll be exhausted in fiscal 24. right so two more years yeah well two more one more budget here right talking 23. so it's really only one more budget year and um you know we'll we'll do our best to mitigate um the impact

059but it it's going to happen regardless of our best efforts there there will be an impact at the end yeah i mean unless right the dreaded word right you're looking at likely an override because i don't think that the the town can simply absorb that it would be cuts elsewhere in the town budget which it's not like there's a lot of fat in the town budget either so it's it's just an issue that um i think we just have to remind people out that we're going to have to do something about this um i appreciate though the detailed information on on where that money is going yeah that was helpful does anybody have any other questions about the budget that was my point too so all right so we don't have any other um we

060don't have to take action on the budget tonight correct right let's taco can you remind us of the schedule again i think it's just good for the public to hear that it is so um our next meeting on the 21st will uh be a school committee meeting in which you can deliberate more on the budget but it will also be our our budget hearing okay so be an opportunity for the public to opine and you know and um so we're you know we're looking forward to that of course and um from there uh we originally thought we'd have a joint meeting that's not gonna be happening in april with the select board which is probably good from a budget perspective in that you'll have the opportunity to decide when you're going to vote it could

061be that next meeting after the public okay budget hearing and that's what it's scheduled for but it doesn't mean it has to be uh but yeah and then we'll move forward from there and um like i said they did reach out to us regarding the finance committee but i want to be sure that you know you folks have your say before okay before we go before them so okay thank you thank you all right next on our agenda is uh new business so the superintendent's update okay um it's funny because evan did such a nice job ross i always ask the principals any little tidbits you want me to share tonight so ross sent me things he he thought evan was not going to share but evan was all over it so he did mention

062about the eighth grade coming to the high school tomorrow also it's uh let's see i've got a not a d but yes um the counseling department here also goes to the middle school to talk about uh class scheduling etc so and also we talked today that he is going to plan a parent night an eighth grade period which will be good uh probably the first week in april okay great eight kiddos can come but everything else evan talked about for the high school so that was good um and if you notice i did send you today a link for the tedx in case you wanted to watch it but it's postponed so that date that i sent was we found out later as evan said it was postponed um so a couple other things that

063are happening planning we're already planning for k through 12 summer reading and once again we'll be focusing on voice and choice the last few years it's been going really well the teachers are everyone throughout the district i know even ms ganthner participates as a as a facilitator of a book and you can offer out a book and and the kids get to choose as we always i joke i stopped because two years ago not one kid hit my book that was it i said that's it i'm not doing again um anyway the second session of the sale program began last week and with new offerings we received overwhelming positive feedback through a survey that we did from parents etc said that kids really loved school and and had a great time doing the projects and

064all of that so we look forward to another wonderful session for that um we are we just began advertising for help for camp invention which will start off again this summer so it's nice to see things begin to be you know be begin again uh that will be the week of june 27th through july 1st oh that's my mother at the high school i did attend the aasa conference last week and uh well this was the week before already and a lot of the sessions as you can imagine with focus on social emotional learning i did come away with some um a great site group cook cook it's a cook organization and it's really about mental health and preventing teen suicide and so i've reached out to them they're free resources free courses for parents

065but i want to not just throw it out there for folks stay here take a look at this county i've asked if they could do like a virtual presentation for our admin our social workers perhaps and that we can then share those resources uh with our staff as well as again parents and um it was really really a good session so we had that well maybe with a youth advocate too that way yeah you know it's a good idea yeah that's a good idea uh we wrapped up the accelerated math academy in february we had about 100 students that attended that we'll be running that again in april i was very pleased that we had some high school students jump in which is you know not always the case they don't want to deal with

066that stuff project time recently met again in person so that was nice and again you met the two teachers that are leading helping facilitate those meetings they've done a fabulous job they this session was discussing best practices for teaching after pandemic very relevant quinn shared and i believe the other schools did too they had read across america where the kiddos could come dressed as their favorite character and potter will be running their um fun run next week and they're hoping to match their twenty thousand dollar raise that they did previous year team chair training begins next week i mentioned that last uh last meeting we're providing a new training for new folks that are new to the district as well as a review for some of the uh people that have already run chairs it

