Dartmouth Public Schools Committee Meeting April 27, 2020

001good evening everyone I'd like to call to order the School Committee meeting floor of this evening Monday April 27th 2020 roll call please Kathleen amber all yeah Chris Oliver yeah cheryl/carol photos here Shannon Jenkins here John yinz yeah thank you so for everyone listening in we we know by now and were able to me in this way because Governor Baker are suspended the some provisions in the Open Meeting Law allowing us to conduct our meetings remotely in addition to watching live which I hope that people are accessing through our Dartmouth high school TV media YouTube channel this will be rebroadcast on CCTV channel 9 and 18 on Wednesday and Thursday 5:00 o'clock Friday at 6 a.m. and Saturday at 8 a.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. in regards to public comment we may be familiar

002by now that I ask that you send your comments by including your name include your name in an email to Kathleen Gunther which you can find her email at the bottom I think the description of this of this live stream and we will open public comment around 6:45 first however I will turn it over to dr. Gifford who has some exciting news and introduction to share with us so without further ado that got back to different if you don't mind sure thank you so tonight we are welcoming a person that we've chosen as our director of music as you know mr. Kingsland is retiring after many many years wonderful service to the district and we had a interview committee that interviewed a number of candidates and then sent three candidates forward to a final interview

003and we chose a person who I think some of you might be familiar with I know mr. Nunes is Ian Flint who is here I know he's gonna pop on to introduce himself and talk about himself but we loved his interview we loved the fact that he has worked for the Dartmouth public schools in prior years and that I think I shared with the committee that the first thing that he said to me during my interview with him was that he had his vision set on assuming mr. Kingsland position at one time or another as he loved being in Dartmouth and he had that vision and then went off to pursue other opportunities to prepare himself to assume that position so I thought that was a really perfect statement for someone that was looking to

004take over for someone as we all know is very respected and has done a fabulous job for the Dartmouth public schools so Ian if you're here if you can pop in I'd love to have you talk about yourself and tell the committee what you've been doing they're delighted to you and talk with you um I'm originally from Pennsylvania I grew up in Northeast Pennsylvania at a small town I went to college and outside of Philadelphia West Chester University and my first job out of college was at Dartmouth public schools about 15 years ago I started out in the brass specialist position at Dartmouth um I spent one year at Dartmouth in that position there were some budget cuts and I ended up going to Westport for two years to be the high school band and

005choral director there spent two years there and as soon as the position opened up again at Dartmouth I came back to Dartmouth for another five years so I actually worked with the marching band at Dartmouth for all nine years I've lived on the south coast though so really familiar with the program spent a long time working in all the different aspects of the program well it's you know marching band jazz band program you know everything that happens there at Dartmouth and then about five years ago I decided to move to Vermont I pursued a position up here that was a head director position where I kind of supervised the music department for the school and oversee everything with scheduling and kind of the nuts and bolts that go into putting together a music program much

006different from my job at Dartmouth where I was mainly working as a teacher it gave me a lot of an administration experience and really learned what it takes to you know handle the management part of the music department at a school so the school I'm at here Bell's freak adda me in Vermont we started with six band students and 15 choral students five years ago we have over 170 in the band program and over 200 in the choral program currently the school is only is a K to 12 building with only 900 students total so we have a high percentage of students that participate in our music program and it's ready to go for the next people that come in they hired a position to really replace me and then they're hiring a secondary director

007to fill the vacancy that was left because of the director that filled my position so that's what I've been doing for the last five years really exciting times up here hate to leave here but the opportunity of Dartmouth was just too good to pass up on it's great anybody have any comments or questions thank you madam chair Ian good to see you again as always my friend but it's good it's good to have you here and I mean I can remember when you were here you were very level-headed and excellent at what you did with the drill writing and the visual designs and the black and the backdrops so it was always good to you don't know what we were going into and yet the your you know your work ethic with the students and

008respect that the students had for you and have for you is fantastic and second-to-none something that I thought about and I should have when I talked to you a couple of weeks ago after you had been hired I should have kind of given you the heads up but something I think you need to think about in my tenure long time diamond resident graduate of Dartmouth and such we've had only three and the directors in my tenure in my time here and when was the late any DeRosa that we used to call mr. D and Gil Madrigal it was mr. mad and Bill Kingston it was BK if you thought about what the kids are going to be able to use for initials for you know I always wonder that like I don't know if the

009kids are gonna quite latch onto that you know I think one thing that's odd is I bet had a lot of students that were former students of mine it's only been five years that I reached out and you know they don't mean if mr. Flint so we'll see if they come up with something I'm waiting to find out seems like they always do but seriously it is welcome aboard it's good to have you back and you know look forward to another great season you got big shoes make shoes to fill write down a line my friend so anything I can do you know where to find me yeah thank you okay thank you madam chair I just like to take the opportunity Ian to congratulate you on the position and I had the opportunity as

010did all of us to look over your resume and I think it pretty much speaks for itself I love to see the like you were a Dartmouth Dartmouth employee in the past you're from the south coast the air you have that experience you went up you know you did what you needed to do to get your some administration experience which speaks for itself as well I think and I love to see your resume and all the all the you know if I'm using the right correct terminology but marching band processions that you've worked on throughout the country I believe that's what it was correct yeah I have a design firm so I designed for about 40 different schools across the country every year so that's that's the thing I've been doing on the side really

011Dartmouth helped me build that okay experience with Dartmouth so I've been doing that for pretty solid ten years now and it's I think one of the strengths I'm gonna bring back to the program you know just that the walkers I have with all these other schools and I've seen so many different models on how schools work and why things are successful just by talking to all the directors no I think that's great that you have that in your back pocket so like mr. Newton said you got some big shoes to fill but uh nonetheless welcome aboard we're happy to have you thank you congratulate you for your getting this position and I just want you to know on a personal level when I mentioned who was high as a new music director after you were

012announced I was talking to some teachers from work with you and they were so excited the first thing they said was you made I think oh you have a great reputation here with the people you've worked with and I expect nothing but the best and wonderful things that you're going to do and in the future so welcome aboard thank you but ASIS my turnout is you know we're super excited as you know we're super proud of our music program here in Dartmouth and you know I can't wait to see where you take the program and wish you continued success as you take over so thanks for coming back yep excited be back on the south coast ooh it's been a while in five years I've only visited three times it was kind of weird when

013I came for the interview because I hadn't really been back in town there's a really unique experience to be back and I'm pretty excited to be back by the by the water and everything and Tenant thanks madam jo-jo and just so the committee and everybody out there is aware when you know the band we would run into Ian you know several shows throughout the time he's been gone here he'd always come over to see you know to see how we were doing and say hello to everybody in the students that he had in the program time he left would always come running over to him you know say hello and how you doing and he always took the time to talk to them so you know again that's the type of person that we are

