001good evening and welcome to the Greenfield Public Schools school committee meeting for Wednesday October 9th 2024 this meeting is being recorded by gctv if any other persons present are doing the same you must notify the chairperson at this time don't see any um secretary Jive would you please call the role member Goodwin here member Childs here member ston here chair Johnson mad here Vice chair Martini she is present on the zoom me member Martini can you try to come off mute and say that you are here um looks like member I don't know how to Mark member Martini at this is she visually present can you see she visually present but um we're unable to hear her if she's trying to say something is uh mayor dorer present mayor is not on the zoom okay
002um all right me I'm here secretary jeve and also present is superintendent patot assistant superintendent Sullivan and shant toi we're all mostly present in accounted for we have a quorum and the meeting is called to order at 6:04 p.m. um folks who are joining us online um I wonder if they probably need to come on mute so they can hear us uh folks who online can you hear us now yes excellent um we're moving into public comment um we're going to start with the people who are here in person and then um add the people who are here virtually uh the mayor just joined the zoom um let's see member Martini are you able to hear us now and are you here I am here and I can hear you but it's very quiet okay
003thanks I don't think that will help um we can work on our Tech um and mayor um disorder are you here yes excellent okay then we are all present in counted for at 6:03 PM um so mayor why can't we see each other why can't you see each other uh why can't we see each other I don't know but you can see some of us right I don't know what you're seeing what you're not seeing May okay I don't know I can't I don't know what uh yeah great so on Zoom you do have an option uh to choose how many people you see at a time you can also go through the attendance list and you can click pin and that way you keep one person on screen at least in the past I've
004been able to do that with zoom another Zoom trick is turning on closed captioning and getting real-time subtitles thank you an so I was saying before we're gonna start with the public comment with people who are here in the room and then we will move on to the folks who are joining by Zoom so uh Susan Farber oh and um everyone will have three minutes just so folks know our policy is officially two minutes but our practice recently has been three so we're going to keep with three for tonight and starting next month resume our um our policy of two minutes for um for public comment so um the secretary will time you thank you my name is Paul jablon and I live here in Greenfield I hope you have all read the studies and
005stories that demonstrate that having school resource officers do not stop mass shootings when my children were in public school all their 12 years I expected them to be safe and I knew that having an SRO was not the way to keep them safe from harm as some of you know I was a high school teacher for decades the first High School I taught in had a school resource officer and that was the method used to stop fights where a fight did occur the other students would cheer it on students were suspended regularly when I transferred to the second High School I taught in within the first few days I was there two students were starting to get into it in the hallway and within seconds five or six of their peers grabbed them pulled them
006apart and said we don't do that here I was astounded the teachers students and administration had worked together to create a school culture that they all bought into every student in the school had an adult a teacher who was responsible for them for four years this was their advisory teacher we we called it house at met daily and the other students in the advisory also became responsible for one another if you create create a school culture where students are empowered through ongoing conflict resolution anti-bullying programs then fights and bullying basically don't occur in that second high school we had two suspensions in 13 years we also had a High attendance rate especially with students who are previously Trent if Greenfield has the money to pay a police officer to be in the schools let's take
007that same money and hire one or two social workers who can work together with teachers on giving students these conflict resolution and antibullying skills and other skills while also working one-on-one counseling the most needy students and their families sro's are not the answer and in actuality many times get in the way of solutions I just quickly also want to support that this District join I can't hear we are having problems with an echo in the room related to the audio we're going to fix it after the speaker please bear with us thank you right one last sentence for that I just also support joining the other districts and asking for the state to pay for the charter and school choice students thank you thank you um and we're gonna take a few minutes to try
008to address our audio issues the folks on Zoom aren't able to hear us it creates this so I don't know how the sound is normally see [Music] mil set can you do it yeah still an echo hello microphone test all right thank you a friend of mine who I considered to be my cousin got into an incident at school one day uh his little brother was being teased and he stood up he stood up for him and the next day he was attacked at lunch by the kid he stood up to and it let him concuss and the kid that punched him hit him so hard that he broke his hand which is insane uh my cousin is not a violent person never gets into any fights or anything so the fact that he was
009left with the concussion and is still suffering some some issues from it both uh healthwise and mentally is very frustrating and as far as I know the kid was suspended uh I but that's from Word of Mouth I'm not sure if he had any other consequences and uh if he hasn't there needs to be more consequences um other other than just like a day or week suspension um if all it takes for kids at if all it takes for someone at school to become violent is someone standing up for the little brother being teased I think they could be considered a danger to the to other students at the school and there needs to be something done about it I just graduated from Greenfield High School this year and I have certainly seen some things