067things like roll of the chair meeting regulations working with advocates etc and then of course um we are you know preparing for tomorrow night's meeting i did have something i wanted to mention um i know you've all received like well over 500 and probably 50 emails and petition and you know supporting keeping the indian um but in in looking at someone asked me about minutes for the diversity meeting which we said some have been approved and some have not but in looking at that i just wanted to bring something up that the committee expired its appointments as of december 2021 so i became concerned with legal procedures of the subcommittee holding a meeting when the their tenure expired according to your minutes in december and i was i became concerned about that so i i

068wanted to throw it out there and i know i was just like oh i just thought about it and it was a one-year appointment so i that was all i had i leave it at that thank you so i'll come back around to that i just want to for my um update i just want to remind everyone i think mr oliver had asked us several meetings ago about the school committee sponsoring uh teenagers so i will take the lead on getting the money in to the dartmouth education foundation or i've let them know that we are we are committed to sponsoring a team you all want to write the check for them because it is tax deductible so as opposed to me putting the check in so we can't vend them online i think you

069would all prefer to write the check to them so if you google dartmouth education foundation it will tell you or you can give me the check written to them and i can i can give it to them um but that way you will all enjoy i believe it's six is it still sixty sixty yeah because there's five of us three hundred i'm doing nothing no no that's fine that would be sixty um write it out to def give it to me or you can give it to mary because mary's also on the board um and we can we can make sure that they get it they know we're good for it online two oh you can donate online okay and we know where to find you if if we're not all clear not at all

070and please just mind all right so the second thing i want to talk about um is about the meeting for tomorrow night i want to um clear i do want to clear up some misinformation that's been circulating at our last meeting or the 24th um we had a conversation about setting up the dates for this um i asked for help um you all agreed to help um and so at that we set the meeting for the eighth for tomorrow night um i sent out an email i think to mr oliver miss guenther and dr gifford were copied i ask you to reach out to the equino wampanoag at the end of january and i took on reaching out to the mash p wampanoag in the past at wampanoag i know ms genther has also reached

071out to the equino wampanoag we've reached out specifically to to chairwoman um andrews several times right and so there's been some misinformation circulating that they were not invited they were invited we have we have reached out to them we did we did invite them um i reached out to my task where to reach out to the pokas at wampanoag and the mashpeenwampanog and they asked me what the parameters are and i told them the same thing that would would tell the i think i copied ms genther on this right 10 to 15 minutes if you want to do it one person if you want to do it three people however you want that's your time for that so the mash biwampanoag have agreed to come they have a tribal representative the tribe has voted officially

072on the issue they have a representative who represents the tribe's position on the mascot she will be coming along with the chair of the mash p wampanoag tomorrow evening um megan running dear paige who is a member of the pokhacet wampanoag has asked to come as a representative of the pokaset wampanoag tribal council they have also voted i i told her the same thing 10 to 15 minutes however you want to divide that up that's up to you several members of the equino wampanoag reached out to me including a former chair of the equino wampanoag they noted that the equino wampanoag has not taken an official position the tribe on the issue of mascots so there's no effect can i correct you madam chair it's not a mascot i'm it's not a mascot symbol the

073symbol it's just it's not no one running down the field that's fine the symbol whatever we would like to call it the symbol the equino wampanoag have not taken official position on this and so that those members of the aquino want benoit wanted me to represent there or to articulate that there is no official tribal position one of the members of the tribe given that the tribe has no official position asked if he would be able to present at this meeting at the meeting tomorrow given there is no official tribal position i said yes because there is no one to represent the tribe because the tribe does not have an official position yet there is some misinformation circulating that this person is a representative of the equino wampanoag he's not he's an individual who asked

074to speak and i said yes that is the only request i received from a member of the tribe to speak at tomorrow's meeting outside of the invitation that we extended to the chair so i just want to say that i did not invite someone else to speak as a representative of the tribe that person contacted me and asked me to speak after several members of the tribe articulated that the tribe has no official position and no person is empowered to speak for the tribe so right now we have the mash p wampanoag lined up to come tomorrow the pocasset wampanoag lineup to come tomorrow i have told some people who are in support of keeping the symbol they want to have other people speak and i said i have not been empowered by my committee

