Dartmouth School Committee Meeting January 11, 2021

001good evening everyone i'd like to call this meeting of the dartmouth school committee to order for a monday january 11 2021. would you please stand for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands well happy new year everyone i hope you all had a wonderful time uh away from the dartmouth public schools to some extent uh with your families or at least your immediate families and everyone had some time to uh just re-energize just a reminder if you do have a cell phone on you to please silence it and i'm just going to continue reading my little disclosure as i have in the past per governor baker's audit suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law chapter 30a section

00220. the public will not be allowed to physically access this school committee meeting members of the public can access the meeting via live stream at youtube.com forward slash dhs tv media in addition the event will be rebroadcast in dc tv channels 9 and 18 on the 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 and as always you know it never never goes by without me taking the opportunity to thank dartmouth community television mr peratti who in his uh crew wherever they may be this evening and mr galesha who also helps out with these meetings would none of this

003would be possible without their help and support uh that being said we have a roll call please chris oliver here shannon jenkins here kathleen emerald here mary waite here john nunes yep thank you very much uh at this time we typically allow uh 10 or 15 minutes for anyone anyone wishing to comment on any of tonight's agenda items um if you have not done so yet comments can be made to our recording secretary to my right your left uh kate genther her email address is kathleen genther at a cushion i'm sorry at dartmouthschools.org um once again that's kathleen genther dartmouthschools.org it's my day job there i'm thinking of do we have any public comments this evening not so far okay thank you kate at this time chair will entertain a motion to approve the irregular

004session minutes of december 21st 2020. so moved second the motion by mr nunes a second by uh mrs waite on the motion any other discussion j hearing none all in favor aye aye aye opposed motion passes unanimously thank you for that uh next up under new business fy22 through fy26 capital improvement plan draft i'll turn it over to our assistant superintendent of finance and operations mr james kiley thank you mr oliver so uh you were provided with the draft capital improvement plan for 22 through 26. there are a number of requests that are prioritized for year one of this plan um so just to back up and talk about a little bit year one what that would entail is there would be a meeting of the capital improvement well first of all you would hear

005it tonight consider the plan you may act tonight on it you don't have to act tonight on it there will be a meeting of the capital improvement planning committee that is made up of town residents and i would present the plan that you have approved to them they will then hear all the other department's requests compile everything make recommendations based on the available funds that the town may have that would then go before the finance committee the select board and then get to town meeting in early june so that's what we're you know we're beginning of january but that's our that's our target for this um so there's a number of things on here and i'll just briefly talk about them and we have them in priority order based on our needs at the moment

006the hvac upgrades and maintenance that's probably not a surprise to anybody it's we put in a request for three hundred thousand dollars i guess i'd just like to say that the town has been very helpful in funding improvements that we've made through this crisis so they have allocated a significant amount of their cares act money to our building's needs through this not through articles although they did fund a 75 000 article um at the previous town meeting for our benefit uh we have not used any of that yet because we are using their cares act money we have contractors in working we have our maintenance staff buying uh buying equipment and and replacement materials and putting in their own time also to to repair systems so it's a significant undertaking this is really a maintenance

007request with some upgrades but more focusing on keeping things operationally sound this is not necessarily to say we're going to solve all our problems with this we have a lot of old systems as you know a lot of old buildings and this is not going to solve that but this will help us maintain thank you mr kylie uh really quickly before we continue that funding of the three hundred thousand dollars is that year mark for any specific would a big chunk of that go towards a one one or two buildings or is that spreading the whole thing right across the district spread across the district um to address the glaring needs that arise which you know which happen um we've spent a lot of time at the cushman school and at the high school this

008year with our vendors working on um you know work working on hvac improvements because those were the areas that were needed um and fortunately the town's been able to support that but we need help everywhere sure and then my last question about the hvac upgrades is i had heard that there were some money coming through with this latest um stimulus package have you heard any more about that nothing specific from the state yet as to how that would be distributed or applied for or based on need yeah i nothing nothing yeah okay thank you so technology hardware so mr galashaw um each year utilizes this uh this funding source this is our sort of annual replacement cost that we have we have an agreement with town hall to provide this this actually does not come

009out of free cash or borrowing this actually comes out of the operating budget and has been built in now for a number of years mr barnes was able to do that several years ago and continues to do that we're thankful for it um and that you know we just have more and more technology than we've ever had before so this is vital in keeping us operationally you know ready in the in the tech realm so um it continues to be a very important source for us uh technology network upgrades so this is in conjunction with e-rate funding and what we're talking about here is fiber optic cable replacement and network component replacement so this is a project that mr gallashaw has uh has ontap ready to ready to get operational so hopefully we're able to

010get funding for this in june and move forward and take care of some of the needs we have and update the buildings flooring replacement project um we've had this flooring replacement project going on my entire 10 years that i've been here and it's not stopping anytime soon although we're getting there so what we what we basically focus on is deteriorated flooring and um asbestos containing material uh flooring uh which is our older floors some of which are in great shape most of which are in in good shape those old asbestos floors but um it's this is always an opportunity for us during the summer to abate those buildings and be done with that so we never have to worry about it again and we'd be continuing that process looking at the middle school and a

011couple of elementary schools particularly to focus on with that grease trap replacement so we have grease traps in our schools and that grease trap prevents fat fats from going directly into a drainage system so in kitchens a grease trap is essentially a tank that's built into the ground and fats go into it and fats are separated from the water so the water fats are contained and then periodically they need to be cleaned out and empty they don't last forever and this is to address those issues and we have had some significant issues with them um they're not designed to be a a lifetime a building life type of piece of equipment you need a mason to do this we need to jackhammer the the three straps out and replace them so we um i have

012a furniture article here i actually had this on last year we didn't fund it and part of that was because of me and uh when we went to the capital improvement planning committee i was um at at some point last year it became obvious that we did not want more furniture because right now i have furniture that is stacked in all these storage containers so it didn't make sense to do anything with furniture last year um but there's a few things that we've targeted with this furniture money that i think are important one being cafeteria tables and particularly in the dimelo and potter schools which are built into the walls fold out don't function real problems they're constantly breaking you can't get parts for them our maintenance guys can fix anything and they can't fix

013these well it's just an a constant issue they've been on the principles lists of things we need to address for many years now and i really want to take care of those but the other thing that i'm very concerned about is that i have all this furniture stocked stacked in these storage containers these storage containers are supposed to be watertight i hope they are i think but i'm just concerned that when we start to take things out some of this older furniture that we have in there is not going to fare well between the moving around getting packed getting unpacked and i think we could be in a position where we need to replace a significant amount of furniture just to get up and running if we were to hopefully in the fall be back

014you know with full classrooms full of furniture so um so i've included that i slid that back from last year into into this year's request parking lot repaving so there's a few schools that that we want to target there's some work at the cushman and the mellow schools and the potter school that we want to target we've done this periodically through the years done some good work on it done most of the the quinn school is in good shape but we need to address some of those other areas so that would be for vehicle areas and pedestrian access areas high school auditorium av and lighting systems this has been on on the list for a long time the uh i mean i thought it was flooded last year of the year yeah yeah yeah so

015we've talked about it before but but we've never really acted on it um and it's time it's unfortunately you think this is the new building well it was the new it's the newer building but it was built with low bid some of that equipment is low bid it's not great it's not functional it's not the best and we'd like something to reflect our values here and really you know do it right in that auditorium it's a beautiful room and has a lot of potential but you know that's something that's been on the high school's list for some time vehicle replacement so what we're used for vehicles we're we're definitely big on hand-me-downs and um we have hand-me-down if that's a word um the uh the old sped vans to do other things um when they're