010at the school that have uh just made me unsettled and uh I'd say unsafe to a certain degree um I i' never liked using the the the stall bathrooms I've always used the singular gender neutral bathrooms because they're more private and I just I I never feel safe going into the bathrooms and after uh this incident that my cousin had he doesn't feel comfortable going into the the public stall bathrooms which is totally understandable especially after what just happened to him and and I think we need more we need more um we need more supervision to prevent to prevent these things from happening and to make sure that students feel safe reporting other students if an incident happens and making sure that if they make a report and the other student finds out that they
011don't come after them or attack them for it so uh uh that's that's all I got to say thank you thank you please uh state your name yes uh mayor school committee uh thank you for letting me speak today I'm actually a Deerfield resident my name is Dana LaVine and I was asked to come here to speak with you about some of my experiences in the school system I'm a retired state trooper uh I was a trooper for 27 years and I actually taught the Dare program if any of you remember that that was back in the early 2000s and um I got to tell you my experience being in the school system was a wonderful experience now it I taught anywhere from kindergarten all the way up to high school and they gave me
012time to talk about all kinds of things you know in the early programs like teaching the kids their address and their mother's phone number and we a safe place to be would would go and at the high school level we did things like the pre-prom event uh which I will tell you every high school that we went to that we did the pre-prom event um we got reported back zero incidences of problems in the school uh in terms of fighting or anything happening after school where everybody drove away so we're really proud of um the interaction that we had uh with all the students um but I want to remind you something that uh when we went into the elementary school there this is a first opportunity for a lot of these children to meet
013a police officer um for the first time and it's a really positive environment it's a really positive uh interaction that you have it's a safe place for them to see you and they're not afraid of you anymore you know once they get to know you and you get to share with them um some of the stories that's happened to you you know on the state police or as a police officer um they were very encouraged to want to share some of their own things with them um I have to tell you that there were uh a couple of incidences where children have shared with me some things that I had to uh go to the principal and call uh Social Services on and they felt safe enough to tell me these things remember I was
014with them a long time I was I was at the school anywhere between one and twice a a week and just that little amount was enough um to to get them close to me we even solved some cases um involving School destruction just all the kids wanted to be an investigator and they wanted to find out who is the one that did all the damage to the school um because I got them to come together um this is really to have now not every police officer designed that's time thank you just one statement not every police officer is designed to do this job so when you're thinking about who is going to go in the school I suggest that you think very carefully about who is going to be going in there okay thank you
015I don't have to push anything do I it's all set hello I just share your name I'm Don Moren um so I've changed my direction on what I'm GNA say I don't know how many times today I've added 50 morean things it's been an emotional week for me so my brain is all over the place I did make some notes so just bear with me while I try to keep my emotions in check and not freak out um so first I wanted um my original plan was to come publicly so that the everybody knew about the assault that happened this this to the student that was in school in the middle of the day in the cafeteria but I know there's people here that um are going to be speaking to that actual scenario so
016um I'm G to change it but I am kind of curious to know how many of you guys who are expected to vote on this question about sro's tonight actually knew that there was a brutal attack in the middle of the schools in the afternoon at the cafeteria because I think you should have all the information for the students when you're in charge of making some of these decisions um so that being said for those of you who don't know I own a dance studio I've been teaching kids in our community and families for 38 years so that's a lot of families and kids through the door um and I can tell you I hear the stories from my teen sometimes when my own son wouldn't tell me stuff that's going on I'd hear it
017from the teen girls that come to class families that come in and they're discussing it in the waiting area when in between classes and you know I just couldn't wait for my son Jaden who just spoke earlier to get out of the school to be honest I kept counting down just three more years two more years just one more year he's out no it's not my problem anymore I don't care well that's not true the reality is I now have friends that have kids in school I have family that have kids in school and I have dance students who go to the public schools and so now I'm here today as an additional voice for an SRO and if anybody thinks that having an SRO is a negative thing they certainly have not spoken to
018an SRO or been in a school and followed a one along for the day I actually reached out to Michael officer savine who is the SRO for the tech school and that's 7 students he's been there the SRO for 11 years so you guys can post all your little articles on Facebook about how the social emotional learning and sro's are bad things but the reality is it's working at the tech school and it's working at other schools and uh officer sine did say he'd be willing to come speak but I waited till the last minute because it didn't even occur to me and so we need to open up the discussion we need to invite the people that are actually sro's we need to invite the schools that are implementing it three years ago you
019guys had a chance to vote Yes for an SRO and you voted it down three years later we're revisiting it you know why because your way is not working so we need to give this a chance and at the very least we need to open up the discussion for the victim that s the family is sitting here today you owe him that hello we can hear you just say your name uh Jesus SLA 88 Deerfield Street Greenfield um I'm just going to speak really briefly because there's a lot of other people who want to speak and I've already spoken on this um I sent um by email um a copy of all of the signature signatories for the petition that um is before the school committee tonight on uh advocating for additional school funding from