075to do that so i have not invited those other people who have articulated a desire to speak at our meeting to come to speak if this committee so directs me to not invite mr lopes that is the prerogative of the committee i am not i am a member of this committee and i will follow the decisions of the committee but i can't have these conversations outside of meetings because it's a violation of open meeting law and so i'm trying to do the best that i can um with the requests that are coming to me within the parameters that we established which were the mash p wampanoag the equino wampanoag and the picasso wampanoag and one representative the national congress of american indians did not respond the north american center the north american indian it says

076north american indian center of boston correct ask they represent several tribes they asked to speak i said yes because this is an organization representing multiple tribes as we had slotted again if the committee has a problem with that i can make changes but i can't have that conversation outside of a meeting and i'm just trying to do the best i can within the parameters that have been set up for the committee so i think the first issue that we need to tackle is the question about the equality committee the diversity inequality subcommittee and their appointments i would be inclined to extend their appointment so that they can attend tomorrow's session but that is a decision that we all have to collectively make i mean okay so i would say yes we should extend you know

077especially since they really haven't met you know just given the the limitations of covet i would say you know certainly extend and then we can you know step back and reevaluate that one on that if we're dealing with that topic first i would say yes i would you know think that we would extend them to the remainder of the school year you know and then we can reva re-evaluate so since some of that work you know has been done but mr oliver thank you madam chair i guess my question to that would be do we know that if everyone wants to continue their appointments i have we emailed i will the only thing i can say in response to that is that we emailed everyone the committee miss amaral forwarded the agenda to the committee

078no one indicated any intention or desire to step down and from what i have heard from people again not everyone communicates with me they plan on attending the meeting tomorrow so from what i've heard they i have not heard anyone say they do not intend to continue i i'm go ahead and say i mean i would uh i would be inclined to at least extend to this next meeting and we you know we haven't met on a regular basis but for no real reason other than life was crazy coveted um and i think we need to be sort of gracious about the fact that there was no uh other reason we didn't meet or weren't consistent or weren't up to par with um attempting to be [Music] right and correct and you know i can't

079think of the words right now but i would be inclined to say my my opinion is that we should at least extend it throughout through this meeting and perhaps it would have to be on a future meeting agenda so what thinking about our meeting schedule we're meeting tomorrow we could extend it for a week two weeks right then our next individual meeting is the 15th okay so at tomorrow night's meeting if we extended it for a week we could ask the question that you asked because the committee will be there in open session whether or not people would like to attend or we could say notify us by the end of the week if you do not want to continue i'm i'm mixed i'm certainly mixed based on the um the growth that this has

080taken on in the community and i would just legally speaking are we in the parameters of the law to just extend it just to reappoint at the day but just reappoint the committee i don't think there's any there's any legal principle that prevents us from doing that if we establish the committee and we establish the committee we establish the membership i don't know i mean i did mr knit against no disrespect i am against extending that uh at this point in time that committee's uh appointment whether it be for a day or a year or two years at this point in time number one their actual term per se has expired type of deal number two at the 11th hour we're trying to have a discussion on this to say do we want to extend

081it number three we have nothing in writing from any of those participants that they wish to have it extended so that we can see who wishes to extend their appointment and number four more importantly to be perfectly honest with you i don't know how many meetings you've had as a committee i i don't know that but i'd like to know who was at the meetings now i know there were a couple as i look at uh looks like you there's a couple of as i'm looking at the agenda for tomorrow night there's a couple of sessions in the summertime and that's tough to get everybody together with vacations and i understand that i don't know if you had any meetings before that type of deal so as to you know what the what the attendance

082was that those at those meetings to see whether or not and again there are no parameters to say you know you have to make 75 of the meetings to be in good standing and and such so and you know is there anyone else in the community that may want to step in so that's that's my concern at this point in time i will just note that as of an hour ago we're all quite willing to have a meeting with these members of the committee tomorrow right and so i think for at least one day we ought to extend um and have the invitation that we extended to them so that they can attend this meeting if we don't want to continue beyond tomorrow i think that's fine um but we were all okay with with

