Dartmouth School Committee Meeting August 18, 2020

001well good afternoon everyone i'd like to call this meeting of the dartmouth school committee to order for tuesday august 18 2020. could i have a roll call please ms genter chris oliver here shannon jenkins here kathleen ameral here mary waite here john nunes john nunes is he muted i'm here sorry i'm here i had muted myself i apologize we'll forgive you mr news this time this time only okay uh per governor baker's audit suspending certain provisions of open meeting law chapter 38 section 20 the public will not be allowed to physically access this school committee meeting the meeting will be conducted remotely members of the public can access the meeting via live stream at youtube.com forward slash dhs tv media in addition the event will be a rebroadcast and dc tv channels 9 and 18

002in the following days wednesday and thursday at 5 00 pm friday at 6 a.m saturday at 8 00 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 practice practicable this is the time in the meeting where we would typically take public comment relative tonight's meeting agenda if you would like to comment please email kathleen genther at dartmouthschools.org and your email will be shared with committee members and available for review once tonight's meeting minutes are approved i would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the numerous emails in respect in respect to public comment that we have already received today the committee members receive them i believe uh miss genter acknowledges their receipt and she will

003email you and she will send the committee uh your public comments that being said i would like to take a minute here before we continue with the agenda uh just to go over a couple of things while i understand not everyone is happy with our decision nor did i expect them to be i will continue to respect your opinions and concerns relative to our reopening plan i can appreciate parents and guardians being concerned for their children and wanting what's best for them just like you i want what's best for my daughter who also attends the dartmouth public schools that being said it is the school committee and administration's responsibility to see the big picture in what is in the best interest for our four thousand plus students and staff here in dartmouth the logistics the

004metrics and recommendations from all stakeholders and were considered in last week's decision that being said ultimately i feel after dr gifford's presentation tonight it is my hope that the dartmouth community will find our plan is really not all that different from other area communities as of last week's meeting we voted to start remote with a transition to hybrid as soon as possible even with all the work dartmouth and other communities in the area and across the state have done these are only remember these are only proposed plans they are fluid and they will ultimately be dictated by covid19 statistics that being said i will entertain a motion for the approval of the regular in executive session minutes uh let's start with the regular session minutes of august 3rd in august 10th 2020 so moved by

005second so i have a motion on the floor by mr nunes a second by miss amaral on the motion any further discussion you're hearing none roll call miss gunther miss oliver yes shannon jenkins yes kathleen amer yes mary wait yes john nunes yes thank you very much miss skenter thank you committee at this time i'll entertain motion for the executive uh let's i'm sorry i really should have taken the regular session minutes for august 3rd and august 10th together um but we'll um we'll approve the regular session minutes of august 10th at this time and then we'll take one motion for the executive session minutes for both dates i thought we did approve both the third and the tenths mr chair did i say that i'm sorry we're good perfect thank you mr nunes so

006i'll i'll entertain the motion for the executive session at this time so uh mr chairman with the stipulation that they be held until the matter for which they were intended is complete a second thought i have a motion by mr nunes a second by mrs amaral on the motion any further discussion uh roll call please miss gunther chris oliver yes shannon jenkins yes kathleen emeril yes mary waite yes john nunes yes uh thank you again everyone at this time um under old business uh discussion pertaining to the back to school plan i am going to turn it over uh to dr gifford um so she can share with us uh updated information that she has relative uh to the reopening okay thank you i will be sharing my screen i hope let's see okay up

007let me get back to okay that's fine okay so as you mentioned mr oliver um we did vote last week for um to begin remote with with the promise of having a plan a tentative dates um and what our plan would be to move into hybrid so that's what we'll be discussing tonight um and as always like last week i wanted to provide some clarifications for some some of the questions we've received all of us have tried to answer folks um but also know that some things will be answered tonight and hopefully people will have some clarification so i just wanted to clarify that once again the june survey that we sent or it might have been early july was really just a temperature check unlike what some folks are thinking it was a vote

008obviously a situation like this we we can't vote what we think is the best um plan of action we can only use that as at least a sense of what people are thinking so with that um you know we did in the beginning obviously we wanted to uh get right into hybrid that was our intention right from the beginning but as data started to uh pile up and and some issues came up we did what we did and made the vote to start in remote um the survey that folks just received recently uh um that one is meant to give us more information as we are developing cohorts in our transportation plan for when we go back to hybrid i understand that some folks wanted more information i answered people that asked us that certainly

009they can still submit and change submit their information once they've heard tonight's presentation and even as we get closer to uh hopefully the chance that we get back to school it was as i said just meant to gather as much data as we could because some folks are pretty set already on what their plan is some do need more information and that's fine so we try to get a quick turnaround because we are planning our cohorts and like i said the transportation planning is um quite involved um so i just also wanted to say that well i kind of just said a lot of that um but we we also folks mentioned the governor's metric tool that he released i just want folks to remember that was released after our vote so unfortunately we didn't

010have that information and the friday before the governor's press briefing was about how the upticks had happened he had implemented a uh task force if you will to find people etc and that they decrease the number of people to be in in a group together inside so listening to that on the friday was part of the data we used of thinking geez what's going on and then of course we took our vote and tuesday we had the metric so going forward of course that will be part of our some of our tools that we'll use i also want people to be reminded that this is everything that we talk about here and that the committee votes on isn't is a proposal we still have an obligation to bargain all of the existing conditions of employment

011we are continuing those bargaining sessions we actually have one coming up this thursday um and as a reminder please send questions questions related to any of this to questions at dartmouthschools.org if you um comments such as the comments for uh tonight's meeting we continue to send those to ms genthner that's we're trying to keep that separate because we are planning to have an faq virtual meeting if you will after this to see what other questions are still out there to to continue to provide folks with information so i just want to go over a few things and there's a few updates when we consider moving into hybrid as i told you last time we have some enhanced cleaning protocols we are working to add hours and um during the day to maintain you can really

012get those high high touch areas and continue to maintain those and keep them clean we have got purchased some air purifiers and also mr kylie um has purchased those electrostatic sprayers which will be used nightly in the areas in the classrooms um and of course the the spray the chemical has is all approved and we did discuss this with the local director of public health as well we do continue to have sufficient and proper ppe and we do still feel that a slow roll into this really provides teachers and students with a chance to get used to this new model and to do it right we're looking at now the change in weather and the reduced heat i know when we did the building tours two weeks ago uh that was a concern in some

013of those areas i have to say we mr kylie and the director of public health and the town nurse did another building tour um i guess it was yesterday yes yesterday monday and um i was happy to feel that much more comfortable in the buildings of course we had that cool weather come in so that's part of our thinking when we look to um as you'll see the plan to move back into hybrid um still looking at the guidance about the the airflow the windows the fans with chris misha we did check those windows and um thought of ways that we could continue to enhance that airflow out of the windows that we do have we do con still considering staffing we know that's going to be that can be an issue and um we're

014looking at the idea of when we have teachers out whatever the reason it might be are we able to use them virtually um remotely and also much you know our tas do tend to cover classes for us um and we would hope that that would be a possibility as as things move along i talked about the nurses stations we did show the board of health that as well um we updated we have more information which we'll do tonight on the virtual platform that we'll hopefully be using and continue to monitor the guidance which i did um re-read today and the guidance for about those what-if scenarios if a person is positive if a person has symptoms etc we'll be looking at that very closely there's a lot of good information in there and a lot

015of guidance um so again i just mentioned the survey so please get that in when you feel comfortable with the answers that you're receiving for the families and of course we have the latest information from the governor and that metrics which we'll be using and watching what is happening with the other districts this is just from last week we know we have all of these the ppe as i said um nothing new here same safety requirements of lunches in the classrooms etc we did i didn't know if i mentioned last week that we have um we have storage bins on site now that we're emptying classrooms to make them uh use you know just keep the furniture that we absolutely need unfortunately the district because of the work that we've done over the years on

