001school committee to order for monday december 7 2020 if everyone could please stand for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and into the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all well thank you very much everyone i hope everyone here and attendance tonight and at home had a wonderful thanksgiving i know it was a little bit different but there is i know i had a lot to be thankful for and i'm sure we all did as well um i'd just like to take this opportunity really quickly before we get started into the meeting and it's something that we haven't done recently in the pa in recent uh memory is that i'd like to take this opportunity to
002really thank our front line workers in the in the town of dartmouth in our community not not only in our schools our school nurses but also our firefighters our police officers chris misha with the board of health as well as his team and all our medical professionals that live and reside in the town of dartmouth and work for doctors offices and hospitals in the town of dartmouth i think it's really important that we take this opportunity to just really say thank you uh for all the work that they've been doing um through this pandemic uh since marches has come around so uh just a big shout out to all of our front line employees and our front line work is uh residing in the town of dartmouth and working in the town of dartmouth at
003this time if i could have a roll call please ms guenther chris oliver here shannon jenkins here kathleen amarillo here john nunes yep mary wait here thank you very much and uh as a reminder uh you know i'm getting tired of reading this but i think it's important that we do i keep it in the minutes here uh per governor baker's audit suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law uh chapter 38 section 20. 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 re-broadcast 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
00400 a.m and sunday at 2 p.m school committee reserves the right to implement additional remote participate remote participation procedures and will notify the public of these procedures as soon as practicable as a reminder we always allow 10 minutes at the beginning of each of our school committee meetings for anyone wishing to comment on any of tonight's gender items if you have not done so yet you're more than welcome to email our recording secretary kate genther kathleen genther is her email address at dartmouthschools.org and uh ms guenther do you have you have any uh public comment uh to uh to date i do not okay thank you and as a reminder to the viewing public at home if you wish to comment on any of tonight's agenda items we will circle back at the end of
005the end of the meeting to see if we have any other comments and there will become official uh minutes of the meeting or the records of the meeting um that being said if anyone that has a cell phone if we could just silence it i know there's a couple of us in the room uh this evening but this time chad will entertain a motion to approve the regular session minutes of november 23rd so moved second i have a motion by mr nunes the second by mrs way on the motion any further discussion jay herring none all in favor aye aye aye aye opposed abstentions motion carries unanimously thank you very much at this time my chair will entertain motion to approve the executive session minutes of november 23rd 2020. so move mr chairman with the
006stipulation that they be held until the matter for which they were intended is complete second i have a motion by mr nunes the second by mrs amaral on the motion any further discussion chair hearing none all in favor aye aye opposed i'm gonna abstain absolutely so we have uh four uh four eyes one abstention motion motion passes uh thank you i know uh this evening uh for one of our presentations we have a mr tebow the principal of dartmouth high school in attendance i'm not sure if uh dr gifford would like to say anything beforehand or introduce him sure just once again as a reminder you know our focus this year is of course to continue to work hard to enhance what we're already doing well um noting that we did not want to bring
007any new initiatives into the district of course uh cautious of everyone's ability to perform and maintain their sanity if you will and stay healthy so with that um we'll welcome mr tebow to present the high school school improvement plan thank you dr gifford i just want to start by thanking not only dr gifford and central office but also the school committee for the support that we receive throughout the year and also want to thank the faculty staff and members of the school council who helped put together the school improvement plan that i'll present this evening uh i just want i want to start with a summary uh quick and brief summary of the 2019-2020 school year um because i think it's easy to forget that we started in august of 2019 and we were in
008school up until march 13th of 2020 and a tremendous amount of work was done in that time um that i think speaks to the the good work that goes on at dartmouth high school on a daily basis so in that time period um we were still able um to achieve a lot of what was written in last year's school improvement plan um which i think again is a testament to the work that goes on here each and every day so some of the highlights uh included we established the second cohort of educators um for the blended personalized and project-based learning team that was facilitated by members of the building administration in concert with um the highlander institute uh and our consultant uh from the highlander institute so uh during those months it was there was
009a tremendous amount of effort and energy put into embracing blended personalized and project-based learning not as standalone events but more embracing them as core instructional strategies because we know they're good for kids and we know they're good for teaching and learning and so um up until the pandemic struck that was a major focus of our work we um met several times you know each month uh with the consultant with the team of educators we play you know we team planned lessons one member of the team would deliver the lesson the rest of the team would observe and then we debrief what went well what could be tweaked for next time and so that lesson study protocol was implemented uh throughout those those months um also uh one of our other major goals from the 2019-2020
010school improvement plan was to improve to establish standing student support teams and to develop and publish clear protocols so that every member of the dartmouth high school faculty understood exactly what those protocols were how they could um uh refer a student who might be in need of support and so that was something that we were able to achieve during that uh you know prior to the pandemic starting you know so we we got a lot of good work done uh during the 2019-2020 school year prior to march 13th and then obviously once march 13th hit our focus became very much on survival and trying to get through the pandemic supporting uh students as much as you know as much as we could and learning a tremendous amount you know people forget there was no warning
011when we shut down we thought it was going to be two weeks and then that turned into a month then that turned into the rest of the school year and then here we are now so um i'm tremendously proud of the work we did last year and it really did inform our school improvement plan for this year um because as dr gifford mentioned we made the conscious decision not to throw anything new on people's plates they're very full our teachers plates are very full there was plenty new because they were learning how to teach remotely you know and so the focus for this coming school year really is on continuing a lot of the work that's already in process starting with establishing a standing stem team at dartmouth high school and again that was work
012that we started last year we didn't have a standing team it was more of an ad hoc team where you know we'd have meetings with director of teaching and learning and some of our engineering teachers one day we'd have another meeting with computer science so the vision here is that we just formalize and create a standing team so that uh that meets regularly um and so it's one uh you know consistent conversation as opposed to pockets of conversations going on the idea is there is to continue to review and revise our stem-related pathways as needed for example one of the one of the um areas we pursued last year and unfortunately we didn't get was a project lead the way grant um for engineering we got it for computer science and that's going well so
013far this school year uh we had a meeting with mrs oliveira and mr gia and mr bosworth our computer science teachers and to hear their enthusiasm and to hear how well project lead the way is going for computer science uh is um exciting for us as a school you know and the idea is moving forward that we'll go back to the table for the grant in terms of for engineering because we want to you know we want to continue to make sure that we're putting the best product out there for our students so that's one area of focus under the teaching and learning is just establishing that formal standing stem team and continuing to review and revise as necessary the stem related pathways and then with the goal of growing enrollment in stem related courses
014a second goal for the teaching and learning and again this work was already very much in process we want to continue to expand our ap enrollment in access including implementation of the ap research course to provide students access to rigorous real-world learning experiences and the opportunity to earn an ap capstone diploma or nap research [Music] certificate seminar certificate so that's a second goal under the teaching and learning umbrella of our school improvement plan in terms of access and equity um we want to build on the the work that was done last year by the student support teams we want to review the protocols that were implemented last year um to see if there's any uh tweaks or adjustments that need to be made and we want to make sure that the interventions that are being
015put into place are data driven and effective at meeting the needs of our students so that's our area of focus for access and equity and then in terms of community engagement this was the one goal that we did table last year because of the pandemic we had a survey ready to go or it was in development and nearly ready to go and then the pandemic kit and we just never ended up uh doing it so our goal is not to increase um communication uh from the high school our goal is to enhance it and to make sure that we are efficient and effective in our communication you know we this year we've put out the uh weekly community update um we use but there's several ways we we try and pump out information between social
016media the marquis in front certainly the community update email and it's more about surveying the the parents and community members to see where they're getting their information where we're going to get the most bang for our buck if you will and really putting our energy there because communication is a full-time job and i think if you know we had an unlimited budget it'd be nice to have someone who did just pr and did just uh all of that you know the marketing work that you know that schools have to do in today's day and age um but unfortunately we don't have that luxury so we want to make sure that we are being efficient um because there's only so much time and energy that we can put into it and we want to make sure