083them continuing on miss ambrose yeah and to to john's question uh all of the meetings that we've had the few meetings that we've had were all posted publicly and are available to be seen on youtube one meeting i was unable to make i actually just sort of watched it from afar but um so and they were well attended but it certainly is a great idea to revisit reforming i mean there are other issues that that committee should be tackling in addition to the one that was scheduled to be discussed tomorrow and i i just think it would be unfair to you know it would nobody said hey i'm done with that committee and we've sent the meeting the minute that it was posted um there are there's no shady dealings going on there i've to

084clear up some other misconceptions that are being discussed in the community but i would i would personally like to at least extend it through tomorrow and certainly revisit so that other folks i have other things to contribute to that committee but i am more than happy to step away and to allow someone else to sit in and represent those same you know where i what i bring to it other folks can can equally bring to it um but i feel that it's sort of in it's it's happening it was scheduled i think it's unfair and i don't know why we wouldn't want to just move forward with it um but i agree that perhaps other folks would want to serve on that committee you know for enough for the next term perhaps sorry no i

085was just going to make a motion that we extend it until our next school committee meeting that's the second it's then the terms of the existing members of the diversity i second that motion all right so i have a motion by miss wait i have a second by miss amaral further discussion on the motion mr nunes thank you madam chair i have nothing against the members of that committee or anything of that nature i'm just talking procedural wise and such understand no they're we all go 29 7 450 days okay i got that type of deal so it's nothing again it's just a procedural way yeah um i i would also say that i think that we should officially put this on the agenda for the yeah 15th um so 21st sorry my bad my

086dates are mixed up but that we put we haven't we put on the agenda a discussion of the terms and how we're going to reappoint and what we're going to do for that i i we can ask we can ask tomorrow night if people would like to continue but we can also tell them it doesn't guarantee that they're going to be able to continue because we'll be having that discussion on the 21st okay if this motion passes and if to send a letter that says or an email to ms gunther or someone that says i'd like to they would like to stay on the committee just so that we have something in writing yeah okay all right we can we can say that tomorrow evening so other discussion on the motion miss counter on the

08722nd so just to let you know yes but we'll have a discussion again on the 21st about how we want to proceed so we'll figure that out um any further discussion on the motion hearing none all in favor say aye aye opposed no all right so that motion carries three to two all right next moving on to the meeting for tomorrow evening i do need some direction from the committee about how to proceed where to go what to do so so far we have the picasso wampanoag have confirmed the mashpee wampanoag is confirmed we agreed to that at our last meeting the equino wampanoag we have one individual who is asked to speak the tribal chair has not confirmed um we had one organization that we authorized they couldn't make it there's another organization that

088we could that has asked if they can speak so let me take those in order with respect to the equino i think we should proceed with a meeting tomorrow evening because we have people who have agreed to attend the question i would ask the committee is whether they would like to schedule an additional meeting for the equino wampanoag to come speak if they cannot make it on the 8th that's one option that that we could have on the table miss wait just you know in light of you know uh a letter that we all received today from mr ventura you know again and understanding that there isn't um unanimity within the is it possible to invite him to speak also tomorrow night as par during that time frame that we have set aside those 15

089minutes for the begin we have one person that's coming in from one you know perspective we know that he's strongly in favor of the the logo the iteration name so again since we had extended that invitation understanding or hoping that there was going to be uniformity since that's not the case and we're proceeding with representatives of the queen it seems that it would be that are opposed to maintaining the logo it seems fair to also include that's that's just you know my my thinking is that way we could extend the invitation we have this letter that you know it demonstrates that you know again that he feels that that viewpoint is not being reflected it represents a certain segment of um people in dartmouth who are you know aligned themselves with aquinas so again just

090as i know it's kind of coming out he might say it's too last minute but again reflecting on that reflecting on the fact that we don't have a unified view from the quina it seems a way to proceed understand that we're giving each of these nations 15 minutes to speak within that 15-minute time frame can you have it i will also say i want to be clear that i did tell the chair of the equinox that having someone else from her tribe would not diminish her speaking time that's good that's good right i mean she is afforded 10 to 15 minutes so it's not like they've got to fit pro and con and it's a 10 15 they're no sure so she would if he would like to come he would be afforded the same