020the state regarding the charter school issue so I hope you will consider that as you consider the resolution and um also um Northampton city council just you know did vote in favor of the resolution last week um thank you bye thank you Dave MOS Caro Country Club Road Greenfield I am the uh chair of the public safety Commission in Greenfield and usually when I come to meetings and I speak I say I'm speaking as an individual Public Safety commissioner but I've spoken with all the public five Public Safety Commissioners and we're all in agreeance here so I will speak for all of us I I know over the years there's been contention about having a police presence at our schools um as a public safety commissioner I understand folks don't some folks don't trust the
021police they may not like the police or they may be afraid of the police I know that's real across our country in some some areas but I don't think it justifies having not having a plan in place to protect our kids and our teachers over the years we know how much school violence there has been across the country and we know that there's been horrible gun violence um as a public safety com uh servant um when a s situation has brought to my attention I look at the whole story I look at many sides and I would encourage you to look at all sides of uh the story here in interview um uh offices that are safety offices across Franklin County um I know that uh the resource officer at Frontier High School officer ravish
022I don't know the officer personally but I've heard great stories um I hear he's outstanding he's kind he's compassionate um he's committed uh to getting to know the students and the teachers and the problems that there so I encourage you to reach out when you have these discussions and invite these folks in and really see the whole picture um I mean what better way to men relationships is uh to to have someone like that at our school so um they can learn from the students and the teachers about their feelings and the office that can learn about um you know they can learn from each other um as a public safety commissioner I don't always agree with the chief uh in our departments um on every issue but in this case I strongly agree with
023his plan um we need to protect our kids and our students we need to be proactive if something tragic happened um at one of our schools I as a resident and a public safety commissioner wouldn't be able to sleep at night if we uh didn't have some type of plan in place this these plans don't have to last forever things change over time you know we have bigger problems with our nation but you know we need to be proactive and have a plan we need to listen to the parent parents I know there's a financial cost to this but how much are our kids worth you know we can start somewhere we can see if it works we can move forward we can change it but something has to be done and we have to
024have some proactive planning in place I appreciate your time thank you so much and I thank you for what you do for the city Michael just to save time between speakers if the person who's on Deck can come a little closer maybe in the chair in the front row um then we can get to the next speaker more quickly Michael Master Taro Greenfield um two things I think that need transparency when it comes to school department is how it spends his money how it spends its money and Public Safety and when things happen in Public School System the residents of the city should know about it it shouldn't be attempted to be buried it shouldn't be attempted to uh resolve itself within the the school um without parents being notified um there is a place
025for a school resource officer I think people are burying their heads in the sand when it comes to this um David brought it up previously this is Nationwide issue um gun violence and it happens in small towns smaller than Greenfield um a school resource officer is only as good as who the the chief puts in place certain personalities are not for that job but there are personalities that are you shelter in place you guys practice shelter in place for a reason um I think the schools would be much safer with a police officer that um is looking out for the kids um I don't might have much else to say about it but uh I do know that I know at least three teachers in this High School in the high school that want an
026SRO so I don't know if you're speaking to the staff as well about this issue but if the teachers want it I would think there's a reason for it but that's all I have to say about this I I hope you uh consider uh rethinking the whole issue thank you hello Melissa Webb I live here in Greenfield I was looking over some of the stuff on the agenda tonight and I noticed that we are starting to move forward with redistricting possibly and then I also decided to listen to last month's school committee you know today cuz that's you know great but what I did notice was something some talk about the discussion about the 45 families at the hotel and how that numbers are forever constantly changing and I know in the beginning of redistricting
027or redrawing the lines those families were not taken into account um I also did send an email with my street notice sayings that it looks like we're doing the same thing we already did which was circled out one group and just moved that group um to a different school so I have like concerns about how we're drawing the lines if we're keeping our school's neighborhood um because there is another complex right next to Oak courts that's also connected to Oak courts that's part of the same housing complex that now we're going to two separate schools um and again back to the 45 revolving families at days in that I don't see that situation changing I know that those numbers were not necessarily in the original plan because at the time it was a place where
028people could go and spend a night or two not sadly live there for a year or two I also did hear something about the mayor had mentioned there might possibly be some money and my next question is is the money going to the schools is it going to where the kids are going from the hotels is it going to the I'm I'm going to say almost a whole classroom I watch get off the bus at a you know is it going to a adequately is it going to the elementary schools adequately is it going to GMS adequately like if we have that few extra dollars are we really going there and showing up for the kids in that context not just emotional and social but also financially and making sure they have extra things last