017that what we are putting out is helpful to our community members so that's the idea with that third bullet and with that um although mr peratti did ask that i speak for two hours um with that i will be happy to answer any questions that you might have well thank you very much mr tebow for your presentation um i'll start over uh the other side of the table any of my colleagues have any uh comments or questions from mr tebow regarding his uh his sip um no go ahead go i'll just start thank you thank you for your leadership thank you um to all of your staff um i no longer have a student in your school which is sad because it's ironically you mentioned the community engagement piece that you know kind of was
018stopped short and i know that it's not the whole piece of what community engagement is but um your s'mores your newsletters are enjoyable informative [Music] you know written in a way that is not intimidating to families so i appreciate that and so i just hope that you give yourself and your team the credit that you deserve for doing the best you can in those very important areas and while i no longer have a student in your school i will in what five four four more years primarily i don't know anyway it's like four more years thank you which will be wonderful uh when when families kind of reach out and have questions and they're afraid they don't know who to contact i always feel confident letting them know that if they speak to the right
019people in in in the right ways that they're going to get an answer that is fair and thorough and and taking into consideration the student's social emotional well-being um and so i just want to thank you for that as well and that's all i have to say nice to see you thank you nice to see you as well um in contrast to my colleague i have two children in your school so so thank you for that i you know i appreciate also all the work that you know you and your colleagues and your staff are you know it's you know done a great job certainly difficult circumstances and you know i have to echo um what you know kathleen was saying miss amaral was saying is that um this more you know i i think
020that that is very readable um i actually would like to see something like that adopted throughout the district as a point of communication i just think it's very um accessible for families and you know it's your point i think it's not overwhelming it's the point it's you know it's almost a fun read in a lot of ways so i appreciate that um i guess one question as you were you know because i you know you were talking about how you this initiative and trying to reach students i guess um you know certainly the situation that we're facing now has created you know some very you know significant hardships for our students um so i guess i wanted to you know if you wouldn't mind like you know talking a little bit about like how you
021are trying to reach these you know students and you know your staff are you know working to you know really make sure that those kids who you know you're not hearing from maybe as much and you didn't you know maybe especially our new freshmen how um you know their their needs are being met sure so um so we so there's a number of ways one being that we have an advisory program a formal advisory program that's in its second year um and the idea behind the advisory program is that every student is connected with a trusted caring adult who stays with them for four years so you build that relationship over over time and the advisory program meets every three weeks roughly and we do it although classes are now you know as you know
022meet in person one day and then we flip the cohort and you know the curriculum moves on though with advisory we actually do it just in person and we do it twice and we've made that conscious decision because we want to be able to build that in-person relationship with our advisees so that's one way to support freshmen obviously school counselors and it's in the community update that goes out weekly our school counselors have appointment slots where students can schedule right through google calendars just clicking a link and signing up to meet with our school counselors that's another support area obviously our student support teams as i said meet uh once a week um or once a cycle once every seven school days uh and that includes uh the assistant principal you know there's two different
023teams one you know based on it's based on your alpha split your last name um and so our counselors meet with our assistant principal and our uh each team has a special educator on it as well as uh the counselors and school social workers that would be assigned to that alpha split and they review various pieces of data including attendance including you know obviously now that report cards have come out um and then from there they kind of identify students who might be in need of some additional support or intervention and and members of that team take you know they serve as a liaison if you will and they reach out to the teachers for that student um depending on that student's needs it might include building a plan that the student is part of
024you know it's really individualized at that that point um in terms of you know at this at the classroom level the supports i think our teachers have been extremely flexible um another safety another support uh safety net and support that we put in is the ability to to retake or revise or retake assessments so we've tried to be mindful all that being said we know that with the pandemic mental health issues are on the rise um as part of you know mental health issues were on the rise i think prior to the pandemic the pandemic has just exacerbated that certainly so um you know we've tried quite a bit to support all students um and i think it's one of those things that we have some very needy students um no fault of their own
025i think they'll always be more of a need for being honest there's always going to be more of a need than we can um address there's always you know there's always going to be more need that's the reality and nature of this profession um so i just want to say just a follow-up i think you guys are doing you know it's an excellent job and a very difficult time so we really appreciate it and i guess just i think this is the question that was asked of um mr doan you know i'm just kind of curious what is your your sense of the feeling in the school in these days that you have students here you know like you know i know my kids are coming home very happy with to be they're happy to
026be in school in their days that's i'm gonna you know say that they're thrilled so i'm gonna preempt i know dr jenkins had told me prior to the meeting she was going to go on a rant so i apologize if that's i apologize if that's what i do i apologize if that's what i do right now the feeling is mixed um people are just trying to survive um that's the reality of it uh it's very very challenging times um fortunately we work in a supportive district um that's the one thing i can say is i don't feel like i've ever not been supported so that's good um all that being said um when you turn on the news and there's nothing but rising coveted numbers and then every day like i would like nothing more
027than to never hear of covet again because i could focus maybe on teaching and learning you know we got into education for that purpose but i'd be lying if i could tell you there was one day this year that i've been able to do that i haven't between quarantining between people reaching out because they're panicked because we send out notifications you know we send out the notifications it doesn't mean anyone has it or has been exposed or anything like that it's a it's but it's all it's all management that's what i do now and if you spoke to the assistant principals they tell you they're exhausted because the management of the building is a full-time job i mean sure that was part of their job but now from the morning arrival making kids assure kids
028a distance they have their mask all of that having the three different points of entry the lunches it's it's overwhelming um it's staff fatigue yeah yeah i can see that yeah you know and that's before you get to the classroom the teachers i can't say enough about them they've done their best to manage different models because we've we started remote when we went to hybrid and then we needed to make a shift in the hybrid um model and you know just it's one more thing it's one more thing it's one more thing and so you know our faculty have struggled as well but they've done a very good job um i do worry about the trade-off if i'm being honest in terms of having kids in person because it's not the same as being here
029when it was pre-pandemic and i you know there are certainly kids who want to be back and enjoy the ability to be here in person there are kids who have said this is like a penitentiary and that's just the honest truth the mask not being able to be within six feet you know so i i'd be lying if i didn't say it's not the most trying year i've ever had as a professional and i think that every one of the teachers would tell you the same thing and i do think the students are appreciative and i think the students deserve a lot of credit because they've been very compliant the one thing i can say is i was fearful that the masks were going to be a constant battle that did not materialize thankfully our
030students have been fantastic our parents have been fantastic about sending our students in with masks our parents have been fantastic at communicating with our nurses so there's been a lot of good but it's it's a lot it's just a lot well thank you you're welcome yeah dr jenkins so i i did say i was going to go on a rant and i i will be less politic perhaps than mr tebow because i'm like i'm angry right now and i've sat through we sat through three meetings of these school improvement plans and i'm angry at the state because this is ludicrous it is ludicrous that we are doing school improvement plans in the middle of a global health crisis magnitude that none of us have ever seen right and i i looked up some data in
031preparation for this meeting right now talking about mental health and drug-related problems is from the washington post 75 percent of all young adults have one indicator of a mental health or drug problem 75 percent of adults 40 percent do so our teenagers in our school are struggling and our adults are having a hard time keeping it together themselves right this i appreciate the work and the effort that goes into it but i think it's ridiculous one in four children young adults have thought about killing themselves in the past 30 days this is i've talked to my friend who is a pediatrician this is a mental health crisis like nothing that we have ever seen and to pretend that we are we can do anything more than try to educate our kids and make sure that
032they are as happy as they can be is ridiculous i am deeply appreciative of everything that our administrators and our staff are doing right now but the one question i have is i wonder whether it's enough that i think maybe in terms of that flexibility that you're touting i think we need to do more and so i'm going to just cite some other data in maryland and montgomery county failure rates for the most vulnerable students increased six-fold in texas in greater houston area some districts reported half of all middle schoolers and high schoolers failed one class in north carolina and wilson county 46 percent of students grade 3 through failed at least one class in virginia and fairfax public county at least the percentage of middle and high school students who earned ups in at
033least two classes jumped from six percent to eleven percent all right um i could go on there's more data it's all in the washington post um i appreciate the flexibility that we developed at the beginning of the semester um i hope that now that first semester first quarter grades are in that we're having conversations even more conversations about how can we help these kids i know my kids this is nothing about your school one of my kids is fully remote because of mental health challenges another kid is frankly afraid to come in because they're afraid he has mental health struggles right i think a lot of parents signed up to send their kids to hybrid when our transmission rate and maybe we'll talk about this later when our transmission rate in the community was under
