001all right good evening everybody i'd like to call the july 13th meeting of the dartmouth school committee equality and diversity subcommittee meeting to order per an act relative to extending certain covet 19 measures adopted during the state of emergency the public will not be allowed to physically access this diversity and equity committee meeting members of the public can access the meeting via live stream at youtube.com slash dartmouth dhs tv media i hope i got that right mr tebow can correct me i'm reading from a different script that had the dc tv link in there the school committee reserves the right to implement additional remote participation procedures and will notify the public of these procedures as soon as possible so to start off the meeting because we are meeting remotely all of our um our votes
002have to be taken by roll call so i'll just do a roll call um to uh to ensure that everyone is recorded as president um kelly bloom yes here lily chamberlain here diane masari here uh mark hayes here ross tebow here uh shelley scott here elizabeth murphy here uh kathleen amero here uh jada walker here thank you jada and just so everyone knows jada uh mentioned she had to borrow a computer because we let her know at the last minute so that's jada under amy there um julina is not here and i am here shannon jenkins all right so we have three items on our agenda um tonight one is just approval of minutes the second is discussion of sort of our next steps and then we've added other matters that may not have been
003anticipated at time of the agenda posting or other things potentially um let's start with the approval of the minutes um i apologize that i sent those out late thank you to miss murphy for reminding me that i forgot to actually send those to you that was my mistake dr gifford had sent them to me i think maybe like the day after the meeting was done um so i'm sorry that that spelled through the crack um that having been said would you all feel comfortable um approving the minutes tonight and and if so um i would entertain a motion for approval and then we can discuss whether or not we should postpone it or not so would anybody be willing to move approval motion to approve the minutes from june 22nd thank you miss scott do
004i have a second i'll second that thank you mr tebow all right so now we can sort of discuss does everybody feel comfortable with with approving these minutes tonight or do you want to wait to the next meeting if anybody wants to voice objection that's fine with me i know i i sent them out a little bit late i'm chair yes miss america i don't have anything relative to um not not voting or not i just have a question i was unable to make last meeting would it be appropriate for me to abstain as i would you prefer yeah that's often often what what happened i know that you were watching it on youtube feel comfortable voting it's it's it's totally up to you okay i do okay thank you all right any further discussion
005on the minutes hearing none we'll have to do a roll call again uh miss bloom do yes or no to approval over the minutes yes okay uh ms chamberlain i will also know you can abstain if you would like that's the third alternative miss chamberlain yes thank you miss massari yes uh mr hayes yes uh mr tebow yes uh miss scott yes uh ms murphy yes uh miss amaral yes uh ms walker yes okay and i will also vote yes okay so that motion carries unanimously so at our last meeting um we had some informational presentations right where we learned some information um and then we took some time off to um so we could all sort of think about and read more and learn i'll also say i think it's the intention of the
006committee to be open and fair to the public and so we didn't want to make any decisions or votes without sort of for publicly posting that on the agenda which is why um we have come back here on the 13th to sort of start that conversation about what we would like to have on the next steps um before we start talking about that i do want to acknowledge i think you all received um a few letters today um one was from uh miss cheryl andrews multis um who's the chairwoman of the gay head wampanoag and the other is uh was from mr andrews mr pereira and mr ventura all members of the committee should have received copies of those emails if you did not please let me know i will ensure that everyone gets a
007copy of that um okay so not everyone did all right so um ms scott you had raised your hand did you receive either of those or neither of them neither of them okay let me check my email real quick because i thought went out to everyone but perhaps they did not they might have just gone out to the school committee um i will forward all of those to you let's see okay so one of them should have gone to you it would have come from a proton email account you might have missed that that attached to that was the letter from the chair of the um the gayhead wampanoag i had emailed her and asked for her permission to forward it to all of you um because i don't forward people's emails without their permission
008um so that's the way that one would have come to you all you might have perhaps missed that but i do see i think at least it looks like the school members it may be that miss scott i'm going to send that to you and ms murphy did not get those from miss walker i'm in miss pamphile i'm sorry i'm talking while i'm typing here um so i'm going to send that one to you i think they may have used the directory so you should now have received the [Music] first one i'm looking at the email for the second one again it looks like members of the um schools receive those with the exception of the students so i'm just give me one more second okay can you uh could you send those to me
009as well i also didn't receive them all right i will also send those to you it looks like everyone else is on there did anyone else not receive them uh madam chair i did i just took to alert everyone the one that we often get these they come from this like app protonmail they're sort of um they are the identity of the sender is not listed and they end up in my spam so if you check your spam yeah they're not really whoever's sending them does not want their identity known i guess it comes from an app proton mail all right that's why some people aren't seeing them [Music] um let me go ahead and forward those to mr hayes and if everybody can check their spam they might see that um let me also
