Dartmouth School Committee Meeting September 1, 2020

001and to the republicans i'd like to remind everyone that per governor baker's order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law glc 30a section 20. the public will not be allowed to physically access the school committee meeting members of the public can access the meeting via live stream at the dhs tv media youtube channel in addition the event will be rebroadcast on dc tvs channels 9 and 18 on the following days wednesday and thursday at 5 p.m friday at 6 a.m saturday at 8 am and sunday at 2 p.m the school committee reserves the right to implement additional remote participation procedures and will notify the public of these procedures as soon as practicable uh ms guenther can we have a roll call please chris oliver shannon jenkins here kathleen admiral here mary waite here john

002nunes yeah just like to let everyone know that mr oliver had work commitments with the opening of schools and kushner and so he was unable to be here this evening um because the meeting is closed to the public we don't have anyone here for public comment but comments are welcome um via email if you have comments you should email those comments to the recording secretary kathleen genther at dartmouthschools.org that's e e k-a-t-h-l-e-e-n g e n t h n e r at dartmouth schools dot org um all of the emails will be entered into the public record um when the tell when the me the minutes are approved at our next meeting also all of those emails will be forwarded to every school committee member we do see all of your emails and we do appreciate

003them and we appreciate kate taking the time to send all of those to us at this time i'm going to move to the approval of the minutes we have regular and executive session minutes for august 18th and regular and exec executive session minutes for august 24th let's take the regular session minutes together so i'll seek a motion for approval of the regular session minutes for august 18th and august 24th so it moved a second all right so i have a motion by mr nunes in a second by mrs amaral any further discussion um hearing none i assume we still have to do a roll call yes since we don't have the public here no we're good we're open somewhere we're okay all right done all in favor cause we're not zooming out okay um anyone

004opposed so that's four zero in favor um next we'll entertain a motion to approve the executive session minutes um we can take them together for august 18th and august 24th so move madam chair with the stipulation that they be held until the matter for which they were intended is complete can i have a second second all right so i have a motion by mr nunes and a second by mrs amaral any further discussion i'm hearing none all in favor aye opposed all right so those pass unanimously as well um so we are going to take um one order of new business out of order first on our agenda because i believe we have mr chris of fully live already and we don't want to keep him waiting um so dr gifford do you want to

005do a little introduction first and then we'll hear from him yes thank you madam chair um i would like to introduce andrew christophule who is our uh a.d this year i just want to start the conversation by saying mr kylie and i along with uh principal tebow have had numerous conversations with andrew about the proposition that we have on the table to vote to approve athletics at the dartmouth public schools as you might know any schools that are voting to start their schools in remote model need to have a school committee vote to approve athletics at the in the district and i know andrew's going to have a great presentation to see what kind of guidance that we'll be adhering to and how we're going to keep our kids safe and at the end of

006that i would like a vote because the season will be moving along and they are working very hard on creating pods and and and competition so with that um mr chris of fully you can go ahead and get started now andrew i don't know if you can hear us can you let him know jonathan that he can get started yep he might go good evening folks i appreciate um you know dr gifford allowing me to present in this format and um the family issue going on was very difficult for me to get back up to dartmouth tonight and uh mr peratti and mr galicia for working the uh the optics for allowing this to happen so i appreciate the opportunity to speak in front of you this evening it is about our athletic program i

007am sure that throughout the summer months there was much information that was shared by the state of massachusetts the department of public health deci the eea and and the miaa about status on fall sports and one of the pieces of guidance that that came out was if a school department was to begin the year remote we would need uh superintendent's approval to be able to move forward with an athletic program offering to our students so i put together a slideshow that i feel will be very informative and offer um all of you uh a lot of information um and and sharing my feelings and thoughts of uh where we stand and where i i i believe we should proceed so i'm gonna share my screen i think i already have okay all right can everyone

008see yes okay so the summer dialogue and decision making um and again as i mentioned earlier there was a lot of um there's a lot of meetings a lot of discussion a lot of moving parts over the summer time they're basically aligned with all of the moving parts of the academic piece of returning to school so the four main decision-making bodies that were involved um with what sports are cleared to play the restrictions and guidelines that we must follow the seasons and the dates and the seasonal sport offerings the four main bodies was that what desi the dph uh eea which is the executive office of energy and environmental affairs and the iaa now in a traditional year and and i think we'd all agree that this is certainly not traditional we would have a

009three season model uh the model would be season one which would be fall which would be august to november you would have the winter season which would be december to february kind of branching into march and then you would have the spring season for march and concluding in june so the fall sport offerings traditionally are your golf field hockey football boys and girls soccer boys and girls cross country unified basketball and volleyball for the winter would be boys and girls basketball boys and girls ice hockey boys and girls indoor track and cheerleading and competitive cheerleading i'm sorry i forgot to put competitive chilean also in the fall and uh in the spring would you be your baseball softball boys and girls outdoor track unified track sailing boys and girls lacrosse and boys and girls tennis

010now uh throughout the summer months um guidelines came out there are certain sports that are uh at the higher risk category that we offer in the fall and so there was a lot of meetings over the summer time to see exactly what we would do um with those sports if we could not play them in their traditional seasons and we certainly had all students and athletes in the front of our minds when creating this plan um and again it offers a little bit of flexibility although it's not the the best of situations but we have to make the best of it so the recommendation um due to the desi eea and mia restrictions and guidelines was to move to a fourth season model now again the miaa which was comprised of a covet task force

011approved and recommended this four season model now in this slide there is a lot going on and i'll do my best to explain so in the green are your lower risk sports deemed by the eea you have your moderate risk sports which are in yellow which is eea standards and then your high risk that are in red so with this four season model what basically happened and what they did was they created an extra season um and they try to quote unquote wedge it in in between the winter season ending and the and the spring season beginning and um what that allowed was the opportunity for the three higher risk false sports to have a landing spot now again it is not an ideal situation because when i share with you what the dates are

012it is there are some problems and it can be problematic but again we have to make the best of a tough situation so in this fall the sports that would be cleared for competition would be golf field hockey boys and girls soccer boys and girls cross country and volleyball in the winter and again this is going to be visited season by season and as you know uh a lot of the restrictions and recommendations do change quite often and it is of my hope and and i know everyone else's hope that again as the year progresses the uh situation uh with covet 19 and and people's health uh improves and so um those would be the fall sports in which we would have the ability to offer competitively in the winter time you would have your

013basketball your ice hockey your your indoor track and your cheer now again three of those four offerings are still in the higher risk category so we could get to the month of november into december and if they still are at higher risk uh there'll be additional conversations that take place about the offering of those sports in those respective seasons so the fall two season uh actually let me rewind a moment uh the fall the traditional fall would start um friday the 16th i believe it is 18th i'm set and it would last or until mid-november and then winter would start at the end of november and run to april vacation i'm sorry uh february vacation the fall would starts fall two would start at the end of february and run until april vacation and the

014spring would pick up after april vacation and run through the month of june so um the standard that we are going to attempt to uh to reach is anywhere between an 8 and a 12 game season now it has already been determined in the fall that we are not going to have state tournaments so that we'll be offering some flexibility towards the end of the season uh in which we will be able to fit in a few more competitions where in traditional seasons we would have to end the season and then if you were not tournament bound your season would end and you wouldn't get those extra games so it does offer a little bit of flexibility the winter the fall two and the spring as far as state tournaments go will be determined as

015we get closer one of the things that the um the state did not want to do and i can understand why is they do not want to make a decision in august that a spring state tournament is cancelled so they are going to take it as uh the years progress and and kind of take a temperature check as to where we're at um with the health and well-being of our of our society so that is the four season model that they have shared and recommended now the school-based decisions that we will need to make and again the decisions that dartmouth public schools make can be very different than some of our surrounding communities because each and every community and public school have have their own challenges uh so the first one is can our school