034one percent right now we're in hybrid and our transmission rate is skyrocketed um i really do think and and i hope that that i'm sure these conversations are happening already but i really want to reiterate i don't think it's fair for you know 14 15 16 year olds to be held to these kind of standards and you know sometimes i hear people say oh well you know we got to get ready for the for you for college i teach in college there is no such thing as a late penalty in my class whenever you turn something in you turn it in we're in a pandemic all right now i know there are some classes where that's a little less possible right like for my nurses i really do hope they're learning all the stuff because
035when they graduate and have to provide me health care i hope they know what they're doing but in a lot of other places right we just have to do the best we can and we have in our institution gone back to the well several times to ask ourselves that question is it enough because things are constantly changing um i'm concerned about where we're going to be not just in the spring when things are quote unquote normal but where are we gonna we're gonna be for two three four years from now and we need to have some serious conversations about resources and professional development around social emotional health because the kids are not all right they're not and um to pretend and i don't say is pretend i know you guys are doing real work on
036that this sort of stuff but to pretend that we're not in like you know lights flashing sirens blaring that's hands down our number one priority is just crazy and i'm angry at desi and i'm angry at the state legislature that they have not backed off on some of these requirements on schools and districts in the middle of the worst public health crisis that we have ever seen so that's not really a question mr tebow that was just an epic rant um i will end by saying i understand that i very much appreciate what you are doing what your staff is doing and what your teachers are doing um to help our kids thank you my epic grant mr nunes do you have anything to add no i everybody else has kind of done everything but
037you know i again i kind of echo my colleagues and you know job well done in difficult situations so thank you for that thank you and to your staff thank you so i guess i'll wrap up with a couple of things here on a positive note i do have uh i have a freshman that just started at dartmouth high school this year she comes home with a smile on her face every day she's really happy to be in school i've seen some of the remote i'm thrilled to see that where we are doing remote on those days which the students are home she wasn't too happy about it because now she's actually got to get up at 7 30 in the morning or seven in the morning instead of 8 30 a quarter to nine
038but you know what it is what it is and uh she's enjoying her time here um really props to you props to your staff the administrators and you know a lot of times dr jenkins and i don't see eye to eye on things but i i've got a she's spot on with a lot of this stuff you know come down coming down the pipe if i hear that there's going to be no deviation from having to administer mcas this year i'm going my i'm going to hit the ceiling and i don't know about my colleagues but i'll be certainly happy to vote on a resolution whether or not that'll do anything we'll vote on a resolution and send it to all of our our state senators into destiny and to everyone else who wants to
039listen because i i do seriously have concerns about mental health i really hope that you know exploring moving forward we can do some do some more exploratory and a little more outreach and more being more proactive with our social emotional and not only with our kids but something that i think is just as important is our staff i know that there's staff in this district that are that are a nerd they're either they've made the decision to not come in and take a take a leave of absence and there's also those staff that are that are that are honestly petrified to come into com coming to work but the they're doing it for the good of the kids and just to be in here so i think it's really important that we really do whatever
040we can to really support the needs of not only our students but of our faculty and staff um but but overall i you know considering the the circumstances that we are in i think we're doing uh to your credit into the credit of all the principals central office and the faculty and staff in this district i think we're doing a tremendous job educating our students the best way that we know how to con given the circumstances that we're in it's just unfortunate and yeah i do agree later on under maybe um reporter the chair reporter the superintendent i would like to revisit i want i want to talk about the metrics in dartmouth i want to talk about some of the some of the numbers but uh mr tebow thank you for your time as
041always uh i do appreciate your communication to the parents um being being a a father of a freshman now and seeing the communications i you know i i do truly appreciate that and staying on top of things so um on behalf of the dartmouth school committee uh please express our uh our gratitude to your staff i will thank you very much thank you mr timo thank you thank you mr chairman make a motion that we approve the uh david high school school improvement plan for school year 2021 as presented i second that motioned by mr nunes a second by mrs amaral to improve the dartmouth high school 2020 2021 school improvement plan any other discussion j herring none all in favor opposed opposition uh extensions motion passes unanimously thank you mr tebow thank you thank
042you stay safe all right next up under old business uh the equality and diversity committee as you remember uh last meeting we had lengthy discussion uh around this topic uh some important discussion i thought we made some good headway on it and um if i remember correctly we did uh leave it with uh dr jenkins and mrs waite that they would um work on developing a charge for that committee i'm not sure if either one of you would like to uh speak at this time to share uh what you've come up with i'd be happy to to start off um miss wait and i uh you know we we met these air quotes over zoom right nobody meets in person rarely these days um to talk about this and and what we did was actually
043a lot of sort of research on the internet because a lot of schools school districts universities have been creating these kind of committees and our idea was we don't need to reinvent the wheel there's a magic thing called google right where we can google you know school district diversity committee charge um and so looking at some of those different plans miss waite and i came up with a sort of proposed charge of the committee that we shared with everyone but if you don't mind i'd like to read it out loud so our everyone can hear it so the proposal was to have the charge of the committee to be one examine the cultural aspects of our community including language cultures student performance and program participation and discipline data to inform our policy and or procedural
044recommendations solicit input from diverse members of the dartmouth school community around issues of diversity equity and inclusion including but not limited to current policies procedures curriculum facilities communication and messaging from the dartmouth public schools review and recommend equity diversity and inclusion related policies for the district review district and school plans through an equity and inclusion lens and research best practices and innovative methods for cultivating a safe equitable and inclusive environment with an intent to recommend best practices to the school committee make recommendations to the school committee on equity diversity and inclusion throughout the district with regard to the allocation of resources ongoing activities and strategic investments to shape future direction recommend practices and policies to provide ongoing professional development for staff and training for students and families in issues of diversity and equity educate and
045inform the community on equity diversity and inclusion issues and establish appropriate timelines to complete tasks and make recommendations to the school committee again this is borrowed primarily i believe it was from marin college and the maryville school district where two of the ones we borrowed heavily from but there's lots of examples of these committees existing some of them are new some of them have been around for quite a while for instance the barrington rhode island school districts have had a diversity and equity committee since 2016 every year they set out an agenda of what they'd like to look at and what they'd like to accomplish such that it's an ongoing process and i think that goes back to the chair's point this is not just about one thing this is about establishing a committee that
046is continually looking at best practices and doing that sort of research and bringing that information back to the school committee and the administration for sort of recommendations and um um in our review um i think uh i might say miss waite had a number of sort of i think really good questions about structure and timing and so i'll let her maybe talk a little bit about do you remember those questions mary well i think like one was you know you know as you know different members of you know the community and staff had reached out to us part of their question was you know what kind of time commitment are we you know and i and um dr jenkins and i went back and forth a little bit on this too or you know are
047we asking i think this is something to bring back to the school committee at large like is this you know if i if i step back and you know personally charter review committee that you know that is a two-year commitment and i think you know the scope of this work you know it's certainly not something that's gonna be done especially this year by the end of this year so you know i would and you know i would at least think that members that were you know inviting and and requesting to be part of this should consider you know a two-year commit a lengthy commitment that that was you know that so that was one of the the thoughts i had and then you know you know another question we had was whether or not the
048school committee would come up with a request for you know how often are we expecting the committee to report back to us but then you know that might be something you know we just you know considering you know some people we've already appointed to the committee that they can kind of take charge of them when these issues so you know so again like what are our requests in terms of regular reports so that was another consideration that we had um but i don't and i guess the last was a mission statement and whether or not that was something that we wanted the committee or a committee come up with themselves and i think i'm leaning in that direction some of these groups you know some of the diversity communities that we researched did have their
049own kind of mission statement um but i think i almost rather see this that mission you know go back as a charge for the uh this committee i don't know if there's anything else that yeah no thank you to you both uh mrs wait dr jenkins um i i i agree with you with this just my my sole opinion that i think it's important that we let them kind of form their their charge with you know what they're what they're looking for as far as the time commitment i i think that's what you had said around two years somewhere in the ballpark of a year i'm thinking at least a year you know somewhere in the ballpark of a year two years um with that um i certainly appreciate the research that the both of