029year at Newton we had a bunch of different things up that had different Touches for things because not all kids speak English um I've been in the building a lot this year and I haven't noticed that I haven't noticed like you know the picture of the toilet I know it sounds silly but things like that that we're really making sure are there for our students who do come from situations where English is not the primary language so oh um I'd love to share some positive news PTO had a lot of fun walking in the parade we had a lot of fun making and building a float we are currently working on something for Scarecrow in the park and there is possible talk about the district PTO doing um either something for the light parade the
030light there's a 3 sorry I know I'm over time now the light parade the light up the fairgrounds or the Christmas the Festival of the trees so we have a group discussion about one of those three options thank you thank you good evening Doug swin Greenfield um I've written to you so I'm going to keep this really short around the police issue I I'm I very much appreciate police wanting to prevent violence um I think we all do um the research suggests that it's not the most effective way to go to make make the changes we're we're hoping for um I would rather see as Paul said earlier uh work at the front end to to work with the kids in the community before things happen rather than have somebody on hand who can come
031in when needed um there's no one solution that's going to prevent all violence certainly but um more we can do to have the students and teachers and and community in the school um work together for the benefit of each other I think the better and so um so I would urge us to spend whatever money we have on social workers and family support workers and supporting folks in the community so anything we can do in that direction seems to me more effective um I mean I knowe that there is now a group in the state challenging the the limits on on guns in the state as a society we have a we have a lot to work on it's not just in our schools and and again I don't think police are the answer um
032and so switching to a different issue I would really urge you to um support the resolution that's before you tonight related to uh the state picking up money that um follows kids to other schools including Charter Schools thank you very much thank you Susan hi I am Cambry um I have two students that go to the Greenfield High School um my son was one of them that was involved in the incident on September 17th he was in the lunchroom he never been in altercation ever in his life he's never had any issues um the kid came up behind him and he took a blow to the back of the head fell his jaw on a table and a chair and he kept getting multiple blows to the back of his head um and it finally
033got broken up by the principal and the assistant principal um this kid broke his hand on the back of my son's head my son suffered with three lacerations he was soaked in blood his sweatshirt was soaked in blood when I got to the school it was very scary um sorry I'm shaking now so I'm up here to kind of speak to everybody and I think that people should know what's going on and it's been really difficult trying to figure out a plan and what we can do and I've also reached out to superintendent a couple times never received a single phone call back from her um my son has still to this day not been able to do a full day in school um due to his concussion and other things that is going on
034because of this incident and um I just keep hearing that like police officers aren't going to work aren't going to work than what is going to work cuz whatever is now happening in the school is not working so why not try to do what we can to change this and see if this would work I don't understand that this should have never even happened this is my son senior year and he's barely been able to go to school now um I've lost track of where I am now this it just really frustrates me this really frustrates me because prior to this happening because he had stuck up for his little brother I had warned the school that I've been hearing things I've warned the school that something else might be taking place and multiple kids
035knew something was going to happen and nobody ever spoke up about it this was brewing for a week [Music] um I just don't know why people wouldn't want our kids to be protected at all cost why not try something new like getting an SRO officer in our schools I went to Turner's high school I had an SRO in my high school it worked out wonderfully nobody was scared like there was not many problems there so it just mind blowings me that this has happened [Music] um my son yeah he just can't even finish day of school so all right thank you I'm Susan denel and I'm going to pretty much repeat what my daughter just said I have two grandchildren in the Greenfield school system three weeks ago one of my grandsons was physically attacked
036by another student who repeatedly punched him in in the back of the head this assault took place during lunch in the high school cafeteria principal Browning and the associate principal were both in there at the time of the assault and broke up the incident my daughter was called by the school to inform her that her son was injured my daughter immediately brought him to the emergency room for a head injury since that day three weeks ago my grandson suffers from headaches nausea and blurred vision he is unable to make it through a school day I am here today to make sure that all the parents are aware of the violence that has taken place in our schools and ask that we all do the right thing for the safety of our children and demand a
037resource officer in all our schools thank you ESS hi Don denofo 10 Michael manav Greenfield um my grandson was the one that was involved in the altercation at the school um I guess my reason for being here today is more about what transpired after the altercation um Landon was brought to the emergency room as was the other student um this was not called upon by school at all it was by his mother and by the other students mother um they both received injuries we went to the school to get an incident report to find out what happened this went on over a two week period of time counselors teachers principal assistant principal superintendent crickets nothing no response from anybody we didn't know whether we should report it to the police department we waited 3 weeks
038yesterday finally made the decision last Friday we better go to the police and just make it known about this incident because everybody that we were talking to had no idea nobody was talking to each other it was almost like they wanted this to go away there was an injury at that school two injuries both kids could have been a lot more serious but they were serious enough as far as I was concerned um my grandson's still out of school because of it um they talk about school resource officers and not being the fix to all this I have to disagree with that and I think everybody's missing the opportunity this this is a real opportunity to get a school resource officer in here build a foundation for these young kids at this school and let
