001[Music] good evening and welcome to the Greenfield Public Schools school committee meeting for Wednesday November 13 2020 2024 6 o'clock pm. this meeting is being recorded by gctv if any other persons present are doing the same you must notify the chairperson at this time I don't see any um secretary genive will you please call the role yes member Goodwin here member Childs here member seon here chair Johnson mad here Vice chair Martini I'm here online she's on Zoom I don't see her yes I'm here great thank you secretary Den I'm here mayor dorer okay so all present except for mayor dorer we have a quorum great we have a quorum meeting call to order at 601 p.m um so I want to just say up front there's um new language in our agenda that was
002put in at the request of the town clerk it says no discussion or comments will be entertained unless requested upon by the chairperson of the board or committee I request all of your comments I want to hear from everybody who came to talk to us tonight uh public comment will proceed the way our normal policy is which is each person gets a two-minute turn uh and so um we'll start with the people to um we'll start with the people in the room and then we will move to the folks on Zoom Susan Farber do you want to we're doing two minutes I'm sorry we're doing two two minutes yeah our policy says 2 minutes at the last meeting we all right we' we have been doing three minutes uh but we found out that our
003policy said two minutes so we decided last meeting we would continue with the precedent of three minutes and then start again at this meeting following our policy two minutes okay thank thank you thank you I'll speak very quickly if it's two minutes I have been closely following the public discussion at city meetings and on social media about safety in Greenfield schools unfortunately most of what is said is one opinion versus another opinion it's not about evidence that demonstrates what makes schools safe I would like to commend the school committee of a few years ago for doing their homework and doing an extensive study of all the evidence and then making a decision based on this evidence that SRO would not offer an effective way to make schools safe I would also like to commend the
004majority of the current schools committee to support that decision I will also ask those who were shaming the school committee for this vote by saying the school committee doesn't care about the safety of the students because they voted to not do the same study they already did maybe those shaming didn't bother to look through the extensive study the school committee did likewise I'll be happy to supply all the evidence that supports what I'm about to say 80% of School shooters were bullied in their schools armed police in schools where school shootings have taken place have not lowered the number of injuries or fatalities all students feel safe in school with is virtually no bullying because they are taught how to be active bystanders when bullying occurs in person or online and the bullying stops they
005are taught to do this by teachers and trained counselors students feel safe in schools where they are taught conflict resolution skills and I won't go through all of them here now they are taught to do this by teachers and trained counselors in advisory programs each year each adult adult is trusted and accessible and and when conflicts occur all the adults in the building are trained to sit down with the students who it's two minutes thank you sorryy hello hi welcome jesa 88 Deerfield Street Greenfield um I want to um say thank you to the superintendent for responding to um the email um in reference to the uh response that we got from uh des and the state auditor's office regarding um the unreimbursed expenses it sounds like Greenfield is already doing everything that it can
006um in terms of looking for funding but the second part um of what was important in that response is that these expenses that Greenfield has absorbed for many years are in fact State mandated expenses that the state is supposed to be paying and that they haven't funded an any line item at the state level since 2001 um some of those expenses are now part of um the student Opportunity Act or the special education circuit breaker but um we've been absorbing these expenses for years and it has affected our ability to effectively compete against charter schools and other school districts for funding and that's important um which uh brings me to the other um part of my public comment um amoris pelum uh Regional school committee last night joined us in uh the advocacy to look
007at a school choice and Charter School uh Public Funding and we have had um success in reaching out to some legislators to set up meetings with their constituents on this specific issue but it is slow goinging um we are hoping to have one member of the Greenfield school committee uh join us in a zoom meeting with Senator cumerford on uh November 25th so I if someone might be able to get back to me on that that'd be great thank you thank you Skyler and then John hi there thanks for having this meeting I'm Skyler uh Lambert and I live on High Street in Greenfield um I'm here to speak in opposition uh for placing an an SRO in the Greenfield Public School System uh recently the communities that Care Coalition administered Health student health surveys
008to 8th 10th and 12th uh graders in Franklin County in the north Quin region and I really think that the surveys reveal some key findings for this discussion um primarily the re the CCC report shows that in the categories of bullying and substance abuse black students fell into the lowest range as defined by the US Department of Education meaning they're at higher risk of being bullied and are more predisposed to substance abuse uh it's also notable that latinx students also fell into the lowest range for substance abuse um furthermore only 51% of students agreed with the statement students in my school treat each other with respect and only 46% of eighth graders agreed but the most troubling data is in relation to empathy only 41% of students agreed with the statement at this school students
009talk about the importance of understanding their own feelings and the feelings of others 45 % agreed with the statement at this school students work on listening to others uh to understand what they are trying to say that's less than half of students um the answer here is clear helping students engage in active listening and engage with their own emotions are key to solving some of these problems and creating a culture of respect these Solutions don't require law enforcement but rather folks in the helping field social workers counselors Human Services Workers let's open our hearts and Minds to Alternative Community Serv Serv safety practices grounded in human well-being and anti-racist principles it would behoove the Greenfield school committee to investigate practices that reveal root causes and address cycles of harm and Punishment thank you johnan good
010good evening uh John McGee Green Street um I am a proud GPS parent and as such I wanted to say thank you to the school committee um for all your hard work thanks to the school staff and administration also um I would like to comment on the debate about putting police back in the schools um I have studied police for years and knowing everything that we know today it makes no sense to me to put police officers back in our schools um it is magical thinking to assume that one cop across a handful of schools is going to make all of our boogey men go away and the sad truth is that we are all vulnerable there's no shortcut around the hard work of building safe and caring learning environments um I'm proud our school
011committee chose in 2020 to do what they can to opt out of the school to prison pipeline um I'm also proud that we elected folks who are serious about making our schools more inclusive and welcoming and taking care of kids even when they make mistakes uh let's invest in training school Personnel in those skills uh my understanding is that um uh superintendent patod and her predecessors have not yet taken significant steps in the direction of restorative practices but uh I'm eager to hear the update tonight I hope that we're making progress um I encourage you miss patau to work with the school committee to implement a restorative justice program to resolve conflicts peacefully and stop cycles of harm um I also hope that we can improve Communications uh between the school district in families it
012sounds to me like from the complaints that I have heard um when there's a lack of good information it creates space where rumors can Thrive and trust is lost okay so anyway thank you all and carry on Susan and then Andrea thank you my name is Susan work AFC I live on Forest Avenue as a former teacher Al be at one who worked in that profession many years ago I can honestly say that the amount of time that I was trained trained in age appropriate and culturally appropriate discipline for my students was minimal I taught High School in East Harlem and the upper west side of New York as this was a period of major school overcrowding I taught in Auditorium balconies and cafeterias while another class was sharing this space rarely did I have
013a classroom students often came to school with knives in their pockets and occasionally guns I was never taught how to deal with disruptive students or even how to ask a student to give me their weapon while I do not assume that the Greenfield Public Schools are in the same category as the conditions of the New York Public Schools when I taught I am uncertain that teachers are given much more training and discipline than I was I know that when teachers do not have the tools to discipline students for normal student to student or student teacher infractions and there is an SRO on the premises there is a tendency for teachers to ask the SRO to provide the discipline and that often leads to the beginning of the school to prison pipeline I would like to
014suggest the greenfields public schools invest in a significant effort to train all teachers and administrators an age appropriate and culturally appropriate discipline and that this training be rigorous and thoughtful after this training has been instituted and the results of it fully evaluated then it would be worthwhile for the school committee to review the safety situation of the Greenfield Public Schools and determine if an SRO is appropriate my guess is it won't be thank you Andrea and then Stella hi um I'm Andrea Michael I live on James Street uh Greenfield um I am a parent of a sixth grader who is at Greenfield schools um and both my children went to elementary school here um and both of my nephews graduated from Greenfield High School so while I'm not an expert in SRO I'm not really
015an expert in safety and I don't have a lot of Statistics to read I have been around our schools a fair amount and I I've talked to a lot of the kids who are in our schools and I have not heard a lot of concerns about safety except during the pandemic um my son who's in sixth grade I asked him do you feel safe at school he said yes um he's not he's a kid who probably would feel safe so I'm sure that there are kids who don't but um I he said he would be scared if there was an officer at school um and he really was confused as to why anybody would think there would be and a need for that and I I frankly am also I don't I in in my
016profession which is product management we um spend our time like my expertise is find out what are the problems talk to the people who have the problems figure out the best Solutions and think about how you can best spend your Capital to solve those problems and I'm not really seeing that in this discussion as to is there a problem what's the best solution it seems like people are just jumping to a conclusion about what the best solution should be based on I really don't know what so I'm I I I I know we did a lot of studies in the past I think those were good and we should just refer to those and stick with what we decided a while ago St hi everyone I am not here to talk about an Sr but
017I have something to say anyway um I'm Stella Verlander I live on 18 Pawn Street um so I recently just got off a meeting with some Massachusetts climate groups and this was brought to my attention and I really think that this would be um very important to implement into our schools so I just want to put it on your radar so the Massachusetts clean Energy Center is launching a green School Works uh program which is set to decarbonize K through2 school buildings this prioritizes title one schools um like our which so this would apply to our district um and there's over $50 million in funding I it may be like way over that but the numbers got kind of mixed on the website um I believe that this would be most impactful in cases of
018solar and charging ports for electric school buses um I know that the city has looked into electric school buses however charging ports looked like it would have been an obstacle so I believe that this would be important to um use for charging port money um the money for this program is non-competitive and the applications for this open in January um I think that this is very important I work with many climate resilient uh groups especially focused on education and this is a rare opportunity that I think we should definitely take advantage of as soon as possible um I think this is something that would be most applicable to the schools that are higher in energy uh usage like the Middle School Newton uh four corners and Federal Street uh our high school is uh pretty
019good about energy usage but also I feel like solar panels would definitely be um useful but I just wanted to put that on your radar uh thank you Chief I come in peace I'm also not here to discuss the SRO um what I am here to discuss is um thanks to the superintendent and the assistant superintendent for um a ton of hard work that they've been doing recently um I thought you guys should be aware of the fact that communication between the police department in the school department is probably as strong as it's ever been uh a lot of initiatives are underway all thanks to the superintendent um we've met several times now we've had great conversations every initiative underway is keeping the student and faculty safety in mind so um a couple things just
020took place today I'm not going to get into the what we're doing in terms of securing the schools for obvious reasons but uh they're really good steps um I I I do still support an SRO but again I'm not here to talk about that that's just my side of it but again I appreciate it Karen for all your Works Steven um and I see no reason why it won't continue so I think at this point in time with the communication going on between us uh the schools are probably as safe as can be right now so just wanted to pass that on thank you hi I'm Rebecca Moretti I live on shadic street I have a four-year-old at AEL and an eight-year-old at FSS and I'm really confused as to why everybody's angry all I
021keep hearing is people are mad and Facebook has apparently blown up I'm not on Facebook on purpose so I don't hear all of that but I'm still getting rumors that don't seem to be substantiated in any actual fact um as far as I can tell all of our schools seem to be safe and I appreciate that FSF has a focus on being friendly safe and successful and my child keeps coming home with little green waves and she's excited to go to school she loves School my little one can't wait to get there and she can't wait to come home what I would like is more communication so that I have any idea as to why people get mad and I want real information not rumors I don't know what the solution to that is but
022I would like some sort of letter that comes home to to the parents in a way that I can access it without being a Facebook parent I get the newspaper so I get the op EDS which have also been very angry but again there's no actual facts in those those are just opinions and I want to know what's actually happening so that I can be angry or not based on what's actually happening thank you hi Molly Merritt uh solar way um I'm a Greenfield parent and I plan to send my child to the public schools I strongly oppose uh the idea of police presence at GPS in 2020 the school Community came out decisively against school resource officers after hearing testimony from many students especially students of color about the threats harassment and intimidation they
023faced National statistics show that the presence of sro's has been linked to increased arrests of students for non-criminal Behavior as students are often referred to law enforcement for typical behavior and small infractions the school to prison pipeline is particularly devastating for students with disabilities and students of color um we may have problems that need to be addressed in our schools but instead of trying to solve these problems with methods that are proven to be harmful we have an opportunity to think about what might create a school culture where students can resol resolve conflict before it comes to a Breaking Point restorative justice programs such as the highly successful and effective Palante program of Holy Oak give students the tools to bridge differences solve interpersonal problems and create safe scho School environments uh one police officer
