001good evening and welcome to the where happened to my agenda I had it all open and everything oh here it is uh good evening and welcome to the Greenfield Public Schools executive subcommittee meeting Thursday March 6 2025 the meeting is being held fully remotely in accordance with the governor of Massachusetts order extending certain provisions of the open meeting law per open meeting law any member of the public may make an audio or video recording of this meeting is anybody else besides us um the meeting is being recorded by the executive subcommittee if any other persons present are also recording you must notify the chairperson of the subcommittee at this time okay no one else is um let's see we'll call the RO um member Den here member seon here and I Glenn Johnson mad him
002here so call the meeting to order at 5:32 PM um first item the agenda is approval of minutes from our last meeting which was April 2nd 2024 is a reminder um even people not present at the meeting are able to vote on that if they wish um just based on whether they think it represents a good faith um representation of what happened at that meeting I'd like to hear a motion to approve the minutes from April 2nd 2024 so move is there a second I'll second and any discussion all right not hearing any let's call a vote member deneve yes Vice chair ston I'll abstain and I'm a yes so the motion carries and the minutes are approved um next item on our agenda is mentorship of Vice chair and um Vice chair seon you
003asked this to be on the agenda do you want to set it up for us yeah so this this is emerging from a conversation that I had um prior to our organizational meeting with member den and a few others of just trying to more intentionally utilize the structures we have to prepare members now and in the future to be able to assume leadership roles and to understand what that entails before they get in there to hopefully make the doing of those rules slightly more effective or easier on people to to to sort of know what is going to be expected before they take it on and so part of that is me specifically me requesting mentorship from you currently you as the chair so there's like both this interpersonal one-on-one aspect of it but there
004is also me thinking about future individuals who might occupy these roles and how we might be able to build in structures that allow them to Mentor one another moving forward or just so that there's greater collaboration between the offices um so that's that's what I was talking about and then as a specific maybe outcome of this work also talking about um incorporating a new section to our member handbook that includes the roles and duties of the chair and also how to how to do that like what that actually means so that if somebody when they first come on to the committee might be like I don't know I'm kind of interested but I don't really know what it does they could read that section and decide for themselves if that's something that they would like
005to pursue and get more training around um or if they're like never mind actually yeah so that that's sort of intent behind me bringing this up and I know you and I have had for the like individual one-on-one you and me specific portion of it you and I have already had some discussions offline um yeah about that but curious to hear about them your all's thoughts about the more structural aspects of of the idea yeah remember Den do you have thoughts I think that being that the role of the chair has been sort of a guarded thing in the past it's great to see and hear how much work you're doing as the chair um not just so that we can appreciate you but because it gives us an idea of how how rigorous that
006job is and it gives you an idea of whether or not you want to strive for that as you know in the future or whether or not you just want to support that but having it be transparent I think also lets the public know how much work we are doing um and will be helpful if somebody has to step into that role like I'm afraid that if something happens and all of a sudden one of us has to do this we may not have the information so I think there's a lot of levels of this um and I think it's part of the forward thinking that we have chosen as a group to being more trans arent and inclusive in our work nice anything else you want to say member suon about it nice chair
007I mean I think that what member didn't even added was is right on and important so that there is like so that we do function as a body that any one of us could if needed pick up and fill in but I as the chair I'd love to know what you're thoughts about it are yeah uh I think it's a great idea to I think it's both documenting what is currently happening uh what the chair is currently doing and then also adding essentially a new domain of activities for the chair which is mentorship of the vice chair and documenting that as well and I feel like um this particular situation where we have a vice chair who's explicitly expressed interest in um taking on the role next year and where there seems to be support
008among the school committee for that to happen it's a great opportunity because we can really work on trying to meet your needs and just document as we do that so we can kind of both give you what you need for that support and also create documentation that can be kind of built into the expectations of the chair doing this in the future um obviously chairs and vice chairs will each have their own relationships and some chairs will invest more in mentorship than others but at least it could be written down on paper like we have a lot of things that are kind of there on paper as ideals and someone can always speak up and say hey our policy says we're we should be doing this you know and and if we if we put