050you did you did on behalf of the the full school committee so thank you for that and thank you for for sharing um what you've come to so far that being said what's the what's the committee's pleasure at this time do we want to um set a goal for the establish a date for the establishment of this committee um i know we we had uh in before i figure out thank you i know that was a large undertaking miss genter so thank you for for your time and effort that you put into reaching out to all those um community members uh that were interested in being on the committee so i appreciate it i think i speak for the the committee when i when i say thank you for for going back and forth and
051soliciting that information and that information from uh from the community members mr mr nunes yeah thank you mr chairman and and again kate thank you for your work and shannon and mary you know thank you for all your work in doing this yeah i never would have thought of google or maybe your honor but that was all never would have thought of google type of deal but um i think maybe we ought to look at our next meeting which is the 23rd two weeks from tonight to establish this committee i know you know kate sent out all of those uh re you know sent the requests out to everybody you know it looks as though from you know my kind accounting we got a couple of replies from students and of course that's being handled
052in-house so i'm good with that we got a couple of replies from teachers and i think we got a couple only got a couple of replies from from local residents type of deal so i mean you know were they waiting for something else i don't know but you know it the time has come to either you know step up and and be counted or just kind of stand by the wayside if you know what i'm saying so so we're looking at correct me if i'm wrong we had spoken about this earlier we're looking at somewhere in the ballpark of 12 right around 12. yeah about yeah i thought we had like eleven or twelve i think we had eleven and with three student representatives when we were counting the students i believe it was accounting
053you know so so we we already know officially we have two staff members two administrators we made that appointment at the at the last meeting so what is the committee's pl what is the committee's pleasure on uh moving forward with um selecting these individuals i'm not sure i'm perfectly open you know i i'm open to hear what your thoughts are if you know if we each want to like nominate someone to be on it and then we can vet them out i'm not sure dr jenkins um i'm okay with waiting until our next meeting to appoint people but i would like to see us approve the charge this evening um and the term so that we can then push that back out to everyone who had sent in their names because i think a few
054people had had some questions yeah so i'd love to approve the charge and the and some of the terms and then we can push that back out and say are you to those people that had submitted interest are you willing to serve um i agree that this should be a two-year commitment but i think i might recommend making it initially a one-year appointment with a chance for a second year renewal it's weird to watch because i'm like i'm off you're already you're out of delay like wait my hands aren't doing that you got the seventh i almost got like this my hands were doing different things it threw me off there so i would recommend a one-year appointment with a one-year delay and then what will happen i think is most people will stay on
055for one year a certain portion will stay on for a second year and then we'll have some people who might not and then we end up sort of naturally having staggered terms right because i do think you don't want your whole committee turning over at the same time yeah because then you lose continuity and the idea that institutional knowledge so i would i'll just maybe make a motion that we approve the charge um we may want to make some amendments to it i'm fine with that i would accept those as friendly amendments um and we notify that we notify the um the charge we approved let me think about this we approved the charge of the committee and established initial one-year terms with the potential for a one-year renewal for the initial members of the
056committee i'm on board with that all right so kate kathleen ii did that in case you didn't hear we were on motion by shannon second by kathleen and this is for the initial one-year appointment for the for this uh equality and diversity committee uh any other discussion uh i know that we have two admin um already show interest and you quite appropriately so disappointed them right right we appointed them so um and i know we early on had sort of established the the makeup like you said three students i would like to see um representation from um administration staff parent uh from an ell you know population and special education um so i don't know what that looks like i don't know so do we want to make another do we want to roll this
057into this motion do we want to make a separate motion of the makeup of the committee let's do the make up for the committee as a separate motion let's approve the charge in the terms and then we'll do charges because didn't somebody's got to go back to the and i don't have them with i don't have them with me but didn't we approve what the makeup of the committee was going to look was that a formal vote i honestly do not remember it this time if that was a formal vote and again i don't remember when we did this i'll be honest with you but i remember we i thought we made up what the makeup of the committee was going to be like i i agree i know we discussed it but was it
058that's how we came up with the 11 or 12 or 13 type because i remember making the comment that we didn't want this to be huge because then you're going to get lost the type of deal right yeah because i also said it was going to be you know this is a dartmouth issue not right no disrespect for westport that type of deal this is right so so you know to john's point we did you know as he's correct and we did say and i think the only stipulation was you had to be a dartmouth you know parent resident or faculty member so there was that connection then we had you know two admins two faculty uh two community members and two um school committee members and then there were the three students who now
059are going to be coming from the high school group is my understanding right yeah you know i i don't know if you know in terms of like people who are putting their like i mean you know i would if three of you i would love to see shannon and kathleen on this commit you know again i think she if if they're willing i don't know if we're like overstepping or we should put that on but i think you know you know however you i mean i think again you have personal backgrounds that you know would lend a lot of expertise i definitely think that i would like personally to make up the committee i would definitely i agree i think there should be whether it's kathleen or whether it's someone from the cpac or you
060know representative from the cpac um i definitely would love to see someone you know representing that population i think it's important as well as well as ell yeah i mean i would depending on the pleasure of the committee i um i certainly would be willing to step into that role and and and and coming from an angle of um the work that i do and the belief and in full inclusion however i i live a life of a child who is currently in a more restrictive placement and it's working well for him so i think that i can very diplomatically kind of sit in that place and understand the language of that space and um and i'd be happy to do so but also happy to have someone else okay i'm i'm fine with serving
061on the committee and i think i'm just trying to sorry i was trying to look through the minutes mr nunes to see if there was any motion i haven't successfully gone through enough i think it was around august or september maybe we talked about that maybe july it might have got them at home i'll do the same thing i mean i do think we if we approve that in the minutes we would have to go back and make another motion to change the composition of the committee and so i do think that's an important question now you know on the other hand we could have right um ms amaral be a representative to the committee and cover some of that basis and we can also look and see among the people who've applied right for
062instance i know that one of our community applicants works at an organization that provides assistance to immigrants right so she has extensive background in that and so it may be rather than adding members to the committee wherever we're able to cover sort of those interests through the appointment of people that have volunteered to participate already so i'm fine with being on the committee um if people want me to um if miss amarillo wants to i mean we could do those two appointments today and leave the rest for the next meeting so why don't so why don't we do this let's go we've got one motion on the floor right yeah so we already have a motion on the floor in regards to the initial uh term of this committee so let's take care of that
063let's take care of that motion first so um we have a i'm sorry we have a motion by shannon shannon second by kathleen any other discussion on the motion for the one-year term initial one-year term for the equality and diversity committee plus the chat plus approving the charge yes plus approving the charge yeah any other questions chair hearing none all in favor aye aye opposed okay motion carries unanimously at this time i'll entertain a motion to approve our two school committee representatives mr chairman i make a motion that we appreciate that we appoint uh dr shannon jenkins and ms kathleen amaral as the school committee representatives to the equality and diversity committee i have a second second so i have a motion by mr nunes a second by mrs waite to approve kathleen amarillo and
064shannon jenkins as the school committee representatives to the equality and diversity committee is there any further discussion all at cheer hearing none all in favor aye aye aye opposed motion carries unanimously thank you both uh for your uh commitment well i have found the minutes so we established the committee at the 7 20 meeting i knew it was tomorrow we were right july and then in august we picked it back up again mr nance um and so i'm looking at our discussion um i'm looking okay so mr noon's move thank you for the excellent notes ms gunther mr dunes moved and dr jenkins seconded to establish the equality and diversity committee the committee will consist of 10 members two school committee two public school faculty or staff two dartmouth high students two dartmouth community members
065and two dartmouth public school administrators so that was ten people two school committee we've taken care of two administrators we've taken care of that leaves two school faculty or staff yep two high school students two community members that's not to say we can't change the composition of the committee but we would have to go through sort of a formal process to do that yeah okay i mean you'd have to reopen and say all right who out there wants right you know that type of deal okay my opinion so can i propose we just leave it and i mean i would like to see i think the committee should take some ownership of the committee and to mary's point maybe their first report back to us is after a couple meetings here's our mission statement and
066if they think that there are voices at the table that are missing let's have them bring that back to us rather than us doing that so you're saying not to add any more people at this time leave it as it is and if they want to that can be their first ask to come back to us please approve our mission statement and here's the people we think should also have a seat at the table can you now change the composition of the committee so right now we have four i i personally like to see so at least another faculty member uh like a team a non-administrator one of the people that's one of the staff members that sticks out in my mind is someone who's very open-minded and committed i believe i saw it was