024in the school will not create a needed culture shift it's tempting to have a simplistic solution to a complex problem we but we need to do the work of creating districtwide conflict resolution and transformative Justice programming materials already exist that we could adopt please work to build a robust restorative justice program at GPS I am not alone in saying that having such a program would make me excited and proud to have a child in our district hi oh uh yes so I'm here about the SRO issue and I would like to express my opinion in that I am very much against an SRO in the schools I Echo what everyone has said before me in particular what John said about embracing and supporting children even when they make mistakes and as Molly also pointed out
025just before me um police intervention is proven to impact um and harm students of color in particular and putting them on a road to involvement with the criminal justice system and um finding solutions that are holistic and get at the deep root of the problems seems to me something that makes a lot more sense so and also thank you so much for all your hard work and for some those of you who were on the committee in 2020 for making that really um Mindful and thoughtful decision so thank you oh I'm from Greenfield good evening Doug selwin uh Forest Avenue um want to Echo what what people have said uh to this point and won't repeat it and again Paul uh jablon my turn today I think laid out a pretty clear plan for some
026things we could do what I want to suggest tonight is that now that ballot question to has passed and that we are no longer um required to do a forced March of our children to um high stakes testing at the uh end of the year we have the opportunity to refocus what we offer our young people in schools we can focus more on what engages them what matters to them what gives them a sense of hope and possibility and connection we can pay more attention to helping them to learn about taking care of themselves and each other to learn to listen to think critically and calmly about the ideas of other and to care for the community we can help teachers to become more skilled and practiced at working with children beyond their subject areas
027which means more consistent paid professional development we can help our schools pay enough so that the core of Educators can afford to stay and develop a culture and community that welcomes all the children we can bring in more social workers and counselors and folks who can help the community learn to develop the supportive Community we would like to see it's an opportunity we have and I hope I know we're doing some of that now but I think we have room to do more and I think that will address the safety concerns that we all share the other thing I want to say is what Stella said earlier the CL the climate resilience program is something that I really hope we can join with thank you and thank you for all your work is there anyone
028else where am I now good evening hi uh my name is Andrew paman I'm on Cleveland Street um thanks for the time to share my perspective on the school resource officer um all of us here are lucky to live in Greenfield a safe town and a safe region um and we all want Greenfield Public Schools to be places where students feel safe supported and empowered to grow uh schools should nurture the whole child academically socially and emotionally in recent years many districts across the country including Greenfield have turned to sro's to maintain safety on campus but the question we must ask ourselves is our SRO truly helping our students or are they reinforcing harmful systems that disproportionately affect um our most vulnerable populations school resource officers often do the opposite of what we might hope
029by creating a culture of fear and Punishment rather than understanding and healing research has shown that the presence of SRO can disproportionately harm students with disabilities students of color and poor students increase criminalization of minor infractions and escalate conflicts I have two children in our school system both have ADHD one has autism this means they don't process information in a way that an authority figure might expect they can be impulsive and often need more time to understand understand what is being asked of them and more time to respond if a police officer is present statistically this makes School less safe for my kids and for many kids just like them there is hardly a shred of evidence that demonstrates the effectiveness of SRO in fact much of the research concludes they are highly ineffective at
030making schools safer they are simply the illusion of safety despite the community's best intention therefore instead of policing our students we should invest in restorative justice practices because there is ample evidence that it works restorative justice builds empathy accountability and conflict resolution skills helping students heal and grow from their mistakes skills that will help them throughout their lives it Fosters supportive it Fosters a supportive environment that prioritizes social and emotional health over punishment ensuring every child has the opportunity to thrive let's choose healing over harm and transform our schools into spaces of care not criminalization thanks thank you if we down with public comment in the room we'll move on to the zoom um if you wish to speak um from Zoom please enter it in the chat I will start with the first person
031who requested to speak that's Patty p a y O'Neal with two L's on Glenbrook Drive hi um uh I also wanted to comment on the SRO issue um I did uh attend the uh Public Safety um presentation with the like um pres where the sro's presented uh their experiences and uh also the meet and greet and I thought the sro's um who had been working as SRO and the ones who were wanting to all seemed like very caring um people um they spoke about um supportive roles building relationships with the students um befriending them checking in and and mentoring and and just kind of showing up um which I thought was really great and surprising um however I'm still not sure why um these kinds of supportive roles couldn't be um provided in a nested
032in like a community institution rather than a police institution where um there is a lot of uh there's just been a lot of traumatic experiences for people um it's it's not an institution that has the best track record of accountability um I would be worried about like like maybe these SRO would be um nice to when you know really top tier thoughtful engaging people um but what if uh SRO who came after didn't weren't of the same caliber I've I looked through Reddit about this topic and it seems like it can be a mixed bag sometimes like you have these really good people who could be like these um SRO that I met um but there have also been that's time Patty okay well I just hope that we can um support the community to
033fill these roles and like someone else mentioned it sounded pretty good thank you thank you next is Melissa Webb on Grove Street hi Melissa web Grove Street I'm on my phone so I don't know if video okay it just unmuted um I was just calling because I know we're also discussing budgets and going to pto's and we also have the fifth graders coming back into the elementary schools I know one of our focuses has been to increase more um music art and gym time and I just hope that we can really keep on that path to have um you know a one full-time person for art a one full-time person for music and a one full-time person for gym and all three three of the elementary schools and that possibly we could talk about bringing
034back those programs into a on a reg regular basis thank you thank you next is Charity if you can say your first and last name in your town hi I'm charity o Conor um Lynden Avenue in Greenfield um I am a licensed school counselor and also the parent of a newborn who will be in the green Public Schools eventually um and I just mostly wanted to to affirm and appreciate the school committee for engaging with the topic of SRO so thoughtfully and in particular for standing by their 2020 decision to remove the SRO position um like so many before me I agree and understand the evidence that points to really immeasurable harm that happens when SRO are in our schools um but I also feel a sense of frustration about like just sort of the
035cyc nature of this debate it we spend so much time focused on SRO in particular we've the school committee has done such a wonderful job reviewing the evidence and making a decision I would love to see us move forward using our imagination collectively about what safety could really look like beyond that topic um I think there's so much that folks have named around restorative justice transform of justice that could really lead us in a Direction that's far more productive and supportive of our students and our community um and I really want to sort of reiterate the idea that we should be listening and taking our cues from the students themselves what would make them feel safe um what are they noticing in school that's working that's not working um I'm really curious about how we
036can continue to get their input about this topic um so yeah I just I want to reiterate how harmful I think sro's are and thank the school committee and encourage all of us to come together to figure out what safety looks like beyond the sort of carceral complex that we've been discussing so much thank you thank you Crystal Cleaver hey sorry just trying to find the mute button um hi I'm Crystal Cleaver uh 45 Russell Street you guys heard from me last meeting so I won't take a ton of time um but I just um do want to say uh a few more words I I talked last uh month about my son and about my concerns about having us aose in the school um I stand by that but I I also just wanted
037to mention that after the meeting last month hold on I'm on the phone sorry um the family that spoke about their child being assaulted at the high school was um in the lobby and I um you know we are in a particularly sort of like us them time in history I think and I felt really um moved by what they said and how abandoned they felt by our school system when their child was hurt and I am a social worker in in the community and so I went out and I spoke with them and offered my number and said that I could try and help connect them to any kind of supports or services that they needed I don't know if that was offered off by the school system or not but they didn't feel
038like it was offered by the school system they felt like they didn't they weren't heard they weren't responded to and so although I am on the opposite side of the issue of that family I do think that we need to um think about uh how we're responding when violence happens in our schools and make sure that families um because that child was hurt but that whole family was hurt um that whole family walked away traumatized and um you know I wasn't I'm not in the school system I don't know how it was handled I know how that family felt like it was handled and I know that when you're in a moment of trauma sometimes you're you know your thinking brain goes offline and so maybe they were offered supports but they weren't able to
039take it in in that time and so um I'm hoping that that incident gets looked at um I'm hoping that there's a review of that incident and that we think about how things could have gone better for that child and that family um because I think that incident is part of the reason we're having this conversation I don't know that a school resource officer could have changed the outcome for that family but I think that there are a lot of other things that could have happened in one second buddy um that could have happened for that family to walk away feeling safer and better about their their child being in the Greenfield Public Schools so thank you thank you Ella um hi Ella Condon Precinct 8 in Greenfield Ella can you spell your last name
040please for the minutes uh c n d n thank you um I want to thank the committee for their 2020 decision of pulling the SRO and for holding that line recently but I also wanted to Echo um Charity's comments that I think we need to move Beyond this conversation and really start looking at alternatives to an SRO and how we can better support our students when they are in times of emotional distress thank you thank you Maddox there can you hear me okay yes and you're madx sprangle s p r n g l yes you got it um I don't live in Greenfield but I am a mental health provider in the Greenfield Community um just want to thank you for making this space accessible to folks to join in the conversation um my training
041and experience has taught me that safety is something that's created in collectively practiced commitments to behaviors of care acceptance and skills for managing emotions and this is something that's created by staff by parents by students and by all of us in the community so the idea that safety could be provided by one individual through the threat of punishment or Force it's it's misguided and it's dangerous um and it's also a missed opportunity so instead of spending dollars towards an SRO salary the money could fund Collective skill building volunteer opportunities and that would offer safer and a better social return um Greenfield schools have an opportunity here to invest in foundational skill building where an ethic of care is the priority and I just want to Echo uh what charity said about including students in these
042conversations they are bright thoughtful people who also can really reflect and mirror back the treatment that they are being shown by the adults in their lives and also what Molly said about local school districts like the Palante program in hoolio who have experiened doing this work thank you so much thank you Andrew Vernon good evening everyone Andre Vernon Sun Square um two things uh one SRO I do nothing against Sr um I don't believe we need them in our school district but I am confident that something more needs to be done in our school district uh given some incidents that have happened against my son uh two I am fairly confident it's on the agenda uh so speak to it um I think it would be good for the school committee to consider I believe
043that the business manager position is through a vendor um rather than an actual School District employee I would like to have the school committee consider making that position a true Greenfield Public School employee rather than a rather than an outside mend not that that individual in position doing anything wrong or inappropriate um but just that in my opinion should be an actual employee thank you thank you um Eve you have two minutes to share public comment if you wish that be great um I'm in my car on the phone I'm Eve banov b o d OV and I'm a resident on Shadow Street in Greenfield I'm just going to try to summarize my letter because I'm a wordy person but I will say this um I speak to as a parent a former uh parent
044of a former Greenfield Public School System uh long and respected careers as a social worker and as a child and family therapist I listened carefully to the public safety commission and to the SOS who are great uh when they spoke on October 23rd um and I listened care to what they said and how they are effective in their jobs all the skills they have and all of the ways they understand and work with kids do not require a gun so I want the spring the Greenfield Public School System to give training to social workers or guidance counselors or teachers or vice principles the same level of training that the monu SRO guys have because um that's what we need we need transformative Justice and we need good social workers because that's what we do I've
045been a social worker for over 30 years and once a gun is involved it's a different conversation and instead of getting cooperation you get compliance and you get an escalation of threat and that's the worst thing you want to do to a kid who's disregulated um I will also say that uh I've in my career I've I've interacted with law enforcement in a number of different ways uh from being on the northwest District Attorney's high-risk team to running an abuse intervention uh program um for working with clients with pretty significant disregulation and the single most effective way to address violence or the threats of violence is to engage to find out what people's concerns are to find out what their needs are to help them feel seen and respected that's time okay thank you is
046there anyone else on Zoom who wishes to speak I see the mayor's joined us for the minutes welcome mayor all right thank you for the public comment we'll move on to recognition of Angela morsy welcome Miss morisy um Angela morrisy is the building monitor at Federal Federal Street Elementary School and was recently awarded the communities that Care Coalition Mike Fritz Community Builder award and Anga was nominated by the Federal Street PTO and her nomination highlighted her positive effect and uplifting Spirit as her greatest strengths as a positive role model for our students Angela's dedication compassion and commitment to inclusion and Equity have had a profound impact on the students at Federal Street Elementary we are certainly grateful for all of our hard work and dedication to Greenfield Public schools and want to congratulate and honor
047her tonight congratulations thank you yay Angela thank you okay um I guess I'll just use this moment while I have everyone's attention to just say how proud I am of the work that I see our Federal Street Community doing for our kids every day um looking around just this room I see several of our PTO members here our principal Kelly halin is here tonight um and I just in this time where everybody seems so at odds with each other and so concerned about what we're doing for our students I want to say that what I see every single day in our school is people doing every possible thing they can to work together to up LIF these kids and to make them feel safe um not just in our school but beyond to know that