016honor the safety precautions and guidelines that are set is the best option to move false sports to fall too so one thing that i apologize and did not mention in the previous screen was again with fall two you do have the option to moving those false sports to the fall two season which again as we progress i'll explain to you that i believe that is very problematic um but again that's a decision that the school would have to make um who are we going to play i'm sure that you've seen in the newspapers that some schools and some leagues have decided that uh they're not going to move forward with a fall athletic experience um and they have their their reasons and as i mentioned every school department has their own challenges um and they

017they have the autonomy to make those decisions so again who are we going to play who was left to play who was available to play again those are decisions that we'd have to make are we willing to compete with the fo while following the new sport rules and guidelines now again this is a big piece now the sport rules and guidelines that have been set um were put in place for the health safety and well-being of our student athletes to be able to participate uh again i i caution everyone that you know some of the sports um guidelines um will will you know will be a a very big uh transition from what coaches and student athletes are are used to playing how they used to be playing but again that's a decision that we

018would have to make and then what is our transportation situation um and again transportation um is uh you know from the very beginning i know from the academic stand standpoint the athletic standpoint uh transportation is definitely a key piece um now the overarching focus in all of our decision making is what is in the best interest of our students health safety and well-being physically socially and emotionally so that has to be in the forefront of our minds when we're making these decisions so the dph guidelines and again this is something that um i know has been shared talked about but i just want to touch upon um you know and how it would affect the athletic realm if student athletes and coaches have any symptoms uh of covid19 they they're not allowed to attend practices

019and games and they follow up with the guideline the guidance for isolation and testing and number two student athletes and coaches who are diagnosed with test positive for covert 19 infection um will follow the established protocols and then third student athletes and coaches who were exposed to someone who tested positive cover 19 uh will not be able to participate in practices and games until their 14-day quarantine is complete and this is where the communication comes in where the athletic department um would be responsible to contact the appropriate parties that were involved in those competitions games uh to inform them so um again with the eea and the mia cova task force guidelines you know i went through them there's a lot of common pieces there are some differences depending on the sports but compile this

020listing of some the common precautions first one would be a pre-workout pre-tip contest screening now this would be um you know we did this in in uh strength and conditioning in which the students had came in they checked in they signed in they answered questions uh based on how they felt physically and then again without having any symptoms that was their pre-screening they were allowed to uh participate and again we would have um something very similar in place from from the athletic realm there's a multiple layered face covering all right that will be required for on the field the bus and the bench areas now again it is very detailed in the protocols and procedures that we're going to have to follow but the multiple layer face covering is something that is recommended they did

021they did mention the the gators um but the preference would be the multiple layer face coverings social distancing as much as possible which again i think that's a common theme amongst all of us right now in education uh pod practices and and and let me just mention this is for practices only uh is encouraged that the same five to ten kids work together in drills so if i am in a soccer practice um i should be in a group of five or ten of my uh peers and and teammates and working out together in drills that certainly doesn't mean that those pods need to stay that stay throughout the entire practice because i'm sure that they could be um you know under the restrictions they can be a little bit of scrimmaging um but again

022it's very important that they work in pods as much as they possibly can because it helps with the tracking in the case that we we had to implement that so no benches for practices and the reason for that is personal items should be distanced what i have found is if you do have benches it is a place in which students would congregate and again remembering that 15 to 18 year old students and they are meant to be together and and socialize so if you know the bench can be problematic if if you don't um you know tend to it so for practices only there'd be no benches for games and competitions obviously we would have them um and practicing safe social distancing and their personal items would have to be six feet away from the

023next person's items um again so there isn't any congregating so the next three i highlighted in yellow because we're going to um in just a moment talk about a student athlete bag and i'll explain what that is but in this particular student-athlete bag the participants are going to need to provide their own water there will not be any water filling stations so they will have to bring their own beverage participants will provide their own hand sanitizer and participants would provide their own disinfectant wipes and this would be in a bag and this is what the recommendation is now if you get to the sanitation the sanitizing disinfectant wipes that would be for instances where you're wiping down some of your own personal equipment if you did have to use the restroom facilities you do have

024those wipes with you that you can use and so on and so forth so again those are three things that we would ask to provide in the student athlete bag they would be covered staffing at the games um probably more i mean all of us would be responsible for the staffing of it but there would be one particular person that would be the the point person or go-to person um and at that point we would ask you know our own coaches and opposing coaches to bring updated rosters and contact information for the purpose of tracing if we were to have a situation where there was a positive covet 19 participant and for the tracing purposes it's important to know who is there uh and that's not only student athletes but that's also coaches and that

025person would assist the athletic trainer with game day issues um having um you know a certain area uh that we could set up a small tent that uh if anyone is feeling any type of symptoms of covet 19 that is an area in which we would uh transport the individual and the final one is maxim a maximum of in a transportation traveling party and that would include the coaches and staff um and again that number is smaller than what we're traditionally used to but in order to socially distance them appropriately they would have to mask the windows open and making sure that we're aligned with all of those guidelines so in order to move forward i think there's four keys first one is communication second is transparency third is responsibility or i should say personal

026responsibility and the final one for all parties is a buy-in all right without those four um you know it would be difficult to move forward now in some of the the conversations that i've had there is definitely a great appetite to move forward so i think the buy-in portion of that would fall into place just nicely okay now again establishing stakeholders roles and responsibilities when you get to communication and you get the transparency there these stakeholders are going to be the people that make this successful and that would be your student athletes your families and your coaches and athletic staff the athletic staff i would put for coaches myself athletic trainer uh game day staff um and so on and so forth so uh there's this three different groupings so what i would like to

027do and i should say like to do what we will do is conduct sport-specific virtual meetings to address pre-workout and pre-contest screening the importance of communication so that if an individual is home for a day because they have saw they have some symptoms or they're not feeling well that communication is extremely important we have safety guidelines that everyone needs to be aware of for buy-in responsibilities and transparency again same uh sports specific rules of play and again this is going to be a big one but in order for us to safely offer sports competitively we will need to align with all of the rules of play your student athlete bag as i mentioned you have your hand sanitizer you have your disinfectant wipes you have um multiple masks so uh what my recommendation is going

028to be is students have multiple masks in their bag i haven't decided on a concrete number yet but those masks have to be with them they have to be cleaned on and washed on a normal basis you have your sanitizing of equipment student athletes and families will be responsible to sanitize their own personal belongings that is a key element to keeping people safe you have your transportation rules you have your user fee now the user fee that we charge is 50 per season that when final rosters are created we will um reach out for the payment of the user fee now that user fee will is going to service whether we play for four weeks or eight weeks it's a fifty dollar fee okay and the final one is a sports physical now um over

029the summer time we were waiting patiently to see if the department of public health was going to change some of the guidelines with the longevity of an active physical but they stayed pat at 13 months so now we begin the process of trying to encourage people within the last week to turn in those sports physicals that they may have um and if they don't have a current one um you know encourage them to go to the doctor and we also gave um a few different um a few different options of whether they're walk-ins um or some of the the local um medical um associations so but that would be the for sports physicals for the coaches and athletic staff again me individual sport meetings so instead of having a larger meeting with all sports represented

030these would be individualized meetings with individualized sport coaches going over the rules guidelines and expectations because the coaches will have a huge role in the implementation of this plan distinguishing safety rules and responsibilities so everyone knows what is expected of them going over your sport rule modifications not only for them to know but also for them to adjust their practices and the way they teach certain things so again i'll use an example for for soccer um there are no throw-ins um again that changes a little bit with the strategy uh and that's one of many examples in the sport of soccer that will change um they'll be responsible for the sanitation of sanitizing the equipment and the last piece is it will be required of all coaches to take the nfhs which is the national