009that in our handbook it gives someone that leverage to try to get that mentorship in the future um regardless of who his chair so I think it's a great idea um maybe one we can move on to um the next item which is school committee procedures list and um I can just kind of maybe talk and try to put things onto the record of these minutes of what I am currently doing as the chair um and then maybe answer some questions from you both um that might help to flesh that out a little bit how does that sound like a plan for how to proceed okay so in no particular order um any member of this school committee can approve the bi-weekly warrant but it seems to be that the chair is the one who
010approves the bi-weekly payroll warrant so that is not seen by the whole committee that's kept I think for personnel reasons kept to one person being the chair to approve um that has meant kind of by default I'm going in and approving that warrant anyway so I it seems like 99 out of 100 times end up approving the regular warrant as well but that's not explicit for the roll but the payroll warrant does seem to be um the other thing is the chair um responds to emails addressed to the school committee in a way that kind of represents the um represents the committee uh of been in consultation with the superintendent and Town Council to make sure we're um we're you know all uh working in concert and not working against each other um so that's
011part of the role um weekly meetings with the superintendent um the superintendent kind of maintains a list of items that she needs to consult with the chair the representative of the committee between meetings um they can't wait for the next meeting as well as calling um in between um meetings about you know giving a heads up about things that are happening in the schools or things that she may need feedback um from the chair on um that are times sensitive um there are also some ceremonial things such as um signing diplomas and and shaking hands with graduates attending the um Green Spoon Awards dinner um things like that where you're kind of uh representing the committee in a kind of ceremonial way um what else do I do is chair there's the building of the
012agenda um with the superintendent and now with the vice chair as well um think if there's anything else uh representing the school committee at City Council meetings you know getting requests from school committee members of items that they want on the agenda and I'd say some oh actually there are some logistical things like currently the chair is The Keeper of the keys to the John Zan Center and he kind of respond responsible for opening and closing that which also puts a limit on the amount of or it becomes a limiting factor for the school committee using that space at other times because the way it currently is the chair is the only one who is able to use to make that space available um other logistical things currently the chair is setting up the zoom
013with the go with the to be able to monitor um when people attending remotely wish to make public comment that's not something that necessarily needs to reside with the chair maybe that's something that could be a secretary Duty or I don't know but that is currently the way it's organized what else do I do the chair receives the draft minutes so I think the chair can I haven't really done this but could potentially write to Susan and say can you make this change before the minutes get submitted to the full committee for the draft for for approval oh yeah and some administrative Lea on things like I've worked with the superintendent on things like could you please reorganize the way that the meetings are organized on the website so that they're more mobile friendly or
014can we make sure that Chromebooks can be available to the school committee and business cards and giving school committee members instructions on how to request items like that how to request having their phone number added to the the school committee contact page uh the school the school committee chair is the supervisor for the recording secretary so Susan Farber [Music] um and I think meant to do an annual evaluation of her we just found that out last year that the chair was actually the we didn't know who was supervising Susan before she didn't have like an official job description or whatever we realized that was something we needed to clean up um and um the chair is um sometimes if there are items that need to be like I guess it's like talking to the Town
015Council about various things for example if it appears to the chair that certain members have broken open meeting law um Consulting with the um Council to confirm and coming up with a plan to address address that or communicate with this sometimes had the school committee chair is the U de facto enforcer of open meeting law and so kind of reminding members to um of the various aspects of of the law that need to be um observed so things like that sometimes we need to be we need to I need to remind members of different things that we're responsible for have to follow putting all this out makes me realize it actually is there are actually a lot of things was involved in it yeah you have to say them all out loud yeah yeah and
016then there are things that are written into the um existing policies um and maybe that could be a homework item for um one of you would be going through our existing policy manual and finding items that that are assigned to the chair to do such as committee assignments things like that that's all I could think of right now I think any questions workout I'm curious if there are things that are maybe not laid out in policy or duties but are just like past practice things that aren't required but that are habitual or commonly done I think almost all of what I just talked about Falls in that category yeah like there's nothing in there that says the chair has to be the the John on contact or or the lapt you know the Chromebook keeper