016collaborative model the collaborative model and project-based learning we have so many big tables that students have been using so it's been quite a chore to empty the classrooms out fill the storage bins and prepare them for students and staff i do want to mention that teachers are going to be able to keep those essential teaching items that they use in bookshelves uh we just don't want to take up a lot of space on the floor for lots of things but we have built-in bookshelves and so those manipulatives those books leveled readers etc will be able to maintain in the classroom people have some questions about that once again the only updates on the financial support is that the esser grant was approved and we bought technology and um ppe equipment with that grant so uh

017update on the virtual learning just a quick one and then i'll go a little bit more detail in the middle in high school as you remember we we kept waiting for desi to come up with a learning platform and um we've now made the they're very expensive i have to say very expensive and so we've we're working to secure the best the best model that we can the best platform um with um to try to be cost effective as well so we looked at all of these um i'm going to go actually i'm looking to the next slide in a second that has more detail for us but i do want to skip down to professional development plan as you remember the teachers will be having 10 days of professional development and we're working on

018that now as creating a framework and i just re-emphasize the spraying with the electrostatic sprayers with epa approved disinfectant and as i said already we're continuing to collaborate with local health agents and the town nurse so let's get into the virtual platform some people you know the state called it a learning management system what we have decided for our high school and middle school students is that we are contracting with a group called edge annuity we're very familiar with this because we have used it at the high school over the last few years for credit recovery and a couple of other individual situations we will be obtaining a site license so actually all of our students at the high school in middle school could in theory have access to this comprehensive library catalog of courses

019as you can see it offers everything that we will need for students that might choose to not attend dartmouth schools to come into the school we will we're not sure who what who well when or why or whatever but dartmouth staff we will either through a stipend we do have lead teachers that have done facilitated or supervised these students as they embark on this educational process so we will make sure that a dartmouth staff member will have a cohort of students if you will depending on how many uh choose to enroll in the virtual platform and as always we will have um information on our website about that and certainly we'll be able to answer questions as people decide to choose that that system for our elementary sister school system our elementary students excuse me

020we are still we thought we had one that we were um pretty set on going with which was the teca but we have been in contact with a couple of other schools that have are using the edmonton as well so we just found this one out so we're looking at that one why i wanted to use something different from the elementary is the the bundle of courses um are taught by a massachusetts licensed teacher on the other end in cyberspace if you will so students unlike the ingenuity which is a platform of a catalog of courses and students are more independently learning with as i said a dartmouth staff member supporting this this system would offer us a teacher who would teach live sessions and also present recorded sessions as well and but just like

021the middle and high school we would still have a staff member from dartmouth supporting these students making sure that they stay on track so basically we're not saying to the parent here's your platform good luck we'll see you in uh the spring or something we want to maintain um connections with these folks so we'll continue this one is not quite set and as you can see again it's it the range of car it's quite expensive i just wanted to update the committee a little bit on courses requiring as it says additional safety considerations and as you can see that's really about those um the theater the chorus the band the phys ed those kinds of things uh right now we have we do have the small groups of students with math socially distance outside practicing

022i was at the high school today and just want to let folks know that that is much different than a in class situation with the what we've um having to abide by the guidance it's much easier obviously to separate those students for these kinds of activities as we have been with the strength and conditioning so there are some there is guidance on that we are going to have to look at the course um as it says you know they have to um those are just classes we have to wear masks etc so we'll be looking a little bit more at that but i wanted folks to see that there is some guidance that has come out um and also the guidance about sharing of equipment so that is permitted we they encourage that kids obviously

023hand wash before using that of course sanitizing their hands we just said wearing mask and socially distancing and we always have enough supplies around to disinfect and i wanted to reiterate that at least for our elementary schools we are purchasing actually the orders have been coming in for the curriculum kits with various tools and essentials that the students will need in the classroom so they'll have their own box of tools and many of you may have heard that for sports miaa they have a task force that's been meeting with um jesse and from the governor's press briefing today we are supposed to expect jesse's guidance later this week so we still don't know what's going on with that so transitioning to from remote to hybrid and again this is um proposal as we all know

024anything can happen depending on the covet what's happening with the virus what's happening with staffing there are many many many things that we will be looking at we're continuing to look at the density guidance as we have here i am always watching the governor's press briefing we now have the matrix to look at and of course we uh consult with our local public health office as well so as a reminder remote learning right now is set for september 15th to september 30th this is now my proposal for tonight um we have created a robust regular daily schedule for students we already said this attendance is required and there will be grading what i want to mention to parents because i had a lot of questions on this is that while the students are receiving a

025daily schedule and it's pretty rigorous the teachers will still have the flexibility to run their classrooms like they always do they might direct teach they might then say to us to this class your assignment for the next half an hour like we do in brick and mortar read this book or whatever it is or or work on your your independent work let's come back in at 9 30 we'll we'll discuss what we just did there is project based it might be all of those things so i don't want people to think that a child is going to sit and stare at a computer for six hours there will be breaks there will be assignments that i want them to think that the classroom is running like the teachers do it but yes there is the

026connection with the technology of course people might remember we also have on our enrichment site and i'm sure the teachers will be posting things on their google classrooms um they had like pdf documents that the kids could fill right in if there's an assignment to be turned in things like that so i just want to make hopefully help people feel a little bit more comfortable that we're setting up a schedule to provide a block of time that creates structure so that they know at 9 30 is my english class or whatever it might be i log in i get my instruction and teaching from my teacher i might go off and now do my assignment and come back we have breakout sessions that can happen in the classrooms as well i don't know how to

027do it but that teachers do and then just to be also be very clear um on the goal the plan and with jesse guidance and legal requirements is that the pre-k students whose iep requires them to be in an integrated pre-k program our plan is that they attend all five days half a day it would be a 9 to 12 day with a grab and go lunch of course they'd be recessed etc but that's our ex that's our plan right now the pre-k iep that plan that requires them to be in our program the peer partners will not attend during this this time so no peer partners we are still planning and i know parents received a letter it was in my letter and i believe dr dale our new director of early childhood sent

028out as well that um um screening what i was going to say stressing i don't know where that came from freudian screening will take place we're looking at i think it was october 20 excuse me august 24th through the 27th so we're looking at securing um we need we needed one more staff member for that but peer partners those accepted and those who are on the waiting list will be contacted and they are able to be screened looking forward to the future that they will get to school at some point the same with our paths pals and past program those are students um with significant needs our higher needs students and we will be inviting them at this point um we were looking at five full days that may be adjusted as as things change

029but at this point we would be inviting those students to attend school during the remote um time so our our uh to start again not knowing what's going to happen and we will keep our eyeballs on everything that we've talked about and make that decision as we get closer is um in october and i've i've laid this out i'm hoping it's clear obviously more details will be posted so people have a clear understanding we're also looking to create our calendar with color codes so that cohorts parents will have a good visual of when their cohort of students is in so we're looking to transition on october one and two it is a thursday and a friday but we were thinking that it'd be a good time like an orientation day for these pre-k through two

030so that would be the peer partners that i just talked about pre-k through two are early learners readers who we want to get into school and not have to learn to read on on computers in grade six why we chose grade six after discussion was again another a big transition year elementary into the middle school this would give teachers time to acclimate the students to the hallways to the bathrooms to the cleaning to the mask wearing those kinds of things uh so so as i say so on october 1 the thursday the children who have been put into cohort a for pre-k through two and six would be coming on thursday and then cohort b pre-k two through six on friday they would then begin their first full week of school the following week and