048we're really here for them um in any way that they need us so for everybody listening please just keep your hopes up and don't think that nothing is being done because there are a lot of people working really really hard for our kids thank you we'll go to Kenzie next we welcome McKenzie pollen who is a senior at Greenfield High School and she is here tonight as well to be honored today McKenzie had a letter of intent ceremony at the high school where she has made her commitment and accepted an athletic scholarship to fut to further her academic and athletic career at maram College this commitment has allowed McKenzie to fulfill her dream of playing Division One softball and Coach Kay and I did a lot of history uh lessons today and we think you're
049the first softball player to go division one um ghs family friends and administrators joined McKenzie at her National letter of intent Signing Day to celebrate her hard work and achievements this achievement however did not come without sacrifice she has done hard work and much dedication to the sport of softball McKenzie has given up on many adolescent experiences to pursue this dream and we want to recognize that while challenging the reward for her is the Fulfillment of this dream the greenwave nation is very proud of her and excited for Mar Marram College to welcome her into their Community next year congratulations [Applause] I just want to say thank you so much it's an honor to be here tonight and I want to thank Miss patod for making today so special thank [Applause] you Shane Tumi will
050you come up I had the pleasure this week three ghs seniors were nominated for the Franklin County superintendence award adiana kluf Jake rardin and Shane toi this award recognizes one senior from each Franklin County school who not only excels academically but gives back to school and community and builds a positive culture I had the pleasure of interviewing all students and had to make the very difficult decision as to who this year's award winner would be I asked all three candidates the same questions and my last question to all of them was I've read your resume I've reviewed your transcript I read your guidance counselor's recommendation I've asked you interview questions about your school experience but what is it that all of that doesn't say about you that you wanted to share and it was Shane's
051response to the this that really address the characteristics of what this award represents Shane said to me quote a lot of folks thinks think it has been an effortless Breeze for me but that is not inherently true and implies a disconnect with the people around me the truth is I very much care about the world about this school and the people that have been in it with me some of them since a I have met some of the most interesting people in Greenfield during my school experience and I'm really grateful for Greenfield Public Schools and all of this my ultimate goal leave the world better than I found it and I learned that here it was those words that said to me congratulations to Shane Tumi on being the award winner we look forward to
052celebrating with you at the tech school on December 5th congratulations [Applause] feels very weird sitting at this table as opposed to over there I just want to address that um I want to say thank you to miss Paton for carrying out the interviews um I have as I said I've been in Greenfield Public Schools my entire life since a um it is no secret as I've seen sitting over there um Greenfield Public Schools we have our issues we have our challenges but despite all that I am still incredibly proud to say that I have spent my academic career at Greenfield and will get to finish it off at Greenfield High School I'm grateful for the people I've met the teachers who have coached me along the way and for the opportunities that have been provided
053so thank you [Applause] all okay so you're going right from being honored to giving a report we'll now hear the report of student Representatives to the committee all right putting on the new hat um so we're going to begin as we always do with student council um on October 11th the student council sent 18 students to the WC fall conference in minog where they got the chance to meet with regional student leaders from other schools and attended a variety of workshops likewise on October 26th the officers of the ghs student council attended officer shop at Worcester Technical High School this conference is Statewide and was intended to provide current and aspiring student council officers with networking opportunities as well as skills and ideas to return to their home councils as of the writing of this
054report the student council was finalizing preparations for our November bonding which will be a lockin at ghs only members who meet set participation and engagement requirements will would be able to attend and we will be doing a variety of uh activities games and workshops since then we have carried out this event and it was a huge success um we give kudos to everybody who showed up and stayed up all night for 12 hours and we had a really great time we're also currently planning for the upcoming Spirit weeks penny wars and our November preper Alle which will occur the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and for Key Club Key Club recently participated in the stonely Burnham trunk retreat with over 150 local children attending and completed another ghs campus cleanup we are planning for our annual Turkey
055Trot in November and our donation and participation in the Festival of the trees and Salvation Army initiatives um one quick Edition it's not on here but we do have some athletic recognitions we want to go over so first off JHS Jr Dylan brevik is the school's loone qualifier for this weekend's state cross country meet at Devon so congratulations to Dylan um elderen ketun Janan I'm very sorry for mispronouncing the last name uh made all states for girl soccer she is one of 27 girls in all of Western Mass to be recognized so both of those are incredible achievements and we applaud them both drama club drama club has continued to meet and welcome new members as we prepare for additions in mid November we are very excited to start rehearsals for our play the somewhat
056true tale of Robin Hood after Thanksgiving break French Club is preparing for our coffee house event on Thursday December 5th um during the first week of December discounted $5 tickets will be on sale at ghs lunches and tickets at the door will be $10 additionally that this year's T-shirt design will be made by French Club senior Mac Clark libr Club hosted the fifth annual comic conon last Wednesday over 50 people were in attendance for fun sessions including live action role playing basic comic structuring and spooky stage makeup there were also there were some incredible entries to the cosplay contest and everyone had a great time we thank the Greenfield Public Library for co-sponsoring this event um next up is a book to movie event on Friday December 6th at 5:30 p.m we will be watching
057Miss parag's Home for Peculiar Children which is about an abandoned orphanage for children with special powers the event is open to the public and copies of the book will be available to borrow at the ghs and GPL libraries Spectrum Spectrum Club has been compiling a list of new activities we would like to try out this year there is particular interest in exploring the lgbtq plus history of designs creating our own and distributing them in school members of the club have made positive connections with the Greenfield Public Library and this month we will be solidifying some ideas about future collaborations the school's trivia club team has been prepping for our December 7th uh televised show vers Suffield high school and we are adding a third St study session after school for the month of November the
058students are working hard and we're making significant progress in various areas of study and last but not least on the students of Color Club the students have created a thoughtful lesson that addresses the impact of slurs and stereotyping and provides tools on how to address them for middle and high school audiences they will begin to share this lesson to eighth grade advisories in December and they've been working closely with Administration and their me and their Mentor from communities that care that covers our report if you have any questions we would be happy to answer questions not seeing any thank you both so much we'll move on to reports of the administration Andy are you here yes I am great forward to a report okay so you have your monthly report as of the 12th of
059November regarding local budget and the revolving accounts and the capital accounts uh just uh so I don't want anyone to be alarmed because as we've always done in the past and even uh when we haven't been here the practice is always we're charging things to the local budget first and then as grants get approved we end up moving the expenses out of the local budget to the appropriate grants and then I also no cause for alarm regarding the a of District tuition line that's showing over 2 million in deficit because our budget was built using $2.4 million of circuit breaker and the special education 240 Grant so uh that is gives us actually we are looking at about for the sped tuition as of right now about a $70,000 quote unquote contingency based on what
060we had originally budgeted for um I can take any questions you might have regarding any of this if you so choose questions for Andy not seeing any Andy thank you so much no problem um next item is um we prior guidance from school committee with regard to format of reports and determination by Committee of next steps um there's been some interest in uh asking Andy to provide not just uh numerical reports but also narrative reports um Andy was very open to doing this for us however in the past had received guidance from the school committee that um that was not that we explicitly telling him not to do that so um we have a little research project to find out whether that's a policy or a vote that was taken um uh and so on
061so that's yes please Andy so yeah it was the two times we were here previously in Greenfield uh we as I've said and i' you know we we do provide a it's like a one-page cover sheet quite honestly memo with the highlights uh in a narrative form of what it is that I I report verbally and highlighting the you know how we're tracking on other funding sources regarding what it is that we use to build the budget on um it's a very simple simple narrative but the two times previously uh there were committee members that told me that and honestly I looked through the school committee policy specifically in the finance section of the policy manual and I couldn't find anything which leads me to believe that it was a vote at one time uh
062because I know I had a when I proposed a suggested change I think our first time here uh it was I believe member Holland at the time said that no this is a format and a agreed upon Pro procedure voted on by the school committee as to how it is that the reports were to be provided then uh second time again Superintendent at the time uh superintendent youber told us the same thing uh that you know the format is the what was voted on and then now this time uh when Dr debard started she asked because she's familiar with our narrative that we were uh provide uh asked why it wasn't done and again we it was reinforced and reiterated that it was past practice and uh we all the research shows if I can't
063find it in a policy manual doesn't mean that's in another section but uh it was I believe voted on as a voted practice that this is the format of the reports that the school committee wanted so I guess one next step um I mean if we made that vote in the past we're capable of making a new vote about something else so I guess um I guess I would ask that maybe we take a month and kind of look into it and I can perhaps come with a motion for the next meeting to uh um to request the narrative again does any any discussion or thoughts about that not seeing any look got a thumbs up okay right I have a question please uh so so this relates in part to training that um I
064just attended at the mass Association of school committees conference last week um in regards to I attended many useful workshops there but one of the most um interesting was about what should be in your budget document which I realized is a separate question um from our um monthly budget reports sure how we receive that more incremental kind of information um but the uh information provided was uh about the association of school business officials meritorious budget award and the process of obtaining it and what your budget document might look like if you were um trying to attain a a high level of um accessibility and Clarity in your budget document and I asked the question during this Workshop uh from two of the uh business directors who were presenting as to whether they used this type
065of document which did include things like narratives Graphics things that made the information very accessible in their um incremental budget presentations to their School committees and they both said yes so um this is something that now that the budget and finance subcommittee has um gotten well underway in our recent projects including the uh new annual budget development calendar and the process we are currently undergoing of uh conducting Outreach for uh stakeholder input into the next year's operating budget um I have been thinking that examining how budget information is presented and exploring U alternative ways of doing that would be uh upcoming next project or topic for budget and finance so I just wanted to put that out there in case the committee would like to delegate that research to the budget and finance subcommittee and
066uh we would be happy to take it up and come back with information and options okay um I open to a motion to delegate the research of um options for the presentation of financial reports to the um budget and finance subcommittee to make recommendations so moved seconded uh Susan did you get that no I have uh Elizabeth made it and Stacy seconded Glenn said it I I did my chairing duties um all right great any discussion um so we'll do the all votes tonight by a roll call um secretary Den hold on one second okay and the votes are by roll call because we have some members participating by Zoom MH um secretary Den I'm a yes Vice chair Martini yes chair Johnson mad yes mayor dorer yes member Goodwin yes member seon yes member
067Childs yes it's unanimous thank you we'll move on to the report from the assistant superintendent of teaching and learning good evening so you have in your folder tonight um my report it starts with uh I attended the Northwestern District Attorney's annual safe and healthy School Summit and had the pleasure of participating in the safe School climate and culture panel at this year's Summit organized by the Northwest District Attorney's Office the summit's theme was empowering belonging connection and learning highight and it highlighted the important importance of fostering inclusive and supportive School environments as part of the event Educators Community leaders and Advocates gathered at Greenfield Community College to discuss strategies for creating safe and welcoming schools where all students can Thrive and I had my first opportunity to include a couple pictures so um also excited
068to announce uh Greenfield Public Schools reading initiative with the Springfield Thunderbirds um this is the first kind of Public Announcement around this but there's more in the weeks and month to come the Greenfield Public Greenfield Public School students will have an opportunity to attend a Springfield Thunderbirds hockey game for free all they need to do is read for 20 minutes a day 20 times from Thanksgiving through January 6th we're working with the Thunderbirds to kick off this initiative at at the turkey trots on November 27th and hope that the Thunderbirds mascot Boomer um can join us in visiting Greenfield and all of our schools the goal is to encourage all of our students to find enjoyment in Reading improving literacy skills is a major District priority and this partnership will allow us to incentivize students
069for reading all students who complete the reading form will receive a free ticket and there will be an opportunity for families and caregivers to purchase purchase tickets to attend the game in early 2025 um secretary Den last month did ask around a grants update so I did list out the first section our grants that we've applied for and received um and then the second part of the list are are grants that we've submitted applications for and are waiting to hear whether or not they'll be awarded I did not include entitlement grants like um Title One and idea on this but um these are grants that we have pursued and received or are in the process of pursuing and in terms of professional development we had on Tuesday November 5th we had a full day of