017or whatever yeah right um I don't currently have any additional questions about that but I might in the future yeah sure yeah um so maybe after the minutes from this meeting come out someone would one of you be willing to kind of write it up in a in the language of what could go into uh the policies and procedures manual the procedures manual yes that sounds like my job oh all right but also like okay all I do is take is like Shadow the minutes for Susan and run the alarm for public comment so I am really capable and able to assume other duties if you feel like I should things that are secretarial that you might like me to do I'm happy to take on those things if you want me to run the
018zoom I'll run the zoom okay great yeah I would like you to do that that'd be awesome I'm happy to run the zoom you'll just have to maybe show me next week so that I understand how it works but I mean sure yeah you just need to be able to log in as a Greenfield Public Schools and um you know so you can be the host and all but um do you do that on your school committee Chromebook Chromebook me do the way that you normally would do a um a hybrid meeting um I don't always like currently I'm using my personal comp computer so but yeah I guess so like some there yeah when I want when I need to be able to like today I'm using my personal computer but I logged in
019using the Greenfield school committee um Zoom account so I can do the recording and have that go right yeah but it's but essentially it's just like when we chare our individual subcommittees is I guess what I'm asking I guess so yeah except we're just monitoring the public comment yeah got it and when we're at the you know full school committee meetings at the johnan center gctv is doing all the recording so you don't have to worry about that well I'm very happy to take that on next week and learn it and help you that was something that Kate and I volunteered to do back when um chair petti was saying that we were going to maybe change spaces and have meetings at a different place and they needed somebody to trained to do the zoom
020so I'm happy to do that and that seems like a secretarial Duty wonderful thank you that's great um yeah would you like the chair duties typed up for the handbook or for it would go in our school committee handbook right yeah I think that's our idea right is to gather these things and put them into the handbook so people people understand you know and so maybe in that is not just the chair but also like the the what the what does the Secretary do what does the vice chair do what what are the what exactly do these officers do yeah okay let me make a note to do that because I've added all of the other things to the handbook so is is the handbook on the website yet um let's find out I will
021share my screen and we can take look together what is on the website I know that the um um uh we did get the um yearlong yearlong agenda up here um okay no I'm not I would expect to see it here in this see yet so do you want to maybe email this super and about that um Elizabeth and copy me and try and get it up there yeah uh yep I will handle that okay thank you um so now thinking about um mentorship of the vice chair um maybe VI chair seon you could say more I mean I guess what what have we we've started is involving the vice chair in the creation of the agendas which seems like a good Mentor type thing activity what else do you see as what you would
022like currently as Vice chair in terms of your [Music] development yeah I definitely agendas is is one but I also think that um warrants or any understanding any of the legal stuff that gets done is probably something that I should know a lot more about um in case I do ever need to be filling in for you for an extended period of time for any reason um that seems good and then um some of is some of it is also just being able to also build relationships with the people that you have relationships with so that they're not surprised if they ever see me um making sure that they're A Ware of at any given time who is the chair and who is the vice chair so that they have a good sense of like
023oh if I really can't get a hold of this one person or I know that this person is is you know out sick for an extended period or is traveling for a couple of weeks or something that I know who else I can contact yeah for anything um there's that um and then I would also be interested in and willing to be part of whatever relationships we are maintaining with the uh city council excellent okay great yeah yeah but the and the rest of the stuff it could be useful to just like spend an hour or so just poking around with you and like where would I find this if I you know the and I don't know exactly what that looks like for the duties that you listed at but the keys seems relatively
024self for like self-explanatory and straightforward uh and if member Den is gonna start taking over the zoom thing and I think I even know how to do that because I think I did that once with Karen um but yeah the other stuff it might just be a I watch you do it once kind of kind of a deal y you've seen me lock up the John on Center so I I know exactly how that happens yeah yeah and then I think the other thing is just maybe one-on-one meetings like you know between the chair and vice chair where got a chance to talk over things and um chair the chair can share their experience and you know they the chair and vice chair can think together about about things yeah I think that's it's good
025to have thought Partners it's yeah that's why we're an even executive team yeah yeah and I think it for me it also just feels really important because you've indicated that you you do not wish to seek reelection in the future and so you know it feels important to start getting all of your knowledge now from your many years of service um and it's already March you know so the year goes really fast yeah yeah I'll be have been on the school committee six years in May believe it or not yeah um yeah the other thing that occurs to me is you know a lot of times the things that come up during the week is like Aaron texting me and saying do you have a few minutes to talk and so maybe what I can
