001and for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of United States of one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all well good evening everyone Happy Thanksgiving week to all of you uh just a reminder per Governor Baker's honor suspending certain provisions of the open meeting Law 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 dhstv media in addition the event will be rebroadcast and DCTV channels 9 and 18 on the following days Wednesday and Thursday at 5 PM Friday at 6 A.M Saturday at 8 A.M and Sunday at 2 p.m the school committee reserves the right to implement additional remote participation procedures and will notify the
002public of those of these procedures as soon as practicable for those of us in the room just a reminder to please silence your cell phones put them on vibrate if we could have a roll call please miss Gunther Chris Oliver here Shannon Jenkins here Kathleen Amaral here John Nunes yep Mary wait here and thank you very much and uh for those of you I'm not sure what everyone can see at home but uh Dr Jenkins is uh with us this evening uh via remote participation so uh good evening Dr Jenkins and we're happy that you could make it hi and thank you to Mr galasha and Mr perrotti for their assistance in arranging this remote meeting while I am quarantining happy to help they are happy to help as always at this time we have
003allotted we typically a lot of a few minutes for anyone wishing to comment on any of tonight's agenda items on to at this time do we have any uh comments emailed to you Miss Gunther I have not received any okay thank you very much just as a rem just as a reminder for those of you at home anyone wishing to comment on any of tonight's agenda items can do so by emailing our recording secretary Kathleen genther at Dartmouth schools.org we will Circle back to this at the end of the meeting at this time a chair will entertain a motion to approve the regular session minutes of November 9 2020. so moved second motion by Mr Nunes a second by Mrs Amaral on the motion any discussion chair hearing none all in favor aye aye opposed
004motion carries Mr chair I was not present okay thank you very much that's uh four uh four and um one abstention I actually just skipped right over you Dr Jenkins because all I see is a laptop in your seat thank you at this time Cher will entertain a motion to approve the executive session minutes of November 9th 2020. so move Mr chairman with the stipulation may be held until no matter for which they were intended is complete do I have a second second thank you so I have a motion by Mr noons the second by Mrs Waite on the motion any further discussion Chia hearing none all in favor aye opposed one abstention one abstention thank you very much all right at this time I'm going to turn it over to uh Dr Gifford for
005some school Improvement plan presentations Tracy Oliveira who will talk about some of the common things that the school district is doing and then we'll move into having each of our principals come and present their school Improvement plans um of note tonight uh once again we're really happy to see that the principals have come together and they've worked hard together and collaborated to ensure that all of the initiatives are aligned and that we're continuing to row in the same direction so we're very proud of them for doing that extra work this year so miss Oliveira good evening good evening everyone has Dr Gifford just said I'm going to start out presenting the school year 2000 2021 Elementary School Improvement plans as you know all of our school Improvement plans are built on top of our district
006Improvement plan and our district Improvement plan has three strategic objectives teaching and learning access and equity and Community engagement and each of those objectives has strategic initiatives and action steps the first few slides in your presentation are just kind of a reminder of where those are and where we're coming from so you can know the work that was built upon for the school Improvement plan so we'll be starting with I think they told me I didn't have to move this so the next slide is the elementary coordination slide and we've worked very hard for the district strategic initiative of developing sustaining a vertical alignment and this meeting is truly coming full circle with that this is our first time as Dr Gifford said presenting a unifying School Improvement plan our schools are similar in our
007data that we possess each school has a different little culture and a different little flavor if you may say for the school that they they present but we all are kind of a similar and as I said this is the first year that the Unified School Improvement plan so what has we've been working on and fine-tuning over the last few years is just that alignment and tonight for the I said that this was all made possible some of our action steps over the years so we've created a CIA team which was what we call curriculum instruction and assessment and a L-3 team which we call that level literacy leaders so what that means is each school from each grade level had one person on those teams and we would get together once a month and
008on the CIA team we would talk about everything that was about math science social studies and we would coordinate our efforts as a second grade team they would talk about what was happening in each each level and we each school and we'd be able to coordinate our efforts they'd go back to the buildings and they'd talk to their grade level peers or colleagues and then that's how we kept we started the coordination across the district the L3 team was the level literacy leaders they worked on everything phonics reading and writing and we did the same thing we would meet about once a month together as a team and then that three three teams say one person from each level would then meet we talk about overarching topics and they would head back to the building
009and another little uh tweak we did in our work was with instructional coaches they somewhat took on grade specific um a grade specific that they would work on so one would kind of work with second grade team and they would kind of coordinate across the district at all three of our elementary schools what was happening and kind of keep our uh curriculum moving that way the next slide we had was I always like to say a picture's worth a thousand words so in your presentation you will see four slides if you could keep going we're a couple of behinds you'll see a slide with four pitches and I I always want to say before we get into our teaching and learning action steps of our school Improvement plan that the look and feel of what
010we're doing this year is very very different and and lots of conversations we had before our kids came back to school was we didn't want to kind of lose the good work that we've done up until this time has the Middle School talked about last week last meeting and this week we've made some some adjustments in our curriculum and our teaching and learning so that we were kind of Project based we were giving kids a lot of opportunities for voice and choice and we really didn't want to lose that so as you can see the picture on the left hand side with the little horses which I think is absolutely adorable but it just hammers home the fact that we are teaching our littlest Learners in a socially distant atmosphere so we have kids kind
011of sitting in places and all of our curriculum was really built like I said around those project-based units and project-based lessons and getting together so how does that look and feel differently we have the picture up above in the left hand inside was a Virtual Academy and I think it looks like everything is happening normal but what you don't see off picture is she's actually talking to a screen like down here in this corner so she's actually talking to a bunch of kids scattered across the town of Dartmouth in the living rooms or in their kitchens and she's having a math lesson up on the board and they're talking just like they were in front of her so part of the work that we did in our strategic in uh in our school Improvement plans
012was how do we keep that good instruction going forward in this time of hybrid remote learning and half the kids in class so the next slide we're going to talk about teaching and learning and so one thing what we wanted to definitely keep going this year was implementing about ST Math in grades three and five as you know last year we won a grant and we kept St we implemented ST Math in grades K one and two for those just a reminder ST Math the St is spatial temporal so it means we're really teaching students how to conceptualize math in their brains how can they move things how can they visualize things so we start introducing kids to that all the concepts and skills that are being taught at that grade level I introduced first
013through ST Math it's Gigi if you haven't heard of Gigi I've seen Gigi on our Facebook or out in our schools she is the mascot for St Math and they play games trying to get her across the screen to to solve puzzles the ST Math has no language in it whatsoever so kids have to figure out what they're doing and try to solve problems and it's kind of funny because I think adults struggle with it adults can't help kids we tell kids they need to play the gray they need to solve the problem because you have no instructions whatsoever you just have to figure out what to do and then the kind of the power behind it is kids get that conceptual knowledge of that skill and then when it comes up in our scope
014and sequence the teachers attach the academic vocabulary to it so it's not it could not be a standalone program the kids learn the conceptual skills through the ST Math and through projects that we're doing at home at home or in the classroom and then when it comes up like I said teachers then attach the academic language and we take them from the conceptual to the abstract in math in our Ela also in math we've kind of found that we need to just a little bit more with our fluency across all three schools so our math coaches and some of our teacher teams that I talked about earlier took a fluency standards and really dug into what two kids need to know at the end of each grade level and they put together a lot of
015project-based games a lot of practicing so that kids can really understand the putting numbers together and breaking numbers apart and I think one of the best analogies is we want kids to understand what addition subtraction multiplication and division means just like we know everyone can memorize the Pledge of Allegiance it doesn't really mean they understand what it means so when we talk about fluency we're not really talking about how fast they can go but how well do they understand what putting numbers together and taking numbers apart mean so we've we've done some work on that and we broke that up into grade level standards for our Ela we this is our final year of our balanced literacy program that we've been working on for about five years now we're introducing phonics grade 2 and even
016in the pandemic we really said we didn't want to hold that off of you we trained our teachers before the pandemic hit so we were ready to go so we said let's just go ahead and do that and a missing component about Ela instruction was vocabulary instruction so it wasn't real strong in our units of study and we wanted to really ramp that up we feel it's an important piece so once again just by luck I teach a team last last year worked on going through our read-alouds so all of the classrooms have the same read-aloud that they're doing in the units of study they pulled out tier two vocabulary words so real strong vocabulary words we use Isabel Beck's vocabulary strategies and made vocabulary cards for all of the classrooms so they can introduce
017and we kind of built our own vocabulary scope and sequence and curriculum based on our units of studies and I realized so we were able in September to get that material out to teachers and now we're working on kind of implementing that so that kids can see the words use the words use them as they speak and also use them as they write one kind of silver lining in this pandemic is the units of study for El la come from Teachers College of Columbia University and they put out videos so we were able to purchase the videos and use the videos in our instruction so in both Reading Writing and phonics we have done taped lessons from the professors at Columbia University or the curriculum developers so that our students can watch them in class
018they can go home they're available for parents to see they're available for kids to use when they're at home working on things they're also available for teachers on the grade level above or below to kind of look at what we've kind of been working on is trying to get that consistent language and consistent strategies so we really are kind of I want to say hitting the pavement hard with the videos and trying to access them as much as we can and get them into kids hands and uh teaches Ken also took something off the teacher's plate that they would have to do for right now but it was a nice way that we kept the language going um that's where we're kind of going right now with the biggest piece really being that we're monitoring
019and updating our scope and sequence so as I started the presentation we really don't want to stop any of the good work that we were doing so what does that look like so we come together just as the middle school was saying uh periodically with the coaches and we monitor where teachers where teachers are what supports teachers who need going forward so if they're coming up to a difficult topic what does that look like in this you know pandemic teaching that we're having what supports do teachers need what do we need to tweak and we kind of move forward so a lot of our school Improvement plan is really built on just keeping that moving during this time our next uh initiative is access and equity and I'm pretty sure Mr Porter and Mr granfield