031high school federation sports covert 19 online course okay now additional communication outside of the individualized sport meetings uh with student athletes parents and the separate one with coaches um we will put out and publish our next newsletter which is between the lines which again we started at the very end of july and i'll put together a video that will will highlight all of the topics that were discussed just i i feel as though again attacking it from three different angles will give us a better opportunity give us a better opportunity to be able to really communicate and be transparent about what our expectations are and what the roles and responsibilities of individuals is now additional specific safety precautions now the first one is no locker rooms now while being remote um you know student athletes

032must arrive with and in their gear for practice or games this could be revisited when we shift to a hybrid model um again those conversations will uh take i mean those conversations have taken place already but the formal i will finalize the plane moving forward on when that situation happens and the second bullet which again is uh i think is extremely crucial it certainly will not be popular but no fans in attendance because i believe that all of our attention energy and resources must be laser focused i stole mr tebow's laser-focused idea on participants safety and well-being we are going to have so much responsibility on the field for all the rules and regulations that we must implement that all of our attention to keep our students our coaches and our staff safe needs to

033be on the playing field okay so how we will adapt we are going to uh we are going to stream varsity games now uh this conversation has been ongoing with mr peratti for probably about a month and a half now um as far if we were to get to a situation where uh streaming of games would be um something that we would definitely have to do we we started those conversations uh probably in mid mid mid july um and there are some there are some opportunities um certainly it's going to meet with you know some challenges we'll be met with um but you know whether it's facebook live using youtube or i reached out yesterday to dc tv and and to see what their availability could and would be and to see if there was

034an appetite for that so again that is something that continues to be a work in progress the last two would be a sign off for the rules guidelines of the responsibilities that student athletes and families have and a sign off for what our athletic staff responsibilities are all right so again everything would be transparent and there would be accountability to that so additional work to be done um i'm certainly not going to mislead there is a lot to do um if we were to get clearance um i'm proud to say that mostly if not everything has been um planned and discussed and talked about for months now so i feel very confident that we would be able to hit the ground running right away some of these things have already been put in place while

035others um will need to uh get started tomorrow and thursday especially when it gets down to the league expectations and i'll mention that in a moment but your registrations and your sports physicals uh family id has has been open um for a while now at the beginning of august and there have been registrations for a variety of different sport offerings um now our numbers are a little bit lower than what they traditionally are at this point um but again with with without knowing what we would be able to move forward with i would equate lower numbers to that fact sports physicals as i mentioned um you know after the communication was sent out earlier uh we we have been um sent quite a few sports physicals over the last few days uh to our athletic

036secretary dolores concelletti and she's done a great job of them putting them into our system there'll be the user fee collection as i mentioned the the collections would take place once we are um once we have our rosters finalized the third one is sport level offered offerings um you know again without knowing what our numbers are and truthfully without knowing what other schools are going to be in play to be able to compete against and what levels they will offer that decision has not been made yet uh next bullet would be finalizing sec which is your southeast conference at the conference that we're in league expectations um your game day protocol so what i mean by that is specific gates that student athletes would enter and exit from again depending on how the schedule would

037work you could see both your varsity and sub varsity games if time allows because on the back end we worry about triple e but to try to get your varsity and your jv games played in the stadium because it's a lot more manageable of a facility but again that certainly has not been decided or determined and unfortunately we uh there's a lot of other value variables in play that we don't have control over so at this point we're going to have that's going to be a waiting game um participating expectations league rules and proposals again um whether they're roster limits um you know there's a lot of discussion that's going to happen we actually have a league meeting tomorrow once again i know what the result of our situation tonight here is we have to

038create our game schedules um again one of the one of the challenges we have with game schedules and i'll be very upfront and honest with you we are in a league of five brockton new bedford durfee us and bridgewater raynham brockton is not competing this fall because they are a school district in the city that is in the red so they cannot compete so now we're down to four there are three main conferences in our district uh district is district 8. i'm sure some of you may have seen the article that was written in the standard times about a proposal that was made um for regional pods um again that's something that is still ongoing um but again with a large conference in in our mayflower athletic conference in our area that has decided to

039move everything to fall too um those schools are off the off the board south coast conference which be the next school is a league of ten um they still don't know at this point um what they're doing as a league and or individual schools and again if we were to to get approval we would at least have four of us that would be able to move forward um and again creating game schedules is is difficult and the and the other part of that is with the mayflower athletic conference dartmouth dartmouth high school is not a great up for for those schools those are traditionally you know smaller schools that play in lower divisions um the south coast conference which again has a large and small which five large schools five small schools um in 10

040and all they um they could very well decide that they want to schedule only conference games so now we would be left if we were to move to a different season this fall sports through different season we would be left with a struggle to find the opponents because our league at the southeast conference would move forward with or without us so again that's another big reason to highly consider um this proposal and the last one is reserving transportation now we again we trembly bus is our main transportation company uh new greater new bedford volk uses uh trembley new bedford high school uses trembling and again when we're all going to be required to have only a certain amount of students as student athletes and staff on a bus and we're going to need to request

041additional buses uh depending on you know when our reservations are and what other school schedules look like it could get very challenging for participation transportation so that's another factor that will need to be worked on okay so again at the very beginning i i shared with you some of the school-based decisions um and i highlighted what my answers are in red um can we honor the safety precautions i put with proper communication transparency responsibility buy-in absolutely yes is the best option to move false sports to fall too and put by competing in the traditional fall season we eliminate issues with scheduling follow-through and environmental concerns another thing is if the decision was to move false sports to fall too now you're in a season that will begin in february and um the challenge was would

042be to roll out of season uh with possible weather concerns six inches of snow on the ground and um we're fortunate to have a a turf field we're fortunate to have a large activity center but i think it would be an extreme challenge for us to pull it off never mind some of the smaller schools who have grass fields and smaller gyms but the fear of offering volleyball football unified basketball field hockey boys and girls soccer cheerleading all in the same season and again in the facilities if we were to have to start indoors that would be a scheduling nightmare and on top of it depending on what our situation is with the restrictions and the guidelines we might not be in any better in shape in february and march than we are right now

043now we're going to bring student athletes and teams indoors which again brings in a different element of challenge in a very restricted time to be able to get practices in so again it just it makes perfect sense to move forward and offer everything that we can in the fall season that is realistic for us and the last one who we're going to play you have your new bedford durfee bridgewater and again additional schools and schools there's certainly many conversations that are happening um to try to get commitments from schools and and again that is ongoing are we willing to to compete while following the new sport rules um we're going to adapt and to adjust uh in order to give our students the opportunity to safely participate and which with strategic planning transportation will not

044be an issue so again going back to our first question what is in the best interest of our students health safety and well-being physically socially and emotionally put six things in order if we were to offer off fall season and and allow our student athletes to compete in the approved sports it will promote physical social emotional well-being of students it will again engage them in physical activity it will prevent students from seeking other less healthy extracurricular outlets it engages student athletes and creates academic accountability because again they will be remote there will be a system in place that if they were not attending their remote classes they would be absent and ineligible to participate that day so that's the accountability piece it creates a sense of normalcy and the last one it promotes structure routine

045and balance and those are six key components as to why i feel that we need to move forward with this and i am confident that we will be able to do it safely so that is our presentation thank you sir uh fantastic presentation thank you very much yes the only the only issue and like i said this is a phenomenal format um the only thing that i think i may struggle with is is hearing questions um if they were to be asked i'll do the best i can simple easy question uh with all of this going on and you know somewhere down the line somewhere down the line we don't have watch it because i guess jonathan i can't i can't hear you okay i'm gonna he's gonna what what's the status for athlete of

046all seasons with all of this going on what is the status of i'm sorry what season f the athletes you know like the the three sports for 12 seasons the athletes would um the mi is allowing a four season student athlete so again if uh in a traditional season they are allowed to compete in one sport per season so three in all in this format of a four um season you know layout they would have the ability if they so chose to compete in four seasons are we are we able sometimes we've played rhode island schools is that on a table this year or is that out so mr news the the the goal the goal that that i've had from the very beginning and and i presented to 28 athletic directors in our um

