001agenda before that all right here we go okay [Music] do [Music] good evening i'd like to call tonight's may 17th meeting of the dartmouth school committee to order um i've already forgotten the order of this but let's stand to do the pledge and then i'll read governor i pledge baker to the flag of the united states of america and tutoring for which one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you everyone per governor baker's order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law glc 30a section 20 the public will not be allowed to physically access the school committee meeting members of the public can access this meeting via live stream at www.youtube.com dhs tv media in addition the event will be re broadcast on dc tv channels 9 and 18 on
002the following days wednesday and thursday at 5 pm friday at 6 a.m saturday at 8 a.m and sunday at 2 p.m the school committee reserves the right to implement additional remote participation procedures and will notify the public of these procedures as soon as practicable skenther can we have a roll call please shannon jenkins here mary wait here kathleen amarill here john nunes chris oliver here excellent so the first item on the agenda is the superintendent's certificate of academic excellent i will excellence i will hand this over to dr gifford now thank you madam chair and once again each year we are able to offer two students from our high school um actually award them with the certificate of academic excellence and obviously we ask our high school administration to choose those two students who exemplify
003fantastic standards as well as contribution to the community so i will turn it over to principal tebow to talk about our students that are here tonight with their family to receive this award the opportunity to recognize a couple of our most outstanding students this evening as dr gifford referenced each year we give this we give we award the superintendent's excellence award to two deserving students along with a scholarship as well and so this year the first recipient of the superintendent's excellence award is grace george grace has been an outstanding member of the dartmouth high school high school community for the past four years and has demonstrated a commitment to academic excellence as well as to serving as a leader within our school community academically grace has challenged herself by taking many of the most rigorous
004courses offered at dartmouth high school in fact grace has taken six advanced placement courses over the course of her time as a student at dartmouth high school and thus far her lowest mark in one of those six classes was an a minus so grace has clearly done an outstanding job academically here while grace's academic achievement is extraordinary and deserving of recognition her commitment and involvement in other clubs and activities is equally as impressive grace has been a member of the south coast grit which was a club that trained to run marathons with students she was a contestant this year in dartmouth's finest she serves as co-president of the science club she's a member of our math team our national honor society our multi and our multicultural club just to name a few of her commitments
005this fall dartmouth high school's loss will be the university of virginia's gain as grace plans to continue her education at uva where she'll major in biology with a possible minor in spanish it's my honor to be able to recognize grace this evening as one of the two recipients of the superintendent's excellence award the second recipient of the superintendent's excellence award is miguel pereira academically miguel has displayed an extraordinary record of achievement at dartmouth high school miguel has taken and successfully completed many of the most rigorous courses offered at dartmouth high school enrolling in nine advanced placement courses over the past four years and again in addition to the academic excellence that miguel has displayed he's also been an integral member of the dartmouth high school community miguel currently serves as president of the dartmouth high
006school chapter of the national honor society he is a member of the multicultural club he is a member of our math team he too was a contestant in dartmouth's finest uh this year and he's also held many of the lead roles in dartmouth high school theater productions over the past several years perhaps most admirable about miguel is his commitment to the school community this summer miguel attended a leadership training and then with peers from across massachusetts miguel formed an online tutoring service that he continues to serve in as a tour to this day tutoring students from across the globe in english and science miguel will be missed at dartmouth high school next year and we wish him well as he continues his education at fordham university in new york where he'll major in neuroscience on
007a pre-med track miguel's long-term goal is to become a doctor and to one day serve in uh to serve in doctors without borders i want to congratulate and wish the best of luck to both grace and miguel and their families and as they are both very deserving of tonight's certificate event excellence [Applause] and if you wouldn't mind coming forward to receive your certificate that's not the view that i want all right so everyone's going to look at me i'm the one taking the picture all right everyone smile take a few all right excellent thank you very much thank you congratulations um yeah thank you does anybody want to offer any words very good i'll start by saying what a wonderful amount of accomplishments to both of you uh i am so as a dartmouth school
008committee member these are the types of moments that make me extremely proud to serve on this board and this committee and to see um our high school students and you know how far you've come and i i look forward to hearing about you in the future so congratulations to both of you mr nunes i'll have you go next but i'm going to remind everyone to speak up so we can hear everyone over the hum of the air circus go ahead mr nunes thank you madam chair rob again congratulations job well done uh as mr oliver said it's one of the wonderful things about being on the school committee is when we get to recognize students from k-12 and the accomplishments that they've had and that they're going to continue to make i wish you nothing
009but success as you go forward in your college careers and uh be safe and good luck is samuel yeah i just i'd like to say just a couple words um you know miguel my family has enjoyed watching you on the the stage um you know elf and and every other every other uh character that you've wonderfully um portrayed good luck in your future really proud of you as i'm sure your family and everyone in the dartmouth community is and grace i get a little emotional because knowing that you were just a year behind your brother i just can't believe that you're you know and you're just what a great kid sorry my oldest was in class since kindergarten with your brother so just congratulations yes i just want to echo what my colleagues have said