039them grow on that and I guarantee you a lot of problems will go away we're in the days of cell phone social media I can't tell you how many different people had pictures of my grandson uh on their phones and everybody sending text messages and nobody ever addressed the problem these problems don't go away for all anybody knows in this whole room right here right now my grandson could have a screw loose the other kid could have a screw loose nobody addressed it nobody brought those two kids into the principal's office and said sit down sit down we're going to talk this out we're going to find out how this happened nothing and you wonder why people wander into schools after being bullied and things go on and terrible things happen it's because there's no
040communication at all and a school resource officer in this school is educated to look out for things that are coming down the road and and he he assessed scenes make sure that there he can mitigate something bring it to the police's attention if he thinks it's bigger than what he can handle but you got eyes and ears out there and nobody's using them nobody's communicating and far as I'm concerned we're heading for disaster so we ought to do something about it thank you good evening everybody my name is empress and I'm chair of the Greenfield human rights commit Mission um I just want to say to this young man and this young man's family over there I feel that as a school committee as a city that we did not protect him or his human
041rights and that's a problem um we need to do better it happened to him this time it could be your son or your daughter next time A lot of times when we see these school shootings and and in these schools what's the first thing we hear people say oh it can't happen here it can happen right here in Greenfield and then what are you going to tell us what are you going to tell because I have a son in high school I have a son in middle school if something was to happen in mass shooting and my son got injured what could anybody on this school committee tell me sorry that's not going to work especially when we're here today pleading with you to protect our children you have a right to protect our children
042and our children deserve to be protected um there's so much to jump around but anyway there was two studies that was given out in the email that I seen I also want to say when we're talking about school safety this is not a left issue this is not a right issue this is a human rights this is a basic this is our kids safety issue if you're sending out documentation for reference material it should not be based on one side's political views that's wrong so that was study two study one however did say that um some of these situations where they did have issues with the police officers it's because the teachers theirself could not tolerate the disruption of the young people and it also said a lot of it had to do with the
043students's relationship with the teacher and the number of interruptions in class so therefore when these SRO officers did get involved with disciplinary actions it was the teachers who brought them into the situation this is a whole difference and another thing I want to say I'm so tired of hearing this data black about black and brown families can we just stop that you're taking a national figure this is not National this is Greenfield and I don't know how many black and brown families in Greenfield would survey how we feel about it and I'll tell you right now I want C cro officers in school to protect my kids so can we just stop saying that as far as a black and brown issue because I don't think that nobody has the right to say that especially
044if you're not asking us black and brown people in Greenfield how we feel about it and the black and brown people I talk to they want their kids protected they want C they want SRO officers there was also another study that was um sent out in the email um as far as um uh some other data um as far as you know no need for the SRO officers now that was before 20 and that was done in July 24th in 2023 do you realize the same year that they published that there was 340 school shootings last year that's the highest on record since 1966 I'm begging y'all to please do your job and protect our kids thank you hi Crystal Cleaver 45 Russell Street here in Greenfield um I am a parent of a six-year-old
045who goes to Federal Street School I'm also a social worker in the community who works with families and children and so um I feel pretty well equpped equipped to talk about this um I want to say I have heard about the incident that happened at the high school um I work with teens who go to the high school and I know that if something like that happened to my child I would be I would not be as common controlled as the family in in this room was I can say that however uh my child is autistic and has ADHD and just as that family spoke to their child's needs I have to speak to my child 's needs um I'm concerned about the possibility of putting an SRO in our schools um I've worked with
046SRO in other school districts as a social worker I know that there's a particular kind of SRO that can be quote unquote successful but the truth for me is that my kid has behaviors that don't always make sense to adults he gets anxious anxious he has trouble processing information and following directions when he's overwhelmed people believe at times adults believe that my child's being rude or ignoring them that's not true and that's not what's happening for him he needs more time and he needs different methods to understand what's happening and for him to be understood uh my child stems when he's nervous he and that includes movements with his hands and his face um and we've all heard stories in the news about autistic people being harmed by police who make assumptions about their behavior
047who get frustrated by their non-compliance who see their stems and other body movements as uh threatening and uh I sent a email earlier I linked to some articles about that and um I just want to say that my kids's life is just as valuable as anybody else's if this classes I hope that it doesn't I think that we can do way better than this as a community I think there was a lot missing in this incident that happened and that there's a lot missing in the high school that we could look at to keep our kids safe I don't think being reactionary and throwing police into our schools is the answer um and um I believe that if an SRO is put into this school district for my child that would mean finding an out