070professional learning across the district most Educators participated in professional development focused on lesson internalization from our partners at teaching lab in addition to the teaching lab training we also had staff participate in Crisis Prevention Institute Training many Unit C members particip participated in strength-based instruction training in which they built off prior learning from August and our prek staff continued their training on growing a culture of care and respect with Partners from Greenfield Community College Beyond those trainings we also had training and activities on com combating chronic absenteeism or Nan's course selection process navian college application process best practices with with Imagine Learning reports and data inclusive practices and least restrictive environment and then open side training focused on empowering students and providing opportunities for Equitable discussion in the classroom thank you superintendent good evening um
071just a reminder for everyone that our desie district site revieww will begin Monday the 18th they will be here all next week um desie hires the American Institute for research um to be on site and to collect all of the data and then they filter all of the data and we'll hopefully get a uh full district report about four months after their site so hopefully in early spring we will get that they are going to be on site they're going to do interviews with various teachers students um counselors um central office staff Etc they're also hosting numerous virtual interview sessions with other stakeholders um such as the mayor and school committee they are um also participating in a parent caregiver virtual session um but that is requiring a pre-registration so I have that in my
072parent update and I will send it again again out tomorrow in my parent update we have had many families uh register so that's very exciting they said at our meeting yesterday I believe 17 families had already and they said that was pretty high for a lot of the site reviews so if you haven't registered yet and you're interested the link will be again in my parent update tomorrow so please do pre-register to be part of that I included a Green River update I had a few emails um sent to me over the week um as you know the city took over Green River as of September 1st but we had um had numerous items still stored in Green River so we were working diligently to try to get um the remainder of the materials out
073of there we had declared those materials in September a surplus at our school committee meeting and if you look back at that there were a lot of notes about uh many of those materials were there that were just either broken or irrepairable um some had mildew on them and could not be reused we hired a general contractor a local one we gave uh small business in town um the ability to come and help us dispose of that and they will recycle all of the metals so I know people had concerns that that wasn't happening but it is um we have one more classroom though that we have stuff that we will be using so our maintenance department has to get that uh distributed to all of our elementary schools because we are obviously planning for
074redistricting and adding fifth grade to our elementary so we did need some of the materials there we also had um Boy Scouts and juk and a few other uh Community organizations who did actually acquire some of the um Surplus items so they have been uh going to people who could use them so just wanted to keep people updated on that because I know um there was a lot of activity there with the dumpsters and people were trying to figure out what was going on but we were trying to do our due diligence and get it cleared for the city I also included a restorative practices update um it has been the topic of conversation obviously and much of the conversation around the SRO and what the schools could also be doing um it is something
075that I am uh committed to though we had tried to start it at the high school many years ago when I was the principal there and we're on a good track getting many of our staff trained and uh we were hosting circles at our faculty meetings we were teaching our kids how to host circles we were doing advisories with restorative work um and then covid hit and you know we're tired of hearing covid and then postco and all the things that it's ruined but um it is actually an investment and I'm I'm happy to hear that people understand that in a lot of the conversation because um many people think you can just become restorative that if we just say we are and we we want to do it it'll just happen but it really
076does take thoughtful um planning and purposeful planning and having stakeholders at the table with the planning and that incl includes community members that includes parents that includes students so you know we have um worked with the collaborative in the past Stephen and I met with the collaborative yesterday um we also have worked with frog we went to the communities that Care Coalition they had a restorative practice Symposium last week that I was a part of with two of our Greenfield High School counselors who are restorative practice trained we brought our nurse leader with us and really just working to figure out this planning year and so our director of Behavior Services is going to be charged with uh forming a committee getting interested students faculty staff and other stakeholders such as parents or community members
077who really want to take place um having a voice at the table and um planning with us and how we can thoughtfully roll this out it will require professional development time it will require an investment of budgetary funds and it will require the the continual practice and implementation so um this is not something that we are not paying attention to but it obviously is going to take a lot of um time and effort to get this done in a way that it is sustainable and I think that's the important part that we all are worried about is that we don't want it to be a oneandone PD we don't want it to be something we say we do but aren't embedded in our work so um we will keep you updated as these things unfold
078and I will certainly um put out there when folks can become part of that committee we have some staffing updates um we are excited to welcome Ian Edwards as our new director of Technology um he is slated to start with us on Monday November 18th so um you can look for him he's going to be jumping right in on Monday with the IT department um we uh also have begun interviews um for those of you that know our Newton Elementary School principal resigned effective November 27th um for personal reasons so we have posted and we have already begun the interview process we have um staff Administration other Elementary principles as well as parents on the committee and we've been doing virtual interviews so we hope to have that position filled uh quickly um in the
079interim though I did put out a message to Newton families and I did not see the recorder today but I've been told there is a story uh Mr Sullivan Elaine Mount our assistant director of pupil Services um will also be on site to help out as well as myself if needed so I don't want families to feel that there is not going to be Administration available because we will make sure there is we also um have been taking into account um that the need for full-time adjustment counselors and registered Behavior technicians is evident in our schools kids are traumatized we're still coping with the effects of covid we're still coping with kids who who um need help in how to deal with their emotions and how to deal with behaviors and how to be in
080a public school setting so we've added a full-time counselor and an RBT at Newton Elementary to try to help with some of those situations as always though we're still looking to fill some positions so we have some instructional assistant custodial and food service positions posted um we're also always looking for substitutes and volunteers so if you'd like to come help us out um please please just call my office and we will walk you through the easy peasy process so that you can maybe come spend lunch in recess with our kiddos last I just like to update um We are continuing with our district learning walkthroughs um you know ultimately students experiences and what they get in need in terms of education is our top priority and in order to do that we have to be
081in classrooms we have to see what's happening um instructionally with our students and we have to be taking stock as to what needs to be in place so that teachers can do their job and students can learn we conducted our second um official walkthrough with the teaching lab the professional development partner that we've been working through and each building principal is working this week with their instructional leadership team in their own buildings to analyze building based data and um also analyze uh information that was received at the professional development and we'll be working on that of faculty meetings to come um Stephen and I though also are um committed to being in buildings more so we hope teachers are feeling that and seeing us because we want to make sure that they know we're there
082to support them and that we're there to help them um with anything that they may need and we also enjoy being in your classrooms and seeing students joy in their classroom as well thank you thank you any questions for the super endent or the assistant superintendent please yeah this is more of a comment than a question um but I just wanted to thank both of you for all of the information that you included in your reports and being very responsive to the inquiries that we make but also to what you're hearing come from the community I think that the more like this represents so much work there is so much work being put in by not only our administrators but our building staff as well and and our everyone who's involved with the Enterprise of
083educating students which is a lot of people I think that the more that we can be out loud and proud about this work the better it's going to be um I think that having this information in hand does help to dispel any rumors that might be out there about what what is or is not occurring um and so I think this is work we can be proud of and we should be really loud with that Pride thank you sp and the piece I did leave out though that I should have added we are also in the midst of redistricting so we did site visits today um at the lien Woods Community Center and the oak courts Community Center and I've messaged out those families that are affected by the redistricting um and while it's um
084just about 70 or so students that are affected by this I don't want those families to think that we are not committed to making sure that they're making the best possible educational decisions for their kids so um it may not be always in the reports we put out there because it doesn't affect the whole Greenfield Public School Community but we have not lost sight of that as well thank you other questions or comments um Kate or the mayor just want to make sure I I can't see you so okay not seeing any no thanks okay I'd like to thank you both for all you do as well um let's see move on to the consent agenda are there any items on the consent agenda which members would like to consider separately yes member genive I
085was curious about the 2025 2026 ghs program of studies is that only available to us digitally it's not in the package okay lot of I assumed that it would be a lot of paper so um all right I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing anything nope got it great any other questions or items so we'll we'll vote on the entire consent agenda I'd like to hear a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented so moved is there a second seconded uh motion from Member seon the second for member Childs um any discussion secretary genive when you're ready to call the um the vote denz Vice chair Martini yes chair Johnson mad yes mayor dorer yes member Goodwin yes member seon yes member child's yes passes unanimously thank you very much we'll
086move on to school committee reports first is the role of the chair um I wanted to address um some questions have come up about um our role in approving warrants and also um public discussion at these meetings about particular invoices I'd like to start by just acknowledging I I don't know everything about this job that I'm in and I still have a lot to learn um one thing I'm trying to balance is items which are kind of in our role as a school committee and items that are in the superintendent's world and um obviously it's in our role to approve these warrants we're asked to sign them um at the same time discussion of like a particular invoice um I feel like if we authorize a a budget and authorize spunding Within in a realm
087that unless the particular invoice is way outside of what we've authorized the superintendent to to spend then it's uh it's not really needed to be discussed at a full committee meeting I'm not sure about that I have more to explore and learn but that's my current take on it so I guess what I would like to suggest as at least a temporary uh plan is is that um if members have questions about a particular invoice please pick up the phone and call the superintendent call the business manager they're available to answer your questions about every single invoice in that packet if they after that if there's something you still have a question about or seems like a problem seems inappropriate doesn't seem like something we authorizes superintendent to to spend bring it to me I'll
088put it on the agenda as that particular invoice we can discuss it in the public session in the meantime I will reach out to mask um Tracy Novak I guess has has made herself available um to just check in because maybe there's something I'm missing or um that I need to learn about what our role is um with that um so I wanted to share that and I would take any questions or comments from the committee remember good one I would like us to relook at the process for the signing of the warrants and maybe consider a majority versus just one person being the signatory I feel like there's unfortunately I feel like there's a lot of rubber stamping and I believe it is our primary responsibility to oversee the financial um aspects of running
089the school department so one person is signing I never know who that person is um I see warrants after they've been signed um so I'm asking questions after it's already been acknowledged that the bills are being paid so there's a lot of you know I'm sitting here looking at reports in a different way I'm seeing a lot of negative numbers um so things are being shifted around um so there are a lot of questions and I think as a taxpayer I'm always asking questions about how public money is being used um and so the way we currently do it doesn't give me as a member of the school committee a way to feel like I'm getting questions answered prior to um Warren being approved approved so I'm just looking for another way um and some
090school districts do have multiple people um being responsible um there's a majority uh so instead of one person and also saying that there's one person who has signed and not who that person is is also um another thing that I think should be we document everything through the minutes that should be something that is also documented somewhere um I will let just to share a little bit of of History um when I came on to the school committee our process was that a quorum of us needed to actually go in and sign the full warrant um the opportunity came up they there was a change in the law for the school committee could vote to design to allow um a single member to uh to sign on behalf of the whole committee the committee voted
091to allow that currently it's a kind of a first come first serve if someone gets there and signs it um we can look into that maybe we want to designate someone in a particular role or um want to designate a particular person we could also revisit the the whole um format um so we I'd be happy to put that on agenda for uh a future meeting um for us to take a fresh look at the way the warrants are authorized um if people ever want to know who it is that authorized the warrant you can um contact the business office um Vera I'm sure will be happy to answer that I can tell you most of the time it's me um but but uh any anyone is welcome to I don't always have to be
092the one to do it our bills do need to get paid so someone needs to go in and and look at those invoices in a timely manner um and sign off on those that has been me um but I uh welcome other members to take that on you just have to and you one way to I have a reminder set in my phone uh it's usually the Monday every other week um so you can set a reminder in your calendar that's that's how I do it to go in and look um other questions or comments secretary Den I concur with everything that member Goodwin has said and one of the things that I asked in hyenas last week I asked every committee that I could find what they did with their warrants how it came
093up in their meeting and they all said well this is a standing item on our agenda and really 99% of the time no one's going to bring up a warrant like I don't care that you have to pay for copy paper like it's it's of no interest to me but once in a while you encounter one that you're not familiar with or whose amount doesn't seem maybe correct and you just want to have a little bit more information and because it's public money it really needs to be discussed in a public forum and it's also an opportunity for us to sort of course correct if we find something that maybe um we could be asking about um a new contract for a vendor perhaps we need to be able to bring it up so us