010we're so proud of you um miguel grace you know you're going to do wonderful things i can't wait and i know our community can't wait to you know follow your progress you know we might have two doctors in front of us and you know it's exciting to hear about your adventures i think that uh virginia and new york are very very lucky to get both of you so we'll we'll miss you but again we're you know as a community we're really excited for you and we can't wait to see what you'll do so i'll just echo what all of my colleagues have said you know as a parent of two high schoolers i know this has not been an easy year and that the both of you have been able to continue your successes is
011a real testament to your spirit and your perseverance and we're very proud of you and we wish you the best of luck and with that we will say you do not have to stay for the rest of the meeting you are welcome to leave you're welcome to stay if you want but i know you're all very busy and you are welcome to leave but congratulations to both of you [Applause] so hold on real quick if you do say something can i ask you to go over even though the microphones don't work they catch on our video so if you could maybe go right over there to mr tebow's microphone then our at-home audience will be able to hear what you're saying i just wanted to say that this has been a hard year and as
012a mom i'm very appreciative of all the time you all worked on the covid plans i thought that you worked very hard and and i think you did the best you could and it worked out really well for everyone so thank you for that thank you thank you very much thank you thank you bye take care good luck congratulations all right so the next item on our agenda is public comment we do not have this open to the public at this meeting but comments are welcome during this public comment period and people should send their comments to the recording secretary kathleen guenther that's k-e-t-h-l-e-e-n-g-e-n-t-h-n-e-r-dot dartmouthschools.org normally we check now to see if there's any comment then we check again at the end of the meeting ms ganther are there any comments yet there are not
013there are not okay so um the next item on our agenda is our student representative report so you are up please thank you thank you so my name is evan garcia and i am one of the student representatives evan can i ask you to do your best teacher's voice it's hard to hear with mass and sorry i know you don't have one yet but it's hard to hear so i know from sitting over there if you could like yell that would be awesome so i'm evan garcia and i'm one of the two student representatives to the school committee and i'm here to update you on all of the happenings at dartmouth high school currently going on so our music department has had several concerts earlier in this month including in front of small audiences at
014each so that is of course a great milestone our spring sports season is also underway and it has been hugely successful many sports including unified track are having their first meets and games in almost two years due to covert 19. testing season is also underway the sophomore class and many juniors just finished their english and math mcas and the freshmen are currently studying for biology mcas which will be undertaken in the second week of june ap exams are also taking place i know that personally we were given the choice between taking the first administration which has already happened and that is paper and pen versions of the tests and we are also currently taking the second and third administrations of ap testing which is all done digitally so that's also going on at dartmouth high
01521 for 21 events are also taking place and these are made to commemorate the senior class this includes the ice cream social which took place a few weeks ago last block and last thursday around 200 seniors participated in a night under the stars which was a prom like event held at whites of westport our esports team recently competed in the state playoffs winning in their very first round but losing in the second but they finished what was a very successful season four dhs artists currently have their work displayed in the new bedford museum of arts passage of time exhibit which will remain open through may 30th the national honor society is holding in its induction ceremony this thursday attendance is limited to pre-registered guests but the ceremony will be streamed on dhs tv media's youtube
016page and the link can be found in the high school's community update as well last thursday dartmouth high school returned to full in-person learning and this transition has been successful so far i for one have really enjoyed seeing all of my friends in class that concludes my update and thank you all for your time thank you thank you so much um does anybody have any comments or questions i will also say then of course at this point you are welcome to leave i'm sure you're very busy um so we appreciate your update but if you'd like to go home and work on your homework or study for any of those exams you're welcome yeah i have my ap lit test tomorrow actually so i think i have to go study for that absolutely thank you
017all for having me thank you good luck thank you very much good luck all right so we're going to move ahead on the agenda to the approval of minutes from our april 26 meeting i will first entertain a motion to approve the regular and joint session uh minutes from april 26th so moved so moved i have a motion by miss waite can i have a second second second by mr oliver are there any discussion on the regular and joint session minutes from april 26th uh hearing none all in favor opposed all right so that motion carries unanimously right we're in person so we don't have to do a roll call i'm getting back into the swing of things all right so next i will entertain a motion uh to approve the executive session minutes from
018april 26th so moved so move madam chair with the stipulation that they be held until the matter for which they were intended is completed uh so i have a motion for mr news i have a second oh second second from miss wait all right so is there any discussion on the executive session minutes hearing none all in favor aye aye opposed all right that motion carries unanimously as well um let's go ahead and move on to the consent agenda um madam chair there might be a mix-up the officers might have thought this was a zoom meeting so we're not sure they're going to show up so we'll move that's all right we'll just keep moving through and if they can get here that's great that's fine although i don't know you know that after it's
019afterwards but we'll see what we can do um if they if they can't make it mr tebow tell them not to panic maybe they could record something for us um that we could probably play at our next meeting i think that would probably work if they can't make it um you know i don't want to ask them to come after they're free at last right um so we'll we'll figure something out to get some input from them or maybe they could just zoom right into tonight's meeting i don't know if i want to put mr parotti on the spot we'll see right yeah we'll work on this we'll work on this we'll figure something out we'll get there let's start with the consent agenda um we have the summer arts camp um uh item on