048of District placement because my kid can't be safe autistic kids are seven times more likely to be interacting with police and their um behaviors are often read and misunderstood and so um I'd ask you to please vote against the request for police and public schools and for us to have a community conversation about what actually works thank you thank you that ends the public comment for people um in the room we'll now move to people on Zoom who wish to make public comment if you are capable of um clicking on reactions and clicking raise hand that will make it easier to see who would like to make a public comment um and we will start with Ursa Ursa if you could say your full name good evening my name is Ursa sheer I live on
049Madison Circle here in Greenfield I have a son at Federal Street School and I wanted to come and speak um namely to voice um uh my uh strong belief that sro's uh from the data do not seem to overwhelmingly make schools safer that we see this increase year-over-year in the number of math shootings in schools which is incredibly distressing but we also see increases in SRO and so um it doesn't seem like the solution there but I also wanted to um take this opportunity having heard about the incident which I am just hearing about tonight of how incredibly sorry I am to everybody that was involved the the students parents the you know the entire school system gets traumatized by events like that and it sounds like there were a lot of missed opportunities in
050the week leading up to the incident then you had the two most senior leaders in the school in the cafeteria when it happened um which which did not prevent something and it sound SS like a a a lot of missed opportunities since the incident has happened um and I just I I don't feel like introducing an SRO necessarily changes the course of of what transpired um I don't know that there's a perfect solution but uh in my mind the more we are able to work Upstream through additional supports like guidance counselors Arts music ways for kids to be able to move their bodies um the type of engaging curriculum that you need all of these things conspire to help us build really healthy school environments and that's where I would want our attention and resources
051focused and I also just wanted to speak very personally that um my son who's in Greenfield Public Schools uh is a black student in the classroom he's not someone who feels safer when he sees a police officer he hasn't individually had a negative experience but he is surrounded by media messages um that show what happens to kids who look like him and and kids that are older than him and what can happen over the course of his life so I just want to also give voice um that at least in this one instance uh there is a black student in Greenfield Public Schools he's my kid who is not um made to feel safer when he's in police presence and I wanted to make sure that that was part of the discourse as well thank
052you so much if you're on zoom and you want to speak please uh raise your hand I don't know how to do that Kelly were you saying you wanted to speak yes I'm not sure if it's unmuted or not I have a kid in the high school and I have a seven-year-old daughter in the Federal Street school and I feel an SRO would be best in the high school and I feel that there needs to be something done at the Federal Street school as I'm feeling my child is very unsafe there with there being like four exits in the back and kids not being well watched in the morning on top of a level three sex offender coming to the school to pick up their child and that's okay um something needs to be done
053though cuz I've heard about a lot of uh sexual assault with my friend's children happened at that Federal Street School Kelly you suddenly went quiet oh I'm done sorry you're done okay can you say your last name please Kelly Jackman thank you yeah baby is there anyone else on Zoom who'd like to speak excuse me I just left Zoom because I got thrown so oh please join just share your your name when you come up to the microphone hi my name is Pamela Goodwin I live at 54 High Street um I'm going to speak in support of the SRO um I taught school for probably close to 30 years in a lot of it was in the Greenfield school system I agree about the Dare officers when I was teaching in the 7 and eighth
054grade the high school boys were chewing uh tobacco and we had people come in um who had mouth cancer as a presentation for example I also know that there's only a nurse or two in the building the guidance counselors are busy and I agree with officer LaVine and a few of the other people about it builds a relationship I want to bring to mind I think it was a year or two ago a member of the school committee outwardly called out a high school girl who had written an opinion page and said that was not true so I also think that things that happened in the school system need to be talked about dealt with not swept under the rug and we were all pretty appalled that a girl who was courageous enough the age
055of this young man would talk about what it's like in the high school that was a particular High School thing I think a lot of stuff goes on in the restrooms I certainly saw it um we brought in a huge bulling program when I was teaching in the middle school over here in town everybody learned that there's no such thing as an innocent bystander that you have to hold people accountable and I know the teachers do a good job but I also never allowed any B in my classroom I saw it everywhere else in the hallway I used to break up fights between kids but once they came into my classroom everybody was treated with kindness decency I expected the same kind of behavior and they Rose to my level of expectations so I just
056really think it's important to establish other people around where they can also feel like they can go and have a conversation and again a long time ago I I was T tutoring oneon-one I guess a kid pulled a knife on a superintendent's son he was suspended expelled actually for the year I worked with him in the superintendent's office next door and um it turned out that Jeremy was protecting little kids of color and he was a little bit older and um and that's what that was about so people just need to learn how to behave kids are at a very tender age I don't care if they're preschool but they're especially at a tender age as they approach Middle School all the way through to have a kid that has to have that kind of