020are going to be presenting that and I think Mr granfield is first I don't know if you want to do questions now with questions at the end or I think we can take them at the end all right so perfect so I'm going to turn over the mic to Mr Greenfield from Quinn School thank you very much Mr Oliver good evening good evening this opportunity to present tonight um the portion that I am presenting on is access and Equity when we were working on this by school at first and then talking about this presentation we had created a Google doc to put in all of what we're doing at each school so that we could kind of align it and be ready to present so what we've done tonight or at least what I've done
021is taken all four schools and kind of merged them into one because for this specific initiative it was almost identical for what each school is is doing so under access and Equity specifically about supporting the use of technology for all staff and students to access the curriculum in both full and remote hybrid learning as the four administrators worked on this piece of this document it became abundantly clear that the hard work and effort everyone was putting towards technology looks extremely similar throughout the elementary level in particular for this specific initiative we are so fortunate to have instructional technology coaches here in Dartmouth they have been vital in supporting teachers during both remote and hybrid learning when we started this school year in the remote learning phase instructional technology Specialists played an important role in helping
022teachers set up classrooms to look like what we were joking around calling command centers these command centers allowed students at home to feel as though they were right there in their classrooms they're able to see peers had full day access to their teachers participated in special areas and many teachers use this opportunity to create a classroom community and build rapport with their students and Families as we shifted to the hybrid model technology Specialists continue to support teachers daily with both in-person technological needs as well as the remote learning school day demands across the elementary schools its and academic coaches have been attending weekly grade level common planning times as a means of support there's also been ongoing professional development at each school which has included topics such as Google Classroom gold Guardian curriculum websites and
023resources as well as other academic Platforms in closing the ongoing collaboration with all staff to streamline the day in the life of hybrid Elementary student has provided the opportunity for Access and Equity at the elementary level thank you very much and with that Mr Porter is going to continue with the second bullet point of access thank you Mr granfield thank you thank you Mr granfield and the next initiative under access and Equity is to design a broad spectrum of purposeful experiences to meet the needs of diverse populations in all curriculum and social emotional areas we are all very sensitive to the fact that we want to make sure that all of our students have equal access during this era of covet 19. as my colleague Katie paveo mentioned all all Elementary staff have the mindset
024of whatever needs to be done will be done to keep kids engaged so in September our teachers participated in two weeks of intensive professional development and in that short time they have become masters of virtual differentiated instruction through a variety of software through different media platforms they are reaching students who are sitting in front of them but they are also reaching those students who are learning from home however we need to be keenly aware that we like all communities in Massachusetts we have diverse student populations and we need to make sure that some of those unique conditions do not turn into barriers for our students as it relates to learning at home summer at home learning but others are at a daycare at a grandparents house being supervised by older siblings and we need to
025be mindful of those different conditions so with that in mind we are using a mix of technology and paper-based resources to maximize student engagement staff are using Google classrooms to support students via online work staff are checking in with their at-home Learners daily in some cases several times a day to make sure students are engaged this is done through both the Google classroom and goguardian classroom teachers have developed unique agendas for each cohort of students to provide a solid structure for at-home learning including checklists to monitor student engagement administrators are meeting with staff during PLC times to identify students and families who are struggling with at-home learning we have developed protocols so staff can reach out to students and families especially students who are quarantining to assist with instruction Beyond academics social and emotional concerns
026and health concerns are sometimes barrier as well to Student Learning our School nurses have become the unsung heroes of all our buildings during this covid-19 crisis our social workers our school psychologists they are continuing to meet with their students on their caseloads in school and both remotely and have worked with students and families on managing those unique circumstances as it relates to covet 19. all of our schools are currently supporting many families with gift cards during the Thanksgiving holiday these cards have come to the generosity of local churches organizations our ptos and family and staff donations PBIS are planned for positive school learning environment is still up and running and has been adapted to meet our current conditions we are still focusing on kindness and safety expectations for all students and the importance of taking
027care of others we are still reinforcing positive behavior with tangible reinforcements Cushman for example is still doing their kindness coins and the other schools have adapted their Traditions to meet safety guidelines as well and with that I will now ask Dr Dale to talk about Community engagement thank you Mr Porter thank you thank you everyone good evening very nice to meet you all yeah I think this is a person our first formal introduction right so tonight I'm speaking for my colleagues and myself with regards to how we are capitalizing on our technology platforms to keep our community informed of school topics and happenings and there's a lot of similarities between all of us but there's some differences as well the Potter School keeps their Community um informed through the Aspen email platform and they also
028have the Potter Facebook and the Potter YouTube channel they use the remind app and the Google Classroom to post assignments and to keep everybody apprised of the the happenings at their school there's also been an increased usage of the Google Drive amongst the teachers families and staff in sharing information that the Demello school every Friday they send out the electronic backpack and again it's an informative document for families and they include information with regards to meal distribution nursing updates school-wide initiatives General reminders about what's going on they too have a Facebook and a Twitter feed most teachers at the Demello school do use remind app to send out reminders to their families and also they can give direct messages to the families about their children Mrs paveo also records the morning announcements each day which
029gets posted to the classrooms for students in school and at home to participate in at the Quinn School Quinn uses multiple media platforms as well they have the Quinn home page the PTO Facebook page there are two resources that the families can access they also have their teachers using the remind app and the Google Classroom to keep updates fresh along with forums provided such as the backpack weekly documentation and reminders for parents through the monthly quotable Quinn newsletter that also highlights and provides reminders at the Cushman school I know this is about technology we do use technology but we also have some old school things going on as we all do with plenty of phone calls and we also have some communication books that are still going um to the families we also use remind
030and the Google classroom and and um we use email a lot we have a weekly correspondence called the peak of the week that goes out through the Blackboard platform and I'm using a app called smore which kind of makes your newsletter look a little prettier and um in in my smaller peak of the week we also have correspondence newsletters attached from the school nurse or the Family Outreach social worker or the reading specialist so the kindergarten teachers are enjoying using the Google classroom but in preschool we're using more of just the emails with her families that's about it thank you so much thank you thank you good evening good evening so um I'm here tonight to talk a little bit about the action step of networking with Community Partners in creative ways in which learning
031experiences can be brought virtually to our students and staff so we know that obviously covet has put a lot of restrictions on our ability to go places or to have people come into our buildings and so it was incumbent on us to think a little bit outside the box about how we could continue some of the programs that we've had in the past and to still enrich our students education so um as is the case with what my colleagues have said we have some similarities across the buildings one of the things that we look forward to every year is firefighter Anthony Puente coming in to talk to the kids about fire safety we know that obviously in this time our emphasis really has shifted more towards health and safety but we it's important to us
032to still talk to the kids about fire safety and he was wonderful and figured out a way to zoom into all of our classrooms and still do his presentation in the way that only firefighter Pointe can do he had he has had the trucks behind him and it was great he was able to get into every single classroom and connect with the kids um the Lloyd Center traditionally comes into our third grade classrooms to do something called feathery focus and they've figured out a way to work with our students online this year so our kids on their at-home learning day will be able to access the Lloyd Center curriculum through feather refocus and still maintain that uh connection with them um we have lots of Virtual Field Trips that have been taking place or are
033in the process of taking place so we can't physically go to visit some of the places that we may have gone to but we're trying to figure out ways to bring those experiences into the classrooms um I'll just say we've worked at the middle school and I know some of the other schools have worked with the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra in the past couple of years to do um they do a school to theater connection where they come into the school and they do some work with members of the symphony orchestra and then our kids would go and see a performance so this year they're doing something called birds of flight and it is the connection between the flight of birds and classical music and there have been they've figured out a way to do
034all that virtually so that our students can still have that experience of the symphony orchestra are um staff meetings so our professional development so not just learning for our students but learning for our staff has also continued and we've also been able to continue to have people come in and work with our staff not physically but virtually at the Demello school we are very excited to have worked with the Children's Advocacy Center already this year we have a representative from the Jesse safe and supportive schools who's going to be doing some training with our staff and one of our parents who um is a consultant on diversity in the schools and he's going to do a three-part session with our teachers on diversity in the schools across in the other schools it's the same thing
035we're having our virtual PTO meetings we're still maintaining our connection with our families in that way the other thing that we're excited about at my school I'll just kind of talk about we're doing author visits so it's an opportunity for our kids to listen to authors come in virtually our first and second graders are going to meet sadai faruki who wrote the book meet Yasmin so we actually had um the diversity libraries that we that we purchased to be part of our classroom libraries she wrote a book called meet Yasmin and that's a part of our diversity library and she's gonna she's gonna come into our first and second grade classrooms and talk to them about becoming an author uh our third graders got to meet with or are going to be meeting with Josh
036Funk who writes Fractured Fairy Tales and other very silly stories in our fourth and fifth graders have already met with Julie Berry who is a New York Times best-selling author she just wrote a book called wishes in wellingtons which is a fantasy Upper Grade Book so we've really had to it's really been incumbent on us to kind of think outside the box on the ways that we can still engage our students that we know that for a lot of our kids this is the stuff that makes them want to come to school this is the stuff that keeps them connected this is the stuff that keeps them motivated and my colleagues have all done such a great job um trying to continue that work and make sure that we're still connected to the community and
037on the professional side of things also Cushman is having a lot of their EI meetings with uh the Schwartz Center and the Kennedy Donovan Center they have parents convening virtually it's really just it's been I think um remarkable to watch how people have seen the hurdles and overcome the hurdles and then continue to be able to do some of the great work that we do with the community members so I think at this time I am going to turn it back to Tracy Oliveira but you can have any questions for any of any of them thank you thank you hello again I don't know if you had any questions for us or if you just wanted to move on to I know they wanted some updates on the hybrid learning and we were going to