020our consent agenda and the request for the dhs marching band and color guard to operate food concession um at the dartmouth living memorial stadium for the 2021 football season um so do we want to take these separately does anyone have any questions about the arts camp emotional approve okay so i have a motion by mr nunes and a second by ms amarill is there any discussion or questions i know miss cronin's here ready to answer questions if anybody has any questions it's great to have them back yeah that's great yes we're excited to see these happening again it looks like an exciting program so yeah all right so hearing no further discussion all in favor aye aye all right so that motion passes unanimously our second one is the request for the dhs marching band
021and color guard to operate the food concession so moved i have a motion by mr nunes do i have a second okay a second by miss amaral do we have any um questions on this one i'm just so giddy that these things are i was just gonna say i'm just looking forward to seeing uh seeing the stadium used so the balloons are gonna fall down any minute yeah yes for her so nobody has any questions all right so hearing none all in favor aye aye opposed that motion also carries unanimously is there an abstention i'll abstain just because of my involvement okay so that motion carries four yes votes and one abstention from mr nunes thank you mr nunes we are all thanks for that thank you all right so um under under old business
022we have the equality and diversity committee um as you probably saw in the local news the equality and diversity committee um met for the first time i sweet last week two weeks like losing track of time now at any rate we had a discussion we started our conversation we did some introductions we reviewed the charge um it was a little hard right because everything's covered by open meeting laws so you can't pre-discuss everything but one of the things that we did discuss as a committee and the committee made a motion and wanted to come back and ask the full school committee was there was a request that we had allow for two student members of the committee the idea was if it was one student in a group of adults they might feel a little
023bit uncomfortable but having another student and someone who you know they might know might give them a higher level of comfort for the for those students on the committee to voice their opinions as a result because the composition of the committee is established by us this diversity committee has to come back to the full school committee and ask for permission for that so that is why that item is on the agenda we'd like to appoint two high school members go ahead mr nunes yeah madam chair uh i saw this on the agenda and i wasn't sure exactly what it was all about so i went back to my archive files and found the minutes from august 3rd of 2020 that we set up this formation and equity of the and diversity committee and uh on
024that uh motion that i made and you seconded uh i won't go through the whole motion. but it says two dartmouth high school students we originally had two okay so i had i think we had somewhere that there was one so we already do have two i already have two one you already have two you have ten members two school committee members two public school uh faculty or staff two high school students two dartmouth community members and two dartmouth public school administrators okay so we added a third at some point we changed that we added a third staff member when we were evaluating the staff that's when we did that yes because we have uh miss masari miss chamberlain and who else am i forgetting now yeah she's the elementary school from quinn um so
025we at some point we made a motion we added three staff members because looking it was when we were looking at their resumes so that must have been in that would have been in december or january yes yes okay so then we don't need a motion so um i will let mr tebow know we um we were asking him to to locate two school committee uh two high school students um thank you for doing that research mr nunes no problem all right so we are on to new business the first item a new business is the smack quarterly report so i will look to mr oliver our representative to see if he has anything to report here so i did reach out to uh mrs catherine cooper who is the executive director there and uh
026yeah just a few things of that are worthwhile to know at our last board meeting we increased our district looking to increase our district-based classroom leases by three percent for the fy 22 school year increase our teacher and power salary skills in non-scale positions by two percent for the fy 22 year to end the extended covet leave on april 30th for our employees to receive accept and place on filed 100 compliance letters from deci this is regarding our fy 20 audit and annual report at smec we're really pleased about that we're also looking to renew our lease on the trip school in for haven for another five years we do have a program there and we're looking to renew the uh the lease there and this is a school that's no longer in use that
027the town of the faven school uh department has been leasing to us for our programs uh also to negotiate with the town of where this is actually ongoing uh negotiating with the town of fahaven for the rehab and potential lease of additional space at the former rogers school this is also for to expand some of our programs in addition we have let's see to recognize juneteenth june 19th on this saturday this year consistent with the secretary of state holiday observance guidelines and to build it into our calendar for the fy 22 school year which will be recognized on the monday since it will fall on the sunday so uh that's kind of where we're at i don't know if you dr gifford if you want to talk anything about the um the quinn program yet
028or if it's too early um i'm trying to remember if we can yeah as i um sent you an email a couple of weeks ago and i believe all the staff members have been notified okay i wasn't sure that's why yeah that's why i was a little hesitant but um we will bring that forth about um the change the closing of the path program at the quinn school and the lease for the um smack program um perfect yeah mr kylie will have that ready for the agenda for next time okay that's why i just hesitated a minute because you always make sure i have it here i had it here but i was i wanted to check with you first on that right but uh mr mr um grandfield has spoken to the staff about
029that so again we'll be able to talk about that more but we think it's a very good move for the district so it'll be on an upcoming agenda next next agenda okay and that's all i have for the uh the smack update okay does anybody have any questions for mr oliver thank you you're welcome no thank you no okay great um so the next item on our agenda is the new bedford regional vocation technical high school school committee on april 30th we received a letter notifying us that on may 1st the term of one of our appointees was expiring so we got plenty of notice there on that term expiration so we need to appoint someone to the school committee ms cindy marlins a term is expiring may 1st so that has expired that term
030um so we need to uh appoint or reappoint someone um i don't know have we reached out to cindy and asks if she's willing to serve again no i actually had i did actually reach out to cindy okay seeing this good because the letter was addressed to you i'll put it on you i did actually reach out to cindy and um yes she is still very interested in serving um serving on the new as the dartmouth wrap on the new bedford vocational school committee um i think she's done a great job a matter of fact she had just sent me a little not that long ago just some of the projects that she's been working on on school committee but i would certainly have no reservations she's you know she's continuing to work on updating