010i can um the reason why i will say i don't i like to have permission from people before i forward their email that comes to me um i asked uh the chair of the tribe whether i could forward that email to you and i did not receive confirmation that letter was then forwarded to everyone else via a proton email account and i didn't catch that it only went to the school um the emails that were listed in the directory for the schools um so both of those emails hopefully are in your inbox if not please message me and i will and i will forward them uh to you so that you can see them um i will also note that um i want to take the opportunity to clear a few sort of issues up
011um that were raised in the agenda or in some of these letters one that i will say right we have been complying with um open meeting law with respect to access to these meetings right the act that i just cited allows us for us to meet virtually so long as the meeting can be accessed via live stream right to the public um the second thing that i will say that while it is generally good practice to have public comment periods um public comment periods are not required at meetings right they are they are purely optional so whether or not we have public comment at any one of our meetings is open to us to decide um it has to be posted on the agenda if we are doing that and we can have a conversation
012about whether we want to do that but um that is not required by law i just want to make you and the public aware of this so let me ask and let me have an opportunity has everyone received those two letters i want to be sure that everyone has received them i am finding the one from jacob ventura and that group but i don't see the other one in my email okay so that was the one to kathleen's point that probably got caught in the spam so let me see if i can forward that one to you all all right so kelly you said you didn't who else diane yes i yeah i i just checked and i i did not think so let's see i've added kelly diane lilly who else needs to see
013that one plus maybe maybe you and dr gifford and i have like lower level spam filters that everything comes through i don't know we'll have to ask dr gallashaw all right so yes i think sent forwarded that to you all right so all of the members of the committee um may have that all right so um that i wanted to have at least have you all have access to that for our meeting so we can talk about our next steps right um because the people in the letters have asked for several things and i have received other emails that have asked for us to have a public comment period i have told people who have emailed me directly that that's not my decision to make right i am the chair of the committee but this
014is the committee and this is something that we have to discuss as a committee um so there are several issues that were raised in the letters that i just want to highlight for your attention right one was the question about whether or not we want to have public comment surrounding this issue i would say the second um issue that was raised um was regarding input from um from tribal from other tribal neighbors shall we speak um the dartmouth or i'm sorry the gay head wampanoag um have asked to provide input and to be consulted on this issue they have expressed willingness to keep the mascot and to work with the town to keep the mascot i will also note that again as part of this we on the school committee have also received communication um
015from other tribes i have and i don't know maybe miss amaral has um but there have been other community communication from other tribes on this issue so for instance on the poke a member of their tribal council did contact us and let it be known that they were not in support of keeping the mascot um there are other local tribes including the mashfi wampanoag massachusetts and i'm not sure which of the the nimpuk tribes who have written letters um supporting the state bell banning mascots so i just want to be clear that we have seen and received right input from a variety of different sort of tribes some of whom who have different positions on this issue with that sort of foregrounding of our discussion um i think there are some questions we need to
016sort of answer about or have a conversation about which we have to wait till now an open meeting about what we want to do in terms of next steps we talked at last meeting some options of simply sort of moving forward the recommendation to the full school committee we as a subcommittee could have more hearings right we could invite sort of representatives or we could contact representatives from other tribes we could hold public comments as a committee we could also recommend that the school committee hold those additional hearings right so there are plenty of options open for us to consider but again i think we as a committee had wanted to let the public know we would be talking about those tonight and so now is our chance to for you all to share your
017thoughts on these matters so i will take any input or thoughts that anyone has about how we want to proceed from here i do think it's important to hear different voices we've heard primarily one perspective so far i think from our speakers and some of the information that we've read and it would be good to kind of open the discussion up and make sure we are hearing different perspectives and different voices i i worry about opening the parameters too much you know to a complete um public comment because i think that could get a little out of control so i'm not sure how we set limits on that i also think it's important to and i don't know how we determine this either but i i imagine there could be very many native american spect
018perspectives for instance within one tribe um as well as there could be very many caucasian perspectives you know or any group so it's important to kind of figure out what are individual perspectives and what is maybe the leadership of the tribe or the leadership of the you know national congress of american indians or the leaderships of different groups what their perspectives are you know but i would like to open it up to a little hearing a little more perspectives i would say okay other thoughts mr tebow so i i agree with uh you know um this committee is about equality and diversity and i think you know inclusion and so it wouldn't make sense to me to not include the voices of various uh constituencies within the um or various stakeholders within the community that