031this is how we we um we are recommending that this run that the students go three days a week and then two days a week we checked about the deep cleaning situation that people keep mentioning it is not and if it is not i think and i'll i hate to say this like this but cracked up to be what it's people have really not defined it in in really they just say it so with our discussion with the local um health agent as well as following the guidance we've read it and re-read it with our enhanced cleaning plan as well as the nightly spraying of areas we feel we would have as good as a cleaning plan as anything else we also thought this was the best best model because we are keeping kids engaged

032on a regular schedule from our perspective sending a child to school on monday tuesday as some people suggest and they do not return again to the following monday tuesday seems to be a bit of a disengagement from learning so we're trying to maintain that learning from just get on top of the dehumidifier oh mr nunes and just an example their second full week just so folks can see how it works so week one the cohort a is monday wednesday friday next week they're tuesday thursday on their remote days i'll mention this well i mentioned that later let's finish this up okay so then we're thinking our next plan of action is the week that second full week that the first group is in we're now bringing in the second group 13th through the 16th we

033have group two those are the rest of our elementary students three through five and transitioning grades seven so the middle school now has um another grade level to orient with the passing through the halls the cleaning the how how those classrooms will run etc same thing because it's the 13th through the 16th if you look above where it says second full week cohort a once again both times is in tuesday thursday mode that week is a little different because columbus day so we're we're pretending it doesn't exist hopefully and then we're beyond it we stay in our flow but tuesday thursday and a wednesday friday so each cohort attends school for two days that week our final transition 19th through the 23rd is group three and same thing it's group it's um grade eight so

034we complete the high school uh middle school and the high school i do want to reiterate we are still working on cohorting the high school because of some of the class sizes we're having difficulty with that but we're brainstorming again tomorrow and um we'll come up with something how to make sure that uh all of our classes meet the guidance and our students can fit comfortably in the classes but once again cohort a would come monday wednesday friday cohort b tuesday thursday we are working very hard on our cohorts and we cannot take requests for this or that or the other it's too difficult we are trying we are considering siblings we're putting siblings together uh we're doing it acro because this is across the district it's not just this school for cohorts and that

035school for cohort so that the district team has been working with all of the principals to create these cohorts because that then lends itself for the transportation as well students will be assigned seats as we know so once the cohorts are established mr kylie can then work with the transportation and create the bus routes that pick up these students um sitting about 20 students on a bus during the remote days teachers would have assigned their students so if you attend school on a monday your teacher would have assigned you some whatever work it is a reading assignment whatever it might be you're expected to complete that work on that remote day preparing for the next day when you return to school i just wanted to mention that students who choose to enroll in a virtual

036platform like we just talked about the edge annuity we will have them remain in that platform until a semester break so we would alert them when that semester break was coming up so that it can have a smooth transition should they choose to come back to join the hybrid model so our next steps of course similar to last week we are continuing to prepare our buildings uh for that transition they're still working on cleaning uh classrooms out um some teachers were in i saw some yesterday working on removing some things and getting their classrooms set we are continuing our negotiations with the dea as i said before we have a new metric which is the one from the governor as well as the continued deci guidance in any updated governor information and i say that

037because they are informative and that does kind of give us the sense of where the state is we will continue to monitor neighboring school districts i hope they're very successful and that can give us some encouragement on their first few weeks of school and we're also um mrs oliveira was looking to work with some of our teachers to create some videos that might help uh parents kind of understand get a better glimpse into what it might look like i'm not sure if these might go up on our enrichment page because we're continuing that as well um we are scheduling our faq virtual meeting i think it might be the week after next uh just before school the teachers come back so that's why i'm asking folks if you have further questions to send them into

038questions at dartmouthschools.org so we'll be able to address some of those and once again please complete the survey if you haven't done so there's plenty of time so with that i'll just reiterate this is a proposal and certainly we'll hear the the committee's thoughts and i was thinking that we might want to take a vote of approval if that's the committee's wish thank you dr gifford welcome i know that you have uh you know constantly reflecting and talking to colleagues and peers and trying to make you know come to terms with what's the best decision and and how to how to make this a successful transition to hybrid uh that being said before i turn it over to my colleagues just really quickly one of the things before i forget is uh in regards to

039the videos that you're putting together i think what might be helpful um just so you know some parents or parents that are interested might be able to see what classrooms will look like what schools maybe may look like so i'm not sure if we can do some pictures or maybe a quick little video of the different schools especially at the elementary level the kindergarten i'm sure if i'm a kindergarten parent i'm extremely nervous i'm worried about my um you know what it's going to look like for my child right and to that point that's a good point and i'm also i must i didn't say the uh elementary schools are creating some videos explicitly for kindergarten uh so that's that would be nice again like a little or and i know a number of the

040others no that's just like the school base the middle school we do in like a virtual um kind of orientation but to your point also that idea of what might a remote learning classroom look like kind of thing right i think that's really important i'll turn it over to my colleagues at this time for questions comments concerns okay thank you mrs white hi yes um so first of all thank you i think that clarifies quite a bit dr gifford um certainly i know that you know having those benchmarks in place was a big ass from so many of our families so so thank you i'm i'm hoping we'll be in a you know better place now just to kind of you know move forward and uh be positive and engaged um and a couple questions

041um as we look at this you know new phased-in model the way i read it well the pre when we talk about the pre-k the preschoolers just are they they're not doing any remote that's that's one question that i have like are they just the way it looked to me that it would be kindergartners but pre-k aren't just going to go into hybrid without a remote model for them is that correct yes that is correct okay we just didn't think it was it was going to work with our pre-k students trying to get you know parents have to have i know i understand parents have to involvement with the younger guys anyway but right he was asking i think a little bit much okay and then um again i agree with you know the pictures

042i had a couple requests from parents who really wanted to find out about what the you know and this gets back to chris mr oliver's point um that they want to see again with the pre-k there are a lot of concerns are are they those children who are coming in going to have to wear a mess a six-foot distance thing you know what does that look like in terms of breaks you know so if we you know if we can provide those parents with clarification i think that would you know be pretty meaningful yeah it might be good along that lines once again to provide pictures even of the classroom but yes uh we are we are expecting really the same uh things that the little deaths have been spaced out um the mass of

043course uh students that have medically are medically exempted from mass and or behaviorally exempted um that's what we we have they they can but our expectation is that everyone wears them we are expecting mask breaks stretch breaks all of that hopefully getting outside being able to um run around without those mass etc but yeah yeah unfortunately that's kind of what it is these days okay and then you know just looking models too i had um and you know sorry dominate here but i know some parents had you know we're concerned in the elementary if they have multiple children across different grades that there are different lunches i understand that that's necessary though for specialists could you speak to that just you know to explain that um to parents exactly it does have to do with

044with the specialists um being able to then go into classrooms because as you might remember we share staff um we you know some of those specialists travel from school to school that's one of the reasons also that we want to keep the schedules the same whether we're remote or hybrid as well it's just a matter of trying to get fit it all in okay yeah and those and those um let's say art classes phys ed classes will continue within the remote model you know and those students will have the materials that they need as part of a kit or or is there a suggestion there for materials that parents might want to have or were those materials be what would you suggest on that yeah yeah that's a good that's a good question um we

045did send home to the elementary at least a suggestion for we know parents like to hit the sales early right i don't know how early it is right now but um recommending things that they do purchase rather than your basic binders or whatever it might be to have at home but i i don't recall that we mentioned anything about like artwork etc i know some teachers become very hap were very creative last time and had kids using rocks or rocks paper sticks but anyway but i'll um check with the um the letter go back to the elementary and middle of course whatever the the whole group but i'm not sure if we really talked about that piece that yeah okay um i'm sure i have more but i'll pass it on to my colleagues thank