038have the schools update again on how that's going yeah we can um I'll turn it over to my colleagues right now if you want um for any comments or questions for the school Improvement plans anyone want to go first Mr Nunes thank you um sorry about that yeah I have to agree with everyone the hats off to uh the IT personnel for all the work that they've done you know getting out you know all the Chromebooks and everybody trying to get on I know the you know when we first went you know remote and all the other good things that there were issues and you know they've worked through them quick question that I have is do we have anyone who does not have internet access which I know is have we run into that
039at all or how are we handling that so we uh we actually wrote a grant and we were able to able to purchase hot spots for anyone and within the district that um was not able that does not have internet access so I'm pretty sure most of them have been given out 25 have been given out I know two I had two that were given out today so I'm everyone does have access one way or the other we were able to do that okay thank you uh in in just in general um you know how is the communication been with the parents with the students I mean are you finding some students that aren't logging in or they log in and all of a sudden they're not there type of deal how how are those
040situations being being handled so I I can talk for what I know and uh for the Virtual Academy so we have we try to touch base with at the virtual school and when kids don't show up we call home and say where are you where are you going we've had a few cases where kids are in with go guardian we can see where kids are and they might pop into a site that is a is a PBI essay but it's not what we're doing the teachers say hey you should be in school right now come on over uh so we get kids pulling into school I can talk to some of the schools maybe I'll let them pull up that we have all hands on deck we call families that are not participating we get
041them joining coming in we I think Katie paveo said it's all hands on deck and the elementary teachers or all teachers will do anything to get kids what they need to be successful in school and that's what we're finding it's all hands on deck and everyone's participating and trying to you know get kids what they need and families what they need to be successful in this kind of crazy time okay I mean I appreciate everyone's work on this with you know I mean this is yeah it's an entirely different situation that none of us have ever gone up against but I appreciate everybody's work in you know trying to make sure our students are being educated so thank you very much for that I'm good thank you Mr nudes to say except for you know
042thank you you know it's been an incredible hurdle what you guys have done it's it's unbelievable so you know it's exciting to see that you know here that you know fun things are still happening in the schools you know that kids are still excited and are you know being connected I just think you know I Gotta Get You Know hands off to everyone that's working so hard and still being creative and still you know trying to really think outside the box ways to engage these kids so um yeah great great job thank you yeah I um I really don't have much to add to be honest but I just had a question though just neither here nor there I just think it's wonderful but the videos from Colombian University that um are they were they
043available is this something that happened due to the pandemic so they went out and they they taped them all they put them all together and they actually to give them Kudos not that they have enough money but they sold them at a very reasonable price for schools to be able to access during this time that's wonderful yeah yeah I thought so I've been sort of part of some focus groups with them where they're reaching out to families as well to really hear the impact and the reality of what's happening with with remote and hybrid learning so I was curious um but yeah I just kudos to everyone uh you know um it's it's I love being on the school committee and I love serving my community um I have to like be honest and say
044it's not not the not fun at the moment you know to hear all the criticism and and I'm sure you hear all that as well uh but you're doing a really good job your staff's doing an amazing job just like riding that wave and and all hands on deck is is really a polite way of I'm sure uh describing the reality of what all of you are have to do every given moment every probably 24 hours a day so I hope that you're getting some rest and and being good to yourselves and knowing that you're doing the best that you can I try to tell myself that as well but this too shall pass and tomorrow's another day so just thank you thank you thank you Mrs Amaral I'm just going to Echo everything that
045my colleagues have said um you know I want to thank you all for coming out here tonight on thanks oh I'm sorry and here I here I go again skipping over my colleague Dr Jenkins Dr Jenkins that's all right you know I don't I don't really have much to add except I think there's there's some level of strangeness over building School Improvement plans during a pandemic um you know in a normal year School Improvement plan is like fixing the plane while you're flying it I think this year doing this plan is like moving from a propeller plane to a rocket ship while you're flying it um so I just really appreciate all of the effort and work that you all have put into this because I know how difficult your jobs are so thank you
046thank you Dr Jenkins I don't know if I'm going to be able to get used to this tonight it may take me uh yeah it may take me a few times uh yeah you know I just have a couple of things highlighted here um one of the things it seems like it was a seemingly impossible task to to put this together I know um like I said before you have done so much in in such a really a short period of time so thank you to all of you for coming out tonight thank you to your staff I know that you know you put this together you presented here this evening I know that some of you were probably dealing with um covet cases dealing with mental health issues with students with staff dealing with
047uh parents dealing with you know the list can go on and on um just a couple of other quick points I think in we have taken technology in this district and across the state across the country to a whole new level uh thank you to our technology coaches to Mr galashar to to our to our administrators for really pushing the envelope on this I think back over I think back it was in July or August where this committee uh said that if we're going to go if we're going to go remote or hybrid we need to make sure that it's going to be a lot more robust than it was obviously um in the springtime and I think that is exactly what you and your staff did so uh thank you all I wish you
048nothing but a Happy Thanksgiving and I hope everyone gets some rest were you uh Mrs Oliveira were you going to touch base on the hybrid yeah I was wondering thanks for escaping those questions there's something to talk about uh what they were doing within their buildings okay okay [Laughter] I hate to use the word silver lining in covet because that just seems like an oxymoron to me but but a good thing is is that the four of us have become a very close team because of that I think that's evident in the work that we did collectively on the school Improvement plan so these are these are the things that we all talked about collectively that we just wanted to highlight in our hybrid opening um in the um in October or um in September
049as well too as we were getting ready for students to come back into school we did a lot of orientation activities either through PowerPoints guides or videos to kind of show the kids and the families what a classroom would look like six feet apart what the hallways would look like we all created guides for the families to show them well how all our protocols have been um redeveloped to meet them the safety standards but even earlier than that I mean all of us can tell you we've been talking all summer long and not just among the four of us we were doing regular staff zooms and those are all voluntary and we had staff showing up once twice a week to kind of get the latest information as the planning um began to happen all
050of our schools kind of had a hybrid planning team because as you can imagine we had to take every protocol that we had and we had to redevelop it to meet the um the standards we have to put protocols in place and we have because we have many students now who because they have to quarantine have to have extended absences and we're trying to make sure that they're staying up on their work and on the instruction as well we've had to take our recess and our lunch procedures and change them all so for example all our lunches are in the classroom there's a very definitive procedure on how a child takes their mask off eats their lunch will then take care of their trash wash their hands and The Mask has to go back on
051and it's very controlled there is no talking during lunch usually the teacher will have like a video on the Smart Board because again we're very sensitive that we want to make sure when their masks are off that's the highest point we're following those safety guidelines our recess really almost looks like as one monitor said to me almost like a camp counselor kind of experience they clean their hands before they go outside they usually have some sort of mass break that's very much socially distanced but then there's like an activity for the kids that is very structured it's not just free play anymore because we have to make sure that they're maintaining that social distance and keeping their Mass on um but a big thing has been the flexibility of our staff as you can imagine
052we had staff that were unable for some very legitimate reasons not to be able to start the school year so we've had teachers filling in on in areas that they don't normally do we've had teachers who have to fill in for recess have to fill in for lunch we have some of our social workers actually covering Health classes and they're doing this above and beyond we have teachers who are giving up their prep times because they don't we don't have a specialist sometime and they're fine with it or if we have to pull the specialists in the middle of the day to cover a class so the teachers along with our nurses are really the unsung heroes here our social workers because we have to remember we're so focused on the health and safety as
053we should be but we have to think of the social emotional and mental health of our students and we have to quarantine a class how does that make a child feel so our social workers are talking to the kids what does it mean to be safe what does it mean to quarantine what does it mean to isolate and also working with families as well we have lots of outside learning which means lots of winter jackets all the time because normally this time of year you wouldn't see kids outside as much and kids are outside all the time now because that's probably really the safest place to be um the district was um very kind to purchase purchase for us totes and pouches so when students are in one cohort they don't leave any stuff in
054their desk because all that has to be sanitized at night this stuff goes into their own individualized tote it goes in a shelf so when they come back two days later they get their tote and they bring it over to their desk they also have pouches so when they leave to go home on a Monday anything that they would need for their at-home learning day is in their pouch including the Chromebook which we have asked comes back and forth charge to school every single day that that is a challenge at times but um our bathrooms we we have a variety of different issues in our buildings some of us are fortunate that some of our classrooms do have bathrooms in the room but some of us don't so we've had to like close off stalls
055limit certain grade levels in certain bathrooms and include shooting sync along with a lot of signage in there as well to make sure kids are socially distanced our custodial hours have been increased to cover surface cleaning during the day our Pre-K especially over the Cushman school they're able to clean some of their structures so kids at recess can use that and visuals are all throughout the building especially for our youngest kids with pictures so they'll know what it means to wait to set there's footprints around so they're able to follow that protocol as well we've limited the amount of time students spend in the hallways so for example we usually get one bus off at a time in the morning so there's less kids in the hallway going in the same direction but we also
056utilize the outside exits of the building as much as possible to have students get to where they need to go I think the biggest help we've had this year was this the hybrid model that was adopted by having the cohorts it varies from building to building but as my colleagues will tell you um we became handyman this summer walking around with tape measures um for example in our building the most we can have in a classroom is 12 students so we can maintain that six feet of social distancing so that's been a big help it can range as low as seven to sometimes up to just 12 kids in a classroom space and the teachers have been real creative on all the kids are at their desks and initially we all thought that's going to
057look very sterile it's not going to look like an Elementary classroom but some of our teachers have created visuals for the fronts of the desks the teachers have also had mats that are right next to the desk or hula hoops again to promote that social distancing at all time um most special areas are done in the classroom in some cases they may be done in gym or again some of them are still being done outside and as I said before the staff has really gone above and beyond we're just the faces here tonight they are the true heroes of making this work we have to recognize this is all new to them and it's almost like the principle of Goldilocks for some families they're going to say it's not enough for families it's going to