016no longer able to drive you know 30 miles to go somewhere um it makes sense to use them in town well even even so these things are getting old and uh you know i have 135 000 miles and just beat up old vans that are starting to rust and not work well we would be looking at fuel efficient vehicles um try like the ford transit smaller ones that are you know nice fuel efficient vehicles something like that and that would be for our sort of operations we found through this process that we need to be flexible more than ever um and we don't have that much flexibility the way we're working on things right now but we need to be able to move things around quickly with good reliable vehicles so my hope is that

017you know that would be a consideration it is down towards the bottom of our list though so i understand what that might mean and then into an exterior painting we have a little bit of money left from a previous article for this but we constantly want to keep up with this my my maintenance crew in conjunction with some part-time help that we have in the summer comes in and paints every summer um tries to maintain the buildings and we just want to continue that we want to be sure we can continue that process so that's important for us as well so those are the things that are coming up this year any other questions on any of those i'll turn it over to my community members dr jenkins so i have questions on a few

018of these um the first the technology hardware which i definitely appreciate the town um doing that for us but that's been 200 as you note for several years has that started to affect our replacement cycle at all yet i mean how long can we continue to stay on the same replacement cycle if that number doesn't increment i i guess i'd be remiss not to not to acknowledge too that the um the town as part of their cares act funding um and mr barnes reached out to me when we were struggling with some things and tried and we we worked out not only would they support us with the hvac but also support us with technology mr galashaw was there was a hard deadline of when we had to have this stuff in and it wasn't

019easy to get a lot of these technology components because every school district in the country is was searching for them um he was able to get some uh and they is a significant uh investment that the town made from their cares act money now that's a sort of one-time investment but it was big and it definitely has trickle-down effect and that was the intent of it so we'll be good for some time uh but you're right at some point we've increased technology so much is 200 the right number and i don't know but we're thinking i think i can remember being on the finance committee and i haven't been on the finance committee for a long time talking about 000 yeah right it's been that 10 years yeah it's been the same amount yeah 10

020years all right so my second question is just sort of more of a comment um on the def with respect to furniture particularly classroom furniture we've seen a really strong appetite for alternative seating for our students and i would hope that as we start to replace um our classroom furniture i know it's not all classroom furniture that we would figure out ways to sort of integrate um that alternative seating um for for all of our students that's just more of a suggestion i'm sure we're doing that but i know teachers are really sort of clamoring for that [Music] and then the other thing i guess i would ask is because our vehicles are so old right and fuel inefficient are there any opportunities for grants have we worked with the interim development director about that

021i mean oftentimes there can be money for green or more fuel efficient cars and i know mr haddad right that's sort of his role so maybe he could help us either either with the same money get you know electric vehicles or whatever i mean i think it's great to look for those sort of opportunities to save us fuel costs and if the town can help us out with that that might be a great opportunity yeah yeah i'm not sure i know the town the town has helped us out with the green community funding and actually the middle school boiler improvements that we're working on now that were funded last year are being partially funded through that i don't know what other opportunities there might be the only reason why i asked because i don't remember

022i don't remember mr nunes or someone else remember state they got the bmws they got for really cheap and remember they had to put bumper stickers on them to say this was grant funded we're not buying bmws for the town right so i don't know that we're going to get bmws for us but there might be some opportunities around that right mr news yeah thank you just a follow-up on dr jenkins the bmws and audis and that different municipalities got and everything else was part of a state grant municipalities literally paid pennies on a dollar for those for those vehicles and the state also picked up in some instances the uh the charging stations so i mean i can remember some people sitting there saying well you know things are tough and you guys are

023driving around and bmws and audis will yeah it was a trickle down from the federal government through the state you know to the municipality so for hybrid cars or electric cars and that type of deal so that's what that was all about just that yeah thank you mr chairman too um you know just a couple of a couple of questions and i like the way everything is and thank you mr kylie for your uh your explanations uh i mean the fact that right now we're taking advantage of free money as i would call it and not having to use you know the 8 875 grand we still got that in the bank is great thank you very much to uh the town for that and also in all seriousness uh you know thanks to the

024town for the again the technology money um especially with covet i mean you know with all the uh chromebooks that we've had to buy and all the different technologies that we've had to put into place uh we'd really be in trouble trying to trying to come together and and get them going so i i just for one just want to say thank you very much and other than that i agree with everything that's here and even looking forward i know we talked about some of these last year that being the high school track and the athletic fields and and such so i mean i am uh i'm good with i'm good with all of these at the moment thank you anyone else i don't really have anything additional but thank you thank you you just

025a couple of points here uh as far as the technology goes uh i think 200 once again 200 000 is great um i'd be curious to know maybe through the budget process what is in the operational budget for technology devices and technology hardware how much of that comes out of the operational budget and my guess is that i would assume that it's fairly it's fairly low at the in the operational budget it is compared to this yeah it's it's not anywhere near this amount um but but there is some money still in the operational budget to support because my only concern mr gallashaw and everyone else um is that moving forward since we we've really kind of pivoted here let's face it right everyone we're we're fully re mobile this week we are fully remote

026and i don't know i don't have the actual number i'm not sure if you have the actual number of how many chromebooks are actually out in the hands of students right right now um fourth four thousand so we have four thousand the district has given out four thousand chromebooks to pretty much i would say that's just about every single student in the district plus all our teachers plus all our teaching staff and i feel like i'm playing um a game of charades here so no so you know that that's that's a lot of devices my only concern moving forward is obviously the upkeep of these devices and the cycle and making sure that we're able to i don't see this going away now now that we're in this you know we're in this uh rhythm

027here with these devices i don't see us pulling back on that so i would just i would be an advocate to see what we can do to to support that and support this initiative in addition i know this is outside of the capital improvement plan i said it last year and i'll say it again we need to get mr galesha more help and that that comes we'll talk about that at another meeting what's the 78 thousand dollars specifically for for the for the fiber i know it's an e-rate project so i'm assuming it's like 50 whatever you're your will be reimbursed almost half or right around half so it's between the clause that's in each school so you're understood i think that's a great idea and a great use of the money um what else

028do i have last but not least actually not on this capital plan but i figured i'd bring it up because it was a capital um separate capital idol uh item the stadium mr coyote yeah so in terms of the stadium you know we've not we've got a whole person we are in a holding pattern we've done some good design work um in anticipation of hoping to you know proceed at some point um i i did let mr barnes know because he inquired of me a couple of days ago um if i if he needed to borrow any money and i i told him at this point we were not um proceeding with it in the immediate future so not to be done this summer okay at this point but that does bring up a good

029point that every year that goes by what we did approve what the what what town meeting did approve is probably not going to be enough by the time we get around to doing it is that a fair assumption there's there's some risk of that there's also risk that if you were to go out to bid right now because of the inflated cost of building materials right now that there's potential that the world sort of settles down a little bit at some point in the hopefully in the next year and um that construction material prices come back to normal and there could be some benefit of that but um really there's so much going on right now uh that it i really didn't think it made sense to move forward in the school department to take

030that take that on at this point in time and last but not least as you uh have flooring replacement in there for 250. i know it's already been several years how's that how is our gym floor looking here at the high school it's interesting you say that so i got here early today and i i went in and shot baskets for a little while which is probably the first time i've done that in a couple of years but the floor is seen somewhere it's seen some wear i mean i think it's it's generally in good condition and will be fine for quite a while but um but it definitely is it's definitely worn so in your estimate not on my five-year plan it's okay it's not on your five-year plan but you know not that