094not talking about it is very out of the norm this is something that you're expected to talk about and I don't think any one of us would um abuse it in any way or um be nitpicky or even talk about it all that much I mean it's we get these things that are like 150 pages long but bills that have to be paid and everybody just wants to have the bills paid but it's also our responsibility to scroll roll through and to make sure everything looks copasetic and 99% of the time it does so if there's something that's an outlier it is absolutely our job to bring it up and that's what we found in hyenas I think I don't know if you can concur with me remember seon but that was the the Viewpoint
095was best practices warrants on the agenda at all times that is what was brought up by most of the school committees that we did talk to about this and asked what their practice was um I can also say that I I mean I don't know how you're defining in a timely manner but I'm often looking at those warrants within four hours of them coming to us but even still before I've had a chance to get through them all they've been approved so that's part of the pro processual problem that we're talking about yep we will have it on an agenda at a future meeting about how the committee wants to um handle warrants we can revisit that I would say um I see the mayor and um member Martini would like to speak but I
096I would say that um if we do have uh you know if I've been wrong in the past practice of the committee has been wrong and and this should be on the agenda as a standing item um I still think it would be courteous and helpful for the superintendent and their the business manager to know what people's question questions are in advance so she has a Time chance to prepare responses and it's possible that the answer that she gives you would make you feel like perhaps this isn't something that requires the attention of the full committee and and the full community watching from home member Martini I uh just thought I would add a little bit of my recollection from this previously as well um because I was on the committee um during our past
097practice which was that four members were required to sign up on warrants and there was a frequent problem with getting all four signatures by the time that was required for the bills to get paid and I I recall that being part of the discussion about um whether or not we should go to one member and signing off on warrants and I'm not really taking a position here about how many members ought to sign up on warrants but um if we're going to discuss this I think that should be part of the um part of the solution so that we're not um stressing out our administrators with the same problem that we used to have and um in terms of uh other committees and what they do and what have you I've certainly spent a lot
098of time uh going over other um committees materials and things like that um partly in large part in the process of creating our annual budget uh development calendar because I was looking for precedent um in other places so there certainly are a lot of other committees that have warrants as a standing item um on their agenda so there would be plenty of um of precedent for that I'm not sure how that would work with our um schedule because if we have warrants um that need to be signed every other week we don't meet every other week so that is a question that remains to be answered some committees do meet twice a month and we don't so um I would like to to hear what options are actually feasible and if there would be some
099kind of substantive change that would have to happen in order for for that to be a thing thank you mayor dorer um so first I'd like to thank you Glenn for being the person that is there and doing the signing um when I first um got to be the mayor that there was so much to wrap my head around and there were these emails that were coming out could we please get one person to sign the warrant and um it sounded like Vera was waiting for one person and the first thing I wanted to say was thank you for doing that because I actually emailed her and I thought do we have to go there or whatever because I didn't want um her waiting to have the bills paid so I'm grateful very grateful for
100you doing that I and secondly I think it's a good discussion for us to have um because um if we're you know it runs different on the city Side we have two or three signers you know like the accountant and I sign the accountant signs and I sign and I go through everything carefully because my signature is on it and um I do think it's a good discussion because I have never not once have I been the person that was the signer maybe because it took me longer to get there because I had a lot to do or whatever but I think if we're all ultimately responsible maybe there is a different way that we should look at it so I think thank you Glenn for um for doing that and for putting it on
101the agenda for us to go forward because it sounds like we're all supposed to you know acknowledge that you know we attest to everything that's on the warrants so I agree with taking it a step further thank you you're welcome uh member Martini yeah I'm sorry I just had one thing um I forgot to say I was thinking about um some of the work that we did on the handbook uh the school Committee Member handbook um when we were developing that over uh the course of the summer and uh one of the important points in many of the handbooks that I looked at for um precedent and guidance about how other committees um developed their uh guidelines for their members was no gotas basically and to please let the superintendent know or the business manager
102whoever it is that you have a question for what your question is ahead of time so that they could be sure to be well prepared um when you ask it um if you don't if you're not letting them know what your question is uh beforehand then they will not have had a chance to go and do whatever um fact finding or research that you need them to do to answer it for you so I just wanted to um Echo What Glenn said there if you have a question about a warrant um please reach out to the superintendent to the business manager so that they can get that information for you um I'm not saying that we shouldn't put warrants on agendas and and talk about them then too but if we do that I just
103um want to advise members to please um communicate in advance so that you can get the information you're looking for thank you U mayor dorer are you use your hand up again I no I just forgot to take that okay fair enough if you were physically holding your hand up you would probably have noticed that in the virtual world it's easy to forget um I guess I'll say one thing with our until we have a chance to discuss this um as a full agenda item in the meantime I'll plan to um wait 24 hours from when the um email Coes out to us before I sign off um and maybe we can all plan to do that give give everybody 2 4 hours um to look at it and to ask any questions they may
104have before um someone authorizes it um anything else on that before we move on thanks everybody um where are we here timeline for discussion of business manager hiring environment and the logistics um at the last meeting uh I had agreed to ask Liz lefant from ask to come tonight to talk to us about basically what is the hiring environment for business managers uh we currently have a contractor um and people are qu are questioning which way we want to go um she wasn't available tonight but is working on um either herself or um someone else from mask coming to join us in December so that's the update on that uh I keep losing my spot here okay budget and finance [Music] subcommittee um member Mar hi hi yes so um as you will know if
105you have been um joining us recently uh and I will go over it in case you haven't uh the committee has a new annual budget development calendar that has um just been uh developed and approved as of September and um the purpose for this is to give us more clarity and more engagement uh with budget development uh here too far in the past uh we have had uh what I think is kind of a murky um process of budget development which um leads to a lot of kind of ignorance and confusion out there about how the budget happens um and people want to have um want to have input they want to share their ideas um what they think is important and that's part of our own policy as a school committee so uh we
106now have uh this calendar which spells out for people all the different uh moving parts that go into the development of the uh the budget every year um including actions by the school committee School administration the city and what goes on at the state level um and how those things ultimately come together into our our school budget and uh it also outlines for people um the many ways in which they can offer their input along the way so I would encourage everyone if you haven't already um had a chance to check it out uh go on to the school the school website um and under Administration you'll see the budget information page and there you will find the FY 26 budget development calendar which is now posted there in English Spanish Russian and Romanian and
107uh the superintendent has included this in her recent updates as well uh repeatedly so people should um find that readily accessible and then the next thing that we did uh was to decide upon uh manner of providing a more Outreach uh than has been done in the past uh for Gathering stakeholder input into budget development so that the committee can establish priorities um in this upcoming budget and uh again in the past uh folks have certainly been um able to and have shared their input by the usual means of doing things like emailing the school committee or making public comment um and we strongly encourage people to continue doing that but we also decided we wanted to um take a more forward approach so members uh so as you know the school committee approved um
108this this uh Outreach plan last month and members of budget and finance have been um attending meetings of um our PTO and uh the ghs school council in order to uh essentially conduct some listening sessions to hear from uh our parents and staff and students um who may be at those meetings to um as to what's important to them in our budget uh and can't really uh say at this point because I don't know all of the input yet uh what exactly um all of that will come out to but um I can say that we have already been out to um PTO at a at GMS and um we are uh I just went to the ghs school council um the reason that that is a school council um Outreach rather than a PTO
109is because there is not a PTO at ghs uh and um Federal Street actually also just occurred yesterday as well we're looking forward to upcoming um similar sessions at the PTO at Newton as well as at the discovery school at Four Corners um that will be Monday the 18th at 4:30 and Tuesday December 3rd at 6 respectively and uh I will will also be um doing the same thing with our CPAC which is special education parent advisory Council for those who don't know and our elpac which is our English learner parent advisory Council um and those are uh on Wednesday the 20th at 5:00 pm through zoom and on Thursday the 21st at 6 pm at the GMS Library respectively all of this information in terms of dates um and locations and what have you
110is going out weekly has been going out um through the superintendent update and has also been posted on our um social media so and I just wanted to say in that context um it just to respond to a mention during our public comment session about um hearing things from Facebook or um other ENT online um I would just encourage folks to please rely upon the district's social media pages and not U not necessarily other sources if you're looking for Reliable information so please head on over to the Greenfield Public Schools Facebook page um if you would like to catch up on the dates for all of these um budget development discussions uh so I'm looking forward to um coating all of that information and bringing it back to school school committee in December uh so
111that we can um so that we can establish some priorities going into uh the budget season that is upcoming um and that's about all I have um about the subcommittee I did just want to add that um just in terms of my own experience um Glenn I relate to what you said about not necessarily knowing everything about your role um because uh this being my first year chairing budget and finance is also steep learning curve for me um so uh I just wanted to um update you all about my activities last week at the masc conference because I focused on attending as many um budget related sessions as I could and there were um some excellent um trainings that I attended there like I mentioned before um including uh one called the uh student Opportunity
112Act is working but uh which was an excellent um Deep dive provided by masc and mass budget into what is working and not working about the student Opportunity Act uh also the training that I mentioned earlier uh which was entitled what should be in your budget document and uh I really enjoyed hearing from Wister and Welsley public schools and their business managers and our um masc field director uh Tracy uh in that training and I'm looking forward to following up on that um in budget and Finance in terms of um how we can improve our budget document uh I also attended trainings on using data to inform School budgets and policy securing top-notch School Finance leaders strategies that work and special education Financial issues impact and management so uh I just wanted to share that
113uh experience with you and I'm looking forward to using all of that um Newfound information in our ongoing work on budget and finance thank you other questions I I just have a comment please um I would just like to thank um member Martini for her work on this um I can feel that she's put her whole heart and soul into this and I really appreciate the Outreach that she's doing and I'm I'm grateful thank you I second that any other questions or comments thank you so much member Martini uh policy and program subcomittee we have listed here first read of policy J IA dress code and uh uh I need to give you a lot of context but basically we're not taking action on this tonight so um at the last meeting we found it
114basically kind of a typo or some missing words we sent it to our attorney and asked him to please fill in the missing words so we kind of thought it would just be non-substantive changes uh when he took a fresh look at it because he had seen it before but when he took a fresh look at it he saw many things ways that it could be improved so he provided a marked up copy of us to us with many new changes and basically it was going to come to you tonight as a first read um of a substantively changed document um however we had some Version Control issues and the version in your packet is not the version that uh we want to put forward to you so um I guess I would take a
115u motion to table the first read of policy jca dress code to our December meeting so Move Motion from Member Charles is there a second second second from Member Goodwin any discussion uh secretary Den will you call a vote second was good one yep yes okay Den May yes um Vice chair Martini yes CH Johnson mad yes mayor dorer yes member Goodwin yes member seon yes member Childs yes passes unanimously thank you that is tabled um Community engagement subcommittee member ston all right so I believe it was the 22nd of October that we had our very first community engagement subcommittee meeting at which time we reviewed a draft um Mission and function document which basically lays out what our responsibility is and what we are supposed to be doing with our time um as a
116function of that subcommittee we did get some public comment which was great people knew it was happening they came that was exactly what what we're trying to do there um and then we had a a really good discussion about the draft that was provided to us um we made a few changes which is not in your packet but probably will be for next meeting um I think that you can probably find it on the meeting minutes from that meeting that should be on our website um but essentially what we wanted to revise was actually to make the language a lot more active so instead of just attending various meetings we also wanted to be able to to host them to call for them to say we would like to to do things rather than just
117showing up to the things that other people are doing um we wanted to give ourselves the attitude to also be proactively hearing things and then maybe let's have a forum to discuss it or let's have a listening session about XY or Z thing um and that is that's basically what was CH uh reflective in all of the wording changes um that we're in here um and we also discussed that we of course want to make sure that the things that we're doing are in alignment with where the administration is is wanting to go so that we're not working at odds with each other but actually really supporting one another um with calling these meetings um our next meeting we decided we V we voted to establish a regular meeting time as part of this which