091full 10 to 15 minutes ms amro so um i just want to clarify um miss andrews has not responded to the invitation has not confirmed attendance correct oh so she may be attending we just don't know of course we want her to um i was wondering if she wasn't speaking because of that they haven't like she she could speak a personal opinion but she is it i was wondering if it was a situation that she couldn't speak on behalf of the tribe as you say no one person right if they haven't brought the issue i i hope she does okay i think you know and i i can certainly cannot speak for a sovereign nation um for any sovereign nation but i think there's certainly some concern um with the um aquina tribe when the

092wampanoags coming during this meeting where there is more than just the two federally recognized tribes um here um that's just my takeaway um i i don't think there's uh and you know i don't want to speak out of turn but i think there's certainly some concern within their sovereign nation about coming to speak speak at a forum where there's going to be other people here besides federally recognized tribes in which i i understand although the ancestry tests and everything and that the time it takes to do that so in respecting um you know the chairwoman andrews i can certainly understand her her hesitation and i have not spoken to her i've just i've heard this through through other members of the tribe i will also say i have heard from the past chair of the

093aquina wampanoag and she has indicated to me that that is not an issue from her perspective so it is not necessarily the position of the full nation there's i'm not going to disagree with you madam chair however there is certainly um you know controversy within every uh nation sovereign nation the united states absolutely and this is just no this is just another just another politicalization in society right now unfortunately mr news yeah thank you man excuse me uh i personally uh with all due respect i mean you know it's bristol county and cape cod and that we have the mashpee and picasso coming type of deal i'm not exactly sure what uh north american indian center of boston is going to bring to the table type of deal it you know i'm not trying to

094throw any water or anything on i don't know of them uh and such i'm not a political sign no disrespect political science person or uh somebody that gets into into the weeds on these things but you know bringing someone down from boston and you know they represent a couple of other i think you said they represent a couple of other tribes or such i i'm not quite sure what they would would bring to the table with uh the uh you know the masterpiece you know uh the aquina wampanoags or anyone down this think of the woods that's my that's my take on the matter so if if you know we didn't have them i would not be upset or anything of that picture i'll just follow it the reason why i said that as i

095received requests from several other tribes that have been recognized by the state some of which we visit when we play athletic competitions to speak and i didn't i don't think we wanted to have i think there was five or six other tribes that that have have sort of inquired about this and so i felt like that that organization representing that group would be more succinct you don't agree with me the committee doesn't have to agree with me that's my reasoning but i i do need direction on how to proceed miss amero nope i was no i think i was you know starting but that's where i was thinking is because we are going into other communities so that is you know is important for us to understand how you know it's being understood outside of

096dartmouth that was you know where i would see the you know the usefulness so um i need direction from the committee if they we like to change for tomorrow evening do we want to schedule an additional meeting i will also say um with respect to mr ventura i've had some conversations in mr pereira um with miss murphy who's on the equality subcommittee about arranging the meeting for the 22nd and one of the things i think that we would like to do while it is for public comment i think we would like to invite someone from each side to open and represent the position of and have a more extended time to talk at that public comment right i think we do need to put time limits on people because if people talk for 10 minutes

097we'd we'd be there till two in the morning we're not gonna hear from very many people but i don't think i think two minutes is enough to hear a few things but i do think we may have so another option to think about is to invite mr ventura mr pereira to be the opening speaker right for that side of the debate we can invite them tomorrow but then also on the 22nd to be and to give them the 10 to 15 minutes right that would be the same as as what happened here so i think we should do that regardless of what happens tomorrow um i that was another thing i wanted to sort of ask you about i want to stay focused on the eighth before we get to the 22nd but i just

098want to throw that out there that that i think is an option for an extended period of time to speak about that position miss emerald do you have your hand up my um i'm withdrawing my hands okay so mr newton okay i don't know about anybody else but we've got the meeting on the 22nd which is which is fine uh i've kind of blocked that date off my calendar we've got the 21st but i don't have with all due respect i have no other time the rest of the month i'm straight out okay it's unfortunate my busiest time of the year right now so yeah i'm retired and you know once i get by april 19th i'll be good but uh so you know we're doing tomorrow night and we're going to do the 20