019being said i i do wonder if it wouldn't be best managed at an uh full school committee meeting um you know as you've made the point at previous meetings we're really just going to make a recommendation to the school committee and ultimately it's going to be the school committee that's going to have to take a decisive vote um on any action uh if there is action to take um so i do wonder if it's not best to have any kind of open forum or public comment in that venue as opposed to in this working group so i'll say a couple things related to that right generally speaking the school committee does have a public comment period when items are on our agenda so by definition anytime the school committee takes up this issue right there
020will be a public forum in public comment that's not to say we shouldn't do it um but that's also that's also to say that if we did one right we would also then by definition also have another one so it would be a second opportunity for if that makes sense you know what i mean so we we could do one listen to voices make a recommendation that would go to the school committee and then because it was on the school committee's agenda it would then be open for public comment again so we could do both we could just do one i just want to make sure that everyone's aware of that go ahead mr tebow so along that along those lines then i wonder if it wouldn't make sense correct me if i'm wrong we
021invited kevin campbell and dr um is it delaney davis delano dave i forget her name i apologize yes but we invited those two speakers right so i i wonder if we don't invite the leadership that has reached out to us to have the same kind of window of time you know the 10 minutes to present their side um or their perspective on it i i wonder if that makes sense um sure you know you know one one of the things that i was thinking along the lines of sort of miss blooms like how do we sort of control right it it could be a public comment we set the parameters on how public comment works because we're not required to do it so we can set time limits on speakers we can set an overall
022time limit on the public comment but we could invite the letter writers and give them sort of what we might call a privilege placed in the public comment session where they would have five to ten minutes to speak but then we could say all right aside from these speakers that we have designated everyone else gets no more than two minutes right so we can establish rules for public comment um and there is nothing that requires that um this seems ironic to say this right because we're the equality committee but there isn't a rule that requires everyone to be given equal time so if we give the people who wrote the letter say 10 minutes the equal amount that doesn't mean we have to give everyone else 10 minutes if that makes sense so would we
023like to schedule a like another meeting session where we can allow people to come we would allow i think what i'm hearing from the committee is we'd like to allow the people who sent us letters some time to voice their opinion an equal amount of time say 10 minutes we might reserve the rest of the meeting right for um for other public comment the big question that i have and that i am wrestling with is that i agree with miss um andrews maltes i think i want to make sure i'm getting her name right uh miss andrews maltese um that we ought to listen to our tribal neighbors right but there are other tribes right in the region and i guess my question is do we want to do one session that's public comment or
024do we want to do two sessions when we hear where one we hear from sort of tribal leaders members and another that's more public comment or do we just want to do one i i'm i don't know how we might want to do that miss scott you're saying to ms chamberlain your thoughts i'm i've i've um it would be good it might sound okay it sounds kind of weird from this end it sound all right yep it's okay okay um i feel like maybe the we could do another session where we invited some people to do a zoom session like this and we could listen to what those people have to say and then maybe i i feel like people were requesting that we had an in-person session so maybe we could have an in-person
025session where anybody could show up and make a comment and i agree like two minutes or something like that and i would also ask that people not be debating each other but just that they go up and and make a statement for two minutes and really not be arguing with the person that came before that i don't really know how we can enforce that but i mean i've done that in my classes and the kids pretty much they they do it you know so i think if you tell them that's what they need to do that's what they'll do right um other thoughts ms scott i agree with what ms chamberlain just suggested i'm also wondering if we can encourage and make clear how to access the materials that have been referenced like the race
026ethnicity an education article so that folks that are presenting to us in that first meeting that lily mentioned we can all sort of have the same background information and reference that as we're moving forward clearly the folks that have been watching the recorded previous meetings you know are aware of everything that was said by the presenters and since there's also uh written material that's been provided to us i think it would be important that it be provided to them so that we're all working from the same source of information does that make sense yeah and i have to figure out i have to work with mr galasha to figure out how we need to we we can have authorship but we can't open that everyone to have authorship i need to figure figure that out