031school policies putting together and hiring a strong administration team that's experience as well as diverse so uh that's kind of where she was at but she would be uh thrilled to um continue her work there i would uh like to make a motion that okay go ahead point uh dr marlin to as a dartmouth representative on the school committee so i have a motion by miss amaral to re-appoint dr marlin do i have a second second though i have a second by mr oliver is there any further discussion or comment mr nunes thank you madam chair uh not on this but while we're talking about better volk uh have we heard any more about getting minutes from their meetings not that they're worth anything right on a related note no but i would like to
032ask perhaps dr marlins and as um mr shea i would like to invite them to a meeting maybe our july meeting to come give us a report i would like to hear from miss marlin herself dr marlin about what they're doing but i also would like to communicate again the need to get minutes and also the need to get actual information in minutes yeah the the minutes that ms ganther and dr gifford provide for our meetings are quite detailed you can tell what happens in our conversations if you can't watch the meetings that is not true of the the voc meeting so i would like to to follow up on that i do know that the superintendent i think reached out to many of us about setting up a meeting yeah um i'm gonna i
033haven't had a chance to reach out to him but i think perhaps we could all communicate that to him as we haven't had i haven't had we all got the same letter i haven't had a chance to get to i did reach out to mr watson and i'll be uh hoping uh in the next couple weeks to set up a time that works for both of us i think that might be something that it would be good if they could hear that from all of us it would it would definitely be helpful so we'll new administration coming into play and that's right that would that would be good um so is there any other discussion on the motion uh about dr marlin's reappointment well i'll just add that i believe we vote on it and
034then it'll go to the select board does the select board also have to vote on it and then it's a it's a decision between the chairs the chairs all the the two chairs and then the town moderator yeah yeah that's you that it's usually between the two the two chairs and the town moderator if there's people that you know they're not going to be reappointed okay that type of deal that's the way i understand yeah i think usually for a reappointment it's just a kind of pretty stream it's usually just the vote of the boards so uh can we can i ask uh dr gifford for for you to communicate that to the to the select board and follow up on that and then they can contact me if there are any issues there any
035other comments concerns discussion all right hearing none all in favor aye aye opposed all right that motion carries unanimously um the next item on our agenda is a proposal uh regarding naming the um basketball court um dr gifford do you have any do you want to yeah talk about that yeah thank you so i wanted to bring this forth because as you saw by the letter we received mr granfield not not quinn's principle but our basketball coach he submitted twice a letter of recommendation to name the court itself after um mr gaspar as you probably all know who he was but not to go into that particularly right now so i brought it forth as something that we might want to discuss but the process that we might want to undergo i did look through
036my files in the in the office and i did find a folder about it might have been the last time the group met when they named the quinn school they had a committee and they asked for recommendations and i know that's a big deal that was a big um you had to do that it was something you know it was going to be renamed exactly so the only at that time the policy that i found in the file folder was it was oh my goodness years old it was ff but it was called naming or renaming so it was either a new facility or to rename something old we obviously updated this in 2012 by policy ff and now it's just called naming new facilities and what the policy would be it's very very small
037but it does say again that we would follow a procedure of recommending names etc so for discussion my thinking is do we want to first before we consider any name of anything again if someone's put forth the court itself i think it's a wonderful gesture do we my thinking is we go back to the policy sub first and look at this policy and and address the process that we might want to undertake to do that so that's why i brought it forth comments or questions mr nunes go ahead thank you madam chair um yeah uh this is in all seriousness this is a great honor i mean i've had the privilege of knowing uh steve since high school and and such but uh dr gifford is right we do depending which way you want to
038follow this we've gotta we've done this a couple of different ways and that i think since the new policy went in in 2012 i don't think we've done it i don't think anything has happened per se [Music] but if you go back to the old policy and i remember when we put this in uh there was a long discussion on it because one of the things that somebody had in that policy was what they call a wow factor you know what made that person stand out above somebody else to make them make you know make them you know for that honor and such so you know you need to let it you know it was you know letters it was a committee letters of recommendation you know uh people you know talking how good he
039was or what was going on you know maybe former basketball student players you know teammates things of that nature for him and such and i agree with you know mr granfield i mean you've got you know it wouldn't be setting a precedent in the area per se because you've got you know in the bedford high school and you've got bishops uh durfee high school and i think i also think that uh for haven has it with theirs with the mellington jim and the wayne wilson basketball court i think i'm not sure but that rings a bell so i think that's what we have to do is you know there's got to be a committee together to to meet and solicit recommendations and you know is there anybody else out there that somebody maybe hasn't thought
040over you know over the over the years of you know the number of basketball coaches that we've had you know uh you know from this you know starting in the 60s anyway that i can remember and then going forward so you know i think that's what we have to just it's a great honor i don't have an issue with it but i just want to see the policy and procedures follow the way they originally were intended and set up back in the mid 90s so the question is whether i think i don't disagree with you i think the question i would ask you all is do we want to start for dr gifford's recommendation with looking at that policy in the policy subcommittee to make sure it's the policy we want to follow because i