067diane missouri who is a guidance counselor at dartmouth middle school she's someone that i have a lot of respect for um that's that's just you know it's her the i would whether it's her or someone else i i think i i'd like to see at least one or two other people those are those would be the two faculty slash staff so there are two slots for those people right exactly exactly so so what you're saying is that we're still sticking to those we're have four additional people that the group so we're not changing the amount i guess that's my question yeah too where i thought maybe you were getting to too are we still having are we leaving it up to the committee to change that number of people so we would we would go
068with the initial 10 people that we said that we were going to oh okay i think that was his question right we will appoint them at our next meeting right that we would have four more people to appoint the two staff slash faculty and the two community members we could do that the next meeting i missed i misunderstood i misunderstood you you met the other committee was that's why i was confused sorry my bad so we would appoint the remaining four next meeting okay after we send that all back to them and then they could go go meet for the first few times and we could decide maybe we need someone who does this or who does that yeah and that could be an ass that they come back to us with all right that
069makes i understand sorry about that that's okay that's fine i mean some i think shannon you just mentioned about the fact of having you know maybe they come back after their second meeting and say oh you know we got to change the makeup or whatever i mean i wouldn't want it with all due respect would not want to hold them to two meetings and you know after that you know let's see how this thing's with all let's see how this plays out with everything that i'll do with what's going on i 100 agree that was just me sort of spitballing like maybe no i i understand i just want to make meetings but who knows right but i i again i'm just trying to yeah make sure we're all on the same page here yeah
070reviewing the um mr chair uh in interview in reviewing the charge and coming up with that mission and and sort of um articulating sharing out what that means and coming up with with the mission and just notif noticing who's missing at the table yeah so yeah and come back to us um and then we as a committee go from there oh yeah i like that yeah this is what are we are you as a committee would they necessarily have a chair and a vice chair you know is that i think going back to the charter committee is my like you know reference point where that is like part of the charge is that you have a chair that is um i'll go with john first yeah uh mr chairman through you to just answer mary's
071question is if you go back to what we were talking about when glenn was here from now we're gonna you're gonna have to have a chair a vice chair and somebody's gonna be a scribe that type of deal right so right exactly because it's essentially a subcommittee yeah i was just i was you're rev you know i was thinking back to like the healthy dartmouth committee that we had where we met and we sort of went through and and recognized our mission and then um somewhat based on you know being very direct with what we wanted to do and then also organically some things came out of that and so i would think that that's what would happen in in this case as well is that it would not be so prescribed perhaps as a
072little mix we know what you know yeah exactly all right beautiful are we all good excellent good job everybody stepping up yes thank you all right next up in your packets you should have had proposed uh school committee uh school committee meeting days for january 21st uh well january 2020 through april 2021. any questions does those dates work for everyone yeah we do what else do we have going on i wish i could say oh like mr nunes would often say oh i'm gonna and again i don't know and i go back to my comments at the last meeting when mr kylie had the budget timeline and everything else who knows what's going on so some of these may have to really be may need to be tweaked a little bit type of deal so
073i'm good with these yeah perfect so those are solidified uh miss genter yeah any of the questions on the dates perfect uh next up under new business is discussion of approaching position vacancy assistant assistant superintendent and i figured this would be a good time publicly uh to to acknowledge uh to my right your left um our assistant superintendent uh michelle roy as we all know have has announced her retirement and uh on behalf of the dartmouth school committee we'd like to thank you for your for your tenure in the dartmouth public schools and for for your work you're in dedication um to the uh to the school district so uh we wish you nothing but the best we hope you enjoy i know this is a tough year to retire and covet it's not like
074you can go and take a long vacation but we hope you get some down time um so congratulations thank you so at this time i'll turn it over to our doctor gifford uh for her thoughts fine thank you so um obviously i had sent you some um information a couple weeks ago just in preparation for this discussion and my recommendation and um i just like to kind of uh highlight some of that right now so one of the things we in looking at mr oliver had asked about a organizational chart so i did pass that out to you tonight just to reflect what we didn't even realize under the policy that there was an old chart actually in the book which is outdated as you can see the one attached on the flip side of
075the policy that's in existence so we created a new one which reflects really uh what we've been doing now so i just gave that out for reference whether we want to at some point just take the chart out of the policy book per se thinking of it more as a procedure where we don't normally put procedures in policy books but um so that it can be shifted and changed as to reflect whatever the chart looks like so we just we created that to show you really what's in existence right now as we as we move into this discussion so the next piece of data or information you know we've been talking about this in central office for uh quite a few weeks if not a few months in anticipation of whenever miss roy decided it
076was time um so what i know i don't think she really wants to go um so the color chart that we gave you we came together as a team in central office a few times and went over all of the duties and responsibilities that come out of miss roy's office right now with the help of her assistant nelly and looked at the idea if we were to um break these responsibilities up well i should back up because our recommendation will be to elevate ms oliveira to the position of assistant superintendent for teaching and learning and eliminate the director of teaching and learning as is it would be a big hit to our department but we feel we want to give it a try knowing what the budget issue might be going forward we're not sure
077what that's going to look like so we would basically be absorbing around with the position about a hundred and thirty or thirty five thousand dollars from the budget as i've given you tonight our estimate of what we would be looking for and i can go over that in a second so with that said uh as i said before this this color-coded document was what we did in internally to try to disseminate the responsibilities amongst all of us with the help of our assistance that we have currently so the sheet that i passed out tonight with the suggestion of salary etc and how we would absorb the extra position money-wise what we would be looking at is our suggestion is to have such kind of like we have right now cia teams and level literacy leader
078team kind of that we would want to do a couple of stipend positions to run some of those meetings the planning preparation for that for the example the cia and the l3 teams for the lining curriculum and developing new units etc the planning and organization is is it's been very well created if you will obviously it takes time each time you have a meeting to continue what are you going to address at that meeting so we would be looking for two stipend positions to help the elementary teams continue their work two of the big things that we're going to be addressing going forward is to align the social studies curriculum at with the massachusetts state frameworks and also we are going to be exploring new math resources as the one we're using math and vision
079is outdated and some of the resources are not going to be available anymore and we're looking at and i never say a curriculum because we don't buy curriculum we have our teachers develop that but we need up-to-date resources etc the other thing that we would be doing is someone to support with a stipend position and we're looking at about two or three thousand dollars it we've put it in there project time um same kind of thing just to do some of that legwork and that running of some of those meetings that we do throughout the year we do the two meetings in the summer and then about eight meetings throughout the year with the new teachers so as you can see in the calculations our proposed reduction with all of that um using some of
080the grant money like we do right now with some of those positions some of the parts of the salaries come out of the grants as well would be as we said this is an estimate and i'll just say about 130 6 000 saved by eliminating or not refilling the director of teaching and learning position so that's the recommendation that i'm making um and we'll uh open that up to discussion perfect well thank you dr gifford for your for your proposal uh before i turn it over to my colleague just like just a couple of thoughts that i have you know where i i have some serious concerns with the proposal um we are in the middle of a global pandemic uh we have no idea what our 20 2022 budget is fy 22 budget is
081going to look like we currently have a highly capable assistant superintendent with jim kiley tracy oliveira does a phenomenal job as the curriculum instruction and assessment director and i i think she's doing a great job there and you know i feel it would be financially and uh irresponsible for us to move forward and fill this position at a time where we have an opportunity through attrition to to at least not fill this when we don't know if come the springtime and come fall of 2021 that we're going to be cutting classroom positions or instructional coaches or teaching assistants um you know it i cannot and it's just i cannot in good faith support this decision to to hire or to promote someone to a assistant superintendent position when at least for the time being i'm
082not saying you know for the next year for the next two years i need to see some solid budget figures as to what fy 22 is going to look like before i before i can support this in good conscience i'm going to have a real hard time going back to back to the budget subcommittee and going back to the to the teachers and faculty in this district when if we're if we don't have numbers how and we got to start cutting and we just hired an assistant superintendent where right now i honestly think based on my experience as an administrator in another district that a lot of these things at least for the short term can be absorbed by other positions at central office so that my recommendation is to table this indefinitely uh shannon