058say it's too much we are trying to strive for what's just right and that's always our goal and lastly our students have been amazing um I think Justine and I can tell you we had our youngest preschoolers come in first and there was a real concern that three and four-year-olds would not be able to keep the mask on they did it from day one so our students again have done a great job of that so that I think encapsulates all of our hybrid I think so uh Mrs wait yeah so um firstly again thank you I'm sorry getting ready to go but um you know I do have a couple questions you know just kind of thinking and I was waiting for after the hybrid too because you know again we're hearing again so much
059we know the staff is working so hard um and so you know as we think about this the social emotional welfare over students but also our staff is really important so as administrators how are you you know supporting the staff I mean again I know professional development but is there anything to talk about like the heightened stress you know did you know some kind of workshops or like um resources that staff have just you know to talk through you know challenges that they're having you know to support them because it's stressful to have these you know be in the middle of this as an educator I can only imagine so well there have been some through Desi some webinars that we've been able to attend to take care of these social um well-being of Staff
060but I think all of us will tell you it's just us being there not just us and our social workers available to staff it's that open door policy it's when you have to talk to staff about maybe having to quarantine how are you taking that news what do you need right now to help you get through that I think it's just through a lot of communication and genuine caring for them how we can support them okay and that's that's great and um and my other question is kind of in the similar you know my colleague um Ms Amaral had mentioned before when we talk about you know social distancing what we really have been talking about is physical distancing and we know in this you know one of the difficult realities is that kids are
061separate they're not able to do the group work that you know is such you know again project-based learning is such a keystone for the elementary curriculum actually for the curriculum the K-12 so how are you promoting those social relationships when students are physically divided because I know it's got to be hard I mean it's hard you know I say with my own children and our social with our social workers we're still doing our second step lessons our social workers are still going in teaching that we are still doing some group work but again um focused on as Mrs Amaral said the physical distancing to get that work done so when they have to do that those kids are six feet apart in some cases we have Plexiglas Shields that we have to use and even
062in other cases with some kids that are physically in the building we've actually seen some groups where they've actually still doing it on the computer so they can really hear the kids well because the masks are a challenge to hear people right so through a lot of creative ways we're still doing that important work of um social skills groups and networking kids okay okay well thank you thank you you're welcome I appreciate it anybody else anyone else nope I I I'll just like a quick comment um that uh just asking my own daughter and around what you mentioned uh around um um recess and the the structured activities she's loving them and she's an extremely social kid but I can imagine that you know not I hate using the phrase but that silver lining have
063you seen any uh examples or any um uh I'm thinking that that might be beneficial for some of those kids who have that anxiety around going out to recess that now you've got a smaller cohort you're kind of expecting this planned activity where you don't have to be chosen or or miss out or or be left out during that time even myself I always I remember being young and having that like insecurity around am I going to go to the cafeteria too late where am I going to sit those sorts of things so I can imagine that there's a silver lining around that with some of those kids who have anxiety around that have you seen that or well absolutely I think for anxious kids anyhow the the general rule of thumb is to give
064them as much structure as possible and clearly this year we've given more structure than ever before I mean there's a protocol just to stand I mean we have to know how to do that so definitely recess is that same thing as well so I agree with you I think for those anxious kids it's very much pre-planned what they're going to do and I do want to say like if a child didn't want to participate in that structured activity they don't have to they would have some options to be able to sit out that being said the flip side I mean there's a lot of importance to free play and learning how to make choices and make decisions like that too so we're trying to balance how we we do that as well because there's a
065lot of learning in anxious moments and how to make decisions so again we're still working on that as well so job thank you two questions Mr Porter one being how are how are the students doing you know I hear from you different questions parents asking you know are the students really enjoying their time in school what do you see or this is for any of you what do you see in the classrooms and in your buildings as far as the students that are coming in all right are they having a good you know as best as they can experience go ahead yeah sure so so you know I I know my own children very much look forward to their in-school day they love to be in school they like the routine about school they like
066there's a comfort and normalcy I think that goes with going to school and I think to to my colleague's point we've done a lot of work to try to bring the things that they know about school to school so we're still doing PBIS we're still recognizing kids you know we're still figuring out ways to have kids want to be there um I very much see kids enjoying their time in school to some of the questions you were asking before I I still you know we are still seeing kids play math games we're figuring out how to do that from a distance right so we're still trying to incorporate a lot of that Project based and that fun stuff that kids like about being in school into their in-school day now that being said I'm also
067finding kids who like their at-home day and like that kind of day in between and like that schedule um I think there's comfort in knowing that if they go home and they're stuck they're going to see their teacher the very next day that's the benefit of that kind of every other day piece that we know of our kids are struggling they're going to come back and we're going to be to kind of fix that but I will say you know I think the first week when they came in it was as quiet as I've ever heard our building be I think the kids all had a moment to adjust we saw sleepy faces that hadn't been awake or that early in a long time we saw kids who um my own children were like oh
068I gotta get dressed every day and like you know brush my hair and breathe again get out of the house um so I think there was some readjusting to scheduling but by and large I I think we see Happy Kids routine in a routine in a familiar setting and like I said there's a normalcy to going to school that has brought I think a sense of this is going to be okay back to a lot of our kids yeah great thank you um and then my next question can be for you or anyone else how are we dealing with is it school specific or is it across the district with mask breaks how how do this how are the schools individual schools um how are we handling Mass breaks I'm just curious so I'll keep
069going so we kids are engaging in but most classrooms so we've also gotten creative Beyond just our Mass breaks at luncheon at recess at figuring out ways to carve out a space into the room for if a child needs a mass break and we've kind of built that into our rituals and routines and all the classrooms that I go into they have um depending on the layout of the building like in our school we kind of have that Alcove between two classrooms a lot of our teachers have made that a designated mask break space where kids need a moment they can go back there they're still within ear side of instruction they're not missing anything that they can go back there so much of what we've done and Mr Porter alluded to it is about
070building rituals and routines and when we have strong rituals and routines it doesn't disrupt the learning the kids know that they've just established that as a routine they can go to the mask break spot a lot of our classrooms if kids are working independently within their six feet and they need a minute they can pull their mask down take their minute to kind of re if they're reading and they're not speaking that's fine they're it's just about building those safe rituals and routines adhering to those safety protocols as we've been doing doing but giving kids what they need in that moment it's also teaching kids about self-advocacy I think that there's a there's you know when we talk about some of those Silver Linings I've seen kids learn to self-advocate in a way that maybe
071they didn't before because there was no need to say like I really need a break right now um but we've taught kids about if you know this is hard it's hard to be in a mask all day and it's hard for teachers too our teachers may say like boys and girls I'm gonna be quiet for a minute because it's hard for me to keep talking in this mask so we've really been working with our kids on that self-advocacy piece of it as well as Mr Porter said we are outside as much as we can be as long as it's not thundering and lightning and raining like it was today we'll see our classes outside doing read alouds taking you know again another Mass break that they can take down those masks and have a moment
072to get some fresh air okay no I think that explains it really well I do have one more question I'll just toss it out there challenges what do you see is your biggest challenge and how how can we as a school committee you know Assist you or try to help you out with any of these challenges I think it's just to be what you already are doing because you need to be supportive of the decisions that the central office is making and what we're making and I think what we're trying to stress to all our staff and all our families one situation is like another and I think sometimes you're going to hear things in the community saying they went this way one day but why did they do this way the other day and
073I think we just have to recognize that in normal times classrooms are different children are different and we have to approach things differently based on the situation it's even more so right now so I think continuing to do the things that you're doing there's been a lot of preparation there's been a lot of planning to get to these moments and stuff like that so continuing to support the central office and support the work that we're doing for me that would be the most important thing because we're discovering challenges that we didn't even know were challenges before sure and we just we just would like to have that continued support thank you Mr Porter and Dr Jenkins I didn't want to forget about you [Music] thank you for their hard work um I know this is
074a very challenging time to supervise and and to teach and I'm appreciative of all the work that everyone's doing thank you Dr Jenkins and thank you everyone thinking Happy Thanksgiving Happy Thanksgiving Happy Thanksgiving now we're good [Laughter] good question next stop Mr chairman old business Mr chairman yes do we need to make a motion to approve the yes okay that's fine I make a motion that we approve the school Improvement plans for Quinn part of the Mellow and Cushman schools as presented motion by Mr Nunes the second by Mrs way on the motion any other discussion Jay hearing none all in favor aye thank you motion passes thank you everyone uh next up on tonight's agenda under old business uh update on the equality and diversity committee um there's been some time I think the
075last time I was on the agenda was the end of August so talking with Dr Gifford felt it was important just to bring this back around and get it on the agenda just to touch base on a couple of things about it so what my thought with this agenda item tonight was you have to keep in mind that and we're continuing as we know as a committee we continue to get emails this is a Hot Topic around the Dartmouth Indian but we have to remember that this is not just simply about the Dartmouth Indian this is about the diversity and inequality in the Dartmouth Public Schools with that being said I had a good conversation with Dr Gifford today and one of the things that I was thinking in my head was that in regards
076to the students in the district and having them be part of this committee I thought it was really important that they the highest especially at the high school they formed their their own committee and not have members of the public on it um and then us and then they will report back to us so I'm going to turn it over to Dr Gifford for just a moment so she can kind of explain and I'd like to hear the committee's thoughts on the student piece of it anyway yep sure so along that lines in conversation with Mr Tebow at the high school that's exactly his intent actually we've had a conversation because it's going to be one of his smart goals to implement one of these committees at the high school and we made it very
077clear in our conversation that it would be open to all students all students who have the opportunity opportunity to join the committee um so his his um intent would be to get it started and and he may have already uh started since our conversation a week or so ago I don't know you sent out something that students so he's doing that he'll get it started and then he's hoping to um get a couple of Staff members to then take it over as kind of a club committee and and Let it Grow from there so with that said we thought then just as you mentioned that that committee could maybe nominate or choose a couple of students from that committee to then report back to the the larger Community Committee issues they might be talking about