046you very much thank you mrs waite dr jenkins thanks mr oliver um and thank you dr gifford and everyone on your team for joining us i want to start off by sort of um following up on mr oliver's opening statement um and really just reiterate that there are a lot of concerns at play here um i know a lot of parents are thinking about this from the perspective of their kids and their lives and i know it's very hard for families we 100 understand that but there are just so many issues that are unresolved now and there was a number of good articles in commonwealth magazine over the last few days facing these issues so for instance i know my university has a very extensive testing and contact tracing protocol in place that's going to

047probably cost us even with our de-densified campus hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars um people have been asking well why don't you test we don't have the money to test and the state and our national government has simply failed to provide a robust testing and contact tracing system and if you look at other countries who have successfully opened schools that is fundamental to the successful reopening of schools um testing and tracing we don't have it we're dealing with with buildings that don't have adequate air flow um you know we have to worry about um we have to keep our teachers and staff healthy right do we have the space to do that um there's all sorts of concerns that we have to take into consideration um you know that that that aren't just

048health metrics and we're starting to see i think a lot of um school committees speak up about this because it is there are a lot of moving parts here and i think the other thing i want to reiterate on top of that is um you know the the i remember this correctly right dusty has given us 10 professional development days um those must happen at the beginning of the year right they cannot be spread out over the rest of the year um speaking from experience as someone who is taught face to face and online these are very different styles of teaching um and it's not something that's just oh you just translate it you just do it right you have to learn how to teach remotely and so i think we partially want to be

049prepared for the remote teaching and use those professional days to train our teachers to do that so that we're doing it right and we're doing it well um if we never have to go back to a remote after the first two weeks that's great and i would be happy to have that happen but if there is a resurgent and we do have to go back to remote we don't get those 10 days back right those 10 days are gone and trying to move back online with a day or two of professional development is going to be a recipe for disaster so i'm happy we're going to use this time to figure out how to do our remote learning right we can learn from the experiences of other districts to make sure that we are doing

050this right and our kids aren't yo-yoing back and forth from in-person to remote to in-person to remote we want to do this right and so i'm i am very happy to to see that we're trying to do that um a couple of things i've been thinking of is in terms of sort of managing this for for families um and so one of my first i just want to confirm that sort of even though teachers have freedom to do their class how they want we're going to be using the same lms right we're going to be using google classroom so that families and whatever and particularly the middle school or high school where you have multiple teachers it's all going to be in one place because i know as a parent that becomes difficult to manage

051if things are all over the place so are we going to have some requirement that that the the one lms is used across the district yes we're using google yes google class and google me okay yes another big concern is is that i know we always have parents buy supplies and you know it's in some ways can be unfortunate um because that can be difficult for some families i am very deeply concerned that our expectations for supplies are going to be greater this year because we're going to be remote and doing some learning at home and i'm very concerned um about how um particularly our families who are in free or reduced lunch but even other families may be able to afford some of these things um are we going to be able to implement

052any sort of programs whereby if you qualify for free and reduced lunch or you need support buying some of these extra materials that we can use some of our cares money or some additional money um to help support parents and and set up a learning environment where all kids can con can succeed we other than what we've done with the elementary purchasing all the supplies for the classroom we haven't really talked about that to be honest and but we can certainly consider it it'd be good to hear from the teachers what they think you know will be needed of course and that's what we did with the elementary level i know the principals um got their information from the teachers and certainly we can consider that um yeah i mean i think i just i

053hope that we can be really sensitive to this yeah i mean last year in the spring i won't name names um but one of my children had to do an experiment that involved using food um which i thought was not particularly great right if you laid off for your job you can't get to the grocery store um and the experiment involved the wasting of food and i was like um you know um so i think we just need to be really sensitive about the economic conditions and the economic demands on our family um and to make sure we're doing everything we can to not put extra burdens on on family during during this time sure they've got enough we know yeah that's all i have for now i i'll go sure mrs amaral okay um

054although i don't have everything's kind of all over the place no crying this week i promised myself um let's see all right so thank you for addressing i i got a lot of uh questions as everyone did i'm sure about the um the length of time with the you know on the screen with remote and so i'm really glad that you um i sort of alluded to that and i sort of thought that that would be the case but i'm glad that you you sort of gave some framed that in a way that people can sort of understand that it's not necessarily right in front of the screen all the time um let's say sorry um i also heard from families around um and i know that there's hipaa you know concerns and and there

055certainly needs to be some some rules around this but for families who maybe have more than one child it was posed and i thought it was a good question so i'm going to ask it say for instance they are attending you know they're able to stay home and they're tending to their children and two different what if they missed a lesson in a different grade would there be an option i mean i know dusty talked about parent training and stuff like that but would there be an option for somehow a documented via maybe a video or just documented information to the families around what was capturing what was covered that day so that those families who might need to come back to it at the end of the day to review uh could have the

056opportunity to do that i don't know what that would look like because i i can imagine you can't really record the zoom with all the kids on the i wouldn't really want that to happen obviously we couldn't with with uh privacy but that was brought up so that's just something potentially to think about um the other um issue uh parents around the pre-k and uh you know i've sort of been an advocate for us enhancing our criteria around the the um knowing we're gonna face to hybrid sooner than later but just that while we're in the remote those kiddos were identified high needs as desi defined them and i sort of alluded that i would i wanted us to sort of enhance that if we could i understand that not all that can happen but

057a family brought to my attention and it was another great point um was that we have the pre-k for our our students who are in ieps who have in another iep the socialization with um the full day program uh but we're pulling then once we go back to hybrid correct we're pulling in the peer partners i'm trying to figure out how to phrase this i just wonder if there's a way that we could frame it so that we're not just looking at the peer partners the perfectly behaved ones who might not necessarily um everyone needs in-person learning but i don't mean to say it that way but there might be students who who wouldn't be targeted as peer partners because they're also kind of on the on the line borderline struggling might it be helpful

058to pick and pull in some of those kids instead of those kids who might not necessarily need it as much i don't know um if i'm articulating that correctly but but it was a good point in that if we're matching up some peer partners in a hybrid those might not be the one you know that wouldn't be the next on my list to get in after the high needs personally um let me see and then you probably heard this i've heard it from several parents and i don't think you touched upon it although i was paying attention but it's just none of this is family friendly parent friendly [Music] in in in identifying the the cohorts um some families have their own little pods of of socialization now with their neighbors who might be in

059the same grade and the question was posed and i don't know if this came to the full committee or if it just came through me from a few people they were wondering is there a way to identify on a survey that you know i live next to johnny and johnny's in the second grade and we really want to split our um the uh the teaching at home the care or that kind of thing swapping the days with the parents so that they could work a regular schedule or whatever um might that be something or would that be too complex something they would have to stick to but something that we could help people maximize their ability to make it as easy as possible i guess so that was brought to my attention i won't take

060much longer i think you covered this so stuck with the choice we make so i think you talked about if somebody chose uh the online platform that after the semester so you answered that um that's the pre-k one sorry okay and then i just had questions so we're um phasing into hybrid but while we're remote my understanding is that our collaborative is in session or they were through the summer and i don't know their schedule for their how that works if they're working in in in unison with the districts that they are a part of but if we didn't go back you know in person the classroom say we have in the high school would they have access to our building um during the time that we are still remote but they are in person

061um yes we back okay yes oh awesome good okay and i just made a note that it was really crappy that baker put that out the day after we voted um in regards to ppe it's not like a sticking point but it is sort of a sticking point though i just i just know how much ppa my family needs to use um we have ppe we have enough pp do we have more than a month and a half worth of ppe now i would love to have us have a few months of ppe mr kylie i think you said three months at least if i recall why okay that makes me feel better uh i love the idea that was brought up with describing the classroom for all of our learners but specifically for the