031long after six yeah thank you thank you for all of this yeah dr john so if we're going to the bottom i only have my questions for the top i have a couple questions for the bottom part the future plan um juan i've had a few people ask me about the tennis courts where are those on here is it part of the track is it part of yeah the athletic facilities um it is something that we need to take a look at as well because i've heard i mean the school graciously allows people to play tennis at times when they're not being used and um there's not a lot of those facilities in the town now particularly since the the tennis facility closed and so i expect that those might come due sooner rather than

032later because they're getting a lot of use the second thing that i want to say i'm always sort of a broken record but i will also note that there's nothing on here about replacement of schools and we did a fancy fancy project about replacing schools you know we have 2.5 million dollars for the window replacement at potter and demello we need to have a serious conversation about what our plan is for replacing our schools because it doesn't make sense to spend 2.5 million dollars replacing windows unless you intend to keep those buildings and i know there's a lot going on right now with covid and i don't you know say we should you know bring this up now but i would hope that maybe once we get closer back to normal that that maybe we

033could actually convene also with the town side because it can't just be us advocating for schools it's got to be part of a larger sort of capital master plan for the town these schools are going to have to be replaced they're not going to last forever and we can't continue to you know spend millions and millions of dollars because i i would assume we're going to get you know we're going to look for reimbursement for some of these projects and with reimbursement comes a commitment to use the building for 20 more years generally speaking yeah yeah so we're out with dartmouth middle school roof project right exactly and that's you know we had to do it because it was leaking raining inside in some places right um but i i think we just we really

034need to continue to bring this up um you know and to be a little bit of broken records about it because um you know that was that is something we need to do and i know um when i was on the finance committee one of the things that we did which was not successful so maybe this is not a good strategy but we put a placeholder for the payton era bridge on the town capital project because just it served as a sort of a visual reminder that like hey this is out there and we need to and so maybe at some point we do want to put some placeholders in our capital project to remind people all around that this is coming due right we can't continue to punt much longer our maintenance staff to

035mr kiley's point is great um as is mr kylie and keeping these things running but you know there's only so much blood you can get from a stone well that's a very good point and i think maybe come you know come the fall or after covid's uh kind of camp down a little bit that we do reconvene some kind of uh facilities uh group that we we start having that conversation and pull back some of those documents that were made available to us by that consulting and design group mr nunes yeah just thank you mr chairman not to put mr kylie on the spot but just what's a ballpark figure to replace one of our elementary schools i don't know it's probably going to be 50 million dollar projects you know some it depends you

036know obviously is the answer but it depends what you're going to do um you know depends which school you're going to target how are you going to do it um the the recommendations of the facilities master plan included some options for re for major renovation versus replacement we'd have to look at that we'd look at additions to some schools um try and figure it out that way so it varies so much and i don't think right now would be a good time to to ask for estimates because it's just the construction business is so um in such a disarray right now but i think that uh it would be yeah a significant investment obviously we'd seek msba reimbursement for any project of that magnitude we'd never move forward without it so we would target most

037likely have to target a specific building and um you know seek msba reimbursement for that as we talked about last when we did talk about this facility's master plan some of the issue one of the issues that we will face is that we maintain our buildings very well and as as such it doesn't make us a great candidate for funding um that's what you get but uh you know it it definitely there are there are things that we could look at we don't have overcrowding so that also is a disadvantage for us when it com compared to other uh other districts seeking funding so we knew we would be sort of a borderline candidate for a building replacement but that's not to say that the the climate in school building might not have changed a

038couple of years from now you know or five years from now um and obviously you have to address it at some point and you know dr jenkins is correct you can't they're not going to last forever so we do need to have some plan it may be five years ten years more who knows but i have to have some plan for it and just a follow-up on it i think the the other the other thing that we have to look at too is where would we be able to put one of these schools i mean if if we went brand new you know do we move students into into you know split them into a couple of the other schools and demolish one and rebuild on that site or where do we go because i'm

039not quite sure what there is available in town for land again my personal opinion no there's that's a big concern yeah there's not a lot of uh available centrally located type properties uh to us but you know those are all things that we could talk about as a group when we when we consider the topic and um trying to identify what our priority would be and then push it and try and get it into the into the discussion at least anyone else so mr nunes i'll just say all i remember from that meeting that we had with the plan people was the numbers were big enough they almost gave me a heart attack i think 50 is on the low end of the numbers that were bandied around in that meeting that's that happened to

040be the one meeting i missed when i was sick but yeah i remember looking at all the papers it was i think there was one option that did potter and demelo yeah and then there was another option that did quinn yeah and they were all i think probably started at 60 and went up near a hundred and he's not even talking about the middle school i i do not know 100. i don't really i i did know but i okay i don't recall exactly i will almost join you in the hospital mr nancy yeah with that one that's for sure i've i have no idea mr chairman if everybody is good with this rather than you know mr kylie having to bring it back to us if a vote on this tonight would be okay

041i'm good with that i'm fine i don't see any changes i don't again my opinion no unless there's any other concerns please feel free to make the most mr chairman i make a motion that we approve the capital improvement plan for fy 22 through 26 as presented by our assistant superintendent of finance and operation second i have a motion on the floor by mr nunes a second by mrs wait on the motion any further discussion chair hearing none all in favor hi hi post ocean passes unanimously thank you mr kyle thank you thank you all for your support let us know when you're going to the cip and i will zoom in i will thank you uh next up student opportunity act soa report turn it over to dr gifford yes soa so um to

042be perfectly honest this is this plan that we're submitting on this week we have to submit is really an effort in compliance with desi to be perfectly honest as you know when the act was passed the intent was to provide schools with additional funding and since covert hit and all of that we can just pretty much say that that's not really the truth at this point so anyway we did do our due diligence we went through this this is the short form because it would be a district that would be receiving 100 000 or less um if things were true and so one of the uh provisions of the of this compliance if you will is that we can use focus on an initiative that we've already been doing to say that we will continue

043to do that and so that's what we did we decided to focus in on what's been going on at the high school the two main pieces are the two main initiatives which is as you know about the project base and personalized learning initiative that we've been really working hard at and we had such good rhythm going until obviously covet hit and because we really started that with the idea of trying to reach all students and engage all students in more active and student-centered learning and then the other piece as we presented last year was i guess it was last year now the pro project lead the way curriculum so we started to reinvigorate the course of studies along the engineering and robotics and computer science so as folks have been retiring we've replaced some of

044the traditional business ed with more really computer science folks and they've been to the training for the project lead the way curriculum and have been um implementing that with students so those are the two areas we decided we were going to continue to focus on we did include some of the professional development in what the funding is that we use or would be using continuing to use including grant funding so we use some of the samples from other schools uh to develop our plan as well and um as you notice it has four commitments that jesse asks us to say that we're doing um so yeah so we would look for a committee has to vote that we can vote for approval and then we submit it this week and see what they say and

045what might they say right see what they say but you know there was there was no time or effort or money or energy to obviously create another initiative but just to continue some of the work that we've been doing so that's so we would ask for your vote of approval on that questions from my committee members it's not much to say i guess on this i just have more of a statement and i appreciate the work that you've done on this but i think it's ridiculous that the state has not suspended many of the reporting requirements during a global pandemic school improvement plans right student opportunity act you guys have a lot on your plate a lot more on your plate than you normally do and the least the state could have done to help