041think you're right we have to have a policy we have to follow a process but because that policy is so old it may be something we want to review before we implement it i would agree i would agree i would have been okay that sounds good because again and this specifically says facilities you know i know we have various things it might be a library i think it's a good time to update a policy to um take all of those other things into consideration okay so the idea would be would go back to the policy committee the updated policy will come to us once we approve that we will then start that process to look at naming the basketball court right does that sound good to everyone that's fine yeah we don't need a motion
042on that right no no and i also just received notice that christian's on his way [Laughter] that's great he's probably he's like that's great and i i will also say right it's great that he will give him a minute to yeah um if if the clear that it wasn't a zoom meeting yeah if the if the class officers would like to film a video or something like that nothing that we don't have to do anything fancy right um they're welcome to do that and we would be happy to show that to us at our next meeting come on in relax take a deep breath first right a deep cleansing breath here yeah welcome and we apologize for the mix-up i know sometimes we're on zoom sometimes we're face-to-face we resume last time so i could
043see um how you might you might have uh made that mistake that's fine um we're not going to ask you i don't think there's a presentation we're not going to ask you to do a presentation no panic yeah um i think we just the committee um wanted to hear a little bit about your thoughts about how the school year went um and then maybe a chance to ask you a few questions so i'm going to ask you just one thing because we all have masks on and because it's loud in here these microphones are only carrying to the video feed so just use your like really loud teacher voice that you've heard for the last you know however many years uh so we could all hear you we would we would very much appreciate that
044okay sounds good you ready go right ahead why don't you why don't you introduce yourself tell us a little bit about yourself and then i want you to talk maybe about your year and give us some of your thoughts about how everything went yeah so my name is christian gavis silvera i'm the senior class president i also have sat on many committees throughout the year principal's advisory panel the safety committee for the school so you know i definitely have an adverse background on all different panels for the school this school year has definitely been a very unique one but i give extreme props to all the teachers and administrators because it has went surprisingly smooth with not not too many hiccups teachers were always very responsive if video went down or trying to keep kids
045engaged in their clat in classes and i know myself like i haven't really fallen behind much in my classes because of how understanding my teachers have been i know we've all you know we've all lost people and and we've all been through different situations because the pandemic and my teachers have been extremely understanding through all of the different circumstances going on in my life and in my peers lives um so i just i i think it went it's been extremely smooth and even the transition to fully in person it's been it's it's been extremely smooth you wouldn't even know that there was that we've been hybrid all year you know so that's my input towards that what questions do we have i'd like to open it up to the school committee to go ahead and
046ask questions uh mr oliver we're going to start down there that way it'll help me keep my pace all right well thank you for joining us tonight i appreciate your feedback and everything that's gone on here how do you find um the end of the year activities the planning for that as well as you know can you tell us a little bit about those end of the year activities yeah so as a lot of people know we we working alongside with administration and and my advisors we formed a 21 for 21 list 21 activities for the class of 2021 some were smaller activities some were bigger and it's it's been a little bit of a challenge pulling some of them off but we've we've done it for every single one no matter how last minute
047might have been or how quick it might have come we just had our um our formal dinner on thursday of last week which went really well for the senior class with you know we had a mentalist we had a magic show so i think kids had a lot of fun at that event as well in in all the events really i mean kids there haven't really been any complaints towards any of what we've done really that's awesome yeah so at first it was backlash i'm not gonna lie but that comes with everything you do you know so it's it's been it's been fun and it's been great to be able to provide a lot in which a lot of schools aren't providing a lot right now for their senior class just because of the restrictions
048everyone's under so it's been it's been very easy to work alongside administration and with our advisors that's awesome glad to hear it yeah yeah you'll always have the naysayers there right always what can you do absolutely thank you very much yeah of course uh mr nunes go ahead two quick questions nothing earth shattering yeah what are your plans for next year so i'm going to be working for my dad full-time but i'll be going to bcc at the same time in their business transfer program so i'm i'm definitely still going to stay very engaged in the community very i want to still work closely alongside you know the school system helping to improve things in whatever way i can but yeah and i guess the one that's a little bit more tough a little tougher
049is for you personally and your classmates how did it finally feel to have everybody together last week as school reopened to everyone amazing amazing i i haven't seen a lot of my friends faces in school since last march so a lot of my very close friends are in a different cohort so it has felt so much more normal and such a relief to be back in school with with everyone honestly and everyone's been great about about it it's a little tough with trying to social distance you have all the kids you know trying to keep everything organized but administration teachers everyone's been doing a good job to try to really keep things you know in in order so great welcome back and good luck thank you i really don't have a question for you i
050mean it's i enjoy hearing you know your plans for next year i just want to uh thank you for being like that constant you know accepting of the criticism and the backlash with all the planning um about your positivity and just being that constant kind of leader amongst your peers is really great because it hasn't been easy but it is what it is and and it's really nice to have people and i and i really appreciate your persistence with us and really being engaged with the process and trying to advocate for things over your course of your time here um it's always been a pleasure to hear from you and to kind of consider what you have you know what you've brought to us so i just you know your future is bright and and