062the ants in their pants littlest learners kids who can't sit still the reality of what that's going to look like that is not going to be something easy for them to live with um so getting pictures out describing that would be very helpful um oh goodness i had some questions from families um and not necessarily in district but without a district placement i know dusty uh and i happen to be one of those families but not for this particular issue but some family i know dusty identified that the district that knows them best so the audit district is responsible for the learning and all of that but say some of our really medically fragile students who who have nursing hours and this might be better addressed with beth during the cpac meeting so if you

063don't have an answer that's fine but i worry i guess some families are without nursing with without that chunk of whatever it is 35 hours a week during the week now and i know too for my son with pca care mass health it's a whole other ball of wax but um it's worrisome if that i don't know if that can be something that they looked into as far as why that's happening or if there's a way to help that fam felt families get those kinds of needs at home um but again that's would you agree would you probably something for a special okay yeah i'm gonna let because i don't want to see anything that's not legal yeah yep no no yeah absolutely um and then there are so then there are those families that

064i can identify with that are just really struggling and just so afraid to commit to anything because they maybe they're receiving some um center-based in-person currently aba services and we all know how that works and you you're on a wait list for eight months and you finally get services and things are working and then you go back to school and then you lose that spa and then we go back to remote because there's a surge and those kids are left back on a waitlist for 6 8 10 12 months so that's just something worrisome that some families were wondering if uh something could be looked at individually around if they chose in person or they only chose two days if there's a these are the these families are the high needs families that i'm thinking

065of that i've spoken to um but it's a it's it's a reality and i think oh gosh oh you mentioned that you're going to be going over this some more but in terms of the quarantine for i was reviewing desi's regulations so they were saying you know that students who are in these self-contained cohorts so our high needs population that they would because they would be closer potentially because than six feet in those classrooms um they would have to quarantine for 14 days unless they elected to have a test and so then in lies would they go to a remote platform or would there be some system around getting some of their like the setting up for tutoring that kind of thing would it just go back to the remote or i think um obviously

066these different scenarios have to be studied really studied because we want to go by but um we've asked ourselves that question as well because there are so many of those individual things that do happen and yeah we in my mind i'm thinking that they would still receive something whether as you said through a remote service or but one of the problems we'll have and we'll have to address is the staffing just as a just as a for instance if teachers are teaching the full schedule and then let's say two students have to go out who does that because our staff's teaching the schedule it's it's complicated yeah it's just a mess huh yeah um thank you for everything everyone's one more question that you may have answered and i apologize if you covered this um

067but we talk about the pre-k um returning the one the those kiddos that are returning in person potentially right away and then skipping over i'm thinking of kindergarten through to kindergarten self-contain high needs program students on ieps those students who only spend a portion of their time in a sub-separate and and might rely on those hours of inclusion um would it just go so i don't even know what i'm asking i guess you're asking would you be like a cohort for them to kind of go in during this time yes we did talk about that and we've talked about the idea um we had this conversation whether we have um a ta that goes to the room that the teacher is teaching remotely and is there present or not or just sits in their room

068and so someone takes them aside for that inclusion piece so yes we have discussed that don't have the definite answer but it's part of our discussions and um i think i tried to cram that all in i think yeah you did a good job that that was probably missing a bunch but at any rate thank you i'm sure other people have questions so i turn it over to you mr chair thank you mrs amaral uh lots of good uh lots of good questions there absolutely so no worries uh mr nunes thank you mr chairman and again thank you to uh central office and all the building administrators and everybody involved in you know all the work that they're uh they're doing on this and in all seriousness too uh thank you to uh chris michael

069on the board of health and you know his staff for all their work and making sure we've got t's crossed and eyes dotted and you know being another set of eyes to see what we're doing and that going through the buildings you know yesterday and i thought they had some great questions and great points to uh to learn from so you know my thanks to them uh a couple of quick questions i don't have as many as everybody else i hope uh easy one first uh students and this is mainly in in the high school and maybe in the middle school you know some middle school too but in the high school if you know a parent is going to keep johnny or susie home for the whole semester doing remote uh are they going

070to be able to be an extracurricular you know bands sports uh the clubs that type of deal that's a great question and um we haven't made that decision but i know of some districts that have said no that's not my belief um i haven't i i think if they've chosen remote for good reasons like it could be medical reasons or anything we still want in my mind i don't want to then like punish them and say you cannot be involved with your peers and i know other people look at it differently and say well if they can't come to school they can't go to strength and conditioning or something but we haven't made that decision but um that's my personal belief that they should be able to participate great okay uh question in in general

071you know for all the grades uh with the remote learning what are we using i mean uh are there going to be any books for these students or materials to pick up at school before school starts to use or i'm just thinking sometimes you go to do something you know with a homework assignment or something and say you know boy if i had the book i could go back and reread you know that chapter in math or chemistry or whatever the case in point may be yeah most like i said most things we've been already purchasing but um and obviously the devices there'll be a dissemination time for the devices for everybody that needs it but um we the the buildings will make sure that happens whatever is needed yes yes okay thank you uh

072probably this is this this may be for mr kylie uh and i know i kind of mentioned it the uh uh last week the uh the lunch situation for uh mainly with i mean at this point in time as we start the remote and you know for the highest you know uh grade 8 and high school students as they go out almost that one month from school what are we doing for you know those that qualify for free and reduced lunch if we cross that bridge yet or that's we're still waiting for uh usda and everybody to figure something out well i can say mr nunes that we are prepared to cross the bridge and um we need some approval from usda some guidance from the state to continue a program that would be some

073grab and go program during the remote period and then during the hybrid period uh providing meals to kids on the days when they're going to be remote so our intent is to be able to do all that um and i don't see any reason why we can't but um at this point that's you know still a work in progress i think from uh from a regulatory perspe perspective of the overall program but i would anticipate that with so many districts doing models like we're doing that um all that approval will come in time um and that will be preparing grab and go's and and take with you on the day you're you know leaving school and not going to be there tomorrow um you know take food with you so we we intend to do

074that okay and last is just a kind of comment i'm going to make an assumption i mean of course this plan has got to be very fluid and as we go forward in seeing what other districts are doing and you know you know communicating with them you know what's worked what hasn't worked and you know any mistakes that they've made so you know maybe we can not make those mistakes and you know hopefully we have a smooth entry back in the school in october so thank you for everything thank you mr nunes i guess as i have some questions now i guess it's uh i'll take a take up a few minutes of time so let's start off i have i've actually have several of them let's start off with the uh the remote learning

075piece in virtual schools dr gifford one of the questions that i had was you listed i believe twelve hundred to twenty eight hundred dollars per semester um for uh i think it was techer or the other one that you just recently started looking at um that's for that specifically for the elementary schools correct because ingenuity is for the middle in high school correct okay so it's been a while but correct me if i'm wrong the elementaries have trimesters so is that is that price multiplied by three because you said per semester that's a good question and yeah that's that's a really good question um but i believe no i believe it's it would be for the year i think they just call it that yeah okay now with that being said i know that a

076lot of the virtual schools such as tech or greenfield academy um that operate out of the with massachusetts licensed teachers that once students are enrolled in those districts uh two things happen i guess one uh we transfer them uh with state reporting uh with department of education so that we're no longer claiming them as students typically if if a parent elects to attend a have their child attend the virtual school and then the virtual school will enroll their student and start reporting claiming them as theirs uh you know one thing that i'm curious on i haven't been able to get a straight answer with any of my colleagues as to whether or not um that's the case with this and we'll lose funding chapter 70 funding right and state funding for for these students yeah