083shannon or kathleen you want to go go ahead no um i i agree with you i want to thank michelle again for all your work so please don't worry about what you're leaving i think the conversation though um in looking at you know we have the opportunity in my mind and i'm just looking through some of the things and i don't know if there's just you might have thought about this but another way to sort of maybe absorb some of the roles like i know in other districts through um the role might be named something different like student support professional where ell er you know those those um homelessness are in in with the special education i don't know if that's something that was thought about or or not um and i don't know the
084history of what we've done in our district in terms of of that if it's always been as it is i know that about maybe well gosh five years ago now or so six years ago no it must have been over six years ago where we added sort of the nurses to be under the umbrella of our special education administration and so i know that was a change but i just feel like if there's a way we could postpone this and with all that we're going through and all that everyone is taking on so it's not like this is the most comfortable thing to do but i just feel like it would be responsible for us to maybe revisit this um next school year and and take that opportunity i say next week like september you
085know i don't know i don't know when i don't don't listen to my timeline yes i know what budget um yeah so at least we see some solid numbers and to see what we're really working with it's not looking good they know there's some tweaking going on behind the scenes right now i don't know if something was actually published today i don't know any reactions or changes but um that's just my two cents so i i'm in agreement with what you're saying in terms of tracy does a phenomenal job i just feel like the curriculum piece is just so so much of what we need right now especially where we're kind of flying that plane and with our eyes closed um i don't know that's my two cents as far as thank you this is
086emerald dr jenkins um i would agree with with both of you on this um i know it's painful but i think once once you promote someone you can't like unpromote them and we just don't know where we're going to be next year i look at our campus we are in the same boat right we are we're losing people and we're not replacing them and i am in a position where i have taken a seven percent pay cut to do the job of two people also and that's what we're doing it's just all hands on deck until we can get out of this and figure out where we are we're not we're not hiring anyone anyone we're not promoting people we're not doing any of that because we are trying to make it through until we
087figure out what fiscal year 2022 is looks like i think we're going to include you through this fiscal year but next fiscal year is going to be pretty bad um you know the the legislature is pulling more money out of the rainy day fund than the governor proposed there's not going to be a lot in that rainy day fund for fiscal year 2022. so i'm just i know this represents savings but i just want to hold off on this until we have some hard numbers about fiscal year 22 um before we move forward thank you dr jenkins mr nunes and mrs white any thoughts i really don't have much to add you know i think you have said it all i mean it's an unfortunate situation that we're facing um i you know i think
088that tracy does a phenomenal job um we need the curriculum support i i don't know i just you know obviously if we were looking at different numbers and we knew the numbers that we had in front of us i would i just i think i have to concur with my colleagues here john oh well i guess i'm the hotdog which is fine i'm good but no seriously i uh in all seriousness like i i got what everybody's saying there's no there's no doubt about that uh but when you look at what the superintendent you know this two-page uh report that the superintendent gave us of different you know i mean everybody's going to be you know straight out you know as i've said before you know our our administrators and that they work eight days
089a week and 40 hours a day type of type of deal just because of what we expect from them uh not only during an eight to four eight to five day but you know things not at the moment but normally uh things that go on during the night you know the night activities that we like to see them that type of deal uh you know uh i i think that assistant superintendent's position is one that is needed you know we're gonna drop tracy into you know in in sharing everything around you know if you look at the overall it's the hundred and that gives us a hundred and thirty six thousand dollar hundred and you know roughly 136 thousand dollars that we can move into other places in that budget for uh for 22. good
090luck willing uh you just want to keep i want to keep things as much to a status quo as possible we've got good people uh in bush street we're very fortunate and uh i want to keep keep it some there keep it that way um again we eliminate you know the director of teaching and learning so we save some money there we you know ship some money with the grants which we can do i just think it is uh it would be prudent on us to follow the superintendent's recommendation and make those changes thank you mr nunes i don't disagree on that at some point we need to revisit this but i i i just can't support this right now i'm from a from a physical fiduciary standpoint um there's absolutely no reason why we're
091in the middle of a pandemic i'm doing double duty um as a school administrator um i i think everyone here in the dartmouth public schools um you know i i think we're very competitive so i have no concerns there um and i say let's revisit this at a time when we have solid budget numbers in front of us so like i said i i appreciate dr gifford's spreadsheet i appreciate some of the things that you know we've discussed this evening however i i for the time being i can't stay here with good conscience and improve an assistant superintendent position i i just want to add too though when in thinking through this and seeing this which we had received um at another time um previous uh you know the tasks all of the many tasks
092that our assistant superintendent is uh has on uh you know her her list of responsibilities and uh understanding that yes they're transferred to these people who are like going above and beyond um but to chris's point like that's that's how i feel we all are that's what we're all doing right now and not forever but perhaps until we i just feel like until we see a solid um number of where where we can go that i just i just feel it would be irresponsible for us we need to appreciate what everyone's taking on all of the all of these two i'm sure there's more tasks than this that just didn't make it to the sheep but i just appreciative of all all the um effort that everyone has put forth in taking on some of
093the responsibilities yeah and i just i just think it would be um i'm thinking of that i just i just i just can't i um and once again like i said earlier this doesn't mean that come april and may we when we have numbers in front of us that support and this this position that we don't move forward with it i just can't see us moving forward with that right at this time right can i just say something of course i mean the elimination of the assistant superintendent position is a cut of 146 000. the proposal we're submitting is a cut of 136 000 so we're talking about it just so everybody's clear ten thousand dollar difference which would include the absorption of all of my duties which may seem little pieces but they they
094are discrete skill sets just i'm not saying in support of what i do i'm just saying it's it's just it's a ten thousand dollar difference we tried to come as close as we could when we made the proposal so just wanted to thank you i'd also like to mention we did absorb a position already one and a half in the in the central office when um jim's um person left and then um someone else left so we didn't jim's secretary took on the entire transportation and more with so we have absorbed one and a half positions already in the central office um so what was jim's dr gifford we had what was the person that replaced jim's secretary what was her former responsibility she was downstairs as the receptionist and did part of the transportation
095so she did she's so now she's doing power transportation she works for jim constance yeah so that we did absorb we didn't replace that as well as when we had the registrar that gave ms oliveira's department some support secretarially secretarial wise we put her now she's half time since last year at the high school assisting as secretary so we lost that half and she comes back to central office to do the registrations and works more at central office when the registration time is very very busy but for the most part she's here at the high school um in the morning and the reception piece multiple people picked that up already including jim secretary lauren sometimes kate and whoever happens to be available so i did want to mention that as well so i i 100
096appreciate like all the work that went into this i very much do but again it's hard for me i've absorbed the responsibilities of someone else and i got a seven percent pay cut to do that not a raise right it is it is everywhere all hands on deck um presumably we may in our office filled some of the positions that are vacant in our administrative office our secretaries are supporting two three departments now they're moving all over the place and again this is not that we're going to ask that forever but we have to triage and hold in place until we have numbers about fiscal year 2022. and so that's what we're saying is that i think we need to we need to wait until we have numbers because it's much harder to undo this
097if the numbers are really really really bad come come spring and this is nothing about tracy and the work she does she does amazing work this is just about my deep deep discomfort with what fiscal year 2022 is going to look like i i'm i'm just extremely extremely nervous about it i'm quite honestly sick to my stomach over it and but the bottom line is come the budget cycle and come may if mr kylie presents us with you know whether or not the town wants to dip into their rainy day fund or if they if you know if local um local revenues are are better than what they're being projected i have no problem filling this position at that time right i just can't i just can't i just can't see it right now so
098so um what whatever way we go i mean obviously i can hear the way it would go but does this need to go to a vote a vote to approve not approve to postpone how does that work is somebody have to make a motion in one way or the other to how like in terms of um yeah i would say let's make them entertain a motion to um table this to a later date table this indefinitely i'm not sure we'll i'll make the motion to table this till later date i'll second that motion by dr jenkins the second by uh cap mrs amaral on the motion any other discussion j herring none all in favor aye aye opposed me motion passes four to one with one abstention you get too many yeah you have too
099many yeah four to one with one absentia i'm sorry four to one with one in opposition okay thank you thank you did you get that gate four to one with one in opposition i looked that way too i mean i was not good at that uh next up uh turn it over to dr gifford for superintendent's update thank you um so just speaking of the professional development you've mentioned about social emotional learning etc i just want to mention that we have lists and lists of the pd that's been happening in the school district mental health disorders in children brain based research social emotional health during a pandemic and it goes on and on so just some of the topics that we've been able to either get some speakers from the children's advocacy center or various