051thank you for thank you for making it in person well thank you the confusion um appreciate it to agree with my colleagues again you know i've enjoyed meeting you you know through with some other things that you've done you know my uh he was a superhero in the princess parades around town so i really appreciated that um you know and i i think again you're extremely articulate well-spoken engaged i think you know i have to echo what kathleen said i think you have a really bright bright future and i certainly hope that you know you say we need people like you staying involved in our community you know absolutely that are you know younger engaged voices um you know there's a real need so i i feel confident that you're gonna be you know we'll
052continue to hear from you that this is not the last thing so i appreciate it if there's anything else you want to add or you know talk about too you know i know we've been talking about activities and things like that i know you've been you know advocating for you know some other things along the way too so you know yeah i mean i'm glad to talk about you know whatever we've talked about throughout the course of the years i just didn't know if you wanted me to specifically talk about the school year for for today so if we want to i can always come back another meeting to discuss those advocacy issues if you'd like okay well i think you're here so if you have issues that you want to bring up to us
053i don't want to pressure you but if you feel like there are issues to bring up that's part of why i think we wanted the senior class to be here our next meeting is after you graduate you are welcome to come and be here at the same point in time you drove here so if there are other issues that you um want to raise with us please take this opportunity to go ahead and do so now yeah i've you know over the years i've advocated for lots of different things um the thing that i've the most persistently advocated about has always been the student the student parking pass fees um and something that i've sent multiple emails about had numerous phone calls about and done a lot of research about into the budget and i
054guess what it has always boiled down to was regardless if we parked there or not the majority of the maintenance is occurring in the front law and this and in the fire lanes around the school so if we shut down the student law it wouldn't be saving the school much money so the amount that's being charged doesn't really you know compensate for it in that way it was just an issue that that i wanted to be looked into a little deeper maybe analyze a little bit more and consider like okay if we shut down this lot what would it cost um i i plow in the winter and i know that that student parking lot is the easiest thing to plow out of the whole school and plowing is the biggest expense for the from
055the lots from what i've understood from conversation so i just i always had a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact of charging i believe it was 60 dollars a car and then 30 after the half year for students this year they've been better about it because i mean look at what we're living through right now in in the financial situations but it's just it's it's always been an issue i've been persistent about so that's all that's that's my only ask is to just look further into that issue go ahead dr christian thanks again for running out and coming but i'm just curious um we hear a lot about mental health and and the stress that not only adults but students everyone has been going through do you have a what's your perception on
056how the students are handling this in general and if there's anything that you think more could be done or ideas about helping kids i'm sure you have a take because obviously you're listening to your friends etc i just want to hear what you're thinking i appreciate you bringing that up um because i'm going to be i'm going to be blatantly honest right now on on this live stream i personally lost someone to suicide throughout the pandemic and i truly feel in my heart that part of that of what happened was because of the way we've been living it was an older gentleman but still someone that hit very close to home so i know a lot of students are experiencing this in many different ways that they're not that you might not be thinking about
057i know i i see a social worker as many students in the school do and i know my social worker was very responsive when they found out reaching out to teachers teachers offering extensions on on assignments a lot of people have been very understanding because a lot of people understand how fragile this situation we're all been living through is i don't know what the school could necessarily do for more support just making sure students know it's okay to to reach out for support and it's normal you know it's not like for me to be up here and comfortable enough in front of everyone to say what i've been going through you know it's not easy but i want to do it so that way kids can understand it's okay to talk it's okay to to
058you know speak out about different issues going on so the school's done an amazing job trying to help in any way they can mentally for students as well so i will say that i deeply appreciate you saying that i've said a lot up here you know oftentimes we come and it's great to hear all of the good things that are happening in schools but i think it's also really important to recognize how difficult this has been and you know i i have a junior and senior it's hard on all kids but i really feel particularly for the seniors right who who you missed out on a lot of things that are you know part of a normal senior year and i appreciate all the work that you've done you know for the 21 but at
059the same point in time there's a lot you missed in the fall and there's a lot of other things you missed and so i try to talk about that too that it is normal we've had a lot of mental health problems in our house as well and so i do hope kids get that message and it is i think definitely something that we are going to pay attention to as we look at the lessons and think about what we're going to do right because everyone wants to talk about how the fall is normal but i want to avoid using that word because we're not there yet right there's a lot of things that we need to recover from from this i think it's been traumatic for a lot of people particularly for kids so i
060really appreciate you saying that and taking the time to you know to articulate that yeah i also just want to give you i don't necessarily disagree with you on the parking fee um if i had my brothers and i had a larger budget right i don't think we should charge any fees right i don't want athletic fees i don't want club fees i don't want but a perennial problem in this town is a lack of funding for our schools right and so that money that we're getting from parking fees is doing things and so we've got to figure out if we get rid of all of these fees how do we continue to do these things and a large portion like i'm looking at mr nunes the the music association which is the pride and
061joy of this you know this district rest on a lot of volunteer hours and a lot of volunteer money and so i don't want to dismiss your concerns but there's always a big shortage of money in this district and that's one of the difficulties is figuring out how to do the things we need to do um and you know to do it in an equitable way and so i i you know i i don't want to say that you know no or yes right it is something that i think we'll keep in mind but it it's something that we have to figure out because money not coming in means less money to do things and we we'd have to figure out how to do that yeah i've and i've always understood all that because i've