078Etc what's important to them so that's kind of the plan that we thought would would work uh just one question do you know do you know thank you uh Mr chairman uh do you know if Ross has and I would think so just because the emails go out to everyone those students that are in Virtual Academy this year um if they want to be involved um I don't know if I'm I'm almost thinking positively I haven't seen it but that he has put it out there because as you know he puts the s'more emails go out yeah everywhere exactly exactly so whether anybody's interested right yeah yeah he's been really good on including um all of the students so on those Communications yeah a good point yeah any of my other colleagues on the the
079student piece what do you think what do you think about the just having them I thought it was kind of important that with thinking this through with some of these topics that the really there it's an unbiased student-led you know committee at the high school with a faculty advisor overseeing it Mrs White yeah I think you know again I I saw that in the email that went out you know from him and you know and I know very students who are interested and who've you know asked to be on it I think it's you know empowering for them to come together and you know talk through these issues I know what happens in debate and they're very you know and and again like not being dominated by adults I think is uh but being facilitated
080I think would be is great and I do think that you know we did have three applicants but I think it's even more empowering for them to choose their own representatives and I I would second that as a way to go I think that's that's great so yeah I'm good with that that's fine Dr Jenkins thank you yeah so I do have some thought I just want to raise a few concerns um to the extent I'm not suggesting that this is the issue at the high school but um to the extent that um there may be some issues that may make some students feel uncomfortable about coming forward to participate in these efforts um so I do have concerns there's a lot of research that shows that women um uh students of color are less
081likely to step forward when they're asked to volunteer in a way where we just send out a generic call the research is very clear that if we want to have a diverse representation and diverse views on committees like this we have to proactively recruit so if we're going to do this I really do think we need to make some effort to do some Outreach to students who might not normally have a seat at the table because these are the students that we're trying to serve through this committee so I don't have a problem with us sort of acting this way but I think we have to work in concert what we know to be the best practices to create an inclusive environment where people feel comfortable about speaking up so if we go this route
082then I would like to see the administration proactively recruit students of color students who might feel the issues at the high school so that they have a seat at the table in this discussion about the climate in our schools well thank you Dr Jenkins it's some excellent points uh Dr Gifford you see what are your thoughts on no I'd be interesting to see yeah what um Mrs Tebow had in mind because again it's one of his smart goals so it might already have been part of his action steps but I will certainly um Circle back with him on that yeah anything else Dr Jenkins for that no thank you as far as the um the larger committee um what is the committee's pleasure with moving forward on this um I know we spoke about it
083back in August um I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts on how we should move forward with this uh Mr Nunes yeah thank you Mr chairman unfortunately I had printer issues this weekend so I finally get it straightened out this afternoon so that's when I kind of saw all of this so I apologize that I didn't get a chance to give you a doctor give it a call uh my thought on this has been and continues to be what we talked about back in August and I think and no disrespect to I know this is out there and we have to somewhere down the line are going to have to deal with it which is fine but I think right now we've got a lot more things on our plate with uh this covid-19 and getting
084students getting all the students back into the classroom number one and number two just a personal opinion is this virus continues to phase two as they're talking about stats to escalate and yes they're coming out with a vaccine but I'm not even going to get into that at the moment because who knows when it'll finally get here and how long it takes to trickle down um I mean I I think we're in a possibility that you know there's there's issues that are gonna crop up that are going to need our attention more than with all due respect this this committee at this point in time so my recommendation would be you know to just kind of at this point in time sit tight I mean there's not much we're going to be able to do
085with this committee between now and after the first of the year anyway because of the fact that you know you got to get everybody how are we going to meet you know how you're going to get people who's going to be the Scribe get the meetings posted how do you make sure that it's just the person that's supposed to be on that committee you know at the meeting type of deal versus you know you know five other people sitting at that person's house or office or something of that nature so I mean personally I I think what we have to do it you know I know it's an important topic in that and it we need to look at it but I think we need to wait until this virus settles down and we can
086give it our full not for so much full attention but give it the attention and due diligence that it needs thank you Mr news anyone else um your thoughts my well my thoughts are that I I feel that we um sorry if anyone want to go first Shannon or Mary but um I I feel it's worth setting up I I personally don't know how we decide upon I mean I have my own thoughts but I know we've also we've decided upon the makeup of it as far as although we've altered that with the students having their own which is very important and I'm sure they're very excited to start that up um but I think we should at least set this up you know obviously things would I think have to happen via Zoom uh
087in the in the short term um and we can work through that but I do think this is really important to get started because you know the the emails that we're getting um uh certainly have this tone around the you know the mascot and the Indian and that is one piece of it but there's so many other pieces to it and I don't think we can wait start a committee to discuss things um paveo spoke about the library and some really great things that the schools are doing and on my daughter's reading some great literature or you know um stories that are more diverse authors that who are of different cultures and that's wonderful because we are a community we're very white community and I think that we benefit from learning about um you know
088who we are in a broader sense you know all of the elementary schools are coming together and working and learning more about their own personal cultures within their own schools and we're better together and we're in this together I just think it's important that we we set something up and then we go with it um and what that looks like I don't know I don't know um how we pick and choose the people to be on it um but I I do and I am in support of it being constructed and um you know now rather than waiting thank you Mrs Emerald Mrs White yeah I you know with Alders respect to Mr Nunes I mean I and I understand you know certainly this is a very difficult time I think you know we did
089make a commitment and you know ask in August you know for people to start studying their letters of interest and those people have been waiting for a while to find out if they're you know part of this this group and I you know a lot of other committees are working right now I'm on the charter Review Committee in additions you know you know we're working via zoom and you know it seems to be functioning you know pretty well and you know on some you know detailed content so I think you know certainly doable um what I would like to see and again if things change you know the members of the committee once we identify what who those people are I think they can also come up with the timeline for themselves for meetings and
090you know what makes sense given the circumstances but I'd like to think that we can at the very least you know come up with the goals you know and the scope of what this committee's work will be because I think again like getting back to what was said before is that you know there's a component which is certainly you know looking at the mascot but that's you know only a piece of the greater you know work that this committee has to do and I think it's important that we articulate that you know and really get that down for ourselves like what do we think that this committee should do how long do we think this committee needs to do its work based on what their goals are and then I think you know what would
091be the skill sets of the persons that we want to be as part of this and you know we I would imagine we want representation for example Among The Faculty from different schools and different age groups and things like that and I think we can do that work and then you know maybe come to the table at our next meeting with some some looking taking a deeper look at the persons who might fit those standards and kind of develop a membership and then at least those people will know before we get into the holidays if they're a part of this so that's okay thank you Mrs White yep Dr Jenkins I'm strongly opposed to any effort to delay moving forward for this issue I'll paraphrase you know the old saying Justice delayed is just is
092Justice denied um I think we need to move forward with discussing these issues and I think delay is a tactic to keep things status quo and where they are and that's just not sufficient um I agree with Miss Waite that maybe identifying some um some you know some qualities that we're looking for and particularly among the faculty and the Town members um to ask those people on the list already to have to provide us with a bit more information about their connections to the schools um you know what their background in training is and these um would be useful um I would say that perhaps in looking at the list of Administrators it's perhaps a little bit more clear to me um I think it would be good to have representation from both the high
093school and the middle school um Mr Hayes is the only administrator that has put his name forward um from the middle school so I think it's you know pretty clear that I think we should have him on the committee we had said um to administrators and you know given that Mr Tebow is the principal um I would be willing to support Mr Hayes and Mr Tebow for the two administrative roles and then I'd like to maybe come back to getting some more information on um who the faculty and the Town members who put their names forward for serving thank you Dr Jenkins so I honestly think we do need to move this forward um you know covet's going to be around for a while it's not going anywhere so what I'd like to see is
094maybe tonight we can ask um put a message out there to the public and then also maybe if Miss Gunther I hate to ask you to do anything else on top of the enormous tasks that you're already doing here but reach out to or just email the people that are on the list that have expressed interest um to provide us with a little more information um to why they want to serve on the committee I think that would help us I know would help me at least because I if we're going to do this I first I want to make sure it gets the time it deserves and second I want to make sure that it's um the people that are serving on it are are they're a diverse bunch and it's not one you
095know one strong side or the other strong side um and it's just being very um it's the word I'm looking for I just want to make sure that we're leaving no stone unturned and we've got all our cards on the table for this and in as far as the timeline goes you know if if we can come up and at least put together the committee like you said Mrs wait before the holidays uh that would be great and then following the new year maybe let them stop working and then we'll take it from there yes yeah just to video uh you know what what do the people that are inclined to volunteer feel that they contribute to a committee involving diversity and and you know inclusion and all of that and Equity so like what
096yeah I would love to hear from from those people what they um you know not I don't want diversity uh uh more what can I offer to this conversation as well as the being of a diverse group as well uh excellent point and I said it before and I I'll say it again I know some of you have said it too this is not solely about the Dartmouth Indian no this is just that is just one piece of this larger conversation that is long overdue and we need we should be having and so um oh I'm sorry oh God so Mr Oliver to that point can we talk about what that what we we will be tasking them with or do we want to give that put that onus on the group to say like
097this is what you know is that coming from us to kind of set up their you know there's the scope of their work or will we will they kind of Define that more themselves I guess is my in my question I mean we know kind of broadly what we want them to do do we want to be more specific as a school committee giving you know Direction and guidance or you know what what is the thought there yes I'm I'm just going to speak without really thinking through what I'm thinking the most but but I'm thinking that perhaps the high school meets uh and I'm sure that they all are coming to the table with with ideas and thoughts that they have around what's going on um to Shannon's Point having that you know targeted