100other things so that's one thing that's been going on with our early release days um mediation you know we had mediation this last week and i have nothing to report on that except that we are scheduling another meeting so that's why we don't need exec session there was really nothing to report other than we need another meeting um the elementary the lloyd center has um as you know we did a lot of field trips with them so they've been done a nice job in doing some virtual things with the kids and so on their hybrid remote day the elementary have done one called feathery friends already and that will be continuing so that's good news there and um i think you probably all read in the paper that our a.d andy christophule was named the
101district d um a.d of the year and there are over 40 schools in that competition if you will and he was voted and so we're waiting to see if he proceeds into the state arena or not so that was exciting i told him i guess he was a good hire he and i have been discussing and i know he's been working hard with the coaches as well talking about how the winter sports will look he did go over to the ice hockey rinks because we would be running ice hockey and basketball and we are in discussion about the fans i did my recommendation is no fans again i cannot in good conscience say we were outside and we had no fans and now things are worse and we're going to be inside and then all
102of a sudden we have fans i did talk to chris yeshua about it and he is in total agreement so we'll see where that goes i don't know if the other schools will what they're going to do and we'll see how that how that works out but dr gifford just so you know what are we looking at for spot fall sports i mean winter sports basketball and ice hockey is his track or his track he didn't mention that into attraction he didn't mention that okay that's moving the fall too does that move in the fall yeah that's right okay and the so can i just interject um so do we then and this is more a question for uh mr oliver do we vote again on whether or not when it comes to when we
103start talking about fans because i believe didn't we we voted last at the last session i believe we did vote actually i think that was the meeting i was one of the meetings that was absent out um but yeah i believe we did vote that was the one that andrew was here and he had yeah i wasn't here he went through all his policies right and his procedures type of deal so is that is that something we should expect our to get through voted to have sports but not fan we just discussed that we agree okay okay all right we've already voted um sports okay so that was for the year that was a blanket for the year yeah okay yeah because we were in remote and that was the rule and um now we're
104not even in right now we were here perfect thank you mr paradise um did you have a question no not really a question but uh i'm not sure about all the games but was what was very helpful for the sports that we had is the effort that dc tv and oh yeah you know to um uh broadcast yeah they've agreed that they will continue that so that i mean that's a wonderful alternative i've heard from from you know parents and and all of that but it's it's we've got to make sure if we're going to do it it's for the students um and we did you know as you know it was very successful we had one student had an issue but other than that all the other athletes we had no other issues so
105yeah that was good no that's yeah the music that's great yeah and i think dc tv did all the taping for the music the virtual music to send them off to us right where this town is very fortunate to have a community actually to have a community actions channel like dc tv yeah and i was just gonna say like to piggyback on you know with dc tv i still you know the fact that we still did have a senior night i think you know for the very sports i think that was very important so you know if we get to that point i mean again like shifting circumstances we'll see where we are but you know that was yeah i think that was you know agreed yeah nice to have done that was really very
106very well done um and we have of course december 9th uh next parent conferences will be happening they've been going well so far and um the last thing and maybe this will just segue into our bigger conversation but we continued to meet with the board of health every monday we had a meeting again this morning with all the principals were we just like to hear any updates that might be or any discussions on what's happening and and we still do not have what mr michael calls transmission evidence in our schools as much as the numbers outside are you know high or whatever we do have folks you know the quarantining goes back and forth and i know miss waite had a few questions about that the eighth grade group that was told to stay home
107if you will that was not a quarantine the letter never said they're quarantined it just said the teachers we didn't have the staff to educate so we felt better when conversation with mr doane that they'd get a better education at home with the teachers remote teaching so that was the decision we made there um let's see what other questions that we have so no they're not being they're not suggesting that they're tested at all and if they were if anybody once again just in general if they're close contact they are contacted by staff at the at the schools and then followed up with the board of health that's consistent practice that we've been engaging in and no spread we don't have evidence of spread in our schools it's a case here a case there so
108that's been good and let's see um i think grading and all of that i think mr tebow kind of talked through that at least from the high school level but um the middle school and elementary as well continue to provide education reach out as best as possible ensure that the kids can retake etc etc so um that's all i have but the uh you know we just continue to keep keep track of what's happening we keep conversations with mr misha which two or more today again after our meeting so over the weekend it's it's it's constant um so that's it that's what i have thank you dr gifford and then also um i don't have it in front of me but is it this weekend that's coming up the the dartmouth high theater company their
109their radio show i'll leave that for mr nunes so that that's awesome i'm looking forward to seeing that um under uh just under um the report of the chair i just want to just briefly discuss with the committee um regarding you know the metrics that continues to change and what the guidance is from the cdc as well as from the uh governor baker and uh commissioner riley and the department of the mass department of public health um we i don't i still don't think that we've really seen the full ramifications yet of thing of the thanksgiving holiday i think we got a little bit of time left um so i'm i'm i'm happy to report i'm happy to hear that we're continuing you know we're doing what we can we've got a small percentage uh
110even though it was only it was a full block of eighth grade students that it was more so because of the staffing um that that we sent them home but one of the things that i think it's important to discuss is is just moving into the christmas uh the the christmas the kwanzaa the uh hanukkah holiday the holiday season that uh we really should be thinking about and and i know some districts are looking at i forget the latest district that just devoted uh they're going remote for a week next week or this week and then they're going to come back but um whether or not it's prudent to to look at in the the community at dartmouth depending on the metrics and depending on what chris mishad says whether or not we should look
111to do a slow roll back into um into a learning into a hybrid model come january 1st um yeah it's i'm just putting it out there for discussion depending on on where where we're at um one of the other things while i while i'm thinking of it that i had uh written down was that um i know that i saw in the scene at times that new bedford was one of 121 school districts that had qualified for a rapid testing from deci they received x amount of rapid testing tests and it sounded like and i'm not sure if that was the case but the way the standard times made it sound was that it they had to apply for that i'm not sure if that was the case yeah we did okay we didn't get
112chosen qualified that's kind of what i don't know why that's kind of what i figured but i i'd love it i'd love to see if there was another opportunity another round of yeah that's probably the making of making those available that i because i think going into the winter season and depending when when the vaccine becomes available widely anyway that would be a real helpful tool in our toolbox you know whether it's for staff or whether it's for students to really um because when we have these outbreaks that would be instead of sending i know a family member of mine waited almost two hours in the whales tale parking lot or the whale's teeth uh will's tooth parking lot the ferry parking lot to get covert tested so for those students in our community in
113our school district and for for our faculty that that would be nice but i i just like to open it up i don't know anyone's thoughts or opinions on it um to just pay attention to the metrics and and maybe consider you know with in conversation with dr gifford about a slow roll back into it back into learning mr news yeah thank you mr chairman um yeah but i i think what we have to do is just wait and see i agree we have to wait and see and that type of deal and i will defer that to the to the superintendent and you know chris michael from the board of health and you know doctor clark the school physician uh and and such again it you know people have to use common sense okay
114you you know you go out in public you wear a mask you know don't go partying you know it's going to be you know kids students are coming home from college that have been away there on i mean i realize a lot of colleges have been doing remote type of deal but a lot of them are are out there you know in college and the students are starting to come back or they'll be back for the holidays and they're going to want to start congregating with their friends and everything else and you know again you know social distancing masks you know you can't teach common sense so you know but use it you've learned it over the years i hope and use common sense and do what you're supposed to do and you know we
115may not have to do that right so yeah i mean i i agree with mr nunes in that um i think we're gonna in the next week or so when the uh thanksgiving the thanksgiving numbers kind of come at us you know i i know of many more people in the community that have you know tested positive or are are waiting for their results um than ever before so it's quite scary however um i would hate to go back to remote with that said um the the superintendent um i'm sure you are but if not then just if we have to go remote which i would totally support if we need to um that that there's a like light on light off like okay tomorrow and this is what we need to do to be
116prepared for maybe leaving on vacation prepared with what folks need to start um the new year remote but not saying that that's going to happen i i think right the next week we're really going to get a feel of those non-compliance i just think it's important just to get it out absolutely just to prepare and so people are aware slowly get ready for for a potential yeah to do that yeah we've put it on the last couple of updates he prepared right especially with daycare issues yes prepared yeah i mean the big thing becomes is what does you know what we think about and what boston says yeah right dr jenkins so i'm probably i'm a lot more concerned i think than maybe anyone i mean our test positivity rate in the town of dartmouth