046out local communities was to look at their reporting requirements and to ease some of that burden and i am furious at the inaction uh in deci and the baker administration for not taking those steps to help our schools out when a lot of these schools you're just fighting to try to keep them open right now it's ridiculous that's true so i very much appreciate the work that you have done on this but i am angry on your behalf thank you a little out of line but to dr jenkins point any word on mandates around the mcas yeah yeah we'll take that up at another meeting yeah we can bring that in but you know they're still playing i mean they've they're reducing supposedly time they're reducing they've postponed certain tests but we have not seen

047any elimination of it at all even at the younger grades well i think it would be prudent that maybe in the next month or so that we put that on the agenda just to have a discussion here where where how this committee feels right really yeah um yeah with that being said any other questions for dr gifford regarding the oh shannon said it all soa dr jenkins said it all yes so i believe we uh need a motion emotion motion to approve second i have a motion by mr news a second by mrs waite on the motion any further discussion can you just put the caveat that with all due respect we think it's a waste of time to have to do things of this nature julie noted mister duly noted mr nunes all in

048favor aye aye all right oppose pensions thank you foreign passage unanimously uh next up we'll continue on with dr gifford the 21-22 school calendar yeah so you do have the calendar in front of you one of the changes the proposed changes would be unlike this year or actually the last two years where we've had a keynote speaker on the one or two days the one that we had planned on again pre-covert and we had everything planned um it was going to be fantastic but he is planning i believe we've had to shift him to come on the october 6 a professional development day and that's really all about our work with implicit bias and that kind of conversation so with that said we're looking at an august 30th just a straight pd day followed by

049our normal orientation day and then students starting on september 1. we did include if you look in december the 23rd beginning the december break on december 23rd and arriving back on the second of january so you can either just take that and vote um next time yeah um but this is our proposed calendar no big differences of anything else right that's good i wish we could say something very creative but exciting but i think we all say we hope this is the calendar well all of our fingers are crossed exactly exactly that's just it mr chairman motion to approve the dartmouth public school calendar for academic year 21-22 all right so i have a motion by mr nunes a second by dr jenkins i'll give it to um on the motion any other discussion i

050am just before i follow i'm just taking one last look at this since i'm not doing bringing it back i have nothing all in favor hi opposed motion passage unanimously for the 21 22 school calendar all right uh next up uh is the ffc ra extension i had uh spoke to dr gifford spoken to dr gifford last week and i just asked her if she wouldn't mind updating the committee on the act and the extension of benefits sure so i think you're all aware that the ffcra was an act that required employers to provide certain benefits leave benefits because of the covid crisis to folks and that expired at the end of this 2020. so the requirement although that expired it did allow for employers to continue to offer the benefits to folks so i'll

051just go over those quickly what they were and then um let you know what obviously what we've done um so there were they they list five qualifying reasons for leave but really the sixth one is makes no sense and when we researched it way back they just said it really nobody ever came to any determination what it really meant so ignore it it said experiencing any other similar conditions specif specified by the secretary of health and human services and no one knew what that meant so basically we had five reasons for folks to be able to take leave under the co under covid and just quickly um the first one was that if they were subject to a federal state or local quarantine order which happens often they've been advised by a health care provider

052to self quarantine for various medical reasons obviously or they were experiencing symptoms and seeking a medical diagnosis number three that's the one we run into most often and number four was that they were caring for someone who was in self was in quarantine and the fifth one which is the extended fmla is for child care reasons if their child school is closed and and they can't have any other kind of daycare they have nobody qualified to take care so we have a few people using that leave a number of them are intermittent where they might because we're hybrid their children are hybrids so they come to work one day and they can stay home with their child another not too many but we do have a few but as i said the majority of our

053folks uh use that one where they've obviously experiencing symptoms go home they're seeking a medical diagnosis and um a test so what that did was um for one two and three they were able to use up to two weeks so each instance they could so if i get sick five times and had to seek medical attention and covert tests i could use that that many times and that was um their regular rate of pay the um number the the next one is a two-thirds that was for number four where they have caring for an individual that is in quarantine and they could receive two thirds of the pay but they're each two weeks at a time the last one the caring for the child what we did was early early on that can be it's

054a two week and then an additional 10 10 weeks so basically a 12-week leave if you will or use of that time to care for their child like i said some are intermittent um so we were we did on the first two weeks that would be they would receive two-thirds pay we allowed them to then compensate or supplement that with one the one-third with their own sick time so that was the first two weeks and then the last the 10 weeks is two-thirds of their pay so that was the leave act um we also allow folks obviously they have contractual leave a medical documentation etc so we have some of those so when that went by by the wayside you know i i talked to mr kylie uh because it was ending that week we

055had folks coming back to work right away you have to make a decision so we decided at least to extend it through january so it stays as is folks continue to put in their paperwork which we maintain keeping track of who's using what and whatever it's i'm sure it's a nightmare for for i don't even go here you know in the beginning she worked hard with jim to figure that out the documentation kate maintaining spreadsheets on who's doing what and when the principals are very good about when folks are out whether it's on quarantining etc letting us know who is out for what reason that's what i've told them always email us those people because i have to say as much as this this leave is available most of our teachers probably well over 90

056percent have continued to teach if they can remotely if we're able to obviously this when we are remote it's very easy if they're not ill and they're just waiting for a test result they're continuing to teach remotely many of them also continue to teach remotely even when our students were in what we have to do of course is have someone supervising the classroom so that could be if we so it's up to the principal if they can organize that which a number of them do um so we felt strongly that this was important to continue because our message is we don't want people to come to work sick feeling sick so if they we didn't have this available to them and they don't feel well but yet may don't maybe don't have enough sick time

057who knows if they're going to feel like they have to come to work so we have not failed to be abused at all like i said people are could be using this many times when they're seeking a diagnosis but choose to teach remotely so they're not using any so that's that's what we did um let them know that we extended this at least through the end of january to be honest i can't imagine not having it in place yeah think it's january yeah i can't and i know some districts some colleagues of mine stopped it i don't know how they're faring i just don't know but well it's nice to hear that the majority of the majority of our staff are really trying and they are they're if they can work from home really they've

058been on stand you're gonna teach remotely from home i mean some just you know they're clamoring to do it and sometimes we just can't allow it because we don't have the supervision in the school or whatever it might be um so our probably intent is to continue on at least through the winter months and you know see how this is going and sure if it stops it stops but um yeah well well thank you for that any other comments questions on that that's fine that's good thank you thank you appreciate that appreciate all the work they're doing you're welcome everybody's doing yeah i don't know what folks would do without it uh next up we have the superintendent okay all right so what do we have a few things here that's the fcra okay um

059a couple of things let's see so you i did send you an email today after discussion with the ad uh we had some positive cases on the teams over the last couple of days another couple over the weekend on one of the other teams and he he just felt very strongly with and and in conversation with mr misho as well he was on on the conference call this morning just talking about athletics in general we just felt it would be hoovers to just pause for this week because we had some of the teams coming back one was thursday one was saturday and then the girls jv wouldn't come back till gosh january 23rd all we had left was freshman boys and girls varsity basketball playing right now and who knows what was going to happen

060yeah so we've put a pause on that and the plan would be to reinstate on on january 19th so just for the week just to pause on the athletics music is fine right now i haven't heard one thing about them so that was through january 19th yeah they would restart on january 19th so andy will take care of and and there are other teams in the leagues that have been postponing and it's just you know our real intent is to really try to keep kids engaged and involved and give them something to do but when folks are coming to practice not feeling well and those are the things that are happening so that's that piece we have uh just so you know we've been trying to get a teacher to replace our paths p-a-t-h-s teacher