047immediate area and presented it last week was a pod idea in which we grouped schools in pods local pods so five or six schools within a very close distance so that we would be able to common schedule with each other the leagues would be removed from um play for this year uh and again i think it would it would be a great thing moving forward unfortunately as i mentioned there are a lot of schools that have their own challenges and some of their own concerns and some have already decided to move their fall season from traditional fall to fall too which i think after presenting i think you would know i that is something that i would not recommend um because of the the challenges and so many of the unknowns i'm a firm believer

048that a bird in hand is better than two in the bush so if we are this and and weather-wise the fall is the best of the three seasons so if we do have the situation in which we can roll out an athletic program and offerings safely i believe that is in our best interest to do so yeah but again uh with the regional play mr news to answer your question we would not be playing rhode island schools that's good thank you one thing to remember when you get into fall two is you've got the indoor percussion and the indoor color guide that also need the gym so it's just it puts that much more pressure on absolutely and again when you when you talk about the logistics of scheduling and i and i certainly um

049didn't purposely leave them out i i i think anyone who has had conversations with me about that particular situation every conversation that that i've been involved with i have mentioned the space uh for color garden band that between the month of the months of mid-february um till the beginning of april i know that traditionally with competitions that is a hot time for indoor facility use i don't know what their situation is moving forward as far as what their competitions would look like but that has certainly been brought up in every single conversation that i've had concerning the the uh the issues with moving fall to fall too and um indoor scheduling okay and my last my last question at the moment is this is just approving the plan this is not saying what students can

050or cannot participate whether they're remote or hybrid no no that that that's that obviously that that is a conversation an issue that would be um determined um at a later date you know obviously not right now that's that's a conversation that will will involve um other individuals and it's totally separate from what i would be presenting and recommending right now thank you sir uh miss waite you want to go next sure um hi so i just have a one quick question first of all i should step back and say excellent presentation i had questions that came up and you answered jonathan i can hear her loud and clear it was great very thorough um you know i agree with no fans i think again to your point let's really focus on getting the kids you

051know out of the fields and playing um you know i agree with your timing i think we want to try to as you said bird in the hand let's get them out in the fall um take advantage of the good weather we don't know what's in front of us um so those sports that we can let's let's get them going um the only question i guess i had regarding transportation is you know as we kind of think about busing and i know that you know when we're actually physically bringing students back and forth to school parents are opting in some cases drive students themselves um is that going to be has that been passed around as an option for parents again i know we're not going to have fans but are they able if they

052choose to drive their children to competitions and that's okay um in a traditional year i would say no um because again i i i think there is so much value and importance of not only um you know being transported with your your your teammates and your peers and your coaches to and from events in the uh and and from my experience as a student athlete um those were great times and and a great piece of the experience now in this case again these nothing has been finalized but that has been brought up and discussed as to um what would constitute um or i should say what procedures that we would have in place um i can tell you that there's also been conversations about um having you know offering athletics and having it a five

053day a week program this this uh this season and again i'm just sharing with you some conversations that have happened that nothing has been finalized yet because again there's just so many moving parts but i just want to let all of you know that this has been extremely thought out well thought out and um we've exhausted our resources as far as you know my athletic director peers our state association the miaa and and all the guidelines that we'll have to follow so again we're we're kind of uh up out front with this um but again there are a lot of things that are in place there are some things that are not but that has definitely been a topic that has been discussed and a topic that will be considered okay well again thank you

054very much for you know again to your point excellent very well thought out so i appreciate it thank you you're welcome ms amaral can you hear me i don't know if you can are you able to hear me kathleen doesn't have a teacher voice like mary so jonathan's gonna have to so i i just wanna express you know my gratitude for this well thought out presentation as well um that it has been clear from day one of mr christophule joining us here in dartmouth his level of expertise and and he mentioned hitting the ground running and i have full faith based on how he hit the ground running here um with his leadership and his expertise in the plan that he's presenting my one i be like mary i've been crossing out some questions that

055i had along the way so you've done a really good job well thought out in what we might we might ask but one one thing that just came to mind in terms of students registering for their particular choice of sport uh might there might might it um might there be an option to sort of rank rank choice so a student instead of revisiting the pot when you realize you don't have enough for a particular event um sorry mr galicia what was that what was the question like where they ch choose their first and their second choice um so that you don't have to kind of come to the community again to say could you pick yourself well um unfortunately the way that the scheduling program i i shouldn't say scheduled program the way that the

056registration program um runs is students have the ability to sign up for the sport in which they're interested in now um now please know that there there are you know there are sports that have the opportunity to move forward competitively and there are some sports as i mentioned that uh are traditional fall sports that do not have the the ability to move forward and there are so my first goal is to take care of the situation in which we are going to decide which sports competitively we can move forward with once that has been determined and set up there is a second piece that we've already had multiple conversations about in which there there could be and i i want to um i don't want to you know it this could happen where the some

057of the traditional fall sports that are not competitive um could have the opportunity to have some type of organized team activity um there's also could be a situation in which again that organized team activity could be a strength and conditioning program very similar to the one that we were successful in running over the summer time so again my full attention has been on the sports that have been cleared to to uh to compete and once that has been determined and solved then my attention will go to step two of what we are going to be able to realistically offer the other sports that could have that opportunity mr galashaw can i can i follow up here i think what miss amaral is getting at say we don't have enough kids to feel the freshman soccer

058team would those students then have the option to say choose cross-country i think that's what you're getting at right yeah so so what you're asking and i'll and i'll i'll just be very upfront with the with the so if i was a uh an individual who tried out for soccer and soccer did not work out for me could i move now move to you know compete or be part of a different program now again in your traditional season in your traditional year there are things that are in place that we follow as far as our rules for but for these matters and for these cases the focus is on the students the focus is on getting them involved and getting them to safely be able to be part of something for all of the aforementioned

059reasons i mentioned so for those cases and for those matters it's going to be a lot more flexible than we traditionally would be because i think again the time that we're in right now it warrants it thank you but again just just to let you know like like i said i i and again i think there will be certain lines that are drawn where i'll give you an example so um so if field hockey for example if um you know they they start their season they have their their tryouts and workouts they move forward they get into game play or right on the cusp of game play that movement it would be too late but you're still talking about two and a half weeks and again i i don't want to say too late but

060i but it would be a lot more challenging um to justify that part of it but again i mean we we are we are we would be rolling this out um safely for our students with the um the hope that they will choose to participate for all the reasons why we stated why it was important so again we will we will be flexible uh and again with many of the situations thank you so i many of my questions were answered as we went through i had the same question as miss amaral my one of my questions is um the no attendance policy is our policy so that may mean that new bedford or brockton may have a different attendance policy is that correct or has there been any discussion of a uniform attendance policy so

061as as i mentioned towards the beginning of the prayer or i should say the middle um we have a meeting set up for tomorrow with within our conference and we're looking to get some consistent conference norms now i i can't guarantee that those norms would be attendance policies because again each district has the autonomy to create their attendance policies create their academic policies as far as eligibility standards so again it it would vary um so i would not be totally confident walking into that meeting and conversation knowing that i could leave and we are all of the belief that this is exactly how we're going to handle this attendance wise because again every situation every school department has their own challenges um but there is there needs to be some commonality amongst a lot of

062what we do since we're going to be servicing their kids and they're going to be servicing ours so again um i wouldn't be confident that i could walk out saying that we're all under the same umbrella as far as what our expectations attendance wise are um but you know we we would handle those situations and what is in the best interest of of dartmouth high school um and you know the protocols and procedures that we would uh we would have in place that we will be so i don't have any question mark questions for mr chris fully i have a sort of a statement but he doesn't have to worry about answering i mean i am personally inclined you know mr chris cooley asked the question are we willing to compete with the new rules