077that's definitely and and i know we've had our tech people on phones and trying to get answers about these things that's why i said we're still investigating but we discussed that today as well and that's the case we have to go in another direction but there's no answers as of right now as to no no even to get a return phone call right now and i imagine they're very busy i i've heard that they're very difficult to get a hold of but that you know and again the ingenuity piece if we were to use that with elementary that's just extremely i think almost beyond what we could pay even funding um that's why we're trying to investigate these other programs as well as the fact i did like the idea that um at least teca

078um and i think the others as well do do some live teaching rather than just recorded lessons so we have more to do on that for sure okay thank you for that um i just wanted to folks to know that we had made progress and at least we know for the middle and high school we have a virtual platform that will be ready to go now that's that that's great to hear and i'm sure uh parents that choose to go fully remote with your students will be happy to hear that can we talk a little bit about um and as far as the protocols around um what happens once we go hybrid and once students start to come into the classrooms because as much as we received a lot of emails and concerns from parents

079that we weren't starting uh in person classes right away we also got a lot of thank yous that we were starting remote um and a lot of people felt that was the right idea um so and they were concerned about whether or not they would even you know send their students in a hybrid and maybe this will help parents try to understand a little bit what's the protocols going to be if a student becomes you know symptomatic and quarantining and not just them but their their class their their classroom their teacher um because the last thing we want to do is start hybrid or start in-person learning and then you know someone's symptomatic and they've been ex they've now been ex exposed a whole classroom full of students or even 50 of that classroom because

080we're only we're doing two cohorts um and now we've these students that have to quarantine can we just talk a little bit about that and what parents can expect do we have it do you have anything on that right now or maybe um in a future uh meeting yeah it the guidance that came out from desi and is really um very thorough and very specific to those different cases um in general so it'd be kind of hard to talk through all of that right now sure um maybe on a q a with the with the schools or with parents but in general um if if someone is symptomatic etc obviously the parent would come get them and we would then and i think i gave um the committee a wrong answer today because i re-investigated

081but um they would be they would be asked to get a test or they have to quarantine if they have those symptoms so those are going to be um some of the things that parents will be told in staff um then of course it goes to if there was a positive there there's this stuff happens and how close were they and for how long long of a time with the cohort i was like if you weren't in contact with this person 10 to 15 minutes and so it goes on and on to so much detail but i think one of the things that parents will need to know is that if someone is tested positive that goes automatically to our board of health they receive that information um folks are then of course encouraged and

082and they want them to tell us the parent to tell the school so that we can then have the appropriate procedure in place for contact tracing with across the voter health um it talks a lot about the agencies helping each other to figure out who's been in contact and then what the proper protocols but i think the bigger picture and we've all been we all know this that when these things start happening how many teachers do we lose to a quarantine or a cohort and those are big decisions and it just feeds into the whole um array of significant issues that we have but um we'll follow the guidance and and the other thing it says is that you would then let parents of those cohorts know we had a positive test or whether it's

083a staff member etc so we do have just just for we do have the guidance linked into our plan on the website that parents that want to read through that it is it is in there so we have a section in the plan that just talks in general a paragraph and then there's a link right to this guidance and once again where can parents find that link um it's it's in in our plan which came out the link for the plan it's a website it came out on my friday's update yep last friday um i'll ask our tech department to put the link to the plan right on the website to make it easier the parents might not have seen and then within the plan because there's a lot of drop down and links in

084there's one section if they download our plan um does we link away there's all kind of bunch more links and one of them they will see about covet scenarios how to respond and they'll be able to read this entire guidance perfect that sounds good thank you very much for that on another uh on another note here around um i was one if maybe mr kylie up doctor do you have something that specific issue of cobid in contact tracing sure people have been asking why are the high schools going back the last and that's partially why there our only group that's not really potted that's right schools are in pods the elementary schools are in pods they have one teacher or they have two teachers that's not true at the high school right cross potting right

085all of the kids are mixing and that's why because it is the most there's lots of logistical issues around special education too but from the high school it's that cross potting yeah because it's positive they're gonna in fact five six classrooms teachers and then those teachers are with other that gets really really complicated and so i think it's important to point that out yeah yeah no that's that's really true was that a new term you just came up with cross-potting or is that it might be i don't know i'm sure someone else has said it somewhere sorry to interrupt i just wanted to point that out into education thank you um mr kylie and in terms of transportation you know one of the things is logistics and the logistics around making uh transportation work for

086our students and families in dartmouth and i i could you just take a minute to explain to the committee and to everyone watching what goes into well first of all i got a couple questions as to what's the plan for sanitizing buses are we going to be looking to sanitize after every trip every day are we going to have bus monitors i know we uh the state is tossed around using the districts could use funding grants for for bus monitors especially for the younger the elementary students um and then what goes into you know me the hours in time um and the attention to detail and the just the feedback your these surveys that were coming out about transportation that it's no easy task just transfer never mind once the kids are in school just

087how do we get the kids to student school well i'm thank you mr oliver i'm glad that you recognize that it's not easy it's it's certainly going to be a challenge for everybody involved and and the state's guidance presented was an opportunity to place approximately 25 students on a bus but there are some factors that we've considered as we've gone through this planning process that will limit our capacity slightly to be slightly less than that but what the state has indicated is that it is acceptable for students to be um sort of opposite sides of each seat on each row so a student who is an on an aisle seat in one row there's a student across from them on a window seat in another row and it is a zigzag pattern all the way

088up uh all the way up the bus what we've done in dartmouth is created a a space at the front of each bus for a student who um might become symptomatic so we're sensitive so there's there was assigned seats on every bus but if a student were to become symptomatic or be boarding the bus and parents are not available to take the student home we would then be placing that student in the space where there is um no other student within six feet so uh masks will be required on the bus they'll be hand sanitizer on the bus um i've explained the distancing pattern on the bus it's challenging in our hybrid uh hybrid format once we begin that we're going to be covering the entire town twice essentially we're going to have two sets

089of roots um one for cohort a and one for cohort b uh double the number of roots that we've had previously wow so um our intent is that we are going to try and impact the school day as little as possible while still accommodating time to clean in between the high school middle school route in the morning and the elementary school route and then the afternoon the high school middle school route and the elementary school route be cleaning uh between each of those cycles so it's it is going to be a very difficult um process even though on a given bus we'll be transporting in some cases um you know significantly less than half the kids we would have had on the bus previously um we still are going to have our hands full and

090as you know um you know the third largest community in the commonwealth is um is very challenging from a transportation perspective it's a long way from the tips of the town to get to our schools so we're gonna that's i'm sorry that's actually a really good point that landmass wise you know that we are we we are considerably a large community land mass-wise yes it's it's always been a challenge and um you know we've always made every effort to keep kids on the bus as little as possible as short a time as possible but nonetheless have come close to an hour under regular circumstances for some students now we'll have less stops on each um each run because we'll have less students but um they'll still be they'll still be issues that we have to

091balance we in transportation don't have the cohort yet um we can't create the roots yet so as soon as we get the cohort we'll begin strategizing the roots and really it's going to be pretty much like creating them from scratch uh it's gonna be very different from previous years where we could use a base route and then look at oh we need to add this street or that street and um you know accommodate that this is gonna be totally different logistically it's and we um we purchased the new transportation software in the spring which okay i am uh i i'm not regretting it but it's um it's an interesting time to do all this so we're working on that um of course so a student who um does get on the bus if the bus

092driver is able to identify that they are um ill or presenting symptoms it's a lot to ask for a bus driver to do um but they will be given instruction as to you know the symptoms to look for if they're able to identify that while a parent is still present we'll ask the parent to take the student take the student home and go from there advise the school and the school can call the parent and let them know that they should have the student tested and so forth and go through the process if um if the student's on the bus then that student will be the first one off the bus at the school and the school will be radioed and no ahead and the nurse will um you know will treat the student and