098Outreach that one-to-one conversation around we would like you to be part of this because we feel you would contribute in this way to those students who in the ways that they feel comfortable with right we see a lot of that work in the Middle School let the kids kind of dictate how they feel most comfortable sharing what they what they want and and perhaps the the broader committee meets first having on the agenda what the high school students are bringing to the table and that might help I don't know if anyone but that's just what came to mind perhaps that's a good way to start and and um in in in in creating that Focus or that that uh timeline you know whatever it is based on what's being brought to the table I mean
099we can name things for sure but I would be interested to hear what the students once they've met bring to the table so you're saying have the students meet first as an idea just it just came to me they uh I don't know yeah and then I think what you're looking at then is if you know you you bring it into the high school and and such and you know you the committee is not really trying to reinvent the wheel because some of these items are maybe already out there and it can then the committee can what what the larger our committee is to or the task to do but Shannon probably has some good ideas too Shannon I didn't um quite hear what Mr noon says I mean I think that right can you
100repeat that maybe no all I said was you know I I kind of agreed with with Kathy Kathleen in the sense of if the high school is meeting and they come together with some ideas then the committee's not trying to reinvent the wheel because they already kind of have a little bit of a stepping stone and a starting place no I don't I don't disagree with that but what I might add is that issue diversity and Equity inclusion do not just involve the students they involve our staff and our faculty um you know it's about our work culture as well um so it's it's not just about the students it's about or just and I'm not saying there's issues but um there are other people who have other perspectives on the school that might be
101able to see things more clearly staff faculty parents of children in school that children themselves maybe aren't able to articulate so for instance someone who's the parent of someone in elementary school you know maybe I'll speak Kathleen I don't want to speak for you but as a parent of a of a disabled child right or differently abled child you probably had a lot of thoughts when he was in elementary school um that maybe you know teenagers might not see or notice so I think it's a good idea to get input from ideas from high school students but I'm not sure that they're going to see the whole picture so I'm not sure that I want to limit it to sort of the ideas that just they're bringing to the table great point no so I
102I agree with with you Dr Jenkins I can understand everyone's points I I think the the challenge here is that this is a very big challenge this is that's being put in front of us um and like I said I think it needs to happen um in we as a committee we as a town we as a school Community should be having this conversation so with that any history yes can I make a motion you can do yes you can make a motion I'm trying to help us to help you virtually but like come forward through this first I'd like to make a motion that we solicit input from The Faculty uh and staff sort of members and the Town members who have indicated interest that they provide us with some more information about why
103they want to serve what to bring to the table um and sort of what their experience and training is around these areas and maybe for the Town members what their connections to the school are didn't you without didn't you just ask Kate to do that Chris yes I had I had asked Kate I had asked Kate to do that but Shannon's making them Shannon's made a motion so I have a motion second foreign discussion no that sounds like a good idea yeah yeah all right agreed with what you said all in favor aye aye motion passed unanimously okay go ahead Dr Jenkins to be the two administrative Representatives um to the diversity and Equity committee a second so we have a motion by Dr Jenkins the second by Mrs Waite any other discussion no that's
104fine I'll just I'll just add to that that I think um those two those two individuals representing the high school I'm fine with that in the Middle School in high school um I think they would serve uh serve the committee well yep all in favor aye opposed motion carries unanimously anything else for us that's it okay I just don't want to leave the scope of their work you know again because I just think that's so important so how just to come up with a plan for how we're going to develop the scope of what this committee is going to do and really making that clear I you know and who's going to like carry that forward I think that's just one decision I'd like to see made before we leave tonight like if that's going
105to be something we talk about next at our next meeting where we give that over to you know Mr Hayes Mr Tebow whoever you know to lead that I just think if we have that decision it will like be helpful that's all sure I think to some extent I think the the discussion needs to be you know start from within the group yeah um as far as what they're tasked with I think at the end when when the committee finally um you know one is ready to present their their findings I'd like to see and I'm not sure how the student group would interact with this piece but ultimately I want I would like them presenting um in some with the administration itself presenting to the school committee oh yeah yeah no for sure at
106the end but as far as I think that's still open for discussion Kathleen yeah I think I mean I would I would like to see them as a group sort of meet and sort of maybe Define what what this means diversity means and what what and and then come up with maybe I don't know if we set like a three goals and and like you said I agree having them come to us with their fights and is a good idea Mr Nunes yeah thank you Mr chairman I think at at that point in time I think we have to leave it to them because they're the for argumentative sake especially the administrators and the teachers the students they're the ones that are on the front line yep so I think for them to come up
107with what they're looking for and maybe bring those ideas to us before they go you know that they want to do a b c and d you know and before they go off to you know we go yeah that's a good idea those look good on iPod since we're going to have to probably somewhere down the line adopt that into a policy that you know so before they spend a lot of time Reinventing a wheel and they've just you know they've kind of they've put some stuff together for us as a thought as thoughts and we've approved it so that they can go off and now hone in on it I think if that makes sense I think I understand what you're saying I think I know you know Mrs White yeah no I mean
108just to you know piggyback on what he was saying I think what you know with Mr Nunes is you know suggesting is that you know they'll come in and present their overall agenda and their goals to us and then we'll say those are you know where that's in tandem with you know we'd like to see what you come up with in that you know whether it's you know taking a second look at curriculum or you know whatever those specific goals are and then so we have we kind of are met then we understand the direction that they're going in and then they have their final presentation to show us you know is where they ended up that's exactly right yeah that's exactly what I said yeah he's all confused are we good oh yeah it
109is bigger than all of us yes no and I I I'm pleased with that uh go ahead Shannon I I just like to offer a couple couple of thoughts um one I think there's gonna be a lot going on here so to suggest that they're going to do one report I think I think there's gonna be maybe many issues that we've tackled so there may be several reports coming out of this committee um I also think it might be easier if we we can develop a charge without sort of naming specific issues um and so maybe it might be easier if two of us drafted a charge for the committee um for our next meeting that we could review um collectively um so for instance we can charge them with meeting reporting back to us
110at certain times with recommendations and all that but I don't think we need to name specific issues in the charge that's good so did I hear you're volunteering to um I am happy to volunteer if anyone else would like to help me with that or if anyone else wants to do it instead of me of me I'm gonna be out sort of medically for several days next week um so I may be limited in the time that I can do this but I will make it work if the committee in some it wants me to do that and someone else is willing to help me out so our our next meeting is December 7th um when's do we have two meetings in December yes do we want to set this up for the second meeting
111in December so it's not just uh two weeks from now would that I can make it happen by the seventh if someone else is willing to help me out we'll make that work okay this is way I can help you know and I'm happy to have you know Dr Jenkins expertise in you know formulating this but I'm sorry I'm certainly more than willing to help perfect unless you know either of you would oh yeah that's true perfect no exactly thank you thanks man okay great our next meeting's after the seventh is the 21st this is the 21st okay perfect so thank you both Dr Jenkins Mrs White for um putting that together and uh look forward to uh reviewing it at our next meeting thank you next up under new business FY 22 budget timeline
112already I'll turn this over to Jessica Kylie I don't know what cliches I could throw out here unprecedented uh certainly on certain so um yeah we've never probably had to be more flexible in everything we do and I don't think the budget is going to be any different um I mean this is a budget timeline fairly consistent with what we've done in the past I think the town is going to be way behind I would I would imagine their normal timeline but I don't I don't think that we can afford to um you know to to wait and not plan um what we have to do is be able to shift gears and plan on multiple levels so that we can adjust accordingly so this timeline really sort of sets the stage for that but
113it we have to be fluid and flexible with it so March and April I don't know we'll see uh me you know we'll see if that's if that's feasible we have no idea where the state is going to go with this I mean they're still working on this year's budget so that's a bad sign we have indications that tax revenue in town aren't great so between the state and the tax revenue in town those are our two funding sources so things could be bad in in 22 for sure so we need to be prepared for that I think what I always like to start with from a budget perspective is to find out what the principals need in their buildings in the Departments need to get the job done in in according to the standard
114that we are accustomed to so do good work continue improving uh you know looking at the school Improvement plans continue trying to implement improvements we want to know that we want to know what that's going to cost us to continue to do so that's that would be sort of the foundation of the budget obviously if things get really bad then we'll have to collaborate um our Administration will collaborate district-wide and adjust accordingly if we have to but at this point I think we have a plan of where we're going to start thank you Mr Kiley thoughts comments questions from anyone Mr Nunes yeah thank you this is yeah this is uh I don't envy you I'll be honest with you to be perfectly honest this is not going to be fun you're right the the
115state's still the state has still got theirs in committee because the House and Senate can't agree so that's there and they're no sooner going to get out of this one and you know December becomes January and they've got a you know the they've got to get start working on everything so that the governor can give us house one in in January and away we go you know who knows what the revenue is going to be and again I go back to what I said earlier with phase two blowing up you know we have no idea what's going to what's going to be happening is businesses keep shutting down in in that type of deal so uh yeah this is going to this is going to have to be very fluid on iPad and also you
116know I think town hall is going to have to be very fluid because uh you know they may be getting you know changes at the last minute so but we'll get it done we're here to help thank you anyone else just thank you yes I've seen um a lot of conversations on Twitter about the fact how many school districts are seeing sort of steep declines in this year and kids enrolled in preschool and kindergarten and early grades um and I and I really I'm concerned that the state is not planning for that that this year parents maybe kids back or sending them to private school and so our budget next year is going to reflect that but then when things return back to normalish um we're gonna have the a more normal amount of kids
117and a budget that doesn't help us pay for those kids so I wonder if there's any sense Mr Kylie I'm sure they're not even talking about the budget yet next year but whether they're going to take that into account that we may be seeing wild fluctuations sort of in enrollment in districts um that normal budget and procedures are going to make it very difficult for us to address to Chapter 70 funding yeah so so I can say that uh from the perspective of the Department of Ed uh Finance people that I'm involved with uh they understand these changes that districts are facing and they also hope like we do that they're temporary in nature and that um we should have an expectation of being held relatively harmless to the dramatic fluctuation based on covet 19.