057trauma in his senior year what about the kids who witness the whole thing that's traumatizing for everybody in the room I appreciate your time thank you is there anyone else in the room or on Zoom who would like to speak okay thank you all for the public comment we'll now move to the student report to the school committee all right um so starting with student council um last week the student council hosted a successful homecoming event with about 300 students in attend sorry um in attendance that same day 20 student council members helped with the Green River cleanup and our group was tasked with the bike path students cleared many bags of trash tires and shopping carts throughout the day this Friday um 18 students will be heading to the regional fall conference which will
058be held at minog our keynote speaker is Rob seret who is an artist from Disney and will give an inspirational speech while speed painting on the stage students will also have the opportunity to attend two student Le workshops while networking with leaders across Western Massachusetts Friday October 18th ghs will participate in pink out for breast cancer awareness the student council is going to donate 25 cents for every student and staff member wearing pink and donate the money to the raise of Hope Foundation um in regard to Athletics Mesa ver is sponsoring an athlete of the week for Greenfield Athletics we want to thank Amy for her commitment to the Youth of Greenfield High School um the first to be honored um were volleyball players Stella Verlander and football player Jonathan Bor um both of which
059are seniors so go seniors um schedules for all sports games are on arbiterlive.com um French Club recently hosted a French film movie night where the students watched a French movie and enjoyed fall treats together um over a dozen students have signed up for the France trip in April 2026 and French Club looks forward to fundraisers and other preparations for that trip drama club continues to meet bi-weekly to bond with one another and prepare for auditions in November the library Club is hosting the fifth annual comic conon on Wednesday October 30th from 3:00 to 6:15 p.m. students teachers and guest speakers will present on topics ranging from tabletop role playing games to origami making to the history of jazz drumming our keynote speaker is this year is Leni bantes which I'm very sorry for mispronouncing um
060a local Puerto Rican you young adult author who just published a spooky romance called till the last beat of my heart and the trivia club team continues to meet weekly during lunch to study we've been focused on literature simple machines geography and Science and Math um we've had four regulars routinely showing up and are making a lot of strong progress and finally a new club at GS is the students of Color Club um they Sorry students continue to work on the lesson plan to address racial ized language in the school for eighth grade advisories um the group will be presenting to Administration and then the whole faculty in a couple of weeks and they wanted to spend send a special thanks to the recent activities Fair which helped gain um new membership if you have
061any questions for me or about the report I'd be happy to answer any questions for Shane thank you very much uh because of the public interest in the school resource officer question I'd like to hear a motion to move um item 7A School res office school resource officer in schools from where it is to uh to now so moved is there a second second all right can we have a a roll call vote on that please I'm sorry who made the motion uh an and then seconded by Melody okay all right so the motion is to bring the topic up for now yep okay uh roll call vote uh member Goodwin yes member Childs yes member seon yes chair Johnson musan yes Vice chair Martini yes mayor dorer yes and I'm a yes so that
062passes unanimously to move it up to now okay um so the item list Ed on the agenda is school resource officer in schools um there was a motion made by um mayor dorer and seconded by Melody Goodwin that the school committee began a comprehensive study and deliberation process to evaluate the potential addition of a of a school resource officer to our school district um that motion was made and discussed at the last meeting um the vote on it was 3 three um my summary and I'd welcome others to fill in context or share your perspective but was that um because the school committee has very recently deliberated about whether or not to have school resource officers in schools um the motion was essentially whether the school committee wants to take this up as a a
063com comprehensive uh study and deliberation process um the discussion as described in our minutes was previous school committee has discussed and voted not to have SRO in schools cautioned to members not to openly discuss school security systems does police presence in schools prevent School prevent shooting tragedies and police in schools can be triggering to some students so with that um I guess since the motion was about whether or not we should take up a major deliberation and study process um I just would encourage members to um uh I guess to keep the focus on that the the question is whether or not we should really study it and bring it back up again um and so we're taking that up I guess uh could I have a I mean I I think we can just
064maybe the mayor knows a little more about Robert's Rules of Order how do we take up an item that was tabled is does just having it on the agenda sufficient may do you know no you have to take it from the table okay so I'd like to have a motion to take that um take that motion uh from the table um motion from Member Goodwin is there a second motion from Member child's and I uh can we have a roll call vote on that please member Den whether to take up that motion again okay uh mayor dorer yes member Goodwin yes member Childs yes member seon yes chair John sad yes Vice chair Martini yes and I'm a yes okay so it's unanimous to be taken off the table all right it is on the
065table um or it's off the table we're looking at it uh so any uh additional discussion on this item member Childs so I did a little bit of digging because I needed the contextual background for myself so what I found is that uh the on basically I went back to 2020 where uh the there was a budgetary issue for the SRO position where previously it had been half funed Police Department half funded school department police Department was saying it was no longer in their budget and uh pretty much what ended up happening was December 31st 2020 then Governor Baker uh signed a police Reform Bill that eliminated the SRO requirement in schools which kind of gave Greenfield uh the leeway to be like okay let's not have it in the budget then uh jump to