099you know we've got our school committee meeting the 21st we've got that meeting on the 22nd that's good uh i'm i'm personally i'm good with that okay huh and we got the spelling yeah but so but as far as an agenda like on the 22nd type of deal whoever wants to come god bless them they're more than welcome to come it's an open meeting i would give them three to five personally i'd give them three to five minutes i'm talking about the people in the audience i think we're i think two to three i think is sufficient but i do think that having someone who represents either side to sort of start off close off i don't know would be a good thing because i know mr pereira and mr ventura have put a lot

100of effort into this and so to give them the space and time to talk about and to not say two minutes no no i think it would be appropriate on the 22nd yeah no no i but everyone else two minutes i was going back i was going backwards on that i know you had talked earlier about it you know somebody opening up and getting there right you know 10 or 15 minutes i was i'm i'm good with that but you know the people in the audience two minutes two to three minutes i'm good with that great that's fine all right miss ambrose my hands back up because my comment was similar to the 22nd i i do in terms of like parameters around that i agree that there needs to be a set limit but

101similar to how you testify for um something at the state house i think it's helpful if we sort of hold their hands a little bit or allow those people who are representing the sides i cannot stand talking that way because i i the division is really just making me sick but um you know 340 words on a paper literally is going to take your time that you know to spell it out for them to say no more than 350 words on your paper and if you and your friends have something similar to say then perhaps you pick one of you to come up because like receiving 500 of these emails we use them phone to action for my work we we have action alerts all the time we allow for some personalization that these didn't

102so when i see one i see 50 i see 100 i see 500 to me it's all one it's like a generic kind of spewing out of the same commentary so if they're going to come on either end and say the same thing for or against keeping the image um i think that it's it's not a good use of all of our time i think that if there could be a coordinated effort to have a spokesperson i think that's what i would i think it would make sense to have people who are invested to be the spokesperson but also then the then the community where you get that's where you get your two minutes and i think 340 or 340 years i can give you the accurate i think that's three minutes to be honest

103so we can we can we can perhaps provide some instruction so i just want to clarify on the 22nd are we in the auditorium because i know on the 22nd the after prom has scheduled as planning six o'clock and i would just think would be a huge bottleneck if we tried to do that in here in the 20 seconds i'm assuming that we'd be the auditorium with i mean that seems to be has a huge problem with that that's the only thing we cannot fit in here on the 22nd there's no way you can't do all of virtual [Music] streaming and then then we may have to give some of that up because i think we need i think we need to have the space for people to be able to attend this meeting i

104think it's gonna be tough otherwise you're gonna have people in the hallway this bottleneck so i think i think for the 22nd i think we need to be in the auditorium i agree it's not going to be everything and that's fine people are just going to have to i mean if they want to voice their opinion they're going to have to show up they can see it online but we have to do the 22nd in the auditorium i think there's no ifs ands or buts about that so let me sort of summarize real quick on the 22nd we've decided auditorium opening speaker on each side and what i think what we would like to do is to have two separate podiums so we make sure that there's some alteration just just a thought yeah and

105you know um i know they have towel meeting here maybe we should look at um getting dc tv for this event because they can stream they can go live on cable um versus the streaming and then they also they do town meeting with the two different microphones going back and forth you know yeah i think that makes sense yeah i mean no there's no disrespecting yeah we got to be in there and we got some stuff and i think you're right we've got to be able to it's a really good idea if they're available i hope yeah i hope um can miss gentler can you see if if they will be available on the 22nd that's a good idea and then we'll do two to three minutes after that and i think we also need

106to say this is the time at which the meeting shall end right we're going to say it where we start at 6 30 we're done at 8 30 30. 8 30 9 o'clock maybe 8 30 right and we we say sorry if you want to get up and talk get up and talk first because we're not going to stay till midnight and you have every everybody speaks once before somebody comes back and speaks again great good call agreed um i would say you only get one shot right at the apple but we can we can allow two if if there is time yes miss amara i don't know if we have the infrastructure to facilitate this but i think it would be useful if we do the math we figure out a minute up and

107down the do the math figure out how many folks we can have speak on either side and that first come first serve if you're here uh you know the first 60 people on either side speak kind of thing where i i just feel like there's going to be a bottlenecking and and already the emotional kind of i don't want it i want it i i'm i'm worried about what this is setting up for i'm a little bit confused but that's okay so you we're talking about having two microphones or two podiums correct at that type of deal but is one gonna be four and one going to be against or is everybody i think we do whomever i could be four and i'm on this podium here but i could also be four and be