063i was a high school and college soccer player i don't really know how they're going to play soccer with these rules i read them the other day and they're like crazy but i would rather give kids the opportunity to try than to not try at all and i think you know it's on us to make sure that our kids can play and that everybody follows the rules that we do not establish a mentality of playing through right if you are sick you don't come if you quarantine you quarantine because otherwise you will ruin the season for everyone and so i think we have to be really clear in setting a message about how serious we are going to be about this because you don't want to be the person that ruins the season for everyone

064else that having been said yeah i think we're all definitely in favor of it if someone would like to make a motion or statement well i will in one second i mean again and i think the onus has got to be on the parents and specifically the student athletes and any student okay if they get up in the morning and they're not feeling good they can't come to school they can't come because they can't they can't be bringing possibly bringing anything here i mean that goes for anyone type of type of deal that's my two cents and with that madam chair i will make a motion that we approved the uh school committee presentation for uh uh school year 2021 for athletics as presented by mr christophuli i second that all right so i have

065a motion by mr nunes a second by miss amaral any further discussion i will just add one thing job andrew thank you to mr nunes comment i would say thank you at the university level we have learned that relying on behavior of children without fully developed brains is not the easiest thing to do so i really want to put the onus on parents right this is in the community this is on us we have to model this for our kids and we have to be sure that we are sending the right message to our kids right because 15 year olds i have 16 17 year olds in the house they don't always make the best decision so we've got to help them make those right decisions that have been said um all in favor aye

066aye opposed that carries unanimously thank you mr christophule um we look forward to moving forward with our sports season and we thank you for your presentation let us know what else we can do thank you thank you folks and as i mentioned it's it's it's been um it's been quite a process to get to this point and it continues to evolve and but please know that um i'm greatly appreciative of your support for our students and student athletes in our programs um and we will do everything within our power to make sure that this runs as smooth as it possibly can thank you thanks andrew so with that we'll move on to which is usually like one of my favorite times of the year the introduction of new hires we get to meet all the

067new teachers we get free food snacks right you know this is all the vera is usually here to introduce everyone so coven ruins something else i guess but we are going to learn about our new teachers yes at least a little bit even if they can't be here so i'm excited to um to hear more about them is dr gifford you're going to take over yes thank you so we are we are going to um we actually had a presentation as part of the convocation yesterday um mrs oliveira talked about our our new hires so we're gonna just replay that tonight so we're pretending she's here but i do want to mention that in addition to the folks here you already know that we have three new administrators i'll just re-mention them if you will

068director of music ian flint because they're not up in here mark hayes at the middle school was was one of our teachers and he is now one of the assistant principals and of course dr justine dale who you met via virtual as the new elementary the early childhood director so they're not in here but these are the folks that mrs oliveira has now started working with in project time so if we're ready to go mr galashaw let's do it good morning everyone welcome back to a exciting school year one of my favorite things to do here at project at batman public schools is project time we have a wonderful group of new folks together um every year at project time i think i say the same thing but this year was truly meaningful i've never

069felt so old uh working with all the new teachers all the new young teachers but we had a great two days together um what i call dhammatizing them getting them ready to go out into the trenches um the mentors then took it over from there but i gonna bring you to this quote where we really talk about what what we need to do and i hope that all of our new teachers can know that they're making a difference in their lives along with everyone else um this year we had a little bit of a i just can't figure out how to move this one so when you see someone walking around the building with a new button today today welcome them socially distant say hi i don't know how folks are going to learn people's

070names when we're all wearing masks but they'll get it we need name tags with our mask but welcome everyone it's my pleasure to introduce our new folks this year starting with casey allaire she's a third grade teacher at quinn elementary school and mrs jeanine tavaz is her mentor eric bosworth is at dartmouth high school as a new computer science teacher and mr doug smith is his mentor jacqueline bryant is a grade 3 teacher at quinn elementary school and janine tavaz is going to be her mentor also ellie cassand casana is a grade one teacher at quinn elementary school and michelle giosa is her mentor carrero is not new to us but she's here in a new position she will be a special education teacher at quinn elementary school and lindsay vaffides will be her mentor

071rebecca conden a graduate of dartmouth public schools is coming back as a kindergarten teacher at potter elementary school with mrs dana ducette as her mentor craig dutra is a grade 5 teacher at potter school with darren florence has his mentor marissa hill a math teacher and computer science teacher at dartmouth high school with mrs patricia fretcher being her mentor caitlin coker also not new to dartmouth public schools but in a brand new position will be our grade seven special education teacher with mrs lisa cat turgeon as her mentor mary clean a grade six math and science teacher at dartmouth high school with mrs ann brown as her mentor and we welcome desiree meadow a grade five special education teacher at quinn elementary school with mrs seren salvador as her mentor stephanie montero will be at

072grade eight math teacher at dartmouth middle school with lisa keem being her mentor julie newman is our new math teacher at dartmouth high school with mrs deb august as her mentor kylie thatcher is a grade four teacher at de melo elementary school with mrs jennifer clune being her mentor we welcome everyone we're happy to have them on board say hello to them and let's make it a great year that's it our new bees they're all babies well i don't know if any of them are watching us but normally we get to say welcome to them and you know say how glad we are to have them on board we are glad to have them on board um and you know somewhere down the line when this all breaks we'll get to have an evening yeah

073maybe we'll have a double meeting next year with your coaches you know before the year is out we'll have a chance to to meet them all before can you imagine though being you know not only new to a district but perhaps new to teaching in general to start like this yeah i can't even anyway it is it is what it is it is what it is all right so our next item on the agenda is the superintendent update on the start of school sure thank you so we have a few things uh we wanted to update you on obviously we had opening day for our teachers and this was day two and um all of us visiting the schools folks were busy they had they were involved in their professional development which i think i

074sent you the s'mores with the various uh things that they were involved in but you know we really wanted these yes these 10 days not only with the health and safety protocols that they've mandated training that they'll be involved in but also of course a lot of work with their colleagues to be able to get their room set to really figure out what they're doing for when the kids come back making sure the rooms are set up for them and various technology sessions etc so you can look at that in in that s'mores that mrs oliveira created and all the professional development that's in but again in general all of us visiting the schools people were positive they were i think a lot were very excited to be back we have also been working a

075lot on the virtual we're calling learning academies for the various levels so as i mentioned to you previously we were working on creating our own virtual learning academy for our elementary level uh that just made more sense for us so we have um i think we welcomed three today new teachers because we posted three was it three came in today i believe um we are going to be using the quinn elementary school the giant um music room there are two office spaces off of it so we can fit six teachers in that space uh we'll be securing some furniture as well as some kind of uh partition if you will and again it's going to be completely virtual for those students that are choosing not to return at all and we are posting for we're

076calling it a virtual academy coordinator if you will a teacher stipend position that will be helping mrs oliveira she'll oversee the whole thing but to have the day-to-day help with those teachers uh again a lot of new young folks that are coming in to to first time teaching positions so we'll be giving them that help as well as of course a mentor a regular grade level mentor so we're excited about it we're all anxious about it of course but we think it's going to be a good program they will have our curriculum that was one of the bonuses that we thought we would take it over ourselves but continuing the high school is continuing to work with the ingenuity platform and we are now we actually switch from ingenuity because it just was not going

077to work for the middle school with too much independent work we are looking and we're pretty positive i would say 99.9 that we are going to be using the techa platform for the middle school instead we've had meetings with the middle school this week with mr galashaw and um unless the whole world blew up we are in with techa so each school is reaching out to parents that expressed interest in virtual platforms so that is now being handled by the school level so people have questions about that they need to contact the schools their individual schools and their questions can be answered we also completed um the color-coded calendar we have scrutinized that because every little thing can be a mistake and it's so much intricate detail and we uh did post that up on