061at quinn the behavioral behavioral goodness what's the words i'm looking for um the students that have significant needs and all of that and she she resigned quite a while ago and we finally were able to just replace her the lady will start on the 25th so we're happy about that because once again at quinn we've had a lot of people really helping to try to try to keep up with that class and man that class so we were happy about that as you saw probably uh thanks to miss gene sheridan once again that the cafeteria staff's been phenomenal preparing meals etc and we added an additional pick up time on tuesday for meals i know folks were looking for that so after like an after work four to six four thirty to six so that

062was advertised last week and if i if i could report on that we have well more than 400 boxes weekly boxes scheduled for tomorrow so more than 400 matches amazing 100 thanks to more than 400 400 i'm sorry already already uh spoken for for tomorrow right wow thanks to dean and he's been kept great they've all been great and then last but not least um we did have our weekly meeting with mr micho this morning um a couple of things he's they're they've been they're implementing the vaccine clinics in town he's he and his staff will whatever staff he has will be really busy uh this week especially getting that off the ground and um he's been um you know the phase one with the emergency responders we did we were able to not us

063personally but school nurses are now uh into the participants part of phase one he's one good so he's uh working with our school nurses on that he is he has been talking to us about the possibility of using our facility at some point in time if the need arises for more clinics to be implemented we talked a lot with him we did talk with him about the pool testing and um i have to say after i attended the first webinar myself mr kylie did yeah and we agreed i'm curious yes i'll reserve my council after yuri all right and i was i told mr misha i said i'm so happy to hear you say you you are echoing my thoughts um it's it's um we're not seeing any value i understand what it pool testing

064is yep but what is the value behind it we we can't identify any he i wrote down some of his his notes he was very adamant about it he said i'm always open to ideas but and he said exactly when we listened we said the same thing it's an only value if we did every single cohort you can't say like oh mrs smith's room mr jones room it would have to be everyone he said what about your buses what about your athletic teams um obviously you need permission from parents to do it he said it's a one-week snapshot and then who's doing it who's who's doing all this work right because it then you have to let's say you get a pot of a positive now you've got to go back and retest again he

065said you he actually said you're overburdening an orally overworked staff he's not seeing transmission in schools he keeps saying that over and over again um too many what-ifs and he is just not in favor of it right now he just does not see any value in this composite sample and he also said that deci is saying that if they got a positive that it would not be reportable he said that's absolutely not true and the local board of health has the authority in these cases to determine what is and what isn't so they're kind of saying all these things but anyway that's um you know i was obviously willing to go to the next webinar put in our yeah i was curious yeah but i wanted obviously his advice and it's exactly what we thought

066in the beginning anyway so i have no more to say about it so is there any because i know we talk i brought this up before when cost just one more thing he said they they bring you in for six weeks of three and then then there's a cost associated with it okay so is there any more appetite at the state level as far as uh distributing more uh rapid testing you know that there was the initial 130 something districts that was uh something tested yeah has there been any more talk on any of the listservs or through any of the commissioners no representative markey reached out to us and uh was going to advocate on our behalf we've not heard anything regarding that the results of that mr micho also was was uh you

067know working on that um and not gotten anywhere right right keep our ears open but i haven't heard much else on that even with the commissioner's meeting last week there wasn't really anything said about it that's where we are that's where we are well i will say looking at i'm looking at the dartmouth covet dashboard right now that was updated i'm glad to see it was updated on the eighth i think friday yeah because there were some residents in town that uh wanted to know why it wasn't updated and why we why we made the decision to close remote this week um so clearly i i still think it's the right decision i think um uh what we spoke about it just shows the you know you look at the trend overall the student percentage

068as of the eighth five five point three point five point thirty seven percent and that's the highest it's been um so i think it's really important to note that um well i don't know if you noticed too the dartmouth dashboard itself went up to about 300 i think it about doubled this week i did but you know once again if we had what we came back to after the holiday the number of cases that we then met with the board of health met with all of our nurses and the number of cases that would have come into the school if kids were in the contact tracing we would have never been able to maintain it keep up with it with the staff and and even today i had called in 25 more positives i was

069just going to say as of as of today just today yesterday from over the weekend for our students or students and staff so when they haven't been in luckily because we've been remote so that's what's helping us so if we were not remote there's the potential that some of those 25 could have been in school in school all last week when we you called in 25 today and just last week there were there was just 48 just but there was 48 students so i mean i'm deeply concerned that we're not through the thick of this yet um you know if you look at i'm looking at the globe's town numbers our test positivity rate is 13.25 percent in the town fall river new bedford are up around 15 percent rhode island has the highest rate

070of per capita um covid diagnosis in the nation um well yeah it's the smallest too this is such a hard thing to say right someone someone yesterday from my hometown shared the story of uh the quarterback on the high school football team freshman sophomore or sophomore and junior started on the varsity team he had a 4.7 grade point average of 1460 s.a.t and he committed suicide this is really really really difficult for these kids at the same point in time i'm deeply concerned that it is not safe right now um for our staff for our students i've said this to you dr gifford um i think that we should consider keeping the high school remote till probably till the end of this grading period makes a sort of a natural transition i think it alleviates

071some pressure on staffing and contact tracing i also think high schoolers can be independent mr oliver and i have talked right we can leave our high school kids at home when we go to work or we have to do our things and right we can't for elementary school kids plus the high school kids are crossing paths far more often they're mixing in ways that elementary students aren't and so i would like to see us think about doing a slow roll back into face to face the way that we did in the fall [Music] to make sure that we continue to not have transmission in the schools i'm really concerned we have community spread um and you know talking to members of the board of the health that positivity we're not testing all of the cases

072that are out there we're just not and so i'm deeply worried about returning to school and and and getting quickly overwhelmed so i'd like for us to be careful about how we do this and prioritize um our learners with the highest needs and our learners that are the youngest who are most unable to be at home alone right yeah i'm i'm in agreement okay chris okay yes um dr gifford what did mr mitchell say did he give you any specific advice as i mean what was his take on this as should we go back next week in his opinion what was you know i know he said he doesn't see transmission like that's my first question he doesn't he doesn't say anything about that i've never point blank said you know and i almost thought

073of it today like if you had to make the decision what would you do but um he's he's he said exactly what dr jenkins said we're not over this and we're just seeing the real beginning of what's out there um yeah and on a positive note you know speaking to the principal speaking uh dropping by and talking with them about how's it going with the teachers and teaching and that piece the educational piece seems to be going very well the elementary folks because those are the ones we worry about with the younger kids are they able to attend are they able to access doing very well they think about over 95 percent of their kids are accessing the teaching and learning the ones that they're worried about are the ones they would worry about whether

074they're in person or not kind of those names mr tebow said you know the high school teachers feel very very comfortable with the education they're offering they feel better like the move the curriculum is moving along because let's face it we also put them they were doing complete synchronous if you recall and which was you know they were handling it but it is it is tricky you're they're in math the half the kids are in half the kids are on the computer i mean you think about honestly what educators have had to do this year if it wasn't so sad it'd be funny in a way you know um so yeah we'll you know con gonna make that decision pretty quickly because i i agree with you i i don't see any harm in it

075at this point um so i know that i know that um we have a meeting we're going to meet with chris mr misha wednesday again i think so the only thing i'm worried about and i haven't really asked him is because he's so they're going to be so busy with these clinics yep i do have to you know okay but he's been so generous with his time his oh he's he's yeah he's he's phenomenal he he's a phenomenal guy he really is and what we laughed this morning when we were talking about different things and decisions that we're making and for example even though the cdc came out with that you could unquarantine after 10 days etc we said no we're sticking by what we're doing the 14 we're not changing our practice um but