108on that podium depending where i'm sitting i think we should do for and against and if we run out of say four or against then the other podium keeps going or we can see the balance so i think i think that allows for some some balance do we take a look at and we can also see if there's 50 people on one line and 10 people in another line then maybe we do two in one yeah can i can i just wait sorry um so at the end of this i guess at the end of that meeting what is the expectation are we then coming back at the next meeting and voting are we kind of hopefully crafting some sort of compromise are we i guess i'm trying to see like where where what is

109our next is it april 4th and then we're making a decision is are the diversity and equity folks who now may not be with us after the 22nd for that next meeting will they or whoever's you know part of that meeting will they then be helping sharing their opinions i guess i'm kind of you know i think just to have a sense of like where are we are we are we coming on the fourth when there's now we have this vote that's happening on the fifth are we voting on the fourth you know just just so we kind of understand as a group like what we're um i think we should have a conversation about that on the 21st okay as part of the structure the i mean this is not a this hasn't been

110on the agenda so i don't want to get too far into that okay well either either either that or we have it this is we have a discussion af amongst we have as part of our meeting on the 22nd we have a discussion okay yeah we could we could yeah okay we can do that but i don't think we need to decide that okay that's good um all right so tom so i think we're sounds like we're pretty good on the 22nd yup tomorrow night um mr nunes has articulated i just want to be clear you you want mash p wampanoag picass at wampanoag and that's you're good with that right um i would like to hear from the rest of the committee about who else to speak this way you know i think we've

111i mean my my sense is you know i think it's um it's unfortunate that there's division within quina i think that you know clearly um dr gifford has reached out numerous times and i think we've reached out to that community it's it's difficult i don't think it's fair for us to say that given the circumstances and everything else to say that well you don't want to be in the same room as you know these other folks i i think we've given them the opportunity i think tomorrow is it like and i'd like to say we can you know consider you know including mr ventura but again like i you know or you know maybe expand that invitation i know it's last minute but i don't think we should have a separate date i think we've

112got a kind of you know again we've we've done what we can and i don't think there's a lot of appetite for you know anyone to kind of push this out like much more so i just just being thoughtful i think we've we've tried you you know a lot of people put a lot of heart into this you know and there's a lot of emotion and i think we've got to kind of move forward so miss emerald did you have your hand up or no i i don't have strong feelings um either way i can i can um i can see where you're coming from i see where john's coming from um i i don't i don't really have any uh strong feelings about the other gentleman you know um i just wish it wasn't

113so divisive um and [Music] you know as a community especially after what we've gone through these last couple years it would be refreshing to see uh just a different kind of scenario that's playing out in our community it's uh it's discouraging uh disheartening um but uh i'm i what the committee's pleasure is is where i'll kind of go with this one in terms of planning for tomorrow so i need to i need to email mr lopes and the north american center for what this evening what do i email them they have both indicated that they would like to speak i would like to hear them speak i would also like if mr ventura or any one of the other members of the tribe or all of them that sent us a letter are able to

114come tomorrow they're welcome to come i don't know if anybody is in contact with any of them mr oliver would you be able to reach out to mr ventura and certainly uh try to reach out to some one of some of them so what i would say is that i would extend the same invitation as many of them that would like to speak in 10 to 15 minutes to articulate their position as members of that tribe okay i will certainly do that okay thank you very much for that okay so that i think we've worked through the issues around that and so now i have no other items over the chair to speak about do others have items they wish to speak about miss wait okay so one of my questions again i know that

115i'd reach out to dr gifford who was going to reach out to ms oliveira about getting that list of curriculum pieces so if that i mean i think i have a fairly solid handle but it would be helpful to know for example you know do all fresh so this is regarding like what we actually cover when it comes to native american history beyond third grade which is excellent i know that we do part-time indian and i think you know um i don't know if there are projects that are done like and if that's done across the ninth grade or just within um and of course within the american history courses you know there's quite a bit that's done around the trail of tears i don't know if that's tied back into um you know specifically