117is 6.29 um that is artificially low we're doing four times the number of tests that worcester is because we have asymptomatic testing on campus and all of our campus tests are being reported in the town of dartmouth our positivity rate on campus is 1.4 percent so we're doing a massive volume of testing on campus people like me i go every week i don't have symptoms right that's bringing our average down so that 6.29 that we have campus-wide actually on the off-campus community it's higher than that it's higher than that number because our umass dartmouth test numbers are bringing those numbers down we are fast and i worry about waiting the horse is already out of the barn and we're closing the barn doors um i'm not quite ready to pull the plug but i know
118and this is maybe coming from a deeply personal place my kids are scared to come to the high school and that's not because people aren't doing the right thing but they're in a building with lots of different people even when they're distancing every day i don't know right and maybe that slow roll looks at that we do different things for different schools right elementary schools are in pods and many of our elementary schools they have bathrooms they have access to outside doors they don't have to interact with anyone but their right their class the middle school is a little bit more complicated but still they're pretty potted the high school is it's not possible to do pods and they're all interacting with each other so i'm really most worried and this it's a little bit
119of a personal concern but it's mostly about the logistics of running a high school you can't pod people um and even when people are good those sorts of things are not a hundred percent foolproof so as we think about this i also think we need to consider i will also say no day care for high school high school learners are much more independent than say six-year-olds so as we approach this i think we also need to think about it may not be a one-size-fits-all for the entire district right that's something else i think we need to think about as we approach that thank you dr jenkins mrs blatt yes i think uh dr jenkins brings up some really important points and i do agree with the ones you know not one size fits all i
120think that's you know an apt way to look at it and you know again i've been kind of waiting to see are we seeing transmission within the schools right now it doesn't seem like that's the case i know that could change but i think the measures that you know everyone's put in place and all the hard work that everyone's done has you know borne fruit and but i i mean to that point i'm worried that if we roll back from hybrid into remote we're going to see a lot more families who are sharing child care on those off days and we're going to actually see some other like you know again i think our first responsibility is to our our staff and our students in the building but i am concerned about the fallout in
121the community because you know behaviors happening outside are that families are sharing child care on those those days as it is in the hybrid days and i worry if we pull back to remote so i again i'm you know the whole thing is not ideal for sure um you know again i think we have to be patient and i think you know being strategic and think thoughtful about again the high school i think dr jenkins makes some excellent points that maybe we start there because there are real you know big groupings but i um you know and i and i in looking at the numbers and looking at the lines that are at these testing centers right now you know if i was a staff member i would be very concerned you know so i
122we do have a we have an obligation to them as well so i it's i'm you know the whole i don't have a good answer right now but i just you know i see a lot of there's no good answer i guess is the point but we need to be cognizant of where all the evidence yes doctor i'll also add to that that my colleague dr bromage who came and gave a presentation to the schools has been posting about waste water testing in massachusetts so an early indicator of whether or not you have covet is by testing the waste water of apartment building facilities what not because it comes out when you go to the bathroom before you become symptomatic our wastewater numbers are way higher than they were in april and may which is
123an indication of a looming even greater crisis in numbers over the next two weeks i think he said something like buckle up in his facebook post um so i don't think most of the numbers are looking at a two-week average that includes thanksgiving so we're not even into the real thanksgiving surge um i think it is going to get worse fast over the next week or two and so i think we really need to plan for what happens and particularly i said to a colleague that i'm less concerned about in school transmission i am more concerned about how we staff our schools um and what what a colleague responded that her district is luckily open but two districts around her have had to close because they haven't been able to staff their schools um i
124don't know i think we really have to prepare for the fact that unless people start changing their behavior we're not going to be able to maintain adequate staffing levels right it is an issue i mean i think that's our bigger problem than school spreads i 100 agree with you doctor jackie mr doan ran into in the middle school exactly right you know exactly yeah i 100 agree with you that i i don't think it's going to be the levels of positive cases in the schools it's going to be a it's going to come down to staffing issue as well as well as staffing fatigue because i can't i can only imagine how many hours it took today's monday uh mr doan and um whoever else all his administrative team central office to contact trace and
125go over and make phone calls and just it there's a lot there is so much involved with just one positive case and what goes through with that so i think i think that once i i'll get to you uh mrs waite i think from well i guess what i was trying to get at and i think i have this support of the the committee is that i know a lot of the a lot of the time superintendents are hesitant to to be the first ones dr gifford to almost like a snow day they don't use safety in numbers but i i think that this committee would would support you in whatever you decided you know i we want what's best the the end of the day is i don't want anything to happen when i'm
126swamps in at this table to one of our students right or to one of our one of our faculty or staff members because you're hearing about these other these other um diseases that's similar to the kawasaki disease that comes in after you think you're you're all set with covid and it affects younger students and then inflammation takes over your whole body and i'm it's just it's just it's a very sad it's a tough spot mrs waite no i think uh i was at one point dr grifford i think we had mentioned that there are a few staff that may be working from home that are still do we have we've had flexibility with that end am i thinking about the high school staff do you have staff that are still working from home in addition
127to these this eighth grade cohort that we don't we do it on occasional we do everything a case-by-case basis there's no cop launch answer to anything for example a guidance counselor because he's can work from home much more easier than it to have a teacher work from home if the kids are not home we still have to have another person to supervise so if that's the case it doesn't help us um in this case we sent everybody home well no no so it's everything varies and then we make those decisions based on what's going on yep well i think it goes without saying we're in a tough spot right now but uh thank you everyone for your for your insights anyone else have anything to add uh mr nunes you you happen to mention uh
128our theater dhs uh theater company has been working hard uh it's up there they're gonna do it god bless them they're gonna do a virtual show you know their holiday show wonderful life uh coming up this weekend then it's on the video you guys can't set it up yeah thank you mr peratti but uh you're doing that the tickets are available online so you know audio tickets and uh that are doing that that's great and then uh you know chris you mentioned a little bit earlier about uh you know thanking all our first line responders and everything else and you know somewhere down the line i don't want people to forget 79 years ago today was a day of infamy it was pearl harbor day type of deal and thank you to you know the
129people from the greatest generation are world war ii vets of which my dad was one and that and something we should never forget and always thank them when we see him any of our veterans so agreed that's all i have thank you very much i i just had one quick question i'm going to shift to something um sort of along the lines of your comment around not liking boston right now and deci but an email came out that i can't believe i'm saying this out loud but that um student opportunity act plans are due in the beginning of january they're still making districts sort of they're not giving them the money no not giving them the money we weren't getting any money anyway but we still had to follow sort of the the requirements yeah
130there's a there was an email today that just something new because our constant conversation with the commissioner is he says soa is doa like that they've not required that told us to do anything what office did that come from yeah where did that it's the commissioner's update i was today i would 100 percent you have to check on submitting a report and we would submit a letter in support if you're not because there's no money if that's required any deadline will not be extended it says you've got better things to do that's right to not get any money why do we right there's no money no disrespect there are more important things to be worrying about i can't believe it oh my goodness that's all i have to say oh my goodness thank you everyone
131for your uh your comments uh next regularly scheduled meeting of the dartmouth school committee is for monday december 21st 2020 to be held right here in the library media center at dartmouth high school at 6 30. there's any public comment oh thank you mr news uh ms genter do you have anything relating to public comment i have one email from andrea abreu and it is in response i believe to something that dr gifford said in her update can you speak a little louder we can't hear you sure um i believe it's uh in response to a comment dr gifford made in her update will all levels of sports be broadcasted on youtube as well not all families live in dartmouth and will be able to view dc tv no will freshman jv and varsity be
132broadcasted thank you freshman games usually the freshman games are usually not broadcast on tv right and even the jv's it's usually just the vast age it's just varsity but it is on youtube so it's not just right it's podcast on youtube correct me if i'm wrong yeah so it's not just dartmouth residents that but i mean i think the concern is if you have a child playing freshman or varsity normally you'd be able to go watch them in person but you can't now i'm with them not being taped you know one thing to that i know we typically don't respond off a public comment but one thing that you know because i got a couple of questions too for the fall sports is maybe we can talk to dc tv about just one just just
133one game you know just just to give that parent one one game each from each sport being broadcast just so parents have that opportunity nice it would be a stretch because i know i know they're so busy too yeah and in her crew is extremely busy but i don't know yeah yeah that's a nice idea all right thank you kate mr chairman make a motion we adjourn second by mr nunes the second by mrs wait on the motion any other discussion all in favor aye opposed you carrying this movie this meeting is ended have a wonderful night don't forget