078the website today but we found one little mistake of course so we're going to pull it down we just didn't mean anything but we're hoping that helps parents so see when their their cohort of students will be attending school again not knowing if that switches in the long run or what but we're hoping that will help parents um navigate through this on this crazy time um so other than that as you know i think some of you watched it and we also have posted on our website the link to dr bromage's session and as just for folks at home that may not know he's associate professor of immunology and he's leading research programs at umass dartmouth focusing on immune responses to infectious pathogens etc we had him speak for a couple of hours last week

079virtually to the staff and i have to say we had tons of positive comments from people that watched it that felt much more comfortable and confident coming back to the schools as well as we got some ideas which i know mr kylie's going to talk to you about in a minute but we did post that link on the website so folks can watch that it's very important we think one of the major major points that he stressed over and over again was that the risk factor can be significantly decreased by what we're doing right now the mask wearing and the social distancing that's number one topic for folks but anyway with that for the school opening and the covet update i asked mr kylie to be part of that to really talk about more about

080the the uh building and the facility uh preparation so thank you dr gifford so we've had a chance in some of our school committee meetings to talk about some of this but yesterday i had the opportunity to share with staff some of the things that we've been working on to uh begin this this new phase so um it's an exciting transition after five and a half months of planning and hoping that we were going to come back and then not getting back and now finally getting back so um we've spent this time as you know receiving guidance preparing getting revised guidance adjusting our preparations getting more guidance adjusting again it's been really you know a unique complex time for us to deal with but i guess before i get into the details i i think

081that i'd be remiss if i didn't thank rick ferreira and his maintenance staff as well as the building administrators and their support staff and custodians who really have stepped it up and and made this possible it's i certainly wouldn't be here today in this position without um incredible efforts on their parts so yeah we began the process in march of course uh hoping that we were gonna have a quick return and cleaning the buildings disinfecting the buildings obviously we were very disappointed that that never happened but we continued our efforts from then until now hvac maintenance has been an area of focus cleaning filter changes adjusting system settings to increase fresh air exchange that's been one of the things that we've been talking to dr bromage about window maintenance and installation in some cases we

082were mr ferreira came up with some great ideas for installing windows in spots that actually weren't opening weren't functioning open windows in the past so we did that adjusting working with our custodial staff to adjust their hours so that they will have time during the day to focus on high touch surface areas and cleaning those focusing on providing epa list and sars cove ii approved chemicals that can kill covet 19 as disinfectants for us purchasing items to make to apply those like electrostatic sprayers and simple cans of spray and lots of different you know techniques in order to make sure that the buildings are disinfected uh after you know some confusion with before the state came out with its official guidance on physical distancing once we finally realized that their sort of wishy-washy language wasn't

083going to work for us and we focused on six feet we worked to configure classroom spaces in other spaces to alter them in ways so that we could provide physical distancing we leased storage spaces for lots of furniture and are still leasing i just signed a new one this morning for another unit at the middle school because we're filling these things up it's amazing how much stuff you pack into a classroom when you're not worried about how much stuff you have in a classroom so that's an ongoing thing that we'll be you know continuing over the next couple of weeks as we prepare for students um we are purchasing uh mrs oliveira has been working to purchase individual student supplies so that we can limit the sharing of items we have created with the help

084of the administrators in the buildings protocols including traffic patterns signage so that we can help kids understand where they need to be and where they shouldn't be and how to move about the buildings we're continuing to you know continuing to apply all those signs to areas floors walls frantically moving on those that's where i was this morning at eight o'clock i was at the mellow where they were laying down lines in the middle of floors our maintenance crew and getting ready to put signage up in that school we created isolation spaces for symptomatic students we focused on hygiene we have hand sanitizer readily available we have more than four tons of hand sanitizer available right now in the buildings so that's not going to be a problem we can keep our hands clean we have

085a great volume of masks for folks to keep them safe if they do if they choose not to bring their own mask most people by the way so far our staff the vast majority of staff have brought their own masks so we've really only distributed a few masks for all the staff over the last couple of days but they are available and each office has masks available for folks we have provided we have purchased specialized ppe like gloves gowns safety glasses face shields clear masks for staff that for whom it's recommended so staff that are working closely with kids we have purchased those items we have desk shields also available so like plexiglas desk shields we have a couple of models already in-house we're going to have some more two more different ones um that

086i've been working on ordering today so we'll have lots of options for those folks who do have to work within the six feet recommended physical distance of kids there is a variety of ways to to protect themselves and obviously good hygiene proper ppe are the main components of that so those are some of the things that you know we have in place to to help the staff and i think that um it's something that as now staff are returning we've had a lot of administrative discussions about how this would work and now we finally have a big larger more collaborative group in place and we have some time here to get it all organized and understand okay who's going to need what to do to provide um you know a high level of service to

087kids so we're working with them now to do that so that's it's an exciting uh different sort of time i just want to add one more thing and then of course we can take questions but just as far as staffing as well as you know there are various leaves that folks can choose to take at this point we have 10 staff members tas as well as teachers that have put in for some sort of a leave but um those are all based on child care and some of them are just intermittent so we've allowed that um where they might say my child my my wife is working you know whatever days i need to be out tuesdays and thursdays so some of them are not the entire time or the entire week so this week

088we'll be now that we kind of had that organized we'll be meeting and looking at that and deciding how to help the principals cover those people um we've also had of course some retirements since all of this happened with tas et cetera so this week we're working on that to see exactly where we are with those folks and what we need to um add to the staffing or how we're going to cover those positions um i have to say with you know mr kiley of course he's been working really hard on the grants that we have been given but if people think this is cheap it's not um just to try we are basically trying to develop three education systems and shift our entire education system in in a couple of months that's been 350

089years in existence and like the virtual platform again we had to hire this six additional teachers which is going to be through our grants their one-year positions but we have to be honest we're having a very hard time with our special education uh department to try to cover when when students are choosing for example virtual we only have so many teachers and they only have so many hours in the day and they're responsible for classrooms of kids so we have to be honest that's a big issue and and significant problem and we're going to be working on that really hard this we have meetings this week to now focus on that issue um so again if people think this is not this is just like the schools are closed because i've seen those comments before

090we're not closed and we're still teaching and we have i would say double the work um to try to meet the needs of our kids in various platforms um so that's what i and and i know we'll be meeting with town hall and and working through them and letting folks know the the work we're trying to do to meet the needs of all our kids so that's all i have for tonight uh why don't we go down miss wait go ahead um michelle deferred no go ahead go um you know first of all again like thank you for everything that you know your staff have done it's you know wow it's been it's been a journey um i think if i have anything as mr noon says living the dream [Laughter] you should have won

091that shirt tonight yeah do you want me to come back to you miss wait well i just have one quick question i guess about the the virtual learning academy has there been any you know as we're hiring those six teachers how will that work you know normally if you're they would have their you know special areas that they would go to so and i know there was some lack of certainty there has has that been kind of determined a little bit further or how that will be adjusted yeah we we put that right up front because because of the personnel issues and the scheduling we are not promising that the kids get that we are going to uh for example we were talking today that um i know miss roy is working on the specialist

092schedule and if folks have gaps in their um schedules we were just talking today they might be able to at least record some lessons like let's say it's an art lesson or something so but yeah we we just don't have the personnel right right to be honest okay and that's what i assumed and then just you know kind of you know i had you know some parents ask you know and about let's say you know they're anticipating they're hoping to stay in the remote is there any way that let's say something changes within the family that someone can jump back into the remote we go into hybrid they want to jump onto that remote i know we're trying to get everyone that wants to do that ideally making that decision now is there still that