093set really in this case if it's covered related symptom you know follow the protocols that they have and testing um let's see that that is the basic idea of of transportation in our in our um information gathering uh effort and asking parents we have asked that parents provide one morning and one afternoon uh transportation location it is we have uh traditionally provided a a great much greater level of service than that but it isn't possible given what we're trying to accomplish to um provide you know multiple locations we're trying to limit the exposure of kids and we really need to know where to go in the morning and where to go in the afternoon um so we're appreciative of the families as we work with them on that but um i've got a lot of

094work to do you do have a lot of work to do is it safe to so it's safe to say mr kylie that parents that like you said that may have been accustomed in years past to having you know uh tuesdays and thursdays in one location at the grand the grandparents house and then the other days maybe at home or maybe to a daycare that this year they can expect that it'll be one location monday through friday or through their cohort days that's correct okay thank you mr kyle i appreciate all your your work and your diligence on uh trying to this monumental task of uh transportation thank you all for your support um on another note um one of the things that i've i've heard come up is about um you know we're requiring

095we're going to be taking attendance um in our classes whether it's in person of course in person but even remote and correct me if i'm wrong dr gifford but that is that's not something that just dartmouth is doing this is the department of education requirement in which they will be uh collecting this is data that the state will be collecting through their typical collection processes of they want it they want to have a idea of the students that are attending whether they're in person or they're in remote so this isn't just something that dartmouth is doing correct that's correct that came from the commissioner that that's that was my thoughts too he wants to make his emphasis was on making it more robust of course and just as as enriching as we can so yeah

096okay and one one last question around technology i know that mr galashaw has done a great deal of work around um you know divide getting making sure we have enough devices for for any student that needs something and i know that the um our internet rate for households in the town is extremely high but we do have some families that have concerns about um internet connectivity or high-speed broadband um that being said uh is the district working is the district willing to work with families that may need access uh to you know the digital curriculum and digital resources because they do not have any internet whether that's through i know comcast internet essentials um whether if students uh um qualify for free reduced lunch families can get that can get internet for 9.99 a month

097um and i know a lot of districts are looking at um mobile hotspots or jetpacks through cellular companies to offer um using cares act funding or some other kind of grant funding um to help those families that are in need of uh internet access yes um we're working on wi-fi hotspots and com with comcast and also um we are waiting to hear about the tech grant that we put in for so we don't have that answer yet but uh we are looking at different possibilities in order to help folks yes so we're not just going to shut them off but we'll do what we can but more to come on okay great thank you dr gifford uh mrs waite yes i guess the penalty of going first is that i have some more questions sorry

098guys um so i have a question um dr gifford about ingenuity for the high school um platform and i know and i think all of us have gotten some questions from parents who said well can't we just start the year on that platform we know my my child is not in a position to go back to school and they're concerned that if they're starting ap chem program for example in the classroom you know on remote with their teachers from dartmouth and then they go on to the ingenuity platform that those what they've learned may not sync up and they've lost some time and you know couldn't they just start the years you know with their ingenuity platform so that that was a question that i've seen come across um from several parents you know just

099just worried about you know switching teachers midstream and content you know i don't know what you think about that i'm trying to think why not i think i think it's a good question um something we hadn't talked about but let me think about that and yeah let me think about that a very good question i think um the other question a couple other questions um i know we had talked about substitutes and when we talked about having a daily subs that would come in we don't want to do substitutes that are you know moving from district to district for you know obvious reasons we want to keep those substitutes in house um we do are you know there is talk in in a you know about tas that are going to cover some of that

100you know we have someone saying who knows um i'm sure this is a very competitive with other districts right now but we thought looked into hiring a few full-time substitutes that will go into the various you know one for the you know couple for the middle school younger college age kids or just out that are dedicated to our district have not explored it but it's come up in our conversation i do know of another district that's done that and um one of the things they also did was increase the subpay uh i shared that with mr kylie pretty dramatically i believe that was for haven that doubled their subpay i saw that correct yeah i do believe their plan is to do exactly what you're saying um so yeah because it's a big concern so

101we have to um and and we will be having another uh one of our next big discussions is about staffing and and the human resource the personnel piece in general there will be more but um and it's another good idea for sure okay and then i also had um just as we all have um some parents who are reaching out again getting back to the younger you know students who you know they have kindergarteners first graders you know i know that often you know children are don't necessarily aren't tested until sometimes second grade for things that are starting to show up maybe it's dyslexia you know or some other um you know something else that would put them onto an iep but they feel confident their child meet you know needs that special attention and

102and then you know in that same framework we also had parents who reached up and said in the spring you know i really didn't hear from and we know the spring was a mess like they're you know it's all over the place and you know in all fairness but they felt like they did not hear from their child special education teacher so i guess what i would hope is that you know seeing these children coming back they're going into a new platform you know whether they are an iep or they you know aren't you know they're your younger children but i'm hoping that the teachers if they are on iep that the teachers or or 504 that the teachers meet out and come up with a plan specific to remote learning for those children i

103think that that's something that our parents are really hoping for and it's essential and then you know also i'm hoping that you know our teachers are great you know and i really feel confident they're going to want to know their children they're going to ask questions but i think you know communication is something that you know we got to work on i think is you know just throughout this whole process and i think parents you know sending that information to teachers you know saying like you know you know i have little johnny and johnny's having a hard time at the screen he's really shy you know he he feels awkward if he's in class you know you would come up and ask him a question and i know he would participate but you know our

104screen is very difficult but having parents and those teachers having that dialogue so that they know that i think is you know something that those are some yeah one of the things um the special education teacher during those 10 days and i know it's just all difficult and even their schedules of trying to get the minutes in to service the students but part of their task will be to develop a learning plan for those students and um as as we did in the spring but um with this schedule that we've developed hopefully to be able to have more contact and be with with the students as you're mentioning and then i guess my my last question for now is um you know we're kind of embarking on this as a you know safe and smart

105slow return which i think is fantastic i guess the question i have is you know we're progressing and we know we're looking at benchmarks as a group are we meeting at regular inter like where when are we meeting to discuss okay we are ready to move on to the next i mean we have those dates you know if everything's in the same trajectory but you know if we have a co a student at the high school let's say who does test positive like what is i what is our threshold to say like we cannot move forward or you know what you know it isn't going as well as we hope when we brought in the the seventh graders there's some you know so we should slow down or we should step back that's just something

106i think we as a board it just needs to be ironed out and it's hard i i agree i mean as we've been saying this is so fluid and anything can happen that um we just need to have ongoing conversations uh throughout this entire process and i want to give parents enough notice if we do shift gears um to you know that they're prepared for whatever it might be so and thank you thank you mr chairman thank you mrs way uh dr jenkins so yeah there's commonwealth magazine articles suggested that many school committees are moving to a two-week schedule um in the fall to stay up to date on all these and to review metrics um and even though it's going to be in a lot more meetings for us i i definitely think we

107should um the other thing that i will say to follow up on miss waite's comment um we have personal experience making the transition from dartmouth schools into online learning if we can make it work those students should start out in ingenuity um even though even though the curriculum is aligned they don't they don't perfectly align um i think i agree like i said i i'm fine i was trying to find a loophole of something that would say you can't but i i have to say i think i agree with that and we haven't really thought of that but um i think it makes much more sense yeah great yeah well i want to thank everyone on the committee um for your your thoughtful comments and uh concerns and i want to thank dr gifford uh