027how to share that um let me ask a question for you miss chamberlain proposed one zoom session and one um in-person session um would we so the zoom session so i'm trying to i'm trying to think about this but my sense is maybe the committee doesn't agree with with with me um but i feel like if we're going to invite sort of tribal representatives to share their thoughts that that meeting should just be those people and it could be positive or negative we know that the right that they had wanted would like to retain but i i feel like there should be a meeting just for us to listen to our tribal neighbors right and then we've also discussed that we'd like to invite mr uh pereira perhaps or mr ventura or i believe the
028other right with mr andrews um to come would we invite them to the public forum and then give them a little bit longer to speak what are i don't know i'm not sure what our thinking is on that miss missari i like your idea just because i'm thinking time and just um you know the nature of the speakers just to give them the time and then if we have questions for them and then another i just think it would be too much to have it all one you know one meeting personally um because it is a sensitive topic it's been you know um you know hot topic and i just think that just to be fair and given the time and then like miss chamberlain had sent to said those parameters when we do have
029it open um i think it's just important to have the voices heard um and that you know they know that we're taking this seriously and being considerate on the matter so then would it make sense to have our next meeting be a zoom meeting and try to arrange that with tribal representatives and then we would schedule another meeting after that that hopefully i can't say for certain dr gifford we're going to talk about this on the 26th i think about reopening public access to school committee meetings so we think we're going to do that and we should be able because i'll be honest too i don't want to try to manage public period over a zoom i would much prefer to do it in person um so perhaps we could do another zoom meeting we
030can work to engage some tribal representatives to come talk to us maybe a little less limited where they can set talk and we can do some back and forth and then a second meeting would be an in-person meeting um we might invite right again mr pereira mr ventura uh or mr andrews to speak at that meeting and give them a little bit more time um than the two minutes but then other agenda speakers would would have certain limits that we agreed to does that sound about right to people miss scott i just wanted to try to clarify so the zoom meeting would involve all tribal leadership that want to share their point of view on the topic but the authors of the letter while two out of three of them are members of the wampanoag
031tribe of gay head because they're not tribal leadership they would be included in the second meeting in person for public comments but be given additional time yeah i don't know that's that that's what i think we're discussing right um is the zoom meeting for tribal representatives is it for anyone who is a tribal member right um what are the proofs for that meeting because to your point right um we could ask mr andrews or mr ventura to present also at the if we opened it up to anyone who is a member of a tribe right right miss murphy did you have a comment yeah i was just thinking i guess i was thinking of it differently um in that maybe we would go first with the the response invitation for those who had written letters
032and and asked for an audience so to speak on zoom and then possibly think about how to deal with the the tribal leaders um i'm still thinking about when we heard from dr david stellano and also from some of the other things that i have watched other towns go through this process uh live on zoom as well as some of the lobbying around the state bills and there is a lot of caution and suggestion that we not try to you know rush through the tribal leaders or try to bring them in and not really have a plan for is a vote going to be happening or when a vote is going to be happening and things like that we really do want to be careful about um respecting time and space and all those things
033so i'm just not sure what kind of response we're going to get if we send out an email invitation to different leaders without like a clear understanding for them on on what's we expect to happen next and what the timeline is yeah and and that's you know i would say that's you know why i think it's important to keep the two meetings separate the order is but i don't think i think it may be disrespectful to invite right our tribal partners in and to have a big sort of you know pre-flowing discussion that i think we want to have that space just for them um i think you raise a good point that perhaps we might want to invert that that perhaps we we do have a public listening session and you know invite uh
034mr pereira i don't think mr ventura is local so if we did a an in if we did an in-person session i think it might likely be mr pereira but we can they can sort of work that out we could invite them to that and allow for some public comment and then it may be to be sort of sensitive to um to your point miss murphy to say that we might then say to the school committee we've listened to you know the side in support we listen decide against we recommend that the school committee hold a session inviting tribal leaders in anticipation of a vote that's the other way to do it what are your thoughts on that do we want to have a public comment session first and then consultation with tribal leaders later
035and also inviting the full school committee or do we want to try to invite tribal leaders first and then do the public comment after this is murphy sorry i would just add i don't know if anyone had a chance to watch um the very long public session that i believe it was a wakefield school committee held this spring um i would just add for the record that they had they brought in a very large group of tribal leaders which took a lot of coordination over like several months i believe to get them all there at the same time and when the evening which was super intense um concluded the school committee was planning then to do a public survey and public comment and things like that afterwards and just i think you can probably go