014getting for this program thank you for that mr. Nunes yeah I just want to welcome you back and excited to have you as everyone said you know big shoes to fill for sure uh referencing your experience and and I think the collective excitement to have you back looking forward to what you can accomplish with our students so thank you congratulations thanks thanks again we'll be in touch soon great sounds great all right thanks Ann thank you great okay so we have a couple minutes I maybe we'll just go if it's okay with the committee to the approval of minutes before we open it up for public comment we got address before so thank you yes so well so for public comment if you have something that you would like to share a statement we ask

015that send your comment via email to Kathleen Gunther that's Kay a th l ee and g e and th n ER as schools that are and we open for public comment if you the comment would have to be upon something that's on our agenda for this evening so we invite you to and we hope you take up that opportunity and we'll give it a few more minutes and then oaks will leave it open for about ten minutes we've allotted to give time people to act access their email their comment - and Kate will read your comments live for us to not comment on but just to take into consideration for any further deliberation regarding the item on the agenda potentially so again that's Kathleen with a que jenthor GE n th n er at Dartmouth

016school 0 RG with that said we do have a couple minutes so I would entertain motion to prove some of the minutes so we have the executive session minutes of March 23rd we have the regular and executive session minutes of April 6 and we also have the emergency executive session minutes our April 13th executive meeting emergency meeting so I'll entertain a motion separating those of course appropriately Adam chair make a motion that we improve the executive session minutes of March 23rd 2020 and the executive session minutes of April 6 2020 and the emergency executive session minutes of April 13th 2020 the stipulation that they be held until the matter for which they are intended is completed okay all in favor go Chris you have to unmute do you have a comment there we go can

017you hear me now yeah I got too many too I have too many tabs open I'm just yeah I'm just wondering if I should separate out that emergency session because I would I would have seen from now on okay could we do that I'm good with I'm good with that madam chair so if we just go back and do the March 23rd in April 6th caveat okay in a second for that I'll second that okay all right so all in favor okay and next I would then entertain a motion specific to the emergency executive session minutes of April 13th oh look at that they'll move madam chair with the stipulation that they be held until the matter for which they were intended is completed okay any discussion yeah so we have all in favor and

018abstentions I will abstain okay thank you and so na yeah now I'll entertain a motion for the regular regular session minutes for that April sixth meeting second okay any discussion all in favor thank you okay thank you so now it is 646 and we will officially open this up we'll have some awkward silence unless people have already submitted public comment on an agenda item but I'll repeat again for those just tuning in that if you have any comment to be or statement around anything on our agenda for this evening please email to Kathleen jenthor Kathleen with a Kay jenthor GE n th n ER at Dartmouth school so RG and please add your name to your email and we will take your comment into consideration I have not received anything at this time Kathleen folks

019tuning in if you would like to provide comment on any of the agenda items we ask that I ask that you submit your comment through email - Kathleen Gunther at Dartmouth schools lrg her email is listed below the live stream and we are allowing some time people time to do that and choose yes Chris just thinking what if we move this item to the end of the agenda so we had Pete gave people a little bit more time so we wouldn't have to be waiting around just just a suggestion how does everyone feel I'm fine with that as well hi to folks feel if we reopen public comment later on in the agenda giving people time to and again we don't we public comment we don't answer the statements made but we just take them

020into consideration I'm with me okay with that for those of you tuning in stay tuned you still have time to email Kathleen jenthor at Dartmouth school of thought lrg if you would like to provide public comment on an agenda items okay so with that we'll move now to old business it so first on our list we have the fiscal year 21 budget so if no and my okay I've got everything mr. Kylie would mind if I opened it up to you for any updates and then we'll open it for discussion thank you mrs. Emeril so good evening everyone so we have I've recommended and you should have the motions to approve the budget tonight I've at this point not recommended any change to the budget we've been talking to the town side of government and

021attempting to ascertain you know go for FY 21 there's so much unknown right now both federal level at the state level at the local level it's impossible to understand or predict exactly what's gonna happen with funding for next year we have a but the town is attempting to continue with the process and stay on track as best they can we they still intend to have Town Meeting in June so it may be you may not be in person it may be remote they're working on that so we're still trying to comply with that process and I think it to do so we've just got to go with the best information we have at the moment which is we should maintain the budget that we're we're currently requesting and forward that on through the process the

022Finance Committee has has asked us to appear before them tomorrow night so I think it's especially important that you move forward you know tonight with with a budget number so that's where we are it's some things are coming into focus we'll talk about some of those in executive session tonight in terms of some of the uncertainties that we face but unfortunately this this other you know dramatic change in revenue to the local and state federal level are gonna be a problem for us but at the moment we should move forward thank you during my committee many members have anything that they would like to Chris go ahead Craig thank you madam chair Thank You mr. Kiley for that update just really quickly this budget does not include any new positions right that's how that's where

023we left it the last time we spoke about it there's no new positions in what we're putting forward level service no new positions thank you sorry I better get the gallery of you here who would like to anybody John thank you thank you madam chair mr. Kylie correct me if I'm wrong but this is positions that are coming in being replacing positions that were eliminating correct yes so when so the town has has enacted sort of a non-essential spending budget freeze selectmen voted for and and the town administrator shared that with me before before they brought it to the select board and what did I let him know was that there were positions that have are essential for us to fill to operate next year and that we would be doing so and I've not

024heard any issue with that so you know we could mr. Flint earlier tonight and we have others that we will be we will be filling thank you thank you John yeah any other comments okay well madam chairman would you like the motions yeah I have I would I have the motions in front of me and go ahead John I make a motion to approve the FY 21 budget appropriation for pot of school classroom teachers in the amount of 1 million seven hundred and seventeen thousand seven hundred and thirty nine dollars okay thank you mr. Nunes Joanna thank you you second me Shannon okay any further discussion okay with that so this would be all in favor yep okay I'm hearing an echo I apologize okay so all those in favor thanks okay I will Webster

025thank you Chris one abstention so thank you for that miss news now I will entertain motion to approve the fiscal year 21 budget appropriation for the total budget excluding those items voted previously in the previous motion in the amount of 43 million eight hundred and sixty eight thousand nine hundred and ninety six dollars so moved second by Shannon okay any further discussion all those in favor aye okay okay no abstention so thank you thank you for all your hard works mr. Kiley and this ever changing you know very complex time where there's a lot of unknowns we really appreciate your your just your due diligence to doing your best to make sure we do our best and we're all the kids community thank you for supporting us next we will move on to new business

026and so the first item on their new business is the revisions to the Student Handbook and so I'm going to turn it over to mr. Roy about this we have a few updates to the handbook this year based on some of our policy updates if your call so a couple of the page numbers are off so on page 21 in our educational stability if you remember the update what is required by the coordinated program review to include extracurricular activities we do fund those but they wanted to make sure that it was explicitly written in the policy so that part's been updated on page this actually page 28 if you remember we updated the restraint policy to make a statement in the final paragraph regarding the fact that we did not endorse the medical or mechanical