076anyway every time we come up with something he said just send him to me i'll tell him you know i'll tell him i said no i agree but to some of dr jenkins points just a few of them i do think that we we really should as a district look at how we roll back to school and my concern is also before you know what february vacation is going to be upon us and i know it's nothing like the holidays um but i do coming back to right now the president uh the present is that we really need to to look at the best way to to re-uh introduce our students right back into school right um and i'm not sure what the perfect or the correct answer is going to be to that i

077do know that i i want to see for the record i want to see students in school of course that's that's what i want yeah um because i know there's been a lot of a lot of outcry in the community with with some individuals as to you know they should their kids should be in school of course kids should be in school i don't think anyone is disagreeing with the fact that kids should be in school but it's just a matter of how what's the best and safest way to do that with that dr gifford could you just comment because i know i got several several messages in a phone call and i'm not sure i think the full committee did as to what was the reasoning behind when we talked about bringing back role

078model students a high n i'm sorry i'm bringing back a high need students in the district what was the reasoning of the rationale behind including role model students those students who pay tuition in our preschool programs when um because there were those staff that felt like it was um unnecessary unnecessary risks i'm glad you asked so first it's about three students every other day that come in to join the class um but to the point of trying to get our littlest learners in that's one of the reasons and speaking with the elementary principals they felt and feel continue to feel and that's one of the reasons we're hoping to get at least all our elementary kids back in next week um is those skills that are needed in pre-k are particularly difficult to teach without

079hands-on and getting them in the school so it was just a is it just just a judgment call um what can we continue to do and don't forget the real reason we went remote in the beginning was to be able to ward off that contact tracing staffing issue which i think we did i think we were pretty successful it wasn't necessarily because we were fearful of kids bringing in the virus if you will i mean we've had issues of course um but that that was it just getting those kids the smallest little guys in to continue accessing those skills that are just really difficult okay yeah and if that and i'm sure it probably was but if that could just be communicated uh with with you through dr dale to the to the staff because

080it sounded like maybe there was some some miscommunications over over at cushman as to uh the rationale and um you know the whole method behind that so um whatever you can do to okay would be greatly appreciated sure anyone else oh go ahead um uh you you you mentioned uh that's really great that you've hired for the that brain based therapeutic classroom how many kiddos are there in that classroom now do you know i think currently i think four okay i think four yeah yeah well that's that's um wonderful to have hired yeah position um you know i i i agree with dr jenkins um well i first i want to see every you know i would love to be kids you know in school of course that's that goes without saying um uh and

081you know and worry about about students learning and all that um i i do agree with that idea that it sounds like you're sort of an agreement too potentially in in slowly rolling in um elementary in first middle and then high school as we had done in september um but i'm going to be a broken record and i'm going to start talking a little bit about you know our high needs students of course we have our high needs students in person and dusty's guidance as i said last meeting is that you know that's the floor not the ceiling and i just would love to see us do a little bit more work that sounds terrible i'm exhausted everyone's exhausted you're all doing a lot of work but i i would hope that as we move

082on and continue you know in this needing to be social you know distanced and everything that we do a little bit better about expanding that and i'm not expecting that it's going to you know include all students but just what the guidance says and you know we know that high needs and we know that the commissioner russell johnston spelled out like if you're having trouble figuring out what students go with your program students i get that but it also does say students who cannot engage in remote learning due to their disability related needs students who probably primarily use aided and augmentative communication students who are homeless students in foster care or congregate care and or students duly identified as english learners and i say that because you know full disclosure everyone knows i have a

083son who clearly is high needs he's not in district currently but he was home last week he went back to school this week so i feel guilty saying that um just last week was horrible i'm not you know i have a fifth grader who is doing wonderfully her teacher from demelo is phenomenal you would think they're having a party every day the level of enthusiasm that the teacher brings to the table i'm very fortunate i understand that i i have a home a home bedroom office it's not really haven't really made it a full office yet but i work from home and i have that luxury so i know that i'm lucky to be able to do that but in having my son home i just feel so deeply for those kiddos and there are

084a few of them that i know i've i've expressed well there's one in particular but i know they're probably a handful just a handful and so i would like us to make that judgment call and just do a little bit better for those kids not all kids not my daughter she's happy at home doing wonderfully she seems to be pretty confident in her and luckily her mental health does not seem to be affected um and i know that many students are and that's really sad but i'm talking about those kids that just don't understand the the you know who are borderline that high needs who who can't attend to that glass classroom who just really require the routine and the structure of being in a certain place sort of you know being in a school

085kind of is reminiscent of us of a structure i know when my son sees his teachers in a picture or he's in that school and even if it's not a full programming that he's used to he he snaps back into it quickly and so have i just would like to see us make a little bit do a little bit more work to make sure that we think about including those students in person whenever possible if we were to stay remote you know well to your point your point we met beth and i miss townsend lori jodwin and i met with all the principals last week um i think i didn't get to one of the meetings i had the commissioner meeting but to discuss just that we have around 20 students in the district that

086we've identified we call them a b students because they come both days right now and we just threw it out there that if to start thinking about how we might accommodate those kids if we were which i'm hoping not have to go complete remote again or like for the long time or something it's easier in some schools than others or some levels than others i have to say um part of the problem is you know for example one school i think had seven students and they were in all different grade levels so do you bring a first grader in a second grader and a third grader and put them in a class with no one and who's you know and then bringing in tas to supervise so it's not to say it's impossible um there's

087also the transportation of those 20 kids to think about and just various logistics but um we did ask them to come up with a plan of if that were the case what might it look like um i do think the high school you know i talked to john breaux who's the lead teacher in the special ed department of course at the high school and then mr tebow and um it seems like it might be an easier easier i can't remember if it was five six seven kid kiddos that would fit that um category of students that were already coming both days so we did yeah we at least started the conversation to think about how might it work that's so music to my ears so yeah we get it yeah it's just you know there's

088just a lot of complexities for any any decision right and i'm sure that there are some students who meet that criteria who are able to attend and are having a better time because of social anxiety there are and so i'm sure it's a mixed bag like when i talked to potter they had a number of students that you know come a b but felt because they were accessing the instruction extremely well they weren't really a b because of social emotional or behavior or anything like that so they probably wouldn't bother but perfect right yeah thank you you're welcome that's all i have mr nunes thank you mr chairman um i'm a little bit torn here i understand where everybody what dr jenkins and is saying about you know shutting down for another week i've just

089got some concerns since you know i've been a proponent from the get-go is having you know the students with the teachers and vice versa type type of deal you know i kind of you know you think about the remote learning and it was funny if you happen to watch as dumb as it sounds if you happen to watch the football game last night between pittsburgh and cleveland the lady that's the sideline reporter for nbc was talking about cleveland having to do a lot of remote stuff and what the players went through remote with the cards and flipping them over in the play and everything you know and quote unquote these are college graduates of college you know and you know having the difficulty with it i can almost imagine what our students are going through

090uh to me it it comes back to when i've said and uh talk about being a broken record i've said this on numerous occasions i think it it's incumbent upon the parents and also the students to not sit there and think about their son or daughter you know being macho and saying i've got to go to school whether you're you know i've got basketball practice i've got band practice you know i've got to be there don't load them up with tylenol because that's only going to work for a couple of hours and the fever comes back and everything goes right out the window you know maybe all they have in all seriousness is a 24-hour bug or they've got a sinus headache so if they stay home for 24 hours no harm no foul type