036back in and watch it um it's probably available somewhere but that was widely received among the tribal leaders as um i guess i would say disrespectful and not not well thought out so i would just voice again that that's something that we we want to think about um it felt very much after the the evidence and statement after statement was made and on both sides of the issue it wasn't an entirely one-sided discussion um that then to say okay now we're going to open this up to to public opinion um did did feel uncomfortable at best so i would just say we want to keep that in mind so it's like miss murphy you're advocating for right doing public comment first right having that that meeting that session um and then doing um maybe reporting
037to the school committee and recommending that they do a session with tribal leaders inviting the committee along with them um other thoughts on that plan is that preferable to doing we have the zoom with tribal leaders that in person public comment option or public comment sort of option and then tribal leaders with the full school committee those are two options we have before us right now mr hayes and then miss chamberlain um so pretty quickly i just think that you know my thought would be that the the more information that we're able to disseminate before public comment like the more that we're able to in a controlled manner disseminate information to everyone before people start to make public comment in a manner that could be considered less controlled i think the better um from my
038opinion i haven't had an opportunity to to view the wakefield school commute committee meetings or any of that book as a general perspective i think the more controlled information not students that control information but the more we're able to get information out in a controlled manner before the public comment i think is could be helpful thank you miss chamberlain you were going to add some thoughts i you know i i just feel a little bit like um what mr tebow was saying before about like i just i would like the public's comments to be heard by the school committee who are going to be making the decision not us and i just wonder if maybe both of these meetings shouldn't be going in front of the school committee and not us that's just what i'm
039wondering it's a good question i i will say ultimately again i'll just go back to my point that when this comes up on the school committee agenda there will be public comment at that point too so we might look at it as not necessarily harmful to here to have two opportunities for the public to provide input um once to us and once to the school committee um alternatively we you might say that's inefficient right and um uh i don't know right i'm not sure about that i mean i guess the other the question is whether or not we've reached the limits on what we can do as a committee but it seems at the same point in time to be a little i don't know i don't know the word i'm looking for like we're
040not doing our job by just saying okay we listened a little and we can't do anything and we've got to push it back to you which is i guess personally in my opinion i think i'd like to have that public comment right so at least we've heard sort of from uh the perspective of wanting to get rid of the mascot will allow you know i would say the letter writers um to have the same amount of time at the beginning of that public comment and then to hear um some other thoughts related to that so that we then as a committee can at least say we believe that the final word should be that you hear from tribal leaders and the school committee makes a decision but as a committee this is our recommendation after
041hearing from both sides like i feel like one of the things the school committee has charged us with is making a recommendation on this issue and so to say oh you do all the meetings the meetings right um shirks are are charged a bit so i think i would personally be inclined to do a meeting that's opened a public comment um and then after that we can have another discussion about making your recommendation to the school committee that would be my personal preference i think i'm agreeing um with ms murphy here that we should do the public comment first and then start potentially making arrangements for sometime in the fall to do something with the school committee but i'm open to other opinions this is not my decision it's our decision miss scott i like
042that idea and i'm wondering regarding the letter from mr andrews pereira and ventura would we put a 10 minute limit on that or would we um because i'm the they're citing quite heavily from our previous presenters i'm wondering if it would be more equitable if we allowed them similar present presentation time if they need it yeah so we we had told those presenters 10 to 15 minutes okay but i would tell them the same thing right so i guess i would say maybe that perhaps the structure of this meaning would be 10 to 15 minutes we've received that letter the other sort of position and then we would allow for some public comments um with parameters so right we could say to miss chamberlain's point and miss bluma said the suit we should have some
043structure like maybe we tell people that you have two minutes to make comments um what i've often seen you know this is sort of town meeting anyone who's been to town meeting right you're not debating each other right you're making a comment about the policy question at hand we like to ask people right to try to make new points right to not continue to make the same point over and over but people get to say um the other thing that we can do um is we can set a limit on the total time that we are going to have public comment so we could have you know mr pereira mr ventura mr andrews right have 10 to 15 minutes at the beginning have some time for question and answer and then we could say an
044hour of public comment right at two minutes per person right um those parameters are up to us we can say we'll stay until the cows go home and hear everyone or we can say we are going to listen for an hour and everyone has two minutes um if we get done before that then fine but if we at one hour we'll be done so the one sort of wrench in this plan is i think we would all agree that i think a public comment period would be would be preferable in person i don't know maybe i'm looking at some of the teachers who had to teach online this year and and thinking maybe they got zoom skills that are better than me trying to manage this but i'm just trying to get the public into