062always you know i've i advocated for teachers for students you know for trying to get more money towards our budget that's you know those are things i've always advocated towards and you know but i've always looked at it as the music program is for is one group of kids the uh the sports or another group of kids there's registration fees for all sorts of things but the parking lot is is a public infrastructure in which so many people use the plows there's so much damage in the parking lot from them plowing alone i don't know if the plow companies were charged for that damage i know there were curbs displaced there was asphalt displaced you know i know there's damage in the front lot from teacher cars from leaking oil you know it and it
063also there's damage at the other parking lots as well but those are covered so it's more about i understand we need the money but i don't know if it's the right way to get the money kind of thing you know what i mean so maybe if it's when you go to propose the budget you have a little increase in the maintenance budget and if they knock it down well at least you tried but you know i i think i think if we don't at least try to eliminate that fee then we're not going to get anywhere with it at all you know mr nunes had a comment and then mr oliver i i didn't i i want to go back to the social emotional core respect yeah and i appreciate you saying exactly what you
064did uh in what i want to say is i think it behooves you it behooves your fellow students classmates and anyone the old adage if you hear something say something you young men and women have your ear to the ground you know your friends and if there's if they have an issue maybe you reach out to them and say johnny susie how you doing what if you don't like the answer go knocking on someone a teacher door or you know the social worker's door mr t will's door miss javier's door just say hey listen johnny susie they've got a problem i've tried talking to him it's not working or i don't know what's going on can somebody talk to them yeah it may be nothing but it may be something and if you you know
065again the old adage hear something say something and that's what i would if would impress on you yeah i um i actually had a friend over the over the course of the pandemic who's a student here who had gotten to a point where they got to a very low point and i had to do exactly that i had to i was very concerned they had to stay at my house one night and i had to reach out to ieps social workers so and i'm sure that's happening all across the board so i'm we've had a lot of students that have been dealing with this different stuff and and i think that friends and parents and teachers are doing a good job recognizing that there's different stuff going on and trying to support them any way
066they can you know so but i one thousand percent agree with you okay thank you i'm good man mr oliver thank you madam chair yes thank you for bringing that up you know these are the types of conversations that we should be having and i really appreciate you taking the time to share your experience of course uh with that um with that i you know i don't see why we you know maybe down the line we can't put something in the the agenda just to have an open discussion about the parking fees and dig a little bit more deeper whether it's through the budget subcommittee um or through just the general meeting but i just asked that somewhere down the road that um you know maybe we can bring him back and uh we can
067share she has some more thoughts um i have a couple of my own thoughts as well i've always um i've actually had conversations i think with mr kylie in the past previous years about the parking fees um so you know i think it's worthwhile you've done you've clearly done your due diligence um i saw i i read your letter uh that you had sent i think it was last month of the month before yep um that was very well written by the way i appreciate it i mean you backed it up with a number of facts so uh no we we appreciate your time and we don't want this to you know to think that we're not listening to you we're not hearing you we take everything under you know we take everything under advisement
068i appreciate and i'd be glad to go into more depth i obviously don't want to sit here spitting out all these numbers and you know what not but i'd be glad to have a meeting in the future you know whatever it may be to discuss the issue further no i appreciate it so much yeah are there questions comments well we appreciate you uh coming out rushing over here after that uh miscommunication um you know we we just wanted to hear your thoughts about the year and and how things were going so we really appreciate you coming tonight and taking the time to to inform us i appreciate it thank you for having me thank you for mr oliver's suggestion thank you thank you thank you really valuable thank you all right so the next item
069on our agenda is a superintendent's update just a couple of things i'll mention um a couple of things going on in the schools obviously the elementary schools have been having their like i said last time they're grade five get togethers getting ready to do all of that so that's in process um potter well i asked them do you want me to share anything and they've been having some dance-a-thons and virtual this and bingos and everything ptos are helping raise money the things that people missed out on before one exciting thing is i think we mentioned before that cushman school was awarded a became a feinstein school so they're continuing that work and its focus on kindness and they received two thousand dollar two of them i think one thousand yeah so two two thousand dollar
070um checks from the fines as they continue their work about being kind it's they're using take care of yourself take care of others and take care of our school and we're we just put up a little banner on the school so if you take a peek at that feinstein school so that's dr dale is very excited about that continued work we're all in the process of planning for the promotion at the middle school as well as graduation at the high school the middle school at this point in time will be doing two graduation um events if you will by cohorts mr jones has prepared a letter which we're going to regroup on tomorrow in light of the governor's updated guidance so we'll be um sending that out shortly but right now the dates for the
071middle school are looking like june 15th and june 16th and once again mr jones letters are always very very thorough so he'll be sending those out to the parents once we touch base with him tomorrow again as far as the high school goes of course as i said um the graduation will be june 6 and we're still finalizing some details uh going back and forth on you know our original plan is to use the turf field um we're still looking at that to make sure we don't want damage to the turf field but yet um how do we make that work for our kids and our parents and again thinking about the governor's update today we're going to be regrouping and looking at that to some of our planned shift as of tomorrow you may