066fall of 2021 uh there's more talk about Behavioral difficulties safety challenges in school and the resolution that unanimously passed November 22nd 2021 was and this is quoting directly from the minutes of that meeting Casey moved as part of a multi-tiered support system sensitive to equity issues in our schools that the school committee direct the superintendent to begin discussions with the chief of police on Safety and Security Support options from his department for our schools and report back to the school committee uh jump to Spring 202 2 January there was just a very short update and the bigger update came in the February 9th 2022 meeting time stamp uh 35:14 if you want to jump right to it that the summary was that the school would need to support any uh position financially as police department
067could not support that Staffing I went through four years of meeting minutes and meetings um I did not watch all those meetings I'm not that insane turns out YouTube has a lovely transcript you can search for terms the searches that I did just so that if anyone wants to replicate them they can were for SRO and for police that was the last I found of this um of this report that we were expecting back from the superintendent for Safety and Security Options uh from the police department for the schools so Karen do you happen to remember anything that uh Dr Dr DeBarge managed to come up with past that or was the financial issue the roadblock to my recollection it was the financial issue okay so yes history lesson over thank you for that context
068appreciate your research other yes remember ston it turns out that Anna and I were sort of doing similar Research In Parallel um um and this is why scientists should talk to each other um um I went back a little bit further to 2018 this was when greenfields still did have an SRO they had one at the time and the question on the table was whether to go from 1 to three and there was quite a bit of at one of the school committee meetings which I did watch because I'm a glutton for punishment sometimes um I did watch that and there was a additional testimony given at the city council meeting around that same time and the ments from the public then were an against in broadening the um the numbers of sros that we
069had and that had nothing to do with whether or not it was a budgetary matter and that had everything to do with what people were advocating for in our schools um and I I do want to say that I do deeply sympathize with what the family and particularly those students are going through and I can't know none of us can know for certain if having an Sr would have prevented that incident and it certainly wouldn't have done anything around the issue of communication with our administrators that is being reported to us um I also I would personally like to hear more from I believe that there were some members of our current committee who were part of the previous formation of the committee that was that did some of that study um when this question
070was being taken up in 2021 2022 Etc um so I would like to hear more about you know are any of those questions that were undertaken are any of those unsettled um or have we heard anything that was not previously addressed that was addressed in that prior um study that was done um every time that this issue has come up it has been somewhat divisive for our community and every time it's come up we've also heard I would say the majority and all of the vast majority of the emails that I have received about this issue have been not to have an SRO in our schools so I just want to be clear that we are hearing from many many we are hearing from lots of sides all sides lots of perspectives but the vast
071majority that I have heard are not to reopen this discussion remember goodwi there's a piece of the history because I lived it which was not just about SRO but attendance officers and one of the the key issues is for children who aren't attending school if you call a DCF worker or a social worker they can knock on the door but it takes a a police officer to find out what's going on behind the door for many of our children and so I know in my school budget I offered to cut things to get a a school attendance officer because I felt strongly there were over 40 children who were chronically absent in my school and I needed help and that was the only person I thought who could give us the help we needed so
072I know that that was spoken because I spoke to it at different meetings so that wouldn't have shown up under your police search it would have showed up under an attend thank you member deneve I recall a little bit of this history when we discussed this last time we were flooded with students who came to speak to us so many students came and spoke and they were all against it and you might think well of course the children don't want this going on but they had very compelling reasons and they came to us with trauma from police encounters and fear that things would only get worse if there was an SRO on campus so my initial thought is I want to hear what the students have to say and my first priority is always the
073success of our student body and then the second priority in my mind was what did the teachers have to say and they came and were very present and said that they did not want this so that's where we were with the public comment last time that we visited this the other part there are three parts to it that I really recall the public comment the second part was that financially it wasn't something that we could do we couldn't even keep Spanish in the Middle School like we were having real budgetary problems um so it wasn't really feasible to do it um the other issue was that we weren't provided data that this would be worthwhile so if we're going to discuss this I'd like to know specific dates when in the last 10 years the
074response time for having an SRO on site versus dispatch has made a difference I'd like to know actual data about that because we have not been given data by our police chief or by anyone from the GPD nobody's given us actual data I've been sent articles you know that I can easily go and find on my own that's it no actual data about our community specifically so that would be the place to even start so those are the three points the students didn't want it the teachers didn't want it we couldn't afford it and there was no data so those are three boxes that are going to have to be seriously checked and uh researched before I think we go through with this and I understand that when people think about protection and safety for
075some communities ities that looks like sro's that looks like policing like some communities want that I understand it works in some places maybe I don't know but from what I've seen here that's not what that's not what people want and I I hope that um I hope that we can strengthen our relationships with our student body and I hope that we can empower the administration to reach out to the greater student body and improve communication and I hope that we can hire more behavioral specialists guidance counselors that's what I'd