045a zoom and making sure we don't get zoom bombed and all of that i think is just a little too much particularly on an issue like this so i think we would want to do the public comment in person the school committee is going to meet on july 26 to discuss when we will resume in person right meetings i have some suspicion that that we will be resuming that soon i can't say for certain though because i haven't talked to anyone about it we're not allowed to talk about it until we go into open meeting um so that having been said if our consensus is to have a public comment period do we want to tentatively schedule a date working on the assumption that the school committee is going to say yes we can allow
046the public back in um alternatively we could come up with a we could meet again i don't think we want to meet again i think it seems better to pick a date now and cross our fingers right so the other i would say i guess complicating factor right is so the school committee is meeting on the 26th and then we get into august and i don't know i don't know about you all but that seems to be prime vacation time like people are away do we want to try to set something up in august um what is everyone's thoughts about timing on a public meeting alternatively it may be better before we get into the crush of you know new school meetings and this and that and sports so maybe sometime later in august might
047not be bad miss scott i'm seeing a like a thumbs down face from you okay um i will certainly accommodate what's best for the committee in the town of dartmouth the end of august is a busy time but that is very specific to my job because you're doing orientation so but that's okay i can manage my time here well mr peratti will probably be there to tape it for us so you can watch it you know as a way to decompress after orientation um you know so then my other you know i have to go away for part of august i think dr gifford you're away for part of august 2 if i remember correctly right um what about the week of the 23rd of august i'm gonna be out of town that week but
048i could watch it on whatever i'm gonna be traveling for school as well okay so we've got one two three people we could move it earlier but i would have to be like the 18th or 19th does that work for people about the 18th of august okay so our plan is let me let me sort of see if we're coming to some agreement that on the 18th of august we will have a public comment sort of session um on um about the issue at the beginning of that session we'll ask mr ventura mr pereira and or mr andrews to speak for 10 to 15 minutes um about uh their letter a similar amount of time to our other presenters and then after that initial presentation we will open it up for additional public comment um
049we will ask that people who are giving public comment limit themselves to two minutes do we want to set an overall limit on the amount of time we're there for public comment an hour an hour and a half what are your thoughts on that or any anything that i've just said i don't think here till midnight so i'm inclined to set some sort of limit on it right the question is what is the appropriate limit i mean i would like everybody to get a chance to say what they want to say you know but all the on the other hand i don't want to be there till midnight either i don't think it will be but i would say maybe like an hour and a half i was thinking an hour and a half too
050i i have a question just i know um sometimes at different forums and conferences and stuff there is an attempt to get sort of like a pro con switch back and forth like is there an attempt to to do that or if you line up first those people get to go how do you typically manage this type of stuff whoever lines up at the podium first typically typically is how we have done it um i'm not sure i'm sort of looking at dr gifford on this trying to think i'm not sure there's any way we would be able to manage it otherwise no no we've always just had folks line up um and obviously we've never had a whole lot as you know in the past usually it's over budgets right i mean i just
051i know from like having given testimony like in the state legislature before and stuff like that they do they do ask in advance um so that they can sort of reach both sides yeah i understand your point right you don't want everyone on one side of the issue to show up early line up first and then it's not a balanced sort of representation of what the public stands i'll be honest with you if if someone would like to try to manage that um that would be great um i do not have the capacity to take that on right now and that i think is the big issue like who or how we would manage that um the the advantage of just first come first serve is we don't have to manage it i don't have
052i'm not a state legislator i don't have staff but they love movement to me um to help with that so um and i know our school staff is if they're not busy they're taking a rest because they haven't had a rest in like 20 months so i hesitate to um to burden them with extra tasks miss scott i'm familiar with what ms murphy suggests because i recently attended a meeting where a professional on robert's rules was involved and that's exactly what they did they asked people if they were for or against the measure that was being discussed and they would have each person go back and forth they didn't register in advance um it was done on zoom but they i'm sure paid for this professional to come in i just had an idea now
053that you said that ms god i'm gonna ask dr gifford this could we set up two podiums right and so we could have two separate podiums where one podium you go and if you're in support of keeping the mascot and when the other podium you go if you're against it and we can just switch back and forth between the podiums and if you go to the wrong one you don't get two minutes i was gonna say that right there right so that's the low tech way of doing it and it does tend to work yeah do you think we could make that happen dr gifford mr chorus yeah of course yeah so let's try to do that and miss mr peratti said he can help us out with that so we'll do it low tech