118is the third Tuesday of every month at 6 PM the third Tuesday is next week so our next meeting if you want to come hang out with us is Tuesday the 19th at 6 PM I believe it will likely be over Zoom unless I can secure a spot somewhere um and for that meeting we'll actually be diving a little more deeply into our goals for the remainder of the Academic Year so if you want to come and give us goals as the community please do so otherwise we'll discuss amongst ourselves that's pretty much what I got thank you mayor I see your hand up uh no what happened again was I forgot I'm putting it down excuse me no problem president yes excuse me chair any other question questions or comments for Community engagement thank
119you very much um mask division 5 representative member Den I have my division five and my masc conference and my legislative all-in-one report for you wonderful thank you for sending me to the massachusett association of school committees hyenas conference 4 days left last week which I attended with member ston and vice chair Martini my first panel was on how to incorporate policy review into your regular committee work and how to navigate the differences between procedure and policy I chose this panel because we have recently completed our masc policy review and are now ready for internal reviews to adjust our policies to our own Greenfield school culture I wanted to make sure I understood the value for and reasoning behind that process in order to bring additional info to member Child Safety Research I took how
120to create a therapy pet program in your District which I think is something worth discussing because it is locally possible volunteer-based not expensive supports social emotional learning practices and has evidence-backed data for helping increase literacy rates having therapy pets in your school Community regularly has been shown to increase feelings of safety for staff and students through lowering trauma response responses and increasing Joy one of the most active programs began in Fitchburg and has been going strong for years I also Met School committe members from Athol who are using pets regularly in their buildings at both the elementary and secondary level and there were pets there which we got to pet so that was fun my third panel was on securing School Finance leaders which I took with Vice chair Martini we learned new strategies to
121find Finance leaders in the education environment and the private sector many Finance officers would like to move out of the corporate world and into education and we were given actionable steps to take when crafting new contracts and job descriptions I also had a conversation with our masc field director Liz leond about this panel and future training and her suggestion was that we take the steps we learned and begin the process of meeting as a committee first to discuss what we would like to see in the future prepare several documents and contract drafts and then contact Margaret Driscoll at masc who is their finance officer Brain Trust um and have her come and give us a training look at our progress and make suggestions for next steps I also took a panel on parent ADV advisory
122councils the purpose of this panel was to learn how to work with them in the district by including and inviting them into our committee reports and presentations increasing their visibility in the buildings and District Communications we were also presented with a new policy kbg that requires the formation and support of specific packs the new policy language will be available in a few weeks but I have forwarded an advanced copy to the chair and superintendent for early review and adoption and I have a hard copy for you my fifth panel was on communication through crisis and controversy this panel was given by a sponsor so what I glean from it is the importance of having continuous communication across all platforms suggestions were to have a Facebook page that is connected to our web page with a
123good news tracker showcasing all the positive work we are doing and how to create social media that is not comment enabled my sixth panel was the big one I was interested in it was the longest one I took new funding for improving school facilities this panel answered many of the questions we've all been having about Capital Improvements in our buildings the basic gist is there are organizations we have not thought of who regular L step in to help maintain the older buildings like eversource they have a program for this part of how that works is making a practive plan as a committee now to decarbonize our school buildings completely the idea being that if we come together and make statements of interest about older boilers and other fossil fuel energy users we'd like to remove
124we would be very likely to get full funding for replacing these systems with heat pumps and new technology I have three different organizations we can contact about this one of which Mass clean energy was mentioned in public comment earlier and has a new and robust program beginning in January which we should take advantage of the msba the Massachusetts school building authority is also starting a brand new heat pump program in January which we should look into right away I will create a list of these resources and send it to the chair and superintendent next week and hopefully we can have a special meeting about our facility soon soon and get started on this work because most of these programs begin in January but not all of them are about um HVAC they cover all kinds
125of different facilities issues um another thing that this panel covered was how to get started with new building projects which is something we're just beginning to think about now talking about the potential to have a new elementary school um we had our division five meeting with our division 5 colleagues which covers the Connecticut Valley and felt very productive we discussed the next steps we identified at the last day on The Hill the plan is to bring our advocacy work now to plan virtual meetings with legislators throughout the winter and spring Humera faden is the chair of division five M she and I plan to begin this work shortly we will identify the current legislative priorities and I will bring them to you all for approval we have added new interested Comm committees to our informal
126Coalition last at the last stage on the hill we went with six or seven different School committees from Mostly Western Massachusetts we now have contacts with Pioneer Valley Regional East Hampton Worthington and Amherst pelum to bring on board for the next day on the hill event uh memb seon and I also created an idea along with the Worthington school committee and collaborative board member to meet with division five members at the Northampton collaborative to work on these Regional issues and meet our other committee friends a little closer to home we will let you know how that goes and invite you all when we have a date let's see there's anything else oh yes um I reached out to comerford's office about our high school boiler issue and that resulted in a meeting between the mayor
127superintendent and comerford's office last week to discuss and the door is now open for future eark earmark requests with that office thank you very much for attending that meeting and I think that was a really great first step towards working with our local legislators to fund some of these projects that are right at our doorstep and that is my entire report thank you questions comments member Goodwin just thank you for doing all of that you're welcome so much thank you it was so much so I appreciate you so much thank you remember seon I just think maybe Kate and I probably need to do a write up similar to what you did because Elizabeth just shared all the sessions that she went to but Kate and I were also at our own sessions we strategically
128divided so we could we could talk even more but we won't right now I appreciate you all for going and uh appreciate you um member Deni for really leading the charge and inspiring everybody member Martini I was just going to say remember genive this is why you win Awards thank you so much that's right and the award that was announced a few months ago at this meeting was officially given to Elizabeth at the mass conference so congratulations thank you I'll bring it next month so that Karen can add it to the pile of Greenfield Awards excellent thank you all right it's uh 802 uh we can take a five minute break [Music] n a [Music] he [Music] a [Music] n [Music] a [Music] n [Music] a [Music] a [Music] n ah [Music] n [Music] nah
129[Music] a [Music] he [Music] we'll resume our meeting Sydney are you ready okay great we are returning from our break um we're on to Old business the new elementary school subcommittee we had um had a motion to lay this motion on the table the motion was to create an ad hoc subcommittee to research and present a proposal on whether to set a goal of constructing a new elementary school I'd like to hear a motion to take this item up take it up from the table okay a motion from the secretary and a second second a second member Martini yeah I think we have to like have a motion to bring it up again um so uh any discussion on discussing the motion okay member Den will you call the vote this was on just taking
130up the mo just taking up the discussion discussing it tonight yeah Den yes Vice chair Martini yes chair Johnson mad yes mayor dorer yes member Goodwin yes member seon yes member child yes yes all unanimous all right great so we are now um taking up the motion to create an ad hoc subcommittee to research and present a proposal on whether to set a goal of constructing a new Elementary School uh any discussion I'll comment if's not anybody go ahead thanks in the room um well I brought this up because um the committee has talked about this idea numerous times over the last couple of years and um understandably redistricting uh took precedence and I would like to have the committee consider this again you know now formalizing this in um terms of research and discussion
131because I have concerns about the um long-term and and even fairly shortterm sustainability of our uh Elementary level facilities and um not to be exhaustive about it but just among them I would say that Newton School is 109 years old at this point in time and I understand that um the large addition is um considerably newer than that but it was still 198 9 and uh we also have similarly um aged school buildings Four Corners is about to be 70 Federal Street school is almost a 100 years old at this point and um I think we need to consider the the health of our facilities what they need right now what they are at risk of needing in the near future and what that means for the stability of of our planning uh for example
132we did um we did put through a fix for the elevator at Federal Street school at a cost of $75,000 uh this year but my understanding from that discussion is that it was only a patch and that there was a possibility that it would break down more seriously and need to be replaced um at that at a cost of about a million dollars uh and of course those costs will go up as time goes on and it's not lost on me that a similar million dooll repair need was the uh driver behind the closure of Green River School which then led to a great deal of um upheaval for the district moving grade levels around um into the middle school and out of the middle school and uh I feel concerned about what um what
133may be on the radar for us I would not like to see The District in a similar position because of a lack of advanced planning about our facilities so um I would be interested in having a subcommittee tasked with the purpose of investigating the um the current health and risks and potential benefits of building a new school uh that being said I also wanted to just put out there this um could potentially be related to the next discussion on the agenda this evening which is uh another proposal as to creating a subcommittee focused on safety I just wanted to mention that um in terms of History the committee used to have a subcommittee that was entitled uh something along the lines of health safety and facilities subc commmittee and uh we had decided to um
134eliminate it two or three years ago and um it sounds like both of these items would be um appropriate for a subcommittee so titled but um I would be open to either either idea so it sounds like you're open to either a ad hoc subcommittee with a limited focus on creating this proposal or um creating a recreating US Safety and Facilities subcommittee who tasked who would be tasked with this same um project to present the proposal that is correct thank you other comments or question questions uh let's see I see member Goodwin and then member child's I think mine is more of a question um we used to have a facilities manager who was it was sort of their oversight of the buildings which matches what um member Martini was just describing is that still
135exist yes Michael buo is our facilities director yeah and I think that the school committee's role would be more like setting goals related to facilities such as should we try to create a new building or other other big picture things like that y remember child so from the city's construction uh committee some of the things that I have picked up is that if we were doing a super accelerated timetable for a new building we're looking at at least a decade so I think we all need to be clear that anything here it's not okay we're closing the three elementary schools tomorrow it's long-term planning but something else that has been stressed on that committee is that the more planning you have in place before you do your Grant application because you're not doing any Municipal
136Building without State funding the closer it is to getting what you want so uh basically this is a long-term plan and as much planning as you can do as possible and the the environmental uh impact of these buildings is something that has been discussed at the uh Town construction committee as well especially looking at HVAC heating and more than that cooling at these older buildings that were built at times when may would not have 98 degree days I don't know if we have 98 Degree Days yet here but some days it feels like it so um just some context from the relevant City committee thank you uh member mayor dorer I think this is a great idea um and I I would also like to say that the ad hoc committee I feel it I
137guess that you're thinking or maybe whoever is bringing this forward would be thinking a subset of the school committee um and um and I'd like to thank you for serving on planning and construction I think it's important to have somebody like from energy and sustainability who takes a look at the efficiency of all of the you know subcommittee of all of the buildings on this their their uh fuel use Etc we spend a lot of time and energy um looking at which buildings use the least fossil fuel so I think it's important to to look at this and maybe to have um you know a few people that are that are a subset of this committee but maybe using somebody from energy and sustainability on this so the makeup of the committee would be important
138to me but I do think it's a very good idea I know Ann you've looked at the over all of the buildings and but financially I don't think we can look at it at building anything until 2035 because of our borrowings and there are different departments that have different needs I know I has looked at you know City Hall um but I think it's a very good point about how old the schools are and whether it's a good idea to have all of the elementary children in one school with that help with some of the things that we're having issues with with lack of diversity in some schools or possible lack of diversity in some schools so I I definitely would vote in favor of this but I would like to talk about the the
139makeup of the committee thank you other questions or comments looks like me member seon and then member Martini yeah I just wanted to say that I would be in favor of cre creating this um somewhat agnostic about whether or not it's a subcommittee versus a new standing committee although if we're talking a 10-year time frame it might be worth it to have the standing committee just because other things might come up that would fit under their purview rather than having a multitude of ad hoc committees um but I think that it is prudent for us to be asking these questions and if we don't start it now you know someone else is just going to have to start it even later next could compound our problems moving forward other questions or comments m one oh
140member Martini sorry I think I had said okay um I was just going to um Echo member Childs about the need for this to be a 10-year plan um it's not something that can be um picked up and done quickly by any means which is part of the reason why I think the committee needs to formalize and approach to this now um and I am also mindful of what the mayor um just brought up in terms of our city debt obligations U because 2025 I'm sorry 2035 is um that's nine years away now and that fits um pretty well with a 10-year plan so um and I appreciate what member zon just said about um it making more sense to make it a standing committee give given the long range nature of the planning thank
141you um member goodwi I think this is a good idea to start the conversation but as um a principal of construction I mean there was a one of the things I learned through that process is that you have to monitor the state and all of a sudden the state will release money and encourage um cities to apply which is why a lot of middle schools were built in the year 2000 and you may not be having those conversations and they happen too fast so I think this is a good idea and monitoring um how the rules changed I'll give you a good example in the year 2000 a team of people came to Greenfield Middle School and also South Hadley Middle School and we were told that if we wanted extra space in our classrooms