027restraint at any instance the other two are just annual updates we have an update to include the calendar you voted and the listing of principals to include the the change at Potter now mutti mutti Kathleen ok I'm unmuted but I'm still trying to flip back to find my my zoom from my drive here ok so John yeah obviously just just a quick question general in nature have we the early childhood director for Cushman and the assistant principal at the middle school is that in process or is that started yet the early childhood director position is still in process we have gone through the interviews etc and we're working with a couple of the candidates at this point so as soon as I know positive details I'll let you know and the assistant principal at the

028middle school we are holding off on that right now due to the budget issues that we're not quite sure where that's gonna land so just to be cautious and as we see how that ends up we're just holding off on that position right now okay thank you welcome I'm good madam jail okay thank you anyone else have any comment thank you never got to the middle school principal I would just ask that we really take that into consideration I think that's a position that we need and I would really hate to see that go thank I have to agree with you again you know we just want to see how everything falls out not knowing what's happening but given the number of students in that school as well as as we all know educator evaluation

029is a huge piece of those positions and supervision the curriculum development that goes on so I agree with you and hopefully we'll be able to fill that position but just to be careful cautious at this point we know more we're just holding off on that posting right now okay yeah I mean I would agree with mr. Oliver that it is an important position but I would also create dr. Gifford I think we're gonna have to be making some really difficult choices next year and so it's better to just wait and do not have to hire than fire someone because we didn't really talk about this but mr. Kylie I'm sure can tell us lots of tales of woe and we've been looking at it at our campus about how bad next year is going to

030be and I think if there's gonna be a lot of these sort of tough choices that we're gonna have to have to make next year unfortunately Thank You detective Chris yeah just to echo dr. Jenkins as well I think you know the big picture here is really reallocation resources and I think that's something that you know I'm sure we'll be hearing about with me in the future in the near future I'm not just Dartmouth Don's not immune to this we're just like every other municipality and k12 educational institution in higher ed institution as well that we may may need to look at reallocation of resources I'm sure that's a discussion that this committee will probably have at some point I just want to echo the work that's been done at the middle school has been

031wonderful it's changed the whole copper there and when you think also speak about mr. rubadoux just to think that someone like that could leave and no one would come in to replace him it's not a message we want put out there but we have to because of the circumstances we're in you said a tremendous job as has the whole staff but it's amazing what's how it's transforming middle school oh Lord they've been doing well just my two cents and I I agree I mean my concern my concern becomes the fact that and I've been around long enough to to see this happen is once you cut something from the budget to get it back really I mean takes more than an act of Congress type of deal and I'm being facetious but you know it

032did you kind of position it to try and get any position back becomes very difficult because you can always find the dollar to go someplace else so just want to make sure we tread lightly Thank You mr. Nunes okay so we sat in regards to the revisions to the stern handbook this we were looking for a vote for from us on those those revisions well I would entertain him I would yeah ask for I see John looking like he's ready to make a motion no [Laughter] FY 21 20 21 student handbook as presented thank you a second I'll second that okay I anybody opposed okay yes am i muted again so although I'll do that again all those in favor okay no one opposed passes thank you very much so next we have superintendent update

033lots to update lots of things I'm sure you'll be sharing with us lots of changes I'll turn it over to you dr. Gifford thank you madam chair so before we get into the discussion about some of the remote learning plan issues I just want to mention once again that a very positive note that as you saw US News World Report names our high school as one of the best high schools across the country and I'm hoping that you read through some of the criteria that they used to determine this and I won't go through that but there is about six areas that they look at her high school and Dartmouth high wasn't named one of those and I think there were about 24,000 across the nation and we were around 1,300 across the nation in

034the 130 or so in the state so that was a good positive during this time of a lot of negative so we were happy to see that you have to submit your name for that or no no they just do the review themselves and then look at obviously some of the information comes from the Department of edy across the country and they look at the number of AP classes that are offer the graduation rate state assessment scores etc so it's a number of items and judge them and we would just happy to see that yeah wonderful so another on another note with all of these changes and the end of school happening we had to come to some consensus as to how we were finishing up our educator evaluation so we've we've met with our

035union a couple of times and we think we've come to a nice agreement on that just about you know folks being able to finish up those evaluation sessions give the final reports whether it's a summative hour or formative to folks and move them along so we don't see any issues with that and should be able to finish that up so that was some good work that went on relative to the remote learning plan and those kinds of things as you know with the school extended school closure the Department of Ed just released updated their calling prerequisite standards and this came out I believe it was Friday night because I didn't see anything Friday afternoon but I did see it Saturday morning so they're updated standards the message from the Commissioner had been that they were

036going to identify grade-level standards as again I called him they call them prerequisite standards that they were recommending that students should know to be able to move on to the next grade so with that in mind and once we saw that come out although we had already started the conversation before that came out from the commissioner we have created a template that we're using for all grade levels to identify what standards have been taught what standards we can't address because I should back up a little bit because this is about new teaching new content as before it was simply you know providing enrichment activities based on the previously caught taught standards so we are moving along because of the extended school closure so we've created a template and that's been that's being shared at all

037grade levels some of the work that's already been done for example the director of teaching and learning met with our coaches this morning who will then help like the elementary schools etc and I have to say some of our teachers a way ahead of us already they're already looking at the work they've already identifying the standards they've taught we've met all day along with folks including Friday with representatives we this morning we met with middle school elementary and high school folks early this morning to continue to come to agreement on how to roll this out how to make sure each school has an understanding of what the direct teaching could look like whether it's a live session a combination of live sessions of teaching and taped sessions etc because they're collaborating in teams so they

038might have one teacher tape a lesson and be able to share that we'll have a live session so it's a it we can't be specific on every Tuesday this will happen or that will happen cuz there's so many variables involved with the the office hours that are remaining the enrichment activities that folks are creating our main point to people is our teachers is that it's live it's live in taped so it's direct teaching of new content which we are identifying throughout the schools and it looks like we're in very good shape we've covered most of the standards that dusty is recommending that and all skill that the lie the check-ins with kids continue to take place because kids really need to see their teachers I need to get feedback and need to especially now with

039the new content be able to say I need but this that or etc with that said we also have some updates to the high school which I gave you some of these draft documents that are going forward the high school has worked hard on trying to get more kids involved in the activities that we're offering so just as before nothing's changing with gray turn one and two as far as the scores that students have already acquired their ability to make up those lessons resubmit relearn connect with their teacher on those activities that they may have not done well on etc still stands and students have made been made aware of that teachers I've already talked to one today they're receiving some requests for those updated to be able to resubmit activities and and projects so

040only turn one into grades that have already been done will be counted for their GPA and then going on now that we know we have extended learning happening how they're handling that is we're going to be asking students that be where we up until May fourth because we weren't sure when we were going back or if we were just offering those enrichment activities and to be honest you know there were there was no accountability for her students say we were hoping and encouraging and meeting with them and having them do them now we're asking or at least providing a parameter per se where two-thirds of the enrichment or the activities or the new learning the new content we were asking this we're encouraging and telling students they need to complete two thirds of goals it's

041like a 65 percent who complete them and get feedback from their teachers not to be counted as a grade or GPA or towards their GPA from terms one and two however if they do the two thirds they would get a pass for this second half of the year which would just show up on their their transcript but again not account for whether they pass or fail the class based on their first terms one and two grades so we're still giving students every opportunity to maintain their GPA maintain their pass of the course we will still give them credit for the course it's just what's going to be on the transcript if some child a student just determines they're not gonna participate at all in this life what they would get a fail on they're a

042fail mark on the transcript for term for and but again I have to reiterate it doesn't I know it's complex it's it's a crazy time but we want the first grading period to count towards that final GPA and whether they get credit for the class those are some important things the as I've said before the work has been ongoing all week since the Commissioner announced last week or in the governor as well we've had numerous meetings the lead teachers have been involved at the high school we've met with the union folks many times where everyone is in agreement that the work needs to take place especially the new teaching it's just trying to determine what's fair and appropriate and doable for everybody so we're still kind of working on that I know that the high

043school has a 7:30 a.m. meeting which I'll be in attendance as well I'm just looking through my notes to see if this oh and one of the big things I want to mention with the high school that they're going to be doing which parents and students will be made made aware of once we come to this final determination is that they'll be looking for the students to do what they're calling reflection activity at the last week of their school to be able to wrap up their learning for this time and they can then show their learning in various whatever they choose it can be a it can be a paper to the teacher both those a multimedia presentation with video clips etc think talking about things of what they learned from these power standards but

044high school is just trying to wrap up the learning for kids and have teachers have something in hand to be able to give them feedback on it could be a written reflection or any other format that's approved and discussed with their teacher we also have discussed the end of your activities I sent you some draft options that we've topped with the high school has talked with the team also with the students I also attended a student meeting last week on Friday with the student leaders and I know that mr. Tebow had another meeting today and I think they're coming to a good conclusion pretty soon I know the faster we do that the better because people are anxious and need to know especially about graduation so we have some good ideas there and hope to

045get that done very quickly so those are kind of the big updates I know I sent you some documents and I know it's it's complex and but I think we're in a very good place that's the cap order how am I gonna do deal with the issue of equity that's a very big question and right now we have a couple of highlights and I should have mentioned them I actually had them jotted down and push my paper aside of course Lori and Beth are working really hard on that issue we are related service teachers are providing services with obviously virtually to our kids they've created those remote learning plans that they have for the individual the IEP s the interventionists our are working with our classroom teachers so there they have links on the Google

046classroom the teachers and of course our special ed teachers out working with general ed teachers on differentiating but you're right I mean it's never going to be 100 sent like we would like a hundred percent agree um Wow our students have access to the Internet as far as honestly as far as I know I haven't heard any we've reached out reached out and reached out and there have been a handful of students I have to say that haven't really been in contact with our principals and our principals continue to try that we have yeah no I understand what you're asking and the other thing I did want to update that now that we have the extended school closure our special ed Department is working to provide the next step which would be virtual team meetings

047that we will be starting but not before we have some clear-cut mmm parameters and also some training for our teachers to help them to be able to do that so that's going to be our next step in that world okay and thank you thank you so I think I'm gonna manage you can hear me right I hear the same concerns as dr. Cara foetus and particularly in light of the data that you showed us that about 1/3 of the students are sort of not regularly accessing right sort of on online right and you know particular concern for me is this the 27th of February and 38% of our high schoolers haven't logged in and are not necessarily taking advantage of options to improve and so I don't wonder if that May 1st deadline is premature

048in part because students may start checking back in they may hear well on the 4th everything starts to count and now they're gonna log in and find out oh my opportunity to improve has passed so because we have such a high volume of students who haven't logged in or haven't been regularly doing classwork I'd like to see some consideration of extending that I'm a nag if I nag my kids like all the time have you teachers let's work a plan like let's do that students who don't have those supports at home need to do that and I'd also like to hear what are we doing to reach can you explain in more detail particularly now right when they've got to do these things to progress to the next grade it's easy when the kid doesn't

049show up we know that you know we send out a plan and we can really follow up what are we doing for that approximately third third of the students who aren't regularly checking in and doing these sorts of things what's our plan for that up to this point I have to say especially I've heard from a number of the principals for kids just what you're speaking about and we've actually even tried to reach out to the district level as well to try various phone numbers etc I have to say it's very few on the elementary level obviously as you can see from the data over the last seven days that's what that data showed that those whatever it was 27% or something of the high school 38% 30% I'm trying to look at my data

050now yeah thirty-eight yeah but the the guidance counselor's at the high school level and I know we've been in touch with the director should be making those continued contacts but I think you're right that with the shift in the expectations it's a bigger issue because it wasn't that way before the May fourth deadline yeah some of the students who haven't been hearing optional optional right the ship is sort of sailed for that yes yeah I don't know wonder whether we ought to concern that and then the only other thing it's everything I might add is there is a lot of angst about the graduation option yeah and whatever we do we're going to end up pissing off a lot of people I mean there's no good choices here there really aren't right you think allowing

051some ability for parents to have some input like a short survey or something that doesn't mean we have to be bound by what they say but I think people want to feel like they have a voice and this a little bit um might go a long way towards heading them off right people say well I wasn't consulted and I don't like that decision they're still not gonna like the decision but at least maybe allowing for some input well you know let and let them see the results that if it's really split then they can see that not everyone's happy and understand what a tough decision that is but I think allowing some public input it's not a binding vote just we're trying to get a sense of the community would go a really long way

052to speaking some of those fears thank you dr. Jeff Kenny thank you madam chair I agree with dr. Jenkins I love the idea of putting on a survey for the for the parents but on another note can we just talk a little bit about what we've already kind of touched upon with the numbers that you shared with us about students that have not logged in no when you say not maybe you may have said this already maybe I just missed it but when you're saying students have not logged any you say these are students that not only have they not logged into a device but have they made any kind of communication with their teachers or with anyone in the school dr. gyfer all I know is the data we're able to accumulate from our

053device that are you know our data system that that specific data was logged into their accounts within the last seven days okay so that's from the devices yes and I have not heard from in and Jonathan I know he's on board he can probably help with how he got the data cuz he helped us out with that but I know we have had a couple of principals who have only mentioned a few students that have had no contact at all in one or two I know two in particular we reached out from district level and did then get communication with the parent other than that that's all I know from the elementary okay yeah so I couldn't speak to specific other than the data I have so I guess my concern is and like you

054said maybe that's not the case and maybe you know there are more students that are communicating with their teachers and other through other means but almost 1,200 students that have not logged in that's a scary number to me so but we're saying maybe it's a lot less than that because students are actually communicating with their teachers and in some of the way shape or form but I would hope at the very least that our that our staff our building administrators our outreach workers and I know to some extent they're doing this they're they're reaching out to families that are that are right now for a lack of a better term unresponsive they're there haven't been communicating they haven't been engaging um so you know I hate to see any student be left behind so I

055would really urge you and your team to do whatever you can to make sure that we are and I want to believe that for the most part we are reaching out to all students especially the ones that if we can't get in contact with them then like you said whether it's a phone number reaching out to them via email or through a phone call and then just just on another note I notice it in just out of curiosity I had forgotten what mr. Crowley had said for our preschool students are we are we charging them tuition right now I know that's a little bit off we just made that decision today we had been bantered back and forth especially since we didn't know when school was going to get out or not but we've just

056made that decision that no we're not going to be doing that okay we feel as well as much as our preschool teachers are part of the remote learning etc that as we know so much of the preschool experience is that we know not unlike all other the students but there is such a it feels different and they have to kind of be there to get that experience so but anyways the short answer is no okay but the expectation is still there for some type of remote learning with I'm sure to come he's here just to may I come to the podium you may here ok here we go thank you I I was listening to everyone and I didn't want to overstep the conversation just to quantify and qualify that data data is a snapshot

057taken from the Google admin console ok that's what I was the first seven days now one thing that I know mr. Olivera is I just texted her she's very proud of the extended learning site and the numerous hits that are there which is actually the the first phase of this pandemic education the extended learning site and we have thousands of hits on that so this does not reflect what a student is doing it's just a snapshot of them logging on in the past seven days where those people are the omission of those 1100 people for logging on so it could tell a story but it doesn't completely define the the effort or the participation that the the children are doing at this moment I think this it's a bigger story as most data can be

058sure no understood and that's kind of what was my my thoughts mr. Gallow saw was that you know this is just one one piece of data and the other piece though is you know our I want to I guess the bottom line is from my point of view is I want to make sure that the dominant public schools is reaching every single student that's and I think mr. Oliver I can probably expand that from March 12th to see the activity of students of logging on from that point forward to see if anyone is completely not there you as we know 8 through 12 have their own Chromebooks we we handed out about 350 Chromebooks of the 600 people at the middle school from 6 and 7 and an additional I believe 2 to 3 with

059300 at the elementary school when we have a variety of people as well as students as well yeah just to get an idea and what we just to give a quick update we've had many of those pickup drop-off days and then we've also done Singleton's for kids have had problems with individual computer absolutely shall have the online help that they go to with the work order system and also the the principals are running that on a very like almost a weekly basis where if someone was left out or just it has a problem or needs a charger so there's that continuous cycle as well okay no thank you thank you mr. Gallow Schaffer for chiming in just just last but not least I know I brought this up before in the past and I know

060I think Tracy Oliveira was against it however I'm still assume right now where we're not doing anything with any kind of handouts or paper packets is that correct dr. Gifford because I haven't heard anything brought up about that yes we have not done that not a general rule I think a few special cases were made but in general no no okay well it just it's disappointing especially when 44 students at Cushman that probably don't you know could use some kind of other materials that and I had asked that that that's not been done so I do yeah we didn't do that okay thank you I do want to just add I just got some 1d just like mr. Gallow show said about the enrichment page which is extra they were about over 3000 logins there

061so at least we're knowing knowing they're looking at those and also to dr. Jenkins I'm not sure I just want to clarify that May 1st deadline is for kids to request just so to request that they can make some work up or resubmit if they guest get that request in which we can certainly re-emphasize to them they then have all that time to make their plan to come you understand that like is that people have checked out until 5:00 for under 8 that and so that deadlines falling before work or mentally checking in means that if there's a third of the students not checking in they me miss that one deadline yeah understood I want students to miss that opportunity right yeah so we can we can certainly Remus eyes that with our students and

062and if that's all on now I have one final thing for tonight and we have special guests coming to the podium mr. Nunes does the a mr. Nunez I'm sorry I didn't see that I've got no problem I guess I'm going to be the one who puts a fly in the ointment here but that's first and foremost I'm totally disappointed that you know we show 38% of our high school students you know not logging in and you know 29% of our middle school we're probably for argumentative stick just about all of them now have a Chromebook all of them at the high school and eighth graders have a Chromebook the middle school you know the middle school now has you know I would think most of them for the sixth and seventh graders so I'm

063a little disappointed you know that these students have checked out and my personal opinion and this goes back to what dr. Gifford said and also a comment to what Shannon said you know you're a little you know the Mayfair's deadline is is as far as I'm concerned is in concrete you know these are these are all big boys and girls and if they haven't taken the time to log into the system and they've decided to check out and now all of a sudden a deal you know Shannon you're a college professor if somebody comes running to you the day before final exam and says help you know I've got to redo this assignment well you've had all semester Teresa to resubmit it or help you know that type of deal I'm sorry I can't buy

064into that with regards to the passing of any course at the high school running you know the the 65% that kind of means in the next you know the 17 days of classes between May 4th and May 27th because of weekends in Memorial Day and everything outside I think 17 dates that means they only have to do 11 days worth of assignments I mean I got a major problem here with that I got you know we're not you know we're almost you know gonna let him slide by and that doesn't it doesn't sit well for me and the mic what my other question becomes as as we go into this new and again I just printed this out tonight too but as we go into this new extended learning and you know additional information that

065we have what are we doing I mean students you know the past six weeks of going to have been you know not remedial but reinforcements of what they've learned and now we're going to teach them new stuff what do we do if a student you know and we may have that same issue with a Chromebook don't get me wrong but you know Johnny as soon as he walked out of school on you know March 13th March 14th and you know look brought home what they needed to bring home and left everything else in their locker and they haven't been able to get back and go to school how are we handling those and I'm sorry if I've ranted well that they really don't need other things for the lessons that are ongoing so whatever they

066left everybody has has access with the devices that we've provided the bigger question I think what your ass is getting the schools cleaned out and emptied and lockers and all of that which is going to be taken care of once we have more details on the governors restrictions health restrictions etc but any learning activities that the teachers are providing at this point in time would become remote and internet-based etc or a PDF sheet that they're posting which is also being done okay I just wanted to bring dr. Jenkins did have some comment and so I just I just want to respond to what mr. Newton Sykes mr. Newton said asked a question about what I would say if a student came to me and what I would say to my student is how can I

067help you right we're in the global pandemic it is unprecedented in our history our students are struggling I hear stories every day they're worried about their parents keeping a roof over their head food on their table there's teenagers who are picking up extra shifts at grocery stores they're worried about getting sick they are struggling right and as an educator my number one priority is making sure that every single one of my students is successful so my first question to them is how can I help and how can I make sure that you make it through this right so my concern is not about punishing students my concern is not about schooling students who are struggling my concern and our concern should always be how do we help these students succeed and I am hundred percent

068for every ounce of flexibility that we can give children to make it through this crisis in a positive way and I am glad to see that we are doing that and I hope that we can be even more flexible and meeting their needs dr. cassileth yeah I would just like to say we don't we don't know there are certainly some kids that are just saying forget it oh there are a number of families that are really very difficult places socially emotionally financially and um just it's just that I want to make sure we consider that whole social emotional piece some kids may have not had anyone there to help them they may not even know where to begin to do any of this so we don't know what's going on in those homes there are

069certainly lots of parents out there that are doing a lot of great support work but if you're a single mom and you've lost your job and you have three children and they all want something at different times you know we have to factor that in this this is a very difficult time for people I'm certainly sitting here is a retired person it I think of all those people out there that are well that's not even just think of the economic what about the 50 he says how many of these people have lost are they're frightened about what's gonna happen to them so I mean there might be multiple reasons why kids are not checking in and maybe if we had enough resources we couldn't find out more about that but um I just want us

070to be sensitive to that issue we don't know why this is happening in - dr. Kara focuses point you know one of the things that I'm here and in my job and you know through my wife is that there's kids that are not home they're you know they may have a device they may have internet at home but they're not home their parents are working during the day they're there in the health care they're in the front line so they're at their grandparents houses there at relatives aunts uncles houses they don't know the first thing about technology and trust me I am all about technology and at the forefront of it but that's some of the things that I'm here and social emotional issues I've heard of students that are they don't like tsums that

071they're theirs hiding underneath blankets during the Xoom they don't want to do the zum-zum for whatever reason social emotional so without being said just just something that just popped into my head as we're as I'm sitting here listening to everyone is with these new guidelines that are coming out through Jesse what would the harm be in and maybe some building principals have already done this what if we what if we looked at from maybe a building a building based having zoom meetings with parents just why don't we it just or almost like a webinar not so much back and forth but just a presentation by our building principals in Dartmouth to address all everything that the expectations that we're moving forward in acting as a resource as to how Dartmouth can help these parents that

072help these students to get through this time so I don't know if it's something we look at through the building level something through the district level but just an idea that I'm floating floating around that because there is a lot of you know the parents right here parents finding out oh because they emailed that their students teacher there Oh Johnny or Susie was supposed to be doing this work and they're not doing this work so I don't know it's just over kai guess over communicate with something like this especially as things are continuing to evolve yeah I agree with that over communication I and I also agree with what dr. Jenkins was saying earlier you mentioned the nagging and you know being able to support your students it's not working in here yeah there's a

073lot of confusion I have I see both ends here and I see myself as a professional pretty engaged with what is going on and following along and reading up all the guidance and I still find it confusing and you know it's got three different you know students in my house I'm working my husband's working outside of the house and so it's like all hands on deck you know so it's been very very tough and you know I hear in my own my own kiddos my oldest kiddo you know that May fourth date so going back to what dr. dr. Jenkins said that May fourth date is something she keeps saying and there's a lot of you know she's a senior and so there's a little bit of that social emotional stuff going on with the

074reality of what you know is happening with everyone but there's been some movement and there's been some at first there was some reticence now there's like this movement around I'm gonna get to it and so she is one of those whoo-hoo we'll get to it and I think we'll finish strong but it's been a process of not pushing too much and not trying not to nag and really it's been a complex and and I and even for you know hearing it in the fields there's other repercussions that some of our more struggling students are actually doing better now because of that the stresses with the anxiety around the school refusal and so I don't know how that's impacting Dartmouth but I'm hearing it on a more statewide level where students who were struggling are actually

075like reading at higher levels and really you know feeling safe within their home so this is just you know it's not easy there's gonna be a lot of fallout with this and I've heard from educator friends who are feeling like well I can't reach my more complex students and what I say to them is living it here you know my son may or may not skip school a few days this last couple weeks but having a zoom on and hearing a voice and seeing a face and just having a familiarity around knowing those voices and knowing those faces as it sort of is keeping him up to speed whether or not he's completing the work to the degree that I'm able to help him do that but so teachers who feel that this is just

076a really difficult way to reach those struggling students just know that what you're doing just by doing it I'm being there and reaching out is so helpful as a reminder of you know some may find it what they're missing and it might be a little bit more stressful hearing those voices but for the majority of what I'm hearing and I'm experiencing it's just wonderful to have that connection and some pictures and some you know memories to share and stories to share and just having the voice and having you reach out is just I know we're all in this together and we're gonna get through it together so thank you everyone for your comments aronia I know we had a special guest coming right I think this is there but I don't know if I would

077should now turn it to Kate we have any public comment would that be okay sure it's Kate here yes so we had one email and I think it it's more of a comment on what was said during one of the discussions it comes from if you just bear with me Kathy in Simmons and she writes grieve it was my understanding that Sarah dicus was replacing Carl Robidoux yes that was announced already so the position she left is still open and that's the one we're not the assistant principal position we are not posting thank you for that and that's all that you have that is all I receive okay so I will turn it back over to dr. Gifford yes so thank you for all your comments I especially liked the comment like suggestion mr. Oliver

078made about the parent zoo meetings that might be a good and I think that would be good building building based anyway tonight we have and I'm gonna leave it to mr. Gallow sure once again to introduce our special guests we wanted you to see what some of the teachers are doing with the Google classroom we had a actually I'm going to stop right now I'm going to let mr. Gallo show take over yes sorry for the awkward moment I came in earlier to comment and I didn't want to take myself off the screen is that something might go wrong so I got a chance to crash your entire School Committee meeting here at the podium so that that's okay during the meeting and you'll see in the recording some faces came by quickly those were

079people in the waiting room those were were our special guests I hoped could take a couple minutes of your time to to introduce some special people in the district that are working on the front line with technology and education what we've done is an amazing thing in the state and in the country and the world to have an online presence from March 12th or 13th that day till three or four weeks later having a full submersion of technology and education so that would not have been possible without the the foresight and forward-thinking really the the School Committee as well as the superintendent to hire some people in the district called instructional technology specialists so I wanted to introduce them to you and have them give a brief explanation of what Google classroom is and to

080show the the school committee as well as show the community what it is the Google classroom and it's a really short kind of advertisement about Google classroom so you can see what we're doing and I also wanted to say that the data that you had provided before if it leads to talking points it's a wonderful thing I think I have to produce some more data so it's it's you get a fuller picture of what's going on I as I go these training classes and as the instructional technology teachers will tell you they're full in regards to training these teachers day and night on training sessions actually I had 25 people come to my 7:00 p.m. training class last Thursday I was surprised I didn't know anyone would come out that night to do that but

081they are going to these training classes and learning how to do all sorts of technology and with that I'd like to introduce a few of them so they can they could show you Google classroom I'm gonna start with the elementary school I hope that was the proper order that was going to do this first with one of our first tech teachers who's been around for many years Trish leery Trish if you could make yourself appear Trish leery and it's from the Quinn elementary school and Trish has been around for a long time and she used to do instruction Tec for the entire district if that was possible way back when I don't know if she out there okay let me let me maybe I need to on there we go I'm gonna unmute her and

082she's going to be accompanied by Potter's technology specialist which is a Sandra chicka who is from the pottery elementary school and she does that through through Potter and one of our newest just started this year taking over for Josh Rodricks at de Melo school and comello and Cushman schools is Liz vocie who just started this year Josh Rogers was drafted by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays there's mo C would be the player to be named later so she would be that player we picked her up on waivers but she out there let me see if I can turn that camera on as well and there we go so then what they're going to take over the stairs Liz they're gonna take over the screen Trish and Sandy and Liz could you take it from here

083and show us quickly what do we see it a Google classroom for elementary kids sure I'd be happy to you so I'm just Larry I'm gonna get started I'm actually going to share my screen and this is something that teachers have been doing through our remote learning I've needed with their students if they're using any of our platforms communicating with them so mr. Gallagher ah can you open up the screen sharing right now and it's um it's disabled oh that would be me PC good job with your security preferences mr. Gallagher on doing I I've been trying to control this we were afraid we didn't want any party crashers to our meeting miss leery is that is that available to you now oh there we go so hopefully a Google classroom has come up if

084anybody can kind of tell me if it's there because you can see it great so you know as everyone knows and we've been having discussions like there's a variety of tools that our teachers are using to communicate with students and provide learning experiences for them and one of those tools is Google classroom and this platform is giving us a place to share curriculum materials to communicate with our families and our students so what we're going to share with you tonight is a brief overview of a sample Google classroom so what I show you here is not as extensive as what is being used in the classroom there's many more materials posted and you'll see a lot more on a working classroom this one is used for teaching teachers how to use Google classroom as well

085as creating screencasting things that we post in the drive to share with parents students and all of our staff so we use this for a lot of ways but you'll see this one isn't a live classroom in terms of students accessing it this is used for our courses that were providing for teachers so when students log in this is the default page they go into in the stream and I'm just going to scroll down a little bit so you can see primarily what the stream is used for is announcements and just communicating with students so you see these are some samples that we put in here in the stream where students can access some of the tutorials that we are providing for them as well as just straight communication with them and just let them

086know we're thinking about them this is a spot where we just say hello let them know we're thinking about them in this class comments actually you might hear me here for many of our classes is turned on so students can communicate with their teachers depending on which way they're communicating the entire class might see the comments versus a private comment directly to their instructor so this is just a very very brief overview of what a stream might look like you can share a multitude of different file types on here so I tried to include video just a comment scrolling back up I go slowly a slideshow here and again the stream is primarily used for just announcements and just some communication with kids I'm actually going to turn it over to lesbo see who's going

087to talk about class work great Thank You Josh so this classwork tab in Google classroom is really where all the teachers and students can come together to have their work organized and put in a way that each student is getting the assignments and the enrichment activities and the communication methods that they need so you can see in this example classroom Trish has it set up so there are different topics so you can see the enrichment lessons are first some teachers will have their zoom scheduled there and there's your expectations there's another section for important resources and this is also a place where our social workers have put in like second step lessons and some social-emotional activities our specialists are our teachers and phys ed teachers and music teachers are using that tab down there to

088post their weekly lessons and it's a way for two-way communication so in each of these activities when the teachers post them students have the opportunity to either just look at something if it's posted as material or if it's posted as an assignment students can comment on it or even submit their work to teachers that way but this is also placed for special education teachers to be posting resources that are general that the whole class can see or also specifically to the students that they service and then the students who only the students who get assigned an activity can see it so if there are special education resources there only the students who get that assignment will see it and they will only see it for themselves so it's really a place where all the teachers

089can come together and organize their materials for the students in their class in one place and I think if mr. Gallow can invite the rest of our technology specialists in I'm gonna hand things over to the middle in high school all right mr. Gallow I was getting there let's say the middle school is as an instructional technologist named Tempel Mitchell and let me bring template oh I'm sorry I it was listed under Helen Helens her her full name but we call her temple gods their nickname temple if you could introduce yourself yes hello um temple Mitchell and I work at the middle school and Jen Thomas is new this year from for the high school and Jen are you there yes sorry I needed to unmute myself I'm here introduction so I am kind of

090taking over the class toward peace laughter I'm just you some of the more specific types of things that can created by teachers for their students well this fist on the material and arranging them by topic I'm gonna focus the more quickly on the types of assignments so at a high school level and at the middle school level we tend to get back or assign things then also get them back from students who turn them in the elementary school a lot of it is more one way on communication we are actively assigning and collecting work from students all the time so the way to do that is at the top of this classwork page this button that says create you're given a whole number of options and depending on what your goal is for the type

091of work that you want to assign assignment you can assign a quiz directly within class work so you if you if you click on the click assignment it will actually allow either attach a quiz that you've already created or to actually create a brand new quiz in Google before and attacked it and have it sent out to your students you can ask a question so in a lot of teachers right now especially are doing like question of the day just to keep kids aren't asked a question and the kids respond and you get formatted back nicely and like a little graph to see what the responses are and then like let's touch done you can just Ariel so if you have for example YouTube videos to watch there's no assignment attached to attach to it

092you can just click on my chair and upload a video or any type of material really and one really great feature is that you can reuse a post so if you click on that and you you're going to be asked which posts you want to reuse and you can assign that within the classroom or any of your Google classroom here maybe some delay we yeah okay sorry my internet is having issues so did you hear me talking about we did but you chopped up a little bit right so the last feature that I just wanted to touch on quickly is that reuse post where you can reuse posts from classrooms and send them to any other that you might have so that just is a little time saver trick that I like to suggest for

093teachers and I think it's just a really quick overview of how the password page works both at the elementary level in upper low levels as well okay temple did you want to add something sure um I'd like to talk about the grades first Trish rather than the yes so I'm hearing a lot of your concerns about reaching out to students students kind of signing in and logging on here is where teachers are able to see their posts so what you can see at the top there are different assignments that Tricia's put into this classroom and along the left-hand side you would see the students names here is where the teachers are able to see the actual activity that's happening through their classroom so it gives them an indication if you were to see a live

094teacher's classroom that's going on right now there would be checkmarks in all of these columns and rows letting them know and being able to get a quick visual on who is opening the work who is working on their their assignments and from here they're also able to communicate back and forth it really is this Google classroom really is a portal that is opened up for the students to be able to communicate back and forth with the teachers so the grades gives them a great quick visual on kind of a check-in who's doing what and again another portal for them to maybe make comments or repost or send it back to them and let them make more adjustments to their work so the teachers are really liking this and hearing your concerns with everyone having a

095Google classroom and having assignments being posted they're able to tap in and this is another quick check on who have an i've heard from and and who is you know continually on the next thing i want to talk about is the people tab this is where you would see all of the teachers are listed first and then you would see the students beyond that neat thing about this is as soon as the students are logged on or part of your classroom you are also able to that's the middle tab our middle view there it allows you to invite guardians to kind of join in on the efforts of what's happening in the classroom when a guardian is invited into a Google classroom they don't have the same access that the students have they have what

096we call a summary so they'll get the invitation they're able to join in the classroom and they were able to see they can either suggest or actually request either a daily summary or a weekly summary and what it does is give them involved in what's happening on the classroom what's getting posted and it's a notification that either comes daily or weekly so it's really a nice way to have the families involved but not too involved they can see what their students need to be doing and well it can have a voice I'm kind of to let them know I can see that you have some work so it's been a great way to invite families in without really dipping into they couldn't go into the grades and also they can't get into any of the

097attachments but they can see that something was sent out so that those two areas there's a lot of communication and a great visuals that those that are part of the classroom can work with okay any questions we just wanted to give you a quick overview that there's a lot being done and I think the best way to reach all of these students is to have the teachers do that as they as they know they know their kids best they know their students best do you have any questions sandy you could take some of those questions I actually just want to thank all of you for letting us crash your meeting tonight and yes give you the opportunity to ask any questions from us thank you Chris he's muted you're muted phrase there we go Thank

098You mr. Gallagher and company for joining us this evening I gotta say that I think have three qualities of what you're doing in time with what we're doing and I'm with right now would not be possible without the technology support that each and every one of you provides so I think that's the first and foremost that's paramount and you do a incredible job and I think you you make mr. Gallow Shah look awesome no and honestly I hear nothing but positive feedback from from your colleagues and from teachers around the district just saying what a great resource you are enable to integrate and work with them as a technology coach and integrating technology into the curriculum so I thank you for all the work that you're doing go ahead I just wanted to mention that

099you had you had kind of thrown out an idea - another way to communicate with parents may be through the administration at each building but no and I think I can speak for all of us as the IITs we're very very willing and open to you know to helping out that platform however it will work best if that's what you're looking for just wanted to mention that thank you very much thank you thank you thank you thank you madam chair ladies and mr. Gallow Shaw thank you very much for your time this evening it's appreciated it's obvious what's out there for our students to take advantage of it and to do and on the flip side also it's a great way for people residents of the town of diamond to see when they're giving us

100that technology money every year what it's being used for in my opinion you know it's you know it's not being it's not frivolous stuff that we're doing we're able to sit here with and educate our students you know in this day and age and this pandemic that we have to to help take care of them and try and keep them current in educated so again my thanks to the ladies and to mr. Gallow chef of putting this together and it was an interesting was an interesting presentation I did enjoy it so thank you thank you doctor carefully I would just like to echo what everyone else has said in appreciation of all your efforts you know with any tragedy is maybe not Annie but in something like what's happening today it has really put pressure

101on all of us in education to to become more familiar with all the opportunities out there in technology that we probably would have been a little hesitant to use prior we you know many times we just don't think alike I can't do that but because of this need for remote learning we found I think teachers have come up with a well certainly great resources and staff that you offer but also now that they've used all these different types of technology they'll be more apt to use it in the regular classroom and that will just be a one other tool that will enhance the learning of many so thank you so very much appreciate it so sorry I've got medical emergencies upstairs in my house Oh disappearing as what's going on in there but I do

102really appreciate seeing what you guys have been doing you know I've been teaching online at UMass Dartmouth for well over a decade now I think people sometimes think it's fluffy or right not rigorous but done right it can be done very well and I think dr. Cerf Otis is right teaching online is transformed my teaching both face-to-face things that I do it's changed the what I do as a teacher and we have instructional designers at UMass they play a similar role to what you guys do and they're critical to doing it do what I do right and also to mr. Nunes is mind about investments right I think a lot of times people think it's just teachers doing teaching right but this I think you coming on it critical everything that are not you know

103with the teacher in the classroom are to the success of our students and so we're super happy that you guys are around and there to support our teachers as we do this thank you thank you yeah I just reiterate my colleagues are saying thank you very much and thank you for for you know bringing us through that Google across from that was very helpful appreciate that thank you thank you everybody all right thank you yeah thank you everyone yeah so dr. Gifford do you have any anything else you know so I figured we'd end on a very positive note yeah that was fantastic I don't really have anything to report then I'll put it to Mike to the committee to see if anyone else to share except they have one thing under sort of new

104business that that came to mind that I thought I would just mention is just bringing it to you that you know here we are it's 27 and outside of this global pandemic and another at another year we would have reorganized the committee and so while I am I'm perfectly happy to remain as the chair I just wanted to put it to all of you thinking you know it's been a pleasure to serve and I would be happy to continue to serve in this capacity until the town decides on elections and all of that however I just thought I would bring it to you to see how you felt and anyone felt a certain way about us thinking a little bit about reorganizing prior to does anyone have any thoughts about that or dr. Jenkins well

105that was the new business that I was going to bring up to have that conversation because I know being chair is more work than being a regular school committee member being a chair during a pandemic I'm sure it's just extra on top of that so I mean I don't have really strong preferences either way but I'm you know fine with with if you want to step down I mean I don't think we want to do at this meeting we could put it on the Internet the next meeting if everyone wants I don't have strong opinions either way but I was thinking along the same lines on there we should have that conversation calm mr. Newman thinking thank you man yeah I I agree whichever way we go on is it's fine with me I know

106you and I had a conversation on this a couple of weeks ago and I know whoever we do it is is fine I'm you know not trying to rush you out or anybody else in type of deal it's whatever the committee is is is good with those is fine with me was that Chris yeah it was me I'm gonna say the same thing you know I'm I'm okay either way I agree I'm sure you've got a lot going on right now Kathleen as we all do and this is just one more thing you know been there done that like I can appreciate everything dude I think we all can appreciate everything that you're doing during this time trying to just balance balance another plate so yeah I'm okay with putting it on the on the

107next agenda and we can take it from there I guess yeah and Santana and also just thinking too careful is for sticking with us through through this time yeah no I mean let's put it on the committee that was put it on the agenda for next you know I'm happy to remain but in talking with mr. Nunes you know I'm I am caught you know aware that if someone is you know however it works out want you know ready and willing to step into the role I do know that I'm kind of on your time right now so I'm happy there way on Peter inane but let's just add it to the agenda and lowliness meeting anyone else any other anything to share yeah I've got just a couple of quick things Ben Adams here

108and again like dr. Gifford said to kind of an end on a good note the music that mystical Music Association's always these are the people that so all the costumes for the indoor shows for the color guide and the answers and the performers than that of course their season got cut shot when everything all the circuits all shot shut down and miss a beat they just swung right into making the these masks for everybody that you're seeing and you know there's a lot of other groups a lot of other individuals that have done that but you know the last time I saw her account from the Music Association website Digg Facebook they were up over 3,000 of these masks that they've made and handed out to you know first responders and you know people of

109that nature so it's just a you know I had soft to them for what they've done and you know again all volunteer we've had people donate the material they happen to run shot of the elastics forum and all of a sudden somebody showed up with a huge amount of elastic putting themselves you know just just the thanks to them for what they're doing and fantastic wonderful thank you for mentioning anyone else you know so our next meeting our next meeting is scheduled for Monday May 18th and with that I will entertain a motion to adjourn into executive session to discuss associations with union personnel not to come back to open session moved second okay roll call you're on mute Kathleen Amaral yeah yeah Chris Oliver yes Carol carofoley yes Shannon Jenkins yes John Nunes yes

110alright thank you everyone take care they helped a little bit in a minute all right Jim can you send me the link for the executive session please who sent it out okay okay I lost a bunch of