054we'll set up two podiums we'll alternate between the podiums they'll be different sides of the issue um two minutes per presenter aside from our first presenters with an an hour and a half overall limit does that seem right to everyone okay and so we will schedule this for august 18th um i'm going to recommend we do a 6 30 start just for people who are working and we are this is tentative because we are waiting for confirmation from the school committee that we can do in-person events i will let you know if that is not the case and we have to change dates does that make sense where would it be most likely at the high school the high school is set up for meetings and we have the capacity to do the streaming and
055the broadcasting and all of that there does that work for everyone are there other issues that we want to discuss related to next steps or is this sort of good so i will reach out to mr pereira mr ventura and mr um andrews i want it is mr anders okay um to to extend that invitation to them um to attend that meeting um we will people will be able to see it um if they're watching this meeting and that meeting will be publicly posted so people know they can attend that meeting does that work for everyone okay okay awesome are there other mr should we think about um the tribal leaders that we're going to want to invite to a meet well not us but i don't know should we start like reaching out or
056thinking about a date or is that really for the school committee to decide think that's probably the school committee to decide um i will um i will bring that up basics um and and and have a have a conversation with a full school committee about about that um i'm looking i mean miss amaral what your thoughts are on that that's probably something the school committee will discuss and maybe work on but it means so yeah if the school committee decides to do that we may come back and ask the members of the committee to help us do some outreach i don't know we'll have to figure that one out after a discussion on the 26th that's a good question miss chamberlain other questions comments concerns miss scott just another um [Music] wish that we could
057encourage everyone that would be attending the public comment meeting to acquaint themselves with the materials especially the research um on the impacts that has been shared with us just so that we all have the same knowledge base i know we can't make people do that but if we can make a path and let them know that this is really it would be helpful maybe that would help yeah mr hayes brought that point up too so thank you for um reminding me of that um i have sort of those two action items setting up that meeting um and i will speak with mr galisha i think we may just be able to share the google doc you all are our editors but we may be able to make that publicly available um and we might be
058able to share it um you know on social media and and other places so um so yeah we can we can do that um and i'll work with mr mr pirati and mr um galasha to figure out sort of the best way to make that information publicly available i will also say though remember that if any of you find any information that you all are also um authors of that document or editors so you do have the ability to share any information that you might find that you would like but the general public will just be able to look and view that so and as a reminder sort of open meeting it's not a place to discuss debate or whatever it's a place to share resources files links things like that does that make sense
059okay any other questions comments concerns before we go i have a question after we kind of hand this over to the school committee to schedule a meeting with some native american tribal leadership to speak are we still going to then make a recommendation to the school committee about what our thoughts are as a committee so i think you know the big question that we'll have to tackle whether we do that at the end of the public comment maybe we maybe we might put discuss next steps at the end of that is whether we want to make a recommendation first to the school committee i think we should i think to miss murphy's point right that the tribal leaders wanted to know that there was a vote and that there was a plan for action and
060that's what they were being asked to comment on so it might make sense for us after the public comment period to make our recommendation and also accompany that tell the school committee that we recommend that they also schedule a meeting with tribal leaders that's just my two cents though we could do it differently but my sense from talking to miss davis delano and miss murphy i think you got this from watching that video was that the tribal leaders and the community felt like they wanted to be proximate to the actual decision right not like uh it would go here and then it would go back there and then it would go here does that make sense yeah i mean it does make sense it's just that we got that letter you know from the gay
061head group that they felt like they were not happy that they haven't been included in any conversations yet so i know that that's what miss davis solano said was to to try to invite the tribal leaders if you were close to making a decision but i feel like maybe some of the tribal leaders feel like they're being left out of the conversation even though we haven't really had that many meetings but they may still feel that way you know i just don't know yeah and i will say this right that there's a tension here right um on the one hand right you have tribal leaders who who want to be consulted on the other hand there's the argument that right it's we shouldn't ask oppressed people if they feel comfortable with their oppression right um
062because if you're oppressed what do you how do you answer that question right do you say gee no my oppression is fine i have no big right that's no big deal there's no answer to that so there's a tension right there are some members of tribal communities who wish to be consulted and there are some members of tribal communities who feel it is offensive to be consulted on this issue and so we have to balance that right and so i think in in i i don't know the answer to that question right um i don't right and so you know my sense is right we we have heard from the from the gay head wampanoag i will also know we have heard i will reiterate we have heard from other tribes right the hassett wants