093possibility let's say like october you know their health someone in their family's health changes can they make that jump at that point from like our remote system that we're like on to like our so let's say we are jumping onto hybrid can you jump into either ingenuity um you know the the middle school platform or our elementary platform is that something they can do at that point i know we want to get those folks you know started in the fall as you know right now but is that an option we again we talked again today but as far as like the element we see them a little bit differently because the elementary is basically we're saying there are teachers now there are it's our curriculum so there would be actually no need either way but

094what we want to be able to do is approach each situation on an individual basis because as you as you know especially if we're in hybrid and we've already let's say all our classrooms are full with the six foot capacity and we just can't shift them you know but but we will be able to approach each one on an individual basis i hope there aren't many but yeah but we are especially with the edge annuity platform i know the high school is hoping to get kids started right away because it's just that continuum of curriculum to make it and they could change at um as we said at semester break so that the grading period is over and shift in so there are there are nuances to the to the the situations yeah but i

095think that's uh you know i'm sure i'll have other questions later yeah i think that's you know we've done so much work and again and we i'm very grateful yeah thank you thank you mr news thank you madam chair um a couple of things a couple of general comments uh first and foremost and i agree with my colleague my hat's off to everybody for yeoman's work that's been done this summer uh i appreciate all the you know email updates and everything else as to to what's been going on and such um i did manage to catch uh part of the q a that you had on thursday with and that was excellent i thought it was you know well done type of deal and i did catch most of uh dr bremen's uh discussion on

096friday fantastic i mean he he laid it all out there and he had he had the answers to any and all questions and situations so i mean personally i appreciate his time without you know with the district giving us you know that that that information the only question i have in you know thinking about this type of deal more so for mr kylie i would think uh somewhere down the line all of a sudden everything clears and governor baker january 4th says okay we're good you guys can go back to full participation in school you know no six foot no guidelines have a nice day yeah probably not but that's wishful thinking but honestly in all serious how long is it going to how long would it take us to to basically get our classrooms

097back set i mean i know we've got all the storage containers on site and that type of deal but to reconfigure everything i guess is yeah we would be so excited that i'm sure we'd work all night i think it would take us several days and i think we'd likely have to have some sort of break in order to do it and but not to say that it couldn't incorporate a weekend but a weekend alone i don't think would be enough to actually reconfigure everything so we would probably require you know possibly two days of okay let's reset and then uh and plus the weekend time in order to be able to get everything back and set up yeah almost per se for argumentation take two snow days plus the weekend just i think that

098is a possibility yeah to get everything okay i was just you know i do my best it's a lot to do there's no doubt about it i mean i've seen what the classrooms look like and what they were before so yeah that's all i have madam chair thank you mrs yes um i'll start off with uh the calendar that was great uh you mentioned the the the error in there and and all of that but i didn't look and i'm just wondering um i've seen people post and i can understand the confusion they there have been comments i've seen although i've taken myself off of most social media platforms and it's been a breath of fresh air however uh i have seen some folks kind of snarky comments but understandable confusion around yeah that's really

099how can you figure that out and well you can if you take it step by step but i get it it's overwhelming for many um including myself you can see my notes it's a hot mess but i'm wondering if the calendar will be translated into our district's electronic calendar so that then a parent who would have chosen say notifications for dimelo or quinn or potter or the high school that they then could then choose for the time being cohort a dartmouth high school cohort b potter so that they could kind of extract that more easily for their families would that be something that we could look into doing on the district calendar like on the district calendar october 3rd it's coordinated right that's what you mean but that could yeah i mean it'd be a

100lot of work but i'm just thinking that might be something that i don't do that so i don't know and to me i don't do that so yeah sure why not yes of course someone can handle that you have to work with mr gala short see if there was a fast you know yeah there might be yeah if there is i think it might be helpful for a family to kind of translate that that information easily and if we could anything we could do to ease that but again only you know if it's possible print that and put it on my refrigerator yeah oh and the refrigerator and the car make it a magnet everywhere i go absolutely um i printed it in black and white so it's not doing me any good right now

101because they don't have color yeah right right what was that oh he's got it he has it in color so that's um so okay so that's just a suggestion if we can um let me see and of course i'm you know me i'm i'm like the ppe police over here and i just want to bring it back to we talked about miss andrew christopher and we brought like hit the ground running do we have our ppe where it needs to be for the people to access it right now even teachers even though they haven't necessarily needed it students aren't in and they're bringing their own masks but are those things like right hit the ground running in classrooms right now yeah okay no but they will be before there's kids here absolutely um but what

102we do have is so ppe for staff for doing what they're doing right now is available for them so masks and they're not working closely with with students right now so they don't you know need any of that additional equipment but we do have it all and we will distribute it all we are still configuring some things believe it or not we're still moving furniture um so we really don't want to do that until we're set um but we do have okay and i'm fine before students arrive yeah and in my this just came to me and you may have gone over this but is the ppe going to exist um in the classrooms or just say like in the nurses i i would hope not but i mean are they gonna is it gonna

103be everywhere i think it depends on what the ppe is being used for um but yes i i would expect that a supply would be nearby whoever needs to use it so um if particular staff members in a classroom sometimes need gowns or gloves or shields then it should be in the classroom it doesn't they shouldn't have to go and get it somewhere if they're regularly using it okay um one other one concern of mine uh that i've run into um so a family member of mine requires some personal equipment personal care equipment that gets delivered monthly and um part of that uh equipment is gloves and um the gloves haven't been coming with the other personal care products so um you know me i keep like i we have enough ppe and i trust

104you i you've done a phenomenal job i just i just know the reality of what happens that ppe and i just worry i i if we have three months six months i just ask that we keep ordering it and get to to eight months so that we know maybe in four months we need more i'm i'm highly worried about that um just because i i'm thinking of course of of familiar situations and um and those kids who just might not be able to kind of reset themselves and get a little frustrated and i'm thinking of bodily fluids and just frustration maybe spitting and some younger kids and touching and sticky and everything else i could list a million things that you might not already have in your you probably already have a list but but

105if at all possible if we keep ordering um it's just a concern of mine because it's so necessary uh and um anyway that's my little pp i agree yeah it's a concern of mine too i mean it it honestly is what i wake up in the middle of the night thinking about so um at 4 00 a.m when i but the first thought in my head is something about some ppe thing yeah that has been happening a lot i hate to say so um but yes no i i totally agree and um we have we have quantities in stock that i know we are fine for a couple of months and then um we we also need to learn to uh to understand how much we need absolutely you know and um this is a

106whole new a whole new adventure so and that's another worry i you know the over usage potentially not just of the students just of the over the over caution of staff that over time will get more familiar with their ability sort of understand when they need to do that versus hyper vigilant i guess yeah that's a whole other element um let's see i'm sorry of course you know the the special education piece i don't know where i wrote it but i'll just go off the coffee you know in normal times it is not uncommon for um for districts not just our district to secure staff for those related services speech therapists occupational therapists i mean that's rampantly under staffed in districts and oftentimes districts have to contract out to have those services so it's it's

107understandable but deeply concerning just knowing that many students haven't been able to access since march anything on a regular basis and while i'm i'm very optimistic for my own personal situation i can understand parents being quite concerned about the regression and i know there'll be more to come on that and i try to not alarm parents and let them know those things there there's guidance for that too but uh however we can i don't know if every every herculean effort we can make to to to make sure that those positions are are somehow filled um and to that note i don't know if this is possible and i'm just thinking of this so it might not even make sense but um i wonder if in by chance some of our partner collaboratives potentially if there

108could be some not changes to the iep but in this this time this pandemic time i wonder if it's possible that we sort of reach out to those folks or create some kind of agreement and and some of those services might be able to be facilitated you know not the placements change for these students but i don't know if that's even possible i uh but right all i can say right now is it's um high on our priority list as well we share your concern and um are not shying away from trying to solve the problem it's just right now we haven't solved it no so and it's not just us right we are uh in in very good company with this horrible problem so i i really thank everyone mr kylie i everyone thank