142we would ask for green houses none of us wanted green houses at that time we wanted extra space in our classrooms because they were very small what the state designated for children at that time we all got green houses and no extra space thank you for the history other questions or comments okay um well here's my thinking is a little fuzzy um do we I mean it seems obvious we need a new elementary school at some point uh the the the current motion is about presenting a proposal on whether to set a goal of constructing one but everyone the way everyone's talking it sort of sounds like well obviously they're going to come back to us and tell us yes but am I wrong about that is that is there any going to be any
143argument against trying to get a yeah member child's so the argument that came up at the construction committee was about walkable towns and neighborhood schools so I do know that there will be some people who support the smaller schools and the smaller walking distances right so the sustainability you know how much can these buildings be nurtured and retrofitted with better technology so yeah there will be some people who are against a new school just saying that right and the way it's phrased is it assumed that we set a goal of constructing a new Elementary School it would be a single elementary school for the whole town is that the way people are thinking of I'm seeing a some people nodding yes and some people nodding no so I guess that would be part of the
144committee's work would be to to um look into that the funding environment walkability neighborhood schools um all all those different issues um other Pros that there may be for having a single school um so let's see well um I'm also aware that it is November um and um in January there will be you know usually reassignment of subcommittees um so maybe we think about um maybe I could come back to you next month with a proposal of how to structure the work talk to the superintendent talk to the mayor and um what look at the possibility of doing a um standing committee um so maybe we don't take action on this tonight what do people think I'm seeing nodding heads all right um so then I guess the question is whether we vote on this
145current motion or just essentially um vote it down for the time being with the understanding that we'll come back to this uh next month any preferences from people about how we handle that remember Eve I'd like to see it come back next month because I mean I have notes here saying that I'm wanting to request a meeting about building facilities I mean maybe there's a larger umbrella to discuss keeping our current facilities up to dat learning how to utilize State programs getting comfortable with that and also kind of leveraging all of this into learning about how to build a new elementary school that's going to be quite a journey for all of us and there we'll probably all be gone by the time that this is built so we want to do the work I
146think thoughtfully and and as proactively as possible with as much information for the future people that are coming after us to have okay member Childs I'm sorry member Goodwin and some community are giving great thought to not just building a school but building a school attached to a YMCA building a school attached to a public library um looking at you know a 24-hour child care by having you know the why attached to the school so there I think it's wise for communities when it comes to funding to look at what other types of building schools can be attached attached to that help with the overall picture you know um North Adams has a large Elementary School it's the newest one which is attached to the YMCA so the children have before school care after school
147care um and you know the Y has a separate parking lot but it's actually well done and I think in Greenfield we kind of think Silo based where we have to have this building that building that building but looking at how we can connect those two projects are usually well received by state funders um and there are other things that Greenfield desperately needs as well thank you uh any other questions or comments yes member ston this is just a one of the many exciting things that I learned while I was at the conference I took a session on Robert's rues because I'm that kind of person um and the technical term for what we're wanting to do right now is postpone oh okay great yeah well um with your Roberts rules experience member sex we
148please make a motion I would like are you wanting this in December or January um I think we should I think we should re well what do people think do we want November we want December or January December yeah May December great then I would like to make a motion to postpone the discussion of the new Elementary School subcommittee the discuss discussion and vote discussion um to the December school committee meeting I'll second that and I see mayor jerger mayor disor sorry oh put your hand down and didn't unmute and maybe you wanted to unmute too yes great I'm all set thank you oh you're all set okay great any discussion all right secretary Den will you call the vote Den I'm a yes Vice CH Martini yes chair Johnson missan yes mayor dorer yes
149member Goodwin yes member seon yes member Childs yes passes unanimously great thanks everyone great discussion um let's see member Childs was tasked with um giving us uh research in potential recommendations um around uh school safety needs remember Childs okay so I've spent the past month interviewing usted parties attend very sorry talking is hard attending various meetings reading academic studies on as many facets of school safety including but not limited to school discipline strategies various support Personnel roles emotional support dogs and even teenage circadian rhythms uh while the research let Al alone a comprehensible report on said research is more than what can be realistic done in one month I do have two items of action to present to the school committee tonight but first I have a little bit of relevant information you'll find it
150repeats some things that have already been said tonight but it's also part of the study so um the topic of communication it should be known that superintendent Pat node and chief Dodge are continuing to actively work together and additionally superintendent patod has been working on improving communication with other City departments by representing the school department at City department head meetings so good movements there uh shifting topics restorative practices have come up a lot in both research and interviews and also tonight in public comment as an update on what's going on though there's more in depth in the superintendent update tonight superintendent patod has been working with numerous entities furog CTC CES on restorative practice research and training for the schools ultimately restorative practices aren't a oneandone training they require long-term commitment including Financial while we
151have started the process quality restorative practice implementation takes time work and ongoing support all that said let's move on to what we can do now first recommendation I'll move that the school committee enter into anou with the Greenfield Police Department regarding remote access to security cameras during emergency situations very recently the district invested heavily in modernizing and upgrading the physical security of the schools superintendent patner has already provided the first responder access to the physical buildings to the police department and fire department as well remote camera access for the police department requires a memorandum of understanding approved by the district's legal council um my second recommendation would be uh to move that the school committee work with the superintendent on a safety survey for school staff thank you very much um I guess first we
152we will take up your um motions but first let's see if there's questions or comments from the Committee Member good one I just want to thank you so much for all of it you are like an investigative reporter that just keeps on going and so I really thank you because you've been everywhere and people who I know have come to me and said um she asked great questions so thank you than you thank you any other questions or comments before we take up those motions remember ston I was just curious if like what were some of the more common themes that emerged from people like not just the academic literature uh the answer to that is definitely yes uh it's all over the map um I have not finished correlating all the data because there
153are still people who have expressed interest in talking to me and anyone who wants to talk to me I am going to listen restorative practices have been one of the number one things coming up uh and also there's been a surprising amount of building uh things that have come up just really you know specific building like questions about this window here or that door there so that was interesting to see um trying to think of other thematics because of course the SRO question is up both for and against and there have been some great discussions from that about what makes a safe person for kids to go to uh who can fill that role what are the pros and cons for various kinds of people filling that role and of course uh School discipline comes
154up and so you'll see absolute rejection of zero tolerance kind of policies it's kind of funny to be like zero tolerance for zero tolerance um because our community in my conversations with them been very much about the holistic interests of the child and creating the kind of enironment where a kid can make a mistake and then make things right without being penalized in ways that will interrupt their school career thank you other questions or comments I just based on um the feedback we've been getting by email and many people coming in public comment I just thought it would be useful as part of the context of this discussion to review what our motion was last month um there was a motion that the school committee begin a comprehensive study and deliberation process to evaluate the
155potential addition of a school resource officer to our school district and that was voted down five to2 so I just wanted I'm not sure that that um motion really got um all of the distribution and communication that it needed so I'm just trying to amplify that that that was the vote we made last month um great so then why don't we take your motions one at a time member Childs okay so for the first one I move that the school committee enter into anou with the Greenfield Police Department regarding remote access to security cameras during emergency situations is is there a second second well I uh oh was there there was a second from mayor disorder yes discussion mayor uh member Goodwin I think the question I have is there must be some legal component
156to this that maybe the superintendent should should look into before because schools have certain legal responsibilities and the police are very different than the schools so giving them access even during an emergency I think I would just want some attorney to kind of weigh in on that maybe I'm wrong um but I think before we take a vote we should get some more information the superintendent should weigh in on this I think part of the motion is that we would not be writing the memorandum of agreement our attorney would be member Martini I was just going to um also say that I would like the input and opinion of the superintendent about this issue and also um I I'm just mindful of the fact that uh typically when the school committee does need to have
157a discussion that's pertinent to the security of our schools that we don't do that in Open Session because that actually damages the security of our schools so I'm not sure that I feel 100% comfortable with this [Music] on on this agenda tonight superintendent and I would like an opinion like for like from our superintendent and from the attorney as to which venue it's appropriate to have a discussion about this and or parts of it um I did do that Kate before this evening so um having the Moa on a public session um was an acceptable uh conversation to have because the specifics of the security system and um what we would be discussing ing was not uh compromising school safety um if it gets into the specifics where folks want to know you know numbers
158of things or locations of things or access Etc that would have to move to Executive session but that this topic to enter into an agreement for emergency P purposes only um was just simply to take up theou thank you member ston um can I reasonably expect that the definition of an emergency situation I know it sounds silly to be asking for that but that that would be spelled out in thatou because I want to make sure that we're not giving them access to just look at our cameras whenever they think something might have happened but only when we ask them to I think if you vote Yes the draft would be for you to review first before it is actually imposed M Childs the example I've read from other districts do specify out um I
159didn't want to bring any because I didn't want to have that as though we were promising to do that before our lawyer could look at it and see but there are a whole bunch of them all over the Internet that do lay out all of the details thank you other discussion or questions all right uh secretary genive will you call the vote Yes um we'll go backwards for funds member Childs yes member seon yes member Goodwin yes mayor dorer yes chair Johnson mad yes Vice chair Martini yes den I'm a yes so it passes unanimously thank you on to your next motion member Childs so the second motion I move that the school committee work with the superintendent on a safety survey for school staff is there a second second um discussion member childes can
160you talk about so part of uh this is because one of the voices that has been harder to get especially in bul the people who are actively in our buildings working with our kids day in day out uh we need to have a preponderance of feedback from them uh they're going to identify things that people on the outside simply can't see uh they're the ones who we are trying to support so we need to find out what support they need thank you uh other questions or comments superintendent Do you have a any thoughts about that um member Childs and I did discuss this and I think um through our Communications um person we can craft something in a way where we could get the feedback that um we're looking for I think some of the
161hesitation was around um just identifiable markers and not wanting to be the sole voice for a a collective group so I think if we do this in a way that is um thoughtful and really addresses that the need is to support them I think we could craft something that would be acceptable and we can always discuss with the Union first um before uh allowing it to be pushed out so I think we have some good avenues that we could go down other questions or comments uh member Martini what would be the feasible timeline on that what would be the timeline superintendent I would think that probably a two- week turnaround with just uh the communication person to craft questions um we have a union meeting the first Monday of every month so if we could
162potentially get it to them by that December 2nd Date I think um they could review it and weigh in on the survey contents and then um see how we could push it out so I'm not sure we'd actually have the results by the December meeting but you at least could have a maybe a finalized version that they would be willing to give their input on other questions or comments M child did when you were looking into this did you find that the Greenfield Public Schools are notably [Music] more more or less safe than other schools I did not find any evidence that we were anything out of the norm when compared to our peer schools meaning similar demographics similar towns okay I mean I'm I'm happy to have a survey and learn I always want
163to learn you know from our staff but it just feels like the reason we're taking this up is somebody asked to have school resource officer on an agenda and then it kind of caused a big Community discussion um but I just want to kind of emphasize that there there isn't as far as we know anything out of the ordinary happening in our schools around safety and so I'm not sure why it's a strategic uh choice for us to put energy and attention into it it seems like the superintendent is working with the police department there it does sound like it was very useful that first motion you brought up um but I just I don't remember us as a school committee deciding that this was a strategic priority for us so I'm just not sure
164why we are wanting to I guess gather more data or do more it's and it's like uh as the superintendent has reported she's working on um you know the um the ways of of trying to create a new culture revitalizing that effort it's taking time but it's moving forward so I don't know I guess I would like to hear from people maybe from you remember child's about why you think we should do this so what's the norm now is not the same as what the pre-o norm was and the problems we are having are indeed problems that are Countrywide of the kids who came back after covid and had lots of Behavioral disruptions uh from the interviews I've done uh it's quite clear to me that this is something that the community wants us to