063a wampanoag sorry have contacted the school committee to voice their opposition to the mascot i will also reiterate that the po cassette wampanoag i cannot talk this evening their tribal lands are dartmouth all right they lay claim to dartmouth as part of and i will i will ask megan running dear paige sent the school committee an email about this issue i will ask her permission to forward that to you um they claim under treaties right that these are part of their tribal lands um so tribal view is about right sort of input are not universal right and there's a there's a question and debate over whose voice should have right sort of most proximity to the issue right is it tribal members who live in dartmouth is it all tribes is it tribes who lay
064claim to dartmouth lands that's these are not easy questions to answer right and so i hesitate to write give weight to to say the position of one tribe is in fact the position of all tribes about how we ought to operate here and so i don't know my sense would be that we should move that closer and have the school commit to the decision and the school committee but there are certainly differences of opinion on that ms scott clarification um the letters that we received today and the letter that you just referenced would those be made available for the public to read as well we can make those available because they were sent to official school committee emails they are part of sort of i don't want to say the public record right but they
065are right anything you or umass anything that comes to official emails um the the public can uh can request to see i certainly think we can make it easier for the public to see those letters um rather than saying oh you have to do a freedom of information request so perhaps we could put those letters up on our google google drive um for for people to see that may be one thing that we could do miss murphy and i believe that one of the resources that dr davis delano had shared at some point in the last month or so actually includes a website where the general there are there are five tribes whose leadership have come forth and written letters in support of the mascot ban in the state legislature and one of those i
066believe is the the cassette that's that's available there it's it's assessed the cats at wampanoag have have written a letter of the tribe in support of the state bill banning mascots um so have um the nipmuck tribe um the punkapog massachusetts tribe has also put a letter there um the mashpee wampanoag which i will note is the other federally recognized tribe um has submitted a letter supporting the state bill banning native mascots um the herring pond wampanoag have also submitted a letter and maybe also the chappaquiddick bombang but i'm not a hundred percent confident on that but to miss murphy's point that link is there and you can go to that website and see the letters from those tribes in support of the state bill banning mascots so i again i think i would summarize
067by saying i think it's it's pretty fair to say that we know the positions of most of the tribes in the communities surrounding us right the difficult question is right what is the appropriate way to solicit tribal input and there are differences of opinion among tribes about the appropriate way to go about doing that um and so what we have to do is to figure out what we're comfortable with and what seems to work for us so i will say this too at the after next meeting right we we may end up again this is one of the difficulties of having this be a meeting a committee meeting subject to open meeting law it may be that we want to have another meeting like this afterwards after public comment to say all right what's our
068next step right because that's the only time we can really do that um and i don't know about you all but when i get a bunch of information and presentations i'm not ready to make a decision right then like i often have to stew on it and think about it and parse through what i'm what i've learned um so that may be right we have this meeting and then we have another meeting to decide if we make a recommendation whether we recommend to invite tribal leaders whether we invite that maybe we don't have to make that decision tonight but that's something maybe we can all think about does that make sense for everyone other comments questions concerns it's murphy sorry one more thing just because of this is open meeting and i'm not fully comfortable
069with that so uh aware of the nuances i suppose so i'm not going to send a follow-up email to ask this question but i'm just thinking in terms of because we did already do the the first meeting with kempton campbell and dr david solano i think we want to make sure that we set up the introduction to this next meeting which will likely have more than four people watching on youtube or in person as the case may be that that you know a brief summary of what what happened there so that it doesn't appear to people like we are only bringing in mr pereira and his his people like we we need to make sure that that's all clear how we got to this point to set up what happens then sure i can do
070that um unless anyone else wants to volunteer to do that but i would be happy to sort of start up that meeting with a little some summary of where we are before before they present other comments questions concerns all right if not i think we have a plan of attack how we're going to move forward right we've discussed our next steps and we have some next steps um is there anything else that anyone wants to discuss so i will entertain a motion to adjourn so moved miss murphy move and i'm mr tebow take that as a second second yeah all right so now i need to roll call sorry miss bloom here miss chamberlain yes uh miss masari yes mr hayes yes mr tebow yes ms scott yes miss murphy yes ms amara yes ms
071walker yes and i am also a yes thank you very much everyone um i appreciate you turning out in the summer have a great evening you too thanks you too thank you you