091type of deal but the table take it one step further uh and again i'll go back to what the discussion that mr oliver and i had back in march when the thought about closing school and everything else goes i mean my personal opinion is i think we almost have to wait you know thank god we've got a long weekend so you know if you're going to do it with just the high school then you've got we can wait into thursday or friday to make that call because at least parents are not scrambling for exactly child care or anything else if it unfortunately is going to involve the elementary schools and i hope not in middle then i think you know the sooner the better you know wednesday or thursday right because that way the parents

092can make the plans again it's only four days and by the way when does to go back to dr jenkins question for a second because when's the when is the uh the end of semester i don't know that date anybody jim is it like the 25th or somewhere in that vicinity 20 i want to say it's the 28th but i don't know why that date i think it's sadly somewhere in there okay but but again so i mean we'd be talking another people i'm not trying to we'd be talking another two full weeks out right so i mean i again i go back to you know i thought i had another challenge with it's not you know even not being hybrid and though it's a full remote it's a lot different than oh yeah in

093person so yeah i mean i'll defer to the experts don't get me wrong but my personal opinion is if we can get them in get them in yeah that's all i have mr chairman thank you mary yeah just as a uh follow-up i have to say i you know i'm torn too i have a freshman who's really struggling yeah being home and you know a junior who's done great um but both of them say i mean there's no doubt they learn better at being at school and you know they yeah you know absolutely i think you know the elementary students let's get them back if we can i mean we know that transmission rates you know just what we've seen it it doesn't seem that they're transmitting it to their teachers to each other it's

094coming from adults to them in most cases but i guess my question would be more for you know if we start we're talking about high school students um is there an option since they are synchronous for is there a penalty for students who choose to stay home because they don't feel safe coming into the schools but let's say we say we're going to bring them back but you can we give students the option and families options to stay home and remain remote and then the other student you know if if they're not feeling safe so even though you know even if as a school department we say our school department says you know we can bring our students back you know we feel comfortable but you know one family says uh i you know i'd

095rather stay home just until is that a possibility for us to do that well it's we've had a couple of those instances happen and as you know we gave if people aren't if they're just regular hybrid and they're coming in and they're sick they we want them to stay right the part of the problem has been unfortunately um kids are abusing it okay in that respect where the teachers were the teachers i talked to was very struggling because now sometimes they'd have four kids show up because they like oh i'll just stay home okay so we're trying not to because in theory that creates a whole third level of model of education you know we're already i mean i think i think and knowing no other districts to be honest that have done like the

096virtual let's say the techa and and ingenuity this i don't care what anyone says out there we have go above and beyond for these kids and families we've been more than accommodating we offer like our techa kids even the um mr dome was just saying they're very welcome you know we want kids to come to those after school we're still having the after school 12 teachers are available for tutoring i know it's a little bit off the subject i just want to kind of literally take a note all the subjects so kids even in tech that are having problems that's actually right really good to hear because i know of other districts that are not that's right and and the guidance councils are working very hard with those kids to keep in touch and um

097conversations with mr doane and even mr gallacher who still continues to help with that i think there are only three or four families in the mid i'm just talking middle school that have frequent issues the rest of the people seem to be pretty happy um but you know the high school back to your question all the schools they bend over backwards and i think i think people have to give a little grace to be honest because it's just wearing on everyone um to try to step up and do their part just as mr nunes was saying and come if we say to come and you know do you know what i'm getting at because it's then it creates a whole another model of education really because now you might have 20 kids remote and four

098come into a classroom what is because they don't feel safe or something i know it's hard for everybody but there's no perfect i'm so perfect i mean i think this is what we struggle with too and i know like for some people like we made the decision to put our kids all of us collectively in school when the positivity rate we had about 10 cases per week we have 300 cases right and that's a very different calculus and so you know we are coming up towards the end of the semester and so maybe it maybe it is good to send a reminder to parents to say this is a decision point that's right if you are going to make your decision please let us know now what mary's suggesting right which i would think maybe

099we could do that's not an option so this is your time and your window to make that decision right um i will say you know we've been having those conversations because of my personal health the high school has been tremendously supportive about us trying to figure that out it is going to take adjustments but i think maybe we should remind parents and say what mary cause we thought about that personally too what mary has suggested is not an option so if you are no longer comfortable here's the date here's your window you has any type of do that now out the families gauging whether or not they want to stay in tech or not recently no not but we certainly can do that now that we're coming to like you said uh and somebody just

100texted me january 25th the end of the so that's good they're watching everything right well that's good um but we can certainly do that okay to make sure folks are aware of yeah as a reminder right and and even though we set some parameters early on you can't move this time of that we i mean i think we did tell people the decision was yeah the semester break the semester breaks yeah yeah but some you know that it's just hard to even somebody said i guess they asked at the high school i think it was um since we were two weeks remote can they come into the classrooms and it's just not that easy like that you know your child has been through ingenuity so yeah oh lord yes yeah just just one last thing

101too i mean you know if we do make if the decision is made to for the high school to go remote and that's fine that that type that doesn't mean for our students to go out and congregate with 75 of their friends okay that's going to defeat the whole purpose okay you got to still do hopefully what you are doing right and that is you know be safe social distance where the mass right et cetera so and the really the benefit if there is one is once again as teachers have to quarantine um if we're remo especially at the high school which is a little bit different animal of offering good teach you know there aren't many calculus people out there or whatever you know it's harder and they're able to continue to teach because

102everybody's remote right so there is no one right answer but there is no no one right answer however i think that we're just we just take the cautious approach yeah and yeah i think you know overall i think that the committee would support support um you know some of us a little bit of a different angle but uh overall i think [Laughter] all right thank you thank you gifford is that it anyway i think that's it i mentioned the virtual schools with um it's good middle school offering that high school still you know working hard on their ingenuity kids and of course the virtual elementary is going well um they are obviously uh welcome we you know meals are for everyone all of that so that's all all right that's all i have chris good

103conversation i just um i it's something that that came about not not because anyone was was trying to uh not do the right thing but it's just you know here we are in covet and it's sort of sometimes things come up and yet yep we just all can't be perfect and think of everything although we make it criticized to the degree that people think that we know every scenario we're trying to make people's lives miserable all the money we get paid we should know everything sure right well um one thing that did come up in my in my own um with speaking with a family that happens to be um happily and remote or reasonably happy and um and remote or reasonable reasonable period um sorry i'm not going on social media tonight um but

104uh yeah i'm a fifth grader and i was talking with a friend and um just slipped through the crack so if anyone has a student who's like moving out of one level and there's a yearbook involved i'm not talking about parties or anything to reach out to the principal if you're in tech if you're in the virtual academy and say you're a fifth grader or you're an eighth grader and you are in virtual academy and you would have been hearing about things and you're probably getting the notifications but because our lives are also complex and they're probably going into spam or you're not really paying attention because life is so all over the place right now um if it comes to you like it did to this friend to say oh i didn't think of

105that of course i want my child to be in the yearbook right right right and it was a boom quick fix so if you are in that situation and you haven't heard anything about a yearbook and you're a fifth grader or like i said an eighth grader i don't know if that's happened yet in eighth grade but i do know it's there's planning happening in fifth grade for that and you want your child who's remote to be memorialized in their yearbook reach out to the principal of and not be afraid of that back and forth that that interaction because nobody is sitting here trying to discard no or or i mean you know um yeah right deliberately not doing something someone should be right so um encourage families to just be open to that dialogue