165be actively looking into and because that is the will of the community people that I've spoken with I think the school committee should be supporting the superintendent in these programs and one of the ways to do so is gathering the data not from the community but from the people inside the school thank you member ston yeah um I agree with what member child's just laid out but I I also wanted to add that I think you know I would actually be curious if you were already planning to do some sort of surveys since you're in year zero of the restorative justice work where you were gathering data and laying out some ground foundational stuff I see this as being supportive of that um and while it might be true that in fact we are not
166out of the norm the perception amongst members of our community is that is not necessarily that right and I think the things that we can do to provide concrete evidence from our community to our community because there's been some resistance to relying on studies from outside of Greenfield um I think that that would do a lot to build back trust and to assuage people's fears and concerns I actually wanted to expand the scope of the of the motion to include students as well not stuff member Den one of the things that I've learned from all of this endless workshopping with masc is about how incredibly long it takes for your new superintendent to change the school culture and to move things forward and it's not something that any superintendent can do in a year or
167two this is a multi-year journey and so we can't really expect to see extreme significant change for the first five years really that's what they've taught us so I'm really encouraged by learning through survey work what the students and the staff feel about safety and how they feel in general in their workplace and their Community Place but I'd like to see see it followed up again so if we do one this year I'd like to see one in two or 3 years and then I'd like to see one again in two or three years because that's the only real measure of the long-term work that we're going to need to see and want to see and will see from um Karen's tenure as a superintendent because she needs time to enact all of these these
168things that she's working on and so I'd like to give her all of that time and just find out what's really going on at different intervals throughout that time thank you member Goodwin one of the things that we're charged with is that fiscal responsibility and a lot of the things that are going to [Music] lead to the perception of school safety whether it's cameras whether whether it's um professional development all takes money and so having data to support our funds or that we may find out that there's a perception that is wrong which is fine but at least we've addressed it and I think any school district that is making a school safety a priority is one where people want their children to be so it's a good priority to have um but it also
169requires funds and when we look at our budget um when we make decisions about um funding something that takes a long time um to put into place we want data thank you other questions or comments um I would add that oh member Martini uh I'll just read itate a little bit of what I said at the last city council meeting at which uh councilors had questions in regards to the uh vote that we recently took in regards to not re resurrecting the SRO program um and I invited city council members and I would invite everyone to um utilize the information available on the desie website about our uh School District because there's a wealth of information on there and um part of it is about uh student Behavior which seems to be the biggest part
170of this conversation although gun violence seems to be a second um and I uh just wanted to share what I gleaned from there um which is that as a school district we used to hover about 8 or 9% each year it seemed of our student body and incurring some form of uh discipline for infractions ranging everywhere from vandalism to vaping to assault um and um that's all it's all available on there and broken down by different subgroups of students and um and things like that and I I just wanted to um put this conversation in context um because I feel like there's I I kind of feel bad that our students have gotten a bit of a bad rep in this um recent Community conversation um you know in the past like I said we
171used to hover around eight or nine% um of our student body uh incurring some form of disciplinary infraction on there and we had um as you as everybody knows a pretty rough year in 2021 on the return to school um especially that fall it was extremely difficult um but even then it wasn't um a huge uptick it was more like 10 point something per that year and then um since then it dropped to five um which is a 50% drop in the course of a year and it's lower than it was before the pandemic it means 95% of our students stayed out of trouble for the most recent reportable year um on there and and 5% of our students need help so uh I wanted to just uh share my my observations from that and
172in terms of um this survey I love data um and uh I would just I appreciate member Den's comments um because data is only useful if you can track it over time and so I'm not sure that um a motion for one survey is the most useful approach and um I would also want to make sure that it's actually useful for the superintendent um and not just yet another thing to do so um I don't know how this fits in with the superintendent's um comprehensive plans as detailed in the update that we just received and um in the more detailed information that is in our materials um in terms of the uh direction that has been provided through the collaboratives work um through through the listening that they've done so uh Karen do you have
173any feedback on this is this helpful to you is this uh is this another thing to do and also when I asked what the timeline was I would I was the answer I was not expecting was two weeks you have so much on your plate right now with um the desie site review and um everything else that um I was I was surprised by that you're always so responsive um and I appreciate that but um I don't want to be over taxing you um I think if the direction that the committee would like to go in is um the planning and thoughtful implementation of restorative practice work I think then holding off potentially on this survey and the and trying to gather this information until that committee is formed because then other components and stakeholders
174of who's in our buildings every day AKA our students would also be part of that committee and then we could form this survey around the direction that all of those members want to see that work go if it's just to kind of get a temperature gauge on staff's opinions of what's been happening the last few months in these conversations then I think that's a different track um but I think potentially if we do get the committee off the ground and we start the Deep dive into the planning of how restorative justice work can be um part of the culture of Greenfield Public Schools then I think holding off might benefit us um just to get a a handle on who's going to be part of this planning and how we're going to roll it out
175member Martini uh about when do you think that committee would be formed and the answer I am expecting is not two weeks um we are obviously would love the um interaction with the collaborative and having them be a part a partner in this work so after our meeting um yesterday with the collaborative um they asked us for obviously some budgetary constraints for the district and some timelines on that so we're doing a little behind the scenes work and then they're doing a little behind the scenes work based on the 2022 work they started with the district and then we're meeting December 12th as a followup so I would think in the new year um after that because um potentially at the December meeting We'll be asking for potential budget funds to support whatever um you
176know kind of proposal they've provided the district with and go from there but it probably would not be until January or February Kate anyone else questions or comments I guess um one place my mind is going is sort of similar to what you were saying superintendent which is that with these types of programs like a restorative justice program they are usually best practices about how to go about gathering information from people which people when how um and so knowing that we are going to be doing that work and we will be involving staff in that um I don't want them to get survey fatigue like we ask you now to take your temperature but now we're coming back later for this more substantive information so I guess for that my personal vote on this will
177be um will be no but only given that we know we're going to be involving staff and students in the restorative justice planning M Childs oh would you like me to just withdraw it because it's going to be covered by the other committee later on I mean that would be my preference but I don't what do you want you're the one who made the motion I'm fine withdrawing it and uh getting that data a couple months down the line instead and having it shaped by our programs that we're trying to develop for restorative justice so unless someone else has a strong opinion and really wants it to be voted on right now I'm fine with drawing it I'm not seeing any strong opinions so I think you can withdraw great discussion though thank you so
178much and do you have any other motions for us no okay thank you very very much for your hard work on that let's see now we're on to the school committee uh yearlong agenda uh we're once again thanking secretary Den um uh this is a best practice for school committees to have a year-long agenda and um secretary Den was nice enough to stop waiting for me to get around to putting out a draft and to give us a draft herself so with that secretary genive do you want to uh talk to us this was just member seon and I had a lovely dinner and decided to just do this work and give you all a gift um a beautiful gift really it was just some light business work over some Curry and honestly this is
179just for you to start the process you and Karen and really it's lovely that you added comments and of course we want to be a part of it because we want to know what's going on and what to expect throughout the year but but really just take it as a gift that it was intended to be and please feel free to delete things and move things around because honestly like I didn't I didn't know if something belonged in February or October I mean we really didn't know so that's entirely up to you to format it so that we understand what you expect so we can just follow along wonderful thank you um so one possib possib well think that Karen and I would both really appreciate people's thoughts on it so if you have if
180people have questions or comments or feedback on what's presented tonight we would love to hear that does anyone have any feedback right now yes member goodwi I think more knowledge about special education because I just saw a negative two M two million that just like you know raised my blood pressure so more knowledge about um the costs of Special Ed I mean how many children you know I'm not looking for like names or anything but like we see all these numbers and we know that they are special ed but we're not quite sure um annually what we're paying versus circuit breaker especially since I know there's some people here who will go to their legisl pictures um and look at for more funding so I know circuit breaker never covers the full cost of everything
181but I think I would love a presentation about the costs of special ed um and I don't know if one person has all those numbers um and I know it's constantly changing but there should be some way to you know even know how much it changes you know um are we I guess just that information because I try to figure it out as I'm looking through different things like how many kids are going to the May Institute how many kids are going here and and then then there's the busing pieces and trying to figure all that out um I think it would be helpful for um Whoever has that control of the numbers the the data to present to us um prior to talking about budgets and everything else thank you other feedback on the
182yearlong agenda that Elizabeth presented remember Childs thanks for doing it so I didn't have to it's a gift to all of us I'm sorry it's a hot mess we'll take it we'll take it you'll take care of it I'm sure thank you other questions or comments not seeing any thank you very much we'll move on to item 10 request for future agenda items all right let's see oh we got member Den let's start with you I'd like to have a meeting to discuss the business manager contract and I don't know what what venue is the most appropriate for that and just because it's important to discuss contracts before they are looming and um figure out what we'd like to do and how we'd like to move forward in whatever way that we do preferably soon
183though because em if masc is going to come out and do a training they definitely wanted us to be sort of starting to step towards whatever our eventual goal is okay so you you're say well I was thinking that the mask presentation would provide us useful context in deciding which way we want to go so maybe we would do the presentation for mask followed by the agenda item about which I mean we can discuss in a public session we there are certain parameters but we can discuss in a in a public session about whether we want to continue with a vendor or try to hire um an employee so we can do that in December and then have a training maybe I don't know if we'd have to have a special meeting for a training
184but if we had one I know we're pushing into Christmas at that point but if we had one a few weeks later what would um what was maybe I'm not following what the training is well the train I mean I don't know what kind of training you want to have but when I spoke with Liz lefon she said make sure that you guys have an outline of what you're looking to do so that when they come to talk to us because it might not be Liz it might be Margaret Driscoll who normally handles those kinds of things and she did the training that I took on school business officers um they would like to come in and kind of have an idea of what what we're thinking about are we just wanting to revamp a
185contract or are we wanting to go in another Direction and that would involve her telling us different things I guess it's a bit of a Chicken and the Egg thing I kind of feel like the committee needs a general overview and that's kind of what I thought that the directed us to do last month was provide some context of like what the have mask Pro provide some context and then we can use that context to make some have some deliberations and make some choices so I was thinking that both those would happen at the December meeting but maybe we can talk more and I can try to understand more um what or talk to Liz about like what exactly hear from her directly exactly what she wants us to do in what order yeah but
186thank you we will we will take that on um member ston yeah this is not necessarily for next month unless we just happen to have some free time on our agenda but I don't want us to lose sight of the work we started about the other best practice which is having school committee goals yep thank you I will say this committee is not bad at setting goals we have we have we we we are doing we're setting goals every meeting I've noticed but yeah we will take a look at that practice that best practice and try to embody more of that and I I'm really proud of um how we as a committee have taken on so many of the best practices um and there's been so much initiative from people um and just also
187implementing things that were in our policy manual that weren't being implemented so we're really building something it does take time but thank you we will get back to that other uh requests for future agenda items member Goodwin I think hearing from different departments um whether it's special ed presentation um the Arts like what's being offered where and when and who and I mean all of that um changes from year to year some parents know it I don't know it um I think facilities might be a good one because we're interested in that hearing from the person who actually is responsible for that and what the priorities that person sees um every day when he walks into buildings um he knows where the roofs leak and he knows where things are not what they what we
188want them to be um so there's and all of that impacts budget and so I think hearing from people in different departments it would be nice to have that scheduled like if it's one person a meeting or two people people are meeting um it was wonderful tonight to have um recognition of staff and children I love that um I think that's and of course you know many of them were minute and hard so I think hearing from those people um would be a great thing thank you other questions or comments I mean other uh requests for future agenda items no not hearing any I would hear a motion to adjourn so moved seconded motion for member child say second from Member suon discussion secretary Janie will you call the vote Dena yes Vice chair Martini
189yes chair Johnson mad yes mayor dorer yes member Goodwin yes member child's yes member seon yes we're at 909 [Music]