118so they understand that whether they ultimately have the funds to implement holding people harmless sort of remains to be seen the the the FY 20 budget discussion which is important because that's money coming to the town this year so the ongoing discussion essentially holds Dartmouth from a school perspective and generally from a town perspective harmless for the impact of covet 19. so that's a good sign there's no decrease in Chapter 70 funding although enrollment is down uh so I think they understand that again in the end it's all going to come down to do they have the money to fund what they would hope to fund and I think in 22 that's when that begins to be a more challenging more challenging scenario for them than it is in 21. thank you Mr Kylie yeah
119I will just out of curiosity do we know from our October 1 report our the amount of students that were either transferred out homeschooled or to a private school do we have any idea and where we're at with that is it significant private ones yet because that comes out January 1 but we are about 30 below on our kindergarten and we have 70 additional homeschool kids 30 below in kinderg normally we're about 3 40 and we're at a I mean excuse me two and we're at about 210. okay and we have a hundred and roughly 115 to 20 homeschool and we're usually around 44. oh wow I couldn't hear it I couldn't yeah we couldn't hear that over there could you Chris could you repeat no normally we have about 45 um homeschooled kids and
120we're at 45 115 right now right okay and normally we have roughly 240 kindergartners and we're at about 210. two what two ten two ten so it's about a 70 70 and 30. so about 105. not loss no wheel well net loss yeah yeah that's that's quite considerable so our hope is that they won't look at those numbers yeah I mean we're not alone no no of course not so uh I'm not really prepared to really I don't like to ask questions that I don't know what I'm asking but uh there was an email that came out within the last couple of days like the you know the commissioner's newsletters and this actually might have actually been from the federal government um and it said something like with the like Esser funding and things like
121that that states have used like very little and so like I think Massachusetts has Massachusetts Massachusetts spent like 12 percent of their s or funding um is that Massachusetts like holding on to it until districts apply for it and get it or is that like are they is that in essence potentially there holding you holding people harmless funds and so they're not giving out all of what they've gotten or can you speak a little bit to that sure so the cares Act is a is a fairly complex act um it includes multiple grants sources that um either could be good could go to school districts or to municipalities so the bulk of the money in Massachusetts was directed to municipalities oh [Music] um for whatever reason that's at the state administrative level um at really
122at the governor's level and a f there so they are administering the bulk of the funds um for for instance the town of Dartmouth received approximately three million dollars in eligible Grant monies at the municipal level at the Town level we received an Sr 300 000 from a school perspective now that was based on the title one formula which that isn't particularly help us compared to some other districts we also receive the coronavirus Relief Fund monies which are also cares act monies but distributed in a different in a different pool and we got 788 thousand dollars from that so the net of the two because Bishop Stang and Friends Academy are eligible for some funds about a million dollars that the schools have received we have spent uh will have spent all of it the
123town has been great to work with and very collaborative they recognize that I mean we're the biggest operation that you know in town obviously the most people serve the um the biggest share of the budget and um really the the highest level of need so they've helped support us with things like HVAC monies through this through their cares act funds as well as technology expenditures and Mr galashaw and I have been working on that and the hope is that you know we're we're stringing things along as best we can but we're we're really you know stretching um so they've been great with that but outside of our Monies I don't know that the town has had a lot of additional expenses they've received funds from the massive uh maybe not funds but they've received a
124lot of supplies from the mass Emergency Management agency um so the the town Emergency Management has worked with them and has done a great job getting lots of supplies that can also be used by US in emergency situations and back up um you know our stocks so they haven't had to buy that um so I I don't I think that is the way it is in a lot of communities so a lot of money is sitting at that Municipal level that is not going to be spent I don't think we're alone in Massachusetts you know in in the country but um it was distributed differently in different states so uh and there is a lot of money still to be distributed The Hope was originally that it would be able to be used for Revenue
125replacement that has not happened because the feds the legislature can't get their act together but um and that's not going to change and this money is expiring December 30th and there's no way they're going to get anything done before December 30th so whether or not the those monies come back again somehow I guess remains to be seen but it is possible but it's not going to be Revenue replacement which would have really saved the town um and all the other municipalities in the state so the the funds that are expiring at the end of the year they're the Esser funds there's some that there's some that can be carried over right and there's some that are expired can you just go so from a school perspective the coronavirus Relief Fund expires on December 30th that's
126the 788 thousand dollar okay Grant what we've what we've done is expended all of that on our Virtual Academy teachers our virtual learning Edgenuity techa um our um all the supplies that we've had to had to buy up front um really all of the expenses cleaning you know cleaning supplies and cleaning hours and all of those things so we will have spent it all by before December 30th and then we will have the Esser funds remaining now that's a smaller amount and it can but it can support some costs for the rest of the way for the rest of this year so with that correct me if I'm wrong but the techer in the Ingenuity platforms are so our semester subscriptions yep now you said that the money has to be expended by December 31st
127so have we taken into account those students that may continue remote because I believe the option was that come semester two we're gonna that's when we would look to allow students back to into hybrid so do we have funds right now um to to cover Ingenuity yeah you're right I mean so basically all we could do and and we did this with the Virtual Academy teachers as well is look at covering the first four months of the Year through the coronavirus Relief Fund it's unfortunate because it was our biggest pool of funds but on the other hand we also had a lot of initial expenditures I mean it's it's good that we have the money and um but yes so we'll we'll revert to other sources yes sir primarily for the remainder and that'll go
128quick because that's not a lot of there's not a lot of money do you have a smallpox figure of what techer and Ingenuity cost us yeah 40 well it's going to be adjusted Edge annuity is going to be less than 40 000 and uh teca is 90. 90. for one semester thinks Edge annuities paid for the year for the year total for the year total for the year but no that's not too bad does it increase like depending on how many like let's say we have 20 more students who sign up for Ingenuity just so it's one full coverage okay that's great right absolutely I mean you know within the scope thank you Mr Kylie anyone else just yeah thank you so I'm glad I asked that question and I appreciate your thorough answer because
129all this is so important I am not I like math but I am not um I don't even balance my checkbook and so I can only imagine you must be pulling your hair out every single day and you do with a smile on your face that this has to be um uh I'm just I'm studying Chaos Theory right now I'm going back to school myself at night in the middle of the night but um and it just yeah I was like Wow chaos theory and coronavirus it's you must just be this just must be a nightmare for you and I appreciate you and your staff and all that you're doing and just I just can't even imagine and it's glad it's you and it's not me because we'd be in a heap of mess but
130thank you thank you Mr Kylie thank you uh next up Personnel update so you have two sheets and Dr Jenkins I emailed you the two sheets to your Dartmouth email did you got those Shannon Dartmouth email to your Dartmouth email uh Miss Roy sent them to your Dartmouth email yeah I got it yeah yep so the first sheet the one that is got the yellow highlighting is the Staffing update on positions at central office and Educators in each of the schools and the second sheet which is mostly the blue and the pink highlighting is our teacher assistance which is a little more complicated so you can see in the yellow highlights um you know as we navigate through the year we're trying to adjust each issue as it arises and in some cases an inability
131to stop a position causes us to try to look internally to fill that so as Mr Kylie mentioned we had Virtual Academy teachers that are partially funded through the Corona virus Relief Fund there were six of them we were able to find five within the pool that we searched extensively Mrs Oliveira did all the interviewing and reviewing and all of that one of which we ended up Staffing with a portion of a coach Ela coach from one building and a math coach from the other that are also doing the science and the history in the um and you can see each area has one that we may have chosen not to staff at the moment if it's a specialist it may be due to the fact that you know half of the students are in
132we don't have a need we're waiting you know as far as funding and all of that we have a special ed position in one school that we were not able it was a late resignation we're not able to find a candidate but we did have a specialist person that was licensed in that area and was moved into that role and there was a position at the high school that wasn't needed because of the numbers in that particular content area so um the nurse a new additional nursing position was posted and we're pretty close to filling that to help cover some of the absences in the nursing pool that we're having trouble Staffing on a regular basis because of there's just no subs whether it's substitutes for teachers or substitutes for nurses The Substitute pool is
133really low because a lot of the districts are trying to fill long-term sub positions and so there aren't a lot of candidates out there for substitutes and they're being snatched up pretty quickly so that's the overview of the um admin Staffing and the educator Staffing the other sheet is my attempt to simplify the teacher assistance which is a very much a moving Target but my summary is sort of all the way over to the writing yellow so you can see at the bottom overall we're down about 5.6 Tas but within that our three exiting grade 12 one-to-ones so those would have exited anyways on in-school suspension position that we eliminated because it really wasn't a need for that we also added two one-to-one Tas at Quinn um we were able to um find those recently
134those are the GAA positions are difficult to find um we also have a couple openings in the regular ta positions at Quinn that we're hoping to either shift or be able to find because the Tas are helping us with the substitute Gap so they're used to the classrooms they're used to the technology they're also filling when we have IEP meetings they're covering those um so the percentages in the middle kind of tell you a story about what percent of our classrooms we have regular Tas that are able to help and you can see Quinn is down they are our largest school at about 575 and they have our lowest percentage of regular Tas that can help so they also have some gaps in their special areas that we just can't send a PE teacher or
135a music teacher over there we just don't have enough to navigate all that so we have a person between two like grade one classes and the TA is helping the second one well the the our teacher goes back and forth or the music teacher goes between the two classrooms so the TA pool is really being stretched to help us fill those IEP meetings and the absences and the need to help with some of the special areas so I don't know if you have any questions on either one of those I um thank you yeah I had asked I had asked Dr Gifford um to have someone from her office put together where we're at with Personnel I thought it was important for us to be cognizant of what's going on um in the district so
136if I'm looking at this correctly Miss Roy for the Tas we have a we're right now at a a minus 5.6 ftes for the T8 for the th which includes like I said the the three one-to-ones that would have exited because their students were graduating and uh in school suspension program that we didn't need the Middle School library ta that was also helping with the PE for the one-to-one that moved up to the high school so there are some that we naturally would have uh lost but we also added a few so it with one-to-ones at Quinn and components of that so it's a little bit of a balancing act but that's where we are yes and as far as professional positions go what do we have do you um all total as far as
137what as far as professional teaching positions and administration positions I see so we had as far as we had six virtual teachers that were added in a nurse and then we had us one central office we had six people that were currently not filled and six new ones that were added okay so it's sort of a wash kind of a wash yeah thank you very much anyone else there's questions yes yeah thank you Mr chairman quick question uh as I look on the Demello the the Demello School line when you come into after the 40 you've got seven of twenty so on the Demello okay just and I mean and it goes down the line that's the way my math brain works all right so they Demello has 20 uh sections when you count up
138all their grades they have eight regular Tas those are the ones that help them so they aren't assigned to students so they can cover 40 8 out of 20 40 of their classrooms with the Tas right if we shift one to Quinn because we're trying to decide what that would bring them to covering 35 percent of their classrooms if we need them okay but just above there Potter has nine regular Tas 18 goddesses 50 if we ship one they're at about 44 and Quinn has seven with 31 classes that's 23 of their classes so you can see why we're trying to look at that if we shift to you know one from each of the others we're still at 29 right they're our largest school right but if you go next to the 40 percent
139you have seven of twenty if I move one so if I have eight there now and we move one to Quinn right they're down to seven oh covering the classes okay got it we're trying to you know then we have a hard time finding Tas and we try to prioritize the one-to-ones first and the programs first so we're pretty close to filling that we're 0.5 down on doing that and then we're looking at the regular Tas now I got it thank you yeah in terms of David thank you if if anyone's used to kind of riding the wave it's it's the quintias and and trying to figure out where they need to be uh you know just speaking with the highest need population um and if I'm reading this correct where they're down one it
140or no 0.5 you said for Quinn is um they have an intermittent one in their one of their programs that we believe were close to finding a candidate for okay and then we have two um Regular Tas that are on leaves all right are those though I don't if you could speak to like there are the ones where we're close to they're not one-to-one say they're just staff support extra okay and they're using you know sometimes they're using those those to help out if some like online or minute one yeah or if somebody's out yep yep okay yes just uh just a point of clarification like when I look at the Virtual Academy so in grade four that's currently being is that currently being taught by the Demello and Quinn coaches and how are you