106absolutely very well said mrs amaral you know that i'll i'll lead into i i think you know i i got on social media a little bit the other the other night uh last week which i typically stay away from and i think it's important to note because there's there's a lot of misleading information out there in the world in the community as well as around the country and around the world but please make no mistake about it there are our our faculty our staff our administration here at the dartmouth public schools and i know i don't say this lightly you know i'm very proud to live in dartmouth i'm very proud to have a school department um the faculty the staff the administration that we have we're very fortunate in this community to have the

107resources that we do including the school system i i think the dartmouth public school system is one of the one of the best in the area without one of the best in the area without a doubt we are extremely flexible yes as dr gifford mentioned earlier our teachers go above and i'm not saying this they don't elsewhere but what i can tell you is that seeing what what my daughter's doing and hearing from other staff our teachers go above and beyond to support families and it really it really hurts me breaks me to my core when i hear negativity about staff that's unfounded um so i i just wanna i just wanted to go and say thank you thank you thank you to our educators that are in the rooms that i know that are

108working on weekends putting together their remote lessons to get ready updating their google classrooms i that all takes time this is a job that you were not doing well you weren't doing it this time last year um it's going on a year but these are all things that you've learned together um and i just can't think enough i can't thank everyone enough for for the job they're doing and i really do hope that uh everyone was able to get a little bit of down time uh with their families thank you but that i think that's really important to know because i see some ice i kind of watch some of the other school committees in the area as well as in my free time i i'd like to watch the department of education meetings yeah

109those are true board meetings very very entertaining um i will just leave everyone with this at the last school committee meeting this committee had some discussions around the appointment of the diversity equality and diversity committee and i have a little prepared statement i'm just going to read it so at the last meeting during discussions around community member appointments to the diversity and equality committee there was some discussion that ensued around the possible appointment of mr christopher pereira due to their joint relationship on the dartmouth education foundation with chris pereira dr jenkins and mrs waite made some comments regarding their opposition of mr pereira sitting on the diversity and equality committee whether or not mr pereira made some of those comments at another meeting or during another time that dr jenkins or mrs waite referenced it

110is my opinion as the chair of this committee that those types of statements should not have been made without mr pereira in the room and given a chance to speak mr pereira did contact me and he did send a letter to the entire committee demanding an apology on some of those things of what was said while i will not apologize as i have done nothing wrong i will however say this i will go on the record tonight at tonight's school committee meeting making the public aware that chris pereira mr pereira and i had a conversation on the phone and that he denied those statements made by said members and found them to be offensive it is his hope that these types of negative comments are not made in the future when potential committee applicants come

111forward to volunteer mr pereira also feels that this could have been avoided if dr jenkins and mrs way had concerns if they would have reached out to mr pereira directly once again i want to thank chris for reaching out to me and thank him for all the dedicated work that he has done to the town of dartmouth um in my personal opinion you know a lot of this whether it be communication issues between miss pereira and what was said i wasn't there but he he adamantly felt that his words were taken out of context so um i told him that if he would like to continue having that discussion to please reach out to mrs way or dr jenkins directly that's fine dr jenkins i would like to have the opportunity to respond there are

112two facts that are not under debate here mr pereira opposed the forming of a committee to discuss a mascot mr pereira opposed a grant to demolish school to buy books focused on diversity mr pereira has his reasons for his opposition but he did take those positions that's not under dispute here what is under dispute is the interpretation of these positions it is mr pereira's claim that those positions do not mean he is opposed to discussions around diversity i disagree with his interpretation of these positions i very much appreciate the work that mr pereira has done for the schools and for the town but on this we disagree thank you okay this is white yeah and i think i'll just respond i also would like to say that um you know i just in general i

113feel confident that we did choose the best members of the diversity and equity committee you know i believe the committee put a lot of thought and hard work into the discussion certain issues came up based on you know our personal conversations and experiences and emails and communications and you know those did feed into my decision making you know i think that the committee we've chosen is you know will be the ones who will be following the charge of the committee and will best uphold our goals that we have for that committee and i certainly do appreciate the efforts of our applicants including mr pereira and again i want to second what dr jenkins said in that he has contributed quite a bit to our our town and certainly i you know had mentioned that at

114our last meeting certainly a lot around veterans affairs serving on this committee as well um and i you know i apologize for any disappointment that our you know candidates you know who applied who were not chosen for the committee feel i hope that they continue to contribute to our committee as we work towards inclusion and diversity so thank you no i i appreciate uh the matter at hand uh anyone else wishing to comment on uh anything good for the good of the committee yeah yeah good i've got two things mr chairman real quick number one uh good luck to our deca students i know they're doing everything remote uh this upcoming week i'm waiting for you know i'm judging again so i'm waiting for is there anything that you do not do no not quite

115no it's one of the this is one of those things that this is this is enjoyable because this is really helping students and seeing how they interact and everything else so they're supposedly taping all their presentations and you know we get to judge them remotely so that that's coming up sometime in the next week to 10 days so i'm really looking forward to that and you know our dartmouth students i know will will be there too so we wish them all good wish them all good luck and number two somewhere down the line is it possible i don't know what vote forward them to us i happen to see a couple of the vote school committee meetings on local television but i haven't not that they're much of anything that they send us but their

116minutes oh do they ever send them to you or no can you reach out to uh yeah i think you can vote for mr watson and to uh uh the superintendent mr o'brien yeah and and see if we can sure for what what they put in there which is nothing sure well you know what mr nunes you actually bring up a very good point um regarding the minutes we are a feta district for new bedford vocational technical high school um and and i think it would be prudent that those um school committee meetings are aired on our dc tv because they involve dartmouth students yeah i mean i i saw the last the last one that they had i just happened to catch it but are they was that on dc tv or is it

117just that was on dc okay either channel nine or channel 18. i was i was unaware they're airing them on i don't have local cable i just watch everything i just happened to see it so that's how i knew type of deal so but you know and again i mean they were all socially distanced and couldn't really hear a heck of a lot but if we had their minutes we may have an idea sure i think we can we can ask for those can i follow up on that i believe we've made this request before we we should we shouldn't have to ask they should be doing that as a matter of course right we use we used to get them back right we used to get them type of deal and then all of

118a sudden they stopped and i to be honest i didn't really think about it well i was on the committee with the three the two of you the three of us we asked them when we had to appoint someone we said we would like to receive the minutes regularly we sent them that request they did for a while and they stopped that is their obligation not ours to chase those down yeah so all right we'll look at it watson i'm just going to say hi yeah i'll email um okay dr cindy marlin and um mr mike shea make sure you see uh mr o'brien on that request thank you yeah it should be part of their routine process yeah i just said signing it thank you mr chairman that's all i have and i just

119lost my place because i opened up a new tab let's see the gender breed i think that's it all right so uh with that being said the next regularly scheduled meeting of the dartmouth school committee is monday january 25th 2021 to be held right here god willing in the library media center at the dartmouth high school at 6 30 p.m public access will be via the dartmouth high school youtube channel and of course anyone wishing to comment on any of those agenda items get them over to kathleen genther our recording secretary thank you kate for for helping out and stepping up in this pandemic yes thank you at this time chair will entertain a motion to adjourn so moved second okay motioned by mr noon second by mrs amaral on the motion any other discussion

120jia herring none all in favor aye aye aye all right go ohio heating is adjourned yeah i'll probably be sleeping in about an hour liam's day back today oh my gosh