108mr kylie and all the other administrators and staff faculty and staff in the school this system that have uh worked countless hours and a lot of them a lot of the staff just volunteering to be on different committees so i want to thank take this opportunity to thank everyone that being said um yes mr nunes unmuted it looks like you might better froze while he's trying to get in i just will mention we started project time today so our new teachers did come in live uh the high school library with their mass and and this aloe vera and staff did a nice job so it was good to see them and how many new staff are there this year oh gosh um about yeah about weldish okay kate's looking at me yeah great thank you

109yeah so we'll have an update on that soon perfect uh mrs amaral and mr nunes uh yeah can you hear yeah oh good okay so uh i'll go i'll go let's go to you mr news and we'll come back to you mrs amarillo uh in all services do we need a we need a vote to approve this phasing hybrid yes i'd like a vote okay so i'll make i'll make the motion we approve the phasing into the hybrid model uh as presented by the administration do i have a second and then we'll discuss second so i have a motion by mr nunes the second by dr jenkins on the motion there is discussion uh mrs amaral um when you brought up the attendance piece i just it just brought to mind so some of my

110work circles you know with that attendance desi wants to take the demographics to see who is where and what um i i in in my work circles we're just concerned about those students um you know who who there's some difficulty around getting on for whatever reason and having the attendance like typical when we what is it more than 10 days absent chronically absent yes yeah and so um in thinking about at this point in time especially with you know the hybrid that we're presenting is alternating weeks and parents are really going to have to scramble with child care and potentially having a family member hopefully they do or someone watching their children i just worry about those students who aren't able to maybe log on because you know grandpa got distracted or there's internet issues

111and that we i hope we will take it individually and look into these cases rather than assuming negligence on the part of someone not on logging in and attend for attendance purposes that's just a concern of mine i think that's a fair point uh kathleen and and i i would really hope that for students that chronically do not attend remotely that there's is some type of follow-up and communication from the student's teacher um to the to the family to find out you know what is going on yeah definitely that will be that support will be there i agree i agree thank you everyone so any further discussion okay so uh chair hearing none roll call please miss gentler chris oliver yes bannon jenkins yes kathleen amaral yes mary wait yes john nunes once yes thank

112you everyone uh i appreciate all of that before i uh give it over to dr gifford for the superintendent's update i am gonna have to excuse myself uh for a family matter is there do you no update uh dr gifford i think that was enough okay perfect so once again thank you um as far as report of the chair i know we currently have a meeting scheduled is it for the 24th is that what i saw um my thoughts uh just throwing it out there to the committee i know you know dr gifford and uh the entire administration is going to be busy next week preparing for the return of teachers in the 31st are um do we want to meet next week is it okay to meet on the week of the 31st so

113what's the committee's pleasure 31st for me okay is everyone else okay hang on it's fine 31st is clear for me do we want to meet on the uh i just want to be sensitive to the first day of school for faculty and staff from the 31st um do we want to meet on the tuesday instead the first uh mrs waite that's fine i guess at my only point and i didn't is dr gifford you mentioned the q and a's can you get that i just i'm worried that your parents will be asking questions in the next two weeks and that we won't be coming in next week i just there's been so many questions that i'd hate for those to you know not get addressed so i i would say if as soon as you

114can get those forms out with those you know dates and topics i yeah just so we know that those can be addressed would be great and then otherwise i'm fine i'm i'm you know i'm free okay perfect uh shannon that's all right go ahead kathleen um and just thinking like with the start of school and the teachers coming back would we then be moving our meeting um back a couple hours or are we gonna still well that's that's what i was yes good that's actually an excellent point uh so is everyone okay with the what tues the tuesday the first that works for me okay so if everyone's okay with that let's plan on that and then i would i would personally at that point uh i would like to see us back in person

115um so i'm not sure what that will look like um but i'm sure at the media center we can it's big enough that at the high school that we can um we can socially distant ourselves uh from one another yeah if we're doing in person are we gonna push the time back i think i'm not sure i can make a four o'clock in person i'm i'm perfect yeah i was gonna say let's let's i think once really that's that's what the week school was supposed to start um it is starting for the faculty uh so let's go back to our normal our normal schedule of 6 uh so 6 30 on the first correct 6 30 on the first dartmouth high school media center and what are what are our thoughts for public comment or

116for the public uh being attended i know there's all kinds of i i don't think we can do it um because of the parameters in place around um large gatherings um so i would say it'll be streamed uh the the whole public comment piece will be the same the only difference is that the dartmouth school committee will be meeting in person yeah i do we have some legalities here if dr gifford can check with uh yeah we'll check on that mr nunes yeah perfect all right uh thank you one other thing before i go and we end up and we end the meeting is just very quickly um i know that uh the the committee received a number of emails regarding our our focus in previous weeks around our the indian mascot uh that being

117said i said it right from the start that our our number one focus is the reopening of school and once school is reopened and is stable uh we will look to form uh that committee um but just just be please be cognizant that that's not going away um you know in the fall we'll look to that and that'll be under the committee's purview um to you know decide what we're going to do at that time as well as i support um dr jenkins um there was some some feedback we received around dr jenkins and um her attending in a forum by the naacp she attended on her own i don't i don't have a problem with that i don't think any of my committee members had a problem with that uh so um that being

118said you know we're all individuals we all make our we all speak for ourselves uh collectively we make up the dartmouth school committee uh as i was once uh as someone once told me the power of a political body doesn't lie with the individual it lies it lies with the full voting body um so um that that's really all i have to say about it um so thank you and we'll leave it at that that being said anyone else uh any any comments questions for the good of the committee of the community mr chairman yes yeah just just real quick and i know you've got to go in that but uh seriously just a a thank you to uh to kate our wonderful secretary with all the emails that she and everything she's been getting

119and she's been follow fo forwarding to us and to dr gifford and replying to them and everything else i mean you know it's yeah it's her job but boy the number that she's gotten is well uh way over uh way overboard type of deal so just uh my thanks to kate for everything that she's done and i it's appreciated thank you this is an unprecedented time that's all i have to say and the amount of hours that anyone in education is putting in right now uh kathleen yeah no i i just want to reiterate what john said the the amount of of emails that we're receiving and quite honestly um it just seems like a lot of them aren't coming from real like uh they seem like they're coming from an app you know like

120a disguised person and so the fact that we don't quite know who all of these people are and you taking the effort to forward them to us and us reading them despite the fact that they may or may not be coming from as large a mass as they they would like to allude to um that thank you for that that work because um yeah unprecedented time so that's all phone calls too she takes all right phone calls yeah oh i'm sure the phone's off the hook uh mrs way and then i gotta go yes um thank you mr oliver i just wanted to again reiterate um thank you ms gunther for everything that you've done and you know sharing all these emails um i also want to say you know i'm really hoping that now

121with this meeting i think dr gifford and her team did an excellent job answering i think so many of the questions and i hope our dialogue did as well that our town is having and it's my expectation that moving forward that we have a much more positive community response we all are on the same boat we want to get our kids back in school you know we want our kids to be safe we want to have a safe community and we want our teachers to be safe so it is my expectation that the level of dialogue in our community um is kind polite productive um and i think many of us you know we have those expectations and we want to move forward from from what it has been the last week so with all

122due respect so thank you chair thank you to all my school committee members ms ganther um the administrative team mr kylie i appreciate thank you at this time i will entertain a motion to adjourn into executive session for the purposes of uh update on collective bargaining with union personnel uh not to reconvene into open session i got a motion by dr jenkins second by mr nunes on the motion any further discussion roll call please miss gunther miss oliver yes and jenkins yes kathleen amero yes mary wait yes john nunes yes this meeting is adjourned have a wonderful night everyone thank you thank you enjoy chris thank you take care