072have seen that the students no longer have to wear masks outside so that message was sent out and um kids will get to be do resource recess without their mass we'll be meeting with mr mishu in the morning just to go over some things again and and look at that and always get his advice on what's happening uh we are continuing to work with the police department on the rolling parade which we're planning as well like last time i knew once we did it it was too successful right that was great so we you know we're gonna have to do it again and um i just want to give another shout out to mr galashaw and his tech team um last week i don't know if you knew we we had a kind of a
073i'd say a major event on a friday and before mcas was comes back on monday etc and things kind of shut down and we knew we needed things on monday mr galesha and his tech team worked diligently throughout the weekend including until 2 a.m on one of the nights so i don't think there'd be another team of folks that would bother i mean one person left a mother's day was sunday left to go have mother's day dinner and then came back and stayed all night so we can't we couldn't thank them enough um for their commitment and the work that they did and i i just feel like i keep mentioning mr galashaw about the tech team i don't know i don't know what's going on but in all seriousness um we're very thankful because
074mundy would have come and it would have been a little bit of a disaster thank you mr gallashaw yeah anyway that's all i have so our last item on the agenda is a report of the chair and you know i just want to say i know you're saying thank you to mr galashaw but i would like to say thank you to all of the administrative team and staff both in the central office and in the schools um you know it's hard to believe that all of our kids are back in school full-time finally um it has been a crazy year and i know you all have worked so very hard throughout the last summer and this year and i know we all appreciate that and we're all crossing our fingers for a normalish summer so
075you guys can have some some down time and hopefully some vacation time you've all worked really hard and i think we all appreciate it very much thank you i don't have anything else to add to my colleagues mr nunes and then mr oliver yeah thank you madam chair i mean to just follow up on your comment too i mean we in all services can't forget uh rick ferreira and his maintenance staff and the individual building custodian staffs i mean walk around see all the plexiglass and everything else that's going on behind the scenes in these buildings type of deal is is them i mean working you know through weekends and what it would be a holiday day off for for everybody type of deal that you're working to get those things in place and the
076custodians cleaning everything at night and after events and things of that nature so uh my you know our thanks to them too uh the question that i have through you to the superintendent and one of the things i was thinking about uh and it came to light because of what's going what they were talking about in cranston rhode island and they were talking in cranston about at cranston east cranston west high school is opening the vaccines up to the high school students you know at that time anybody that was 16 so you know for argumentative say juniors and seniors type of deal to get give them a chance to be vaccinated well now they've moved it down to you know 12 year olds which brings you into sixth grade and i'm just wondering if that's
077something that we've looked at you know in in getting as many of our students vaccinated as possible yes the seniors are leaving but then they'll be in good shape when they go to college next year and then at this point in time you would have everybody from sixth grade to juniors as they move up one year you know make the schools that much safer next year and everybody that much safer and staff and such so i'm just throwing it out there i know it probably is going to be some work that's got to be done on it but it's just something that kind of came to mind yep yeah and and we did um i did throw that out to mr mishu and um he mentioned that you know we'd take a a partner whether
078south coast or he mentioned a couple of other things that would then um provide us with the uh vaccines but we're going to continue that conversation um mr kiley did send me forward me an email from westport today so i did post it on our facebook page it was a link they had about a thousand vaccines available at the nx on main road for the 20th and um they provided a link that people it's for 12 and up so we put that on our facebook page they shared it with us and other school districts if folks wanted to um fill out the survey they would schedule that time i think it's twelve to six i believe so at least that's one step forward that's that's all i was looking at and the last thing i
079have is a little bit of a light and i just want to thank the members of the junior class for my wife and i getting our second flocking so we appreciate it should have paid the insurance i didn't the first time mr oliver i've been flocked once hopefully not twice mr oliver thank you dr jenkins um yeah just to piggyback off of what mr noon said um i know that the uh the clinic at circus city is now accepting walk-ins they're accepting watkins now and i know that the schedule for south coast health at vanity fair that's also accepting walk-ins in certain days so um there's definitely availability in the area all of the cvs's are offering vaccines now too in town okay and appointments are generally available whenever you want yeah they definitely seem
080to be opening up my question though was i'm not sure if it's this time of the year but dr geffrey could we have a list of all of our resignations and retirements um i don't know if it's typically in the springtime or if it's back over the summer but whenever you get a chance if you could provide probably get that for the next meeting and we just got another one last week so it might change a little bit but pretty much i think pretty much do we have uh a few more individuals looking to retire uh early after this year uh it might be okay i don't know if that i think maybe some were pushed a little bit we're on the cusp but yeah okay i'm done but we'll get that for you yeah
081madam chair i got one more quick thing i apologize thought of it now when you talk about mr kylie the usually the mo the year-end budget opening is that coming next meeting yeah i think that'll be the next one yep okay yep all right uh miss wait and i was just gonna add as we were talking about the uh vaccinations is that you know they do need to have even if you have a you know 12 13 year old you need to have an id so school id works so if you're a parent that's you know planning that you know appointment just make sure you have a school id or if you don't have a passport or something like that other comments questions um before we move on miss ganther do you receive any emails
082for public comments i have not no okay so our next meeting is scheduled for june 7th at 6 30 here just so we're all clear in case anyone doesn't know that um and having said that i will entertain a motion to adjourn into executive session for updates on negotiations with union personnel not to readjourn into open session so moved second so i have a motion by miss wheat a second by miss mr noon sorry a long day is there any discussion on the motion i'm hearing them roll call please miss gunther shannon jenkins yes mary waite yes kathleen amaral yeah john nunes yep chris oliver yes thank you everyone have a good evening [Music]