141I guess my broader question is as I look at Demello they've had a retiree for their math coach just retired it sounds like a lot of the literacy coaches the math coaches are doing a lot of filling in is there a plan after this year to replace that math coach for about like how how is that how are you kind of dividing up that those former responsibilities of the literacy of the math coaches now that they're covering classes and supporting staff and and we have a vacancy at Demello like how is that all flushing out cult recently retired in in November so that's yeah no opening um we have um the math is prioritizing computational fluency I mean Mrs Oliver can help but we're not making any major shifts in the mouth curriculum at this
142point I think it's a priority for the following Year Tracy is that correct I'm sorry I couldn't hear you she was looking at Tracy math coach math curriculum education system in here more priority for next year is that correct yes okay yeah okay sorry Mr chairman I had to use my mom voice yeah it was actually it was it was Mary's question yes it was just a recent retiree but the point is the plan ultimately to fill that position in the fall if we hopefully it depends on budget right yeah yeah it absolutely depends on your budget okay the greatest priority is to fill the classrooms and the special oppositions first and then see where we are thank you thank you Dr Jenkins you have anything just got a pretty swirl there it's okay thank
143you Miss Roy complex it's always moving yeah yeah next up I'll turn it over to doctors couple of things superintendent something yeah a couple of things um so obviously we continue to meet with the Board of Health um we we had a number of discussions this weekend on some positive cases that came up in the schools but each one of them I have to say we met again this morning our normal Monday morning meeting with some nurses Board of Health well I say Board of Health Christmas show and um working through all of those scenarios making sure everybody's on the same page working through contact tracing etc etc we've been very fortunate um so far we do have a couple of uh bigger contact tracing numbers that will be on quarantine coming up but we
144continue to keep the transmission in school kind of not there so that's a good piece as much as who knows what will happen but um so I just wanted to make it make it clear too for folks that have questioned about asking about the number of quarantines Etc that is such a complex number because so much of it is out of abundance of caution it could be 10 people it could be five it could be one so every scenario was different and to maintain numbers per se it I mean we might know each school what it is but it's not a number that you continue to I mean people could be going home for you know bad sore throat and a temperature but have nothing to do with that so it's ongoing but as I
145said we have a great collaboration with the with Chris misho he's fantastic and um the town nurse and able to work through all of the scenarios um Athletics you know that uh the M.I.A came out with the new guidance last Friday I spoke with Andy today Andy cristofulli and as you know the start date has been extended to December 14th they're looking at basketball and ice hockey so he'll be coming up with a plan of action for that it's it's a little bit more complex than Outdoors as we had it so we'll see what we're thinking as that moves along and what schools I have to say a lot of the schools that I've spoken to the superintendents that totally were against the fall sports are leaning towards trying to do something now I think
146they saw that it went pretty successfully at a lot of districts but some are being held back of course because of Jim's space that they might be using the gymnasiums for classrooms Etc as you know the governor and they keep continuing to come out with the statements about everyone get in school and I know we get emails Etc about why aren't we all in school but I want to reiterate that we continue to still have to maintain the guidance which is six feet uh our classrooms are separated that way we cannot fit more students in our classrooms with that guidance so unless they want to build as a new school um we have to continue using the model that we're using at this point and that goes for the transportation as well so as much
147as they say everyone in school full-time it's it's two sides of your mouth if you will you know get them all in and to your point Dr Gifford if you don't mind yeah for those just for everyone watching what's the probability of us returning full-time because obviously we've all heard those you know those parents or those community members like you just said that where we should all be back in school all the students should be back in school really what is the probability of us returning anytime soon just so just so we're all clear on this to none okay I would say next to none that if I had to BET right now I'd bet on Next To None I don't that's kind of my feeling too I just wanted to to say that because
148I know there's a lot of people in the community right like you said that why aren't with the governor saying the commissioner's saying this and you're absolutely right yeah we just can't fit it there's there's absolutely no way that we can following social business and guidelines in transportation guidelines yeah that it really transportation is a huge issue and until they come up with updated right for for both updated guidance you know I don't I don't personally see that happening so I I guess I guess my question that I asked Mr Kylie back in September or October that you know this all of a sudden the middle of July January went away in the two days that he would need to get the schools open we don't have to worry about right right there you go
149no we don't and to that point even with all the contact tracing when we have a student in a cohort Mr Kylie's office is spending a ton of time trying to look at videos of the buses to see just how how much the students adhere to the guidance did they take their masks off were they close together speaking so trying to follow that guidance and then do contact tracing is an issue it's it's a huge issue yeah just you know and I almost feel like I'm you know I know Dr Jenkins you know brings us up you know and I'm you know maybe I'm you know stepping in here but you know we are approaching Thanksgiving you know we have so many families who are you know want their students back in full time I
150mean again like Thanksgiving should not be big groups it should be your own intimate family I mean that's who should be I mean it's sad I mean I know you know personally I had to put I haven't seen my parents in over a year I plan to go down had to cancel that so I you know it's a hard decision but if we want our kids back in the schools we have to make sure that we're keeping everybody safe and you know being really smart and keeping the people that we love who are older or you know um in more fragile Health we're keeping them safe as well but again I think those two things and I know so Dr Gifford you know with that in mind I know of you sent it on email
151but could you um clarify again just so for everybody who's here to hear like if you choose to go you know drive down to Florida for Thanksgiving you know and have a big potluck you know at greenon's house what will be and you know Johnny comes back and says like it was a great you know my cousin's I had like a big wrestling contest like what will what will happen like what how does that play out so what's the governor's guidance I guess for all the Dartmouth families that are in Florida or Disney World right now yes yes yeah they're supposed to fill out his um sheet there's a form online the and also um have a test within 72 hours of returning to the state and then produce that negative I don't know who
152you're producing you know giving the negative results to but if you do not have your results when you return back to Massachusetts you're supposed to quarantine until you get those results I think it's harder to get tests right now that's what I've heard you know we've got the long lines in this yeah there's only two good States right that's right [Laughter] I just want to say like my interpretation from sort of following this and sort of hearing people in the community is is it's frustrating to hear certainly it's fascinating to hear the commissioner and the governor you know now after having districts sort of make plans to come in and say X Y and Z should be in person but my interpretation in really hearing him and listening to them and I encourage people to
153do this because anyway uh is what he's saying is and and how I interpret it is we are as full as we can be into it for our community we are full in person we're going every other day those chose hybrid I mean uh Virtual Academy that's one thing but but where every other day our kids are not uh away from school except for quarantine and those things are in place for more than a day they're back with their teachers um we are in essence back in full capacity with following the guidance right and so um I was encouraged and it could be out of context I didn't watch the whole the whole thing but the governor did speak to this today and he said he clarified that he while he's saying what he's saying
154to the most the capacity that you can go back in person that you do it with all the safety precautions and but it's leaving it up to the local the Lea the local education authority to make those decisions because we know our buildings we've measured them you've I haven't but I've but Jim has and the staff you know put all this in place for the safety of the families and to Mary's point Thanksgiving college kids coming home I I just implore families to really stress to their loved ones who are back in town from college not to be having birthday parties not to be having parties at their house not to be doing that if you really want your students to be in person as much as you can you really need to do what
155we need to do right now as a community to make sure that we don't mess up and we don't go to remote and we don't you know our numbers don't go high we've got to do our due diligence we miss our friends we miss our colleagues we you know you're away you're back you've got a younger sibling still in the schools if you're back from college please do your best to not mess this up it's on you and I'm sorry I'm I'm really passionate about this and I hope that people adhere to the to what they need to do to be safe because I don't want to go back remote anyway I I completely agree with you Kathleen and I'll just say to the families that made the decision to to travel outside of Massachusetts
156that's that's perfectly fine we just ask that you please keep in mind the safety of all the staff faculty and students in the Dartmouth public schools in either um receive a receive a covid test or quarantine appropriately per the governor's Autos that's that's kind of what we ask um and so to that point so since we are in the model we're in you know we're continuing to do what we can to enhance the remote days that so um I actually met with Mr Doane today to talk about what he's been doing at the middle school because he get put out to the staff to provide a plan of action of how they're going to continue to enhance the connections that teachers have with students so I was really really pleased with the plan that all
157of the teachers have developed and that uh first of all the this all students will be checking in in the morning and the attendance to be taken on the remote days because we wanted to make sure we were trying to beef that up as well um all of the teachers have supplied schedules to their students for Google meets that they can join their Google meets at certain times of the day when the teachers are available they've also given times for academic support as a team you know they work in teams at the middle school of course they're also looking and watching and teaching them checking their progress on that go guardian and also they're able to chat with them so if they have questions and that kind of thing and of course the monitoring work
158through a q a session that they have and they all had schedules because as I said work in a team so either they're meeting with one particular teacher or the whole team it depends on what's going on because they have academic support and the curriculum time and they also are starting which they put out on their parent letter an active learning support online Center that's starting December one that's for all students and it'll be two times a week two thirty to four that there'll be a link for students to be able to link in and teachers will be monitoring that like kind of like an office hour if you will so that's extra that they're starting up on December one what was that called um Active Learning online support center and that went out an
159apparent letter so again just the work that they're doing to enhance the connections and the live lessons or or contact that students have on their remote days um parent conferences are coming up December 2nd and 9th and um the last thing that I wanted to mention which we I'd like to take up at our next meeting is as you know we mentioned um Miss Roy is retiring so we've been working on some suggestions for a plan of action I send you all some information on some thinking on that so just to mention it tonight that I'd like to put it on the agenda for the next meeting for discussion on how we move forward with that position perfect fine with me and that's all I have with that thank you Dr Gifford all right and
160will you be with us for the next school committee okay maybe we can have like a cookie or something that's right Dr Jenkins yes did you have something did you did you say something okay what's up John it's just she's all the whole sudden got white tape or something it looks like I don't know next up reported the chair all I have is um you know I think we had a success like you said Dr Gifford a successful uh fall Sports season um I think it went extremely well no major no major problems and like you said I think some other districts will probably be joining in um so that's all really I have um anyone else no I'd just like to take this opportunity to wish everyone Out There Our especially our those of
161you in attendance tonight here uh in person as well as everyone at home our our faculty and staff families Community a Happy Thanksgiving stay safe stay home that's right all right our next regularly scheduled meeting of the Dartmouth school committee is Monday December 7th 6 30 right here in the Dartmouth High Media Center at this time chair will do we have any more any public oh yeah so you're so good this is the news Miss Gunther did you uh receive any other uh public comment or any public comment I don't know because my computer died her computer passed away [Music] I hadn't that up until the time that it did uh okay good enough okay so for the record if you do receive anything you'll forward those to us and I will also call your
162attention to the emails or or comment on the emails that Dr Gifford forwarded to me um from several community members about the uh old uh business item on the agenda this evening oh yes the yes the equality and diversity it didn't come in to me but Dr Gifford forward them to me and perfect so you have them as a matter of record thank you very much for everything Kate we appreciate it thank you our next regularly scheduled meeting of the diamond school committee is Monday December 7th I think I said that already at this time chair will entertain a motion to adjourn into executive session for the purposes of uh for an update with collective bargaining not to return to open session second so moved a second jumped in there we'll give them we'll give
163the motion to Mary the second uh Mr the Nunes on the motion any further discussion roll call please Chris Oliver yes Shannon Jenkins Shannon yes Kathleen Amaral yes John noons yes Mary wait yes have a good night everyone meeting's adjourned executive