116russell's garrison and everything that's involved you know with king phillips warren how much we cover that in the high school just looking at the ap curriculum because i've been you know we go over the dolls act and indian reorganization act and certainly you know jackson's policies but we don't like really so again i'm just curious to see like if we you know if we can kind of look at that and you know think because that's a big question that keeps coming up is if we're truly honoring what are we doing in the curriculum and i also think in all fairness those new social studies standards came out 2019 we're dealing with covid so we have to give everybody a lot of grace on this but if you know i think it's important that we can

117answer this is what we're doing it'd be great you know maybe we can add this we have some amazing like rich um local history too you know all throughout this town like related to that so um again just just you know just kind of thinking that through um well she did as i said to you we follow the math standards yes so many of them talk all through the grade levels about grade grade three is the one specific specific to the um local history etc etc but all of the others i just you know a couple of samples culture religion education um civics but they all have something in them about and what the teachers can bring into it um there was something else you had just met self-selected civics projects in eighth grade yeah

118and then some people some of those kids are actually like have been right you know invested in but those are self-selected so i just just again i think it's important that we talk about this you know you know if you know as a community we make the decision to keep this image and keep this name then you know what does this partnership look like what does this look like in terms of education and then and if we don't what does that look like in terms of education so that's an important component yeah she did have a conversation with the teacher leader at the high school as well as sarah digas who's overseeing all the curriculum at the middle school okay and they basically said the same things you know yeah okay well good yeah i

119think that's helpful to know have some sort of but again you had a good sense of it okay thanks uh other mr news thank you madam chair uh a few good things uh mr peratti was kind enough those of us that were here early to uh as i say to people give us the nickel tour of his uh rebuilt media center yeah computer lab in there control room whatever you know me and computers uh and boy it's nice that you know as as i said to them it's kind of like you watch on television and they'll show a picture of a can right control room of a program and you know there's 20 monitors and 50 people were absolutely great for our students to uh to be able to do that and i know uh

120i haven't talked about the uh students going up to harvard to uh for training there and he was mr parotti was talking about going down to uri in the next couple of weeks to to take a look at theirs so that that is nice that uh i know i went to sports teams and again was talked about but good luck to our hockey team thursday night and uh deca kids uh spring sports are gonna be starting which is good it is nice to see everybody's face mm-hmm that is wonderful type of deal and uh last but certainly not least just uh a reminder about uh the uh music association the music department's uh nesba show on saturday the 19th sure yes yeah that's that's the only place it can be you know that type of

121deal starts at 12 noon with our jv color guard our winterguard uh they're gonna conclude somewhere around four o'clock the uh color guard portion of it uh the awards right after that then the percussion takes over uh our winds are on uh i believe around seven and percussion at 7 30 or vice versa i'm not quite sure and then awards right after that so you know great opportunity to come and see students from all over new england you know from you know new hampshire connecticut you know down the cape rhode island type of deal to uh and have a wonderful day so that's what i have mr news you had asked if we could if someone could come i am unavailable that day okay i'm just you mentioning that yeah i have another appointment so

122i just remember that and if i went home i would have forgotten it so i'm going to tell you that now so i apologize but i have another another commitment all right other issues all right so hearing none so technically our next meeting is tomorrow night at 6 30 here in uh the library media center and and just so i think you know this one other before i let let you go is one of the things we were thinking about is depending on crowd we're likely going to have to set up a live stream in the auditorium if there's many people here i mean we you know so we what we might try to do is reserve the seats for the people who are coming to speak yeah um and there'll be a live stream

123for sort of overflow in the auditorium if that is necessary but just i want to sort of get that out there if anyone's watching tonight because if they can't come till late they may as well just be at home and watch live stream there because so right that we have limited capacity here we will have extended capacity on the 22nd but tomorrow night it will be um if you if you can't fit in there you're going to have to go into the auditorium for a live stream i um i believe that's how the agenda read yes okay i just okay good i just want to make sure that people are aware of that because not everyone reads the agenda right so i just want to say that so our next meeting is tomorrow and then

124our next regular meeting of the school committee is on the 21st um but that will entertain a motion to adjourn second all right emotion by mr nunes a second by everyone now we'll pick mr oliver any further discussion hearing none all in favor aye aye oppose that motion carries unanimously thank you everyone have a good evening [Music] the diversity and equity committee will be here