109you so much and that's all i have thanks so i will maybe take the middle path between miss amaral and mr nunes i'm not super optimistic but i will also say that i am concerned that we don't want to over order ppe because the last thing we want to have is four tons of hand sanitizer that go bad because i have hand sanitizer that goes bad so i mean given that money is tight i do think it is definitely a balance and that we need to learn and we don't want to necessarily order eight months because if we only need five months then we've got a lot of stuff that we pay for um so i just want to get some clarity i know parents have been asking about this um can we i know

110we're still sort of working on what the remote options are but can we sort of clearly publish those options for parents direct them because people are asking when do i have to make my decision by and i know they you know they did the survey and you're saying so i want to be clear they should finalize their decision with the principle of their building that's right do we have a date by which they need to do that because parents have been asking this like when do because we haven't also finalized what remote learning looks like so i'm just i think there's a lot of confusion about when do i have to make the decision and i want to know what i'm making a decision about so yeah i don't i know you can't give me

111an answer right now but if we could publish that that say this is what it looks like this is who you contact and this is the date you need to contact people by i think that would help a lot of parents in terms of clarity yeah we can do that and like i said um it really evolved a little bit more but this week we came to a i think a real clear place so great and i just think it just needs to be communicated a deadline set and a procedure for that it just needs to be set so parents know um to miss amarillo's points about the ab um from the high school and middle school perspective i think this is also going to get really tricky because not only do you have the

112ab cohort you have like day abcdef which i could never keep track of either so i don't know do we have to merge it with a calendar but even if we could be something so like sort of low-ish tech is to create like a twitter handle or a facebook post to p like the middle school school day right and it's like cohort a day e right because i think a lot of us have confusion about what day it is in those schools not just cohort a and b but now that we're adding cohort a and b with the days where the periods roll i think it would just be really helpful if there is a place that everyone can go and it doesn't we can low-tech it right we don't have to integrate it with

113our calendar it can be a facebook or twitter or something like that where people just know okay i get up i check that that's how i find out which class i show up to this morning at you know in the morning yep um the other thing that i had was um do we have plans for getting materials to kids um some of the classes like you know maybe you need math manipulates for lower levels i know my son is taking robotics with mr brodsky and i'm pretty sure he's probably going to need something to do that right so what is our plan do we have a plan for those classes where kids need stuff that they're going to have to work on at home either for remote or the hybrid to get that stuff to

114them that's what i asked last meeting yeah i know that each school is working on like i know a letter is going out from the elementary this friday those kinds of things so again a lot of that is coming from the schools i know they did some co cohort i've got cohort in the brain um chromebook dissemination today you know those kinds of things so it's little by little but um there's also going to be book bags at the elementary um but just to get back to what you asked so a lot is coming from the schools but just to get back to what you asked about the um signing up for the virtual one thing that did go out was an email to parents that did initially say they were interested so they have

115that information so we will we'll continue to post more updates up just what you're saying but you should have received if you're still uh if you didn't say you were interested contact the school et cetera et cetera so those are good points yeah that would be great and i think i think the other thing related to not just you know textbooks and then the specialized materials is parents really want to know like what do they need to buy um we are running into we start classes on campus on on wednesday we're running into supply chain issues so like a lot of our books and lab materials students are like uh i can't get my book for three weeks because just the supply chain is so disrupted so the sooner we can let parents know what

116they need to get the better because i am worried about hopefully there won't be too much specialized stuff and i know i have like folders and this and that all over the house here and there that i could reuse um but getting that to parents and letting them know i think would be really useful yeah i know that's coming out from the teachers as well but okay i guess we're just a little slow this year no we are but i i just know i think i think everyone is anxious right yeah yeah it's really a couple weeks before school is starting and of course people kind of want to know what they're what they're gonna need to get yeah so very good yeah other questions mary yeah actually if i could jump back in um

117you know i don't know if this dovetails exactly with this conversation but as we're kind of talking about like you know parents and readiness for the you know with their children in the mornings i know i had reached out to mr kylie and i brought this up before and i came up with you know several parents that i know the possibility of parents doing a checklist just even something that could be on their phone akin to what you do when you go to a pediatrician's office in the morning and just just every morning seeing like as a you know step to say like does your child have any of these you know you've already registered that child you know check off like which one of these this might be more from mr galesha but you

118know something that could then go on to like they have an aspen you know there's a red flag you know if something comes up it should be you know it happens at every medical appointment that i've gone to you know where i get like you just you have it there so it shows up the nurse can you know access it you know if she has a concern she can see you know it doesn't have to be something bus driver it's not you know not a ticket but just something that the parent actually is going through a checklist in the morning you know on their phone bing bing bing no no no no no send johnny off to school you know or oh wait you know johnny did have a fever last night and that would

119be a red flag so and again it can be wiped at the end of every week or you know something like that but i think it would just be helpful for parents just to have that and again we kind of talk about parents the accountability when it comes to sports as well i just think like that just to have that process one more thing at home um as a reminder if that's something that we can accomplish you know i think it would be helpful so we have that on campus and the problem is once you fill it out five times you're like yep yep you stop reading it after about you know day five because the questions never change um so i don't i don't disagree like having a checklist for people to refer to

120but requiring them to fill it out every day i don't i don't know i haven't seen the research on that whether it actually changes behavior or whether people just start you know i mean who reads a user agreement anymore right you just scroll on down and click the check um and that we found that happening sort of in our campuses and on campuses that people aren't reading those mr nunes yeah and i'm just wondering what you're saying are you talking about that checklist then gets sent to the school or that's that just stays with the parents of the school because i mean my only concern now becomes is now we start overloading the schools with you know you get a thousand here a thousand in the middle school three hundred and four hundred dollars almost

121go into like their aspen account you know something like that that would kind of go just you know float in and then just you know it would only come up if there was like a red line you know something that you know that was a red flag all right i'm just wondering if we're just again putting too much overload and emphasis we're taking responsibility off the parent and student and pushing it on to administration and staff okay that's my two cents no disrespect no it's okay i mean i i do think it might be good for parents i think we have a list of if you have those things don't send your kids to school but i don't know that we need to make it that you have to fill it out every day because

122then also imagine you've got five kids and you've got to fill out one of those like i would probably be ready that like every morning having to fill out ten questions for five kids can be a lot too right yeah so i'm just not sure if it's i'm just not sure if it's an extra burden that doesn't provide us with additional enough additional information i don't know i i mean yeah you're looking into it would go crazy right well it's a lot for parents to do and it's a lot for right for people to manage in terms of data and i'm not sure there's probably research on whether or not it changes people's behavior that we can maybe look at other questions or comments all right well thank you for all of your hard work

123it's been a lot of work i know there's still a lot we're doing the same thing we're starting classes tomorrow and there's like 50 000 questions that we still haven't answered um you know you're building the plane as you fly so right um that's right we have a little extra time with starting remote thank goodness thank goodness um i don't have any i don't think you have any other updates i don't have any report does anybody have anything else that they would like to add or share with us at this point in time do we have i'm my calendars aren't talking to each other do we have our next meeting yes september 14th at 6 30. okay it's on like none of my calendars none of my calendars talk to each other so september 14th

12414th at 6 30. i've got to come in from boston that afternoon so i may be depending on traffic okay but i will be here eventually okay one of the one of the few bonuses of covet is it seems to have reduced some traffic coming in and out of boston so may the traffic gods be with you mr news yes i hope so too um all right so if there's no other business i will entertain a motion to adjourn into executive session for the purposes of providing an update with respect to collective bargaining with union personnel not to return to open session madam chair can we also add non-union personnel to that correct yes we may i will take that as an amendment are you making that motion mr nunes yes i am okay do

125i have a second second okay so i have a motion by mr nunes a second by miss wait miss gentler can we have a roll call please shannon jenkins yes yes thank you everyone this meeting is adjourned into executive session you