026try to do is like see if it's something where she feels comfortable doing it as a three-way call and if she is I'll just call you out of the blue and see if you can pick up I don't think we can do much more in terms of coordination of times and things like that but yeah then you could see what those kinds of conversations are like right anything else I think this one is one that we sort of start experimenting with and yeah see what we might need to revisit in the future so um then I think we'll move to adjournment but after adjournment I'll stop the recording and let's put our Calenders together for finding our next exe is there um on the agenda that I have there is item three which is reviewing
027and discussion of the year-long agenda did we already do that oh no we haven't done that sorry um yeah um should I share my screen and we can kind of review where we are on the yearlong agenda that would be wonderful [Music] okay let me see if I can get this a little bit bigger [Music] oops how's that for size that's good yeah it's good all right what month are we in March March had our budget hearing at the end of February um I guess the superintendent will bring the calend next year's calendar to us I have a whole report for you for legislative priorities that I'm going to send you tomorrow okay so we'll want that on the agenda for Wednesday night yeah so I'm I'm almost done with it I'm gonna Kate and
028I had a chat about all of the bills we reviewed all the bills from the uh Zoom that we had with our division five leader and um and I got your email about setting up a uh get together at the collaborative I just have to get back to back to Todd um and see when the best time might be nice and um yeah oh oh and I can talk about the summer Institute do we have dates for it yet I believe we do um I'll look all that up and just give the rundown in case anybody wants to go okay um I have not gone to the summer Institute I don't know if I can this year but Kate says it's great [Music] um what was intended by the spring professional development was it just
029for the the committee to have a little bit of professional development together at our April meeting yeah we are thinking that if there's if there's something that we have interest in learning about as a committee maybe it's oml training I don't know or I don't know what it could be something that we've identified that we need more training in or want you know or have an interest in for future work we could identify that at this time and then see if we could create a professional development opportunity for us because we're technically supposed to be working on professional development as a group specific to our district yeah um and we do have the results of our last um self-evaluation which would point to areas that where we need professional development as a group [Music] um
030I'm wondering if um someone might be willing to to review that and make a prop proposal at our at Wednesday's meeting about professional development we might be able to pull together for April where would I find the the data on our um on our evaluation results do you know offhand where I would find that yeah it was in our packet um it was the January um it was part of our January um agenda meeting regular meeting so it would be in that pack okay Stacy do you want to do that or would you like me to do that I can do that okay I mean I guess if there is no identified need for professional development then like there isn't but may but if we don't look and ascertain that so I think that's why
031we put that bullet point in there is just to make sure that we're reflecting on that and that we're not missing anything yeah just as a checkpoint yep am I also remembering right correctly that April is the the month where we also need to approve F like international field trips and things they come up they come up at different times um and now that we've um adjusted our policy that they we can basically approve them much farther in advance than we used to be able to I can't remember ins and outs but so yeah they just kind of come up as needed I think that we were thinking April because we always approved like the next year's big international trip then so because everyone needed so long to raise the money and plan yeah but
032right we changed the policy so that could probably be adjusted on the calendar well I mean I guess I'm not sure that we need it on the yearlong agenda because it just will I mean there will always be items that come up as needed right so right and also this year the yelo conference is going to be in April they uh postponed it so that's something else to add to the report yeah which I will do okay I believe it's April 10th [Music] yeah okay progressing along anything else on the review of the year long agenda that you that we should do okay good I think it's a useful tool so I appreciate your advocacy for it Elizabeth and you're both of you were the ones who created the rough draft that started there a
033car ride well spent well done all right anything else on our agenda before we move to adjournment um I'm going to count this as an item of new business and I don't want to discuss a lot about it but I do I am wondering if we will be getting an update next week from you about about what legal council has been saying regarding all of the emails we've been getting yeah I got a um I got an answer today so before Wednesday you you should see emails from me about that fantastic yep thank you sure any other items um and new Under new business all right hear a motion to adjourn I motion to adjourn from Member suton and a second for member denie is what I heard yeah that's fine any discussion uh secretary
034Den um sure secretary Den I'm yes chair Johnson mad oh am a yes and vice chair sexon m a yes all right we are adjourned unanimous ly at 6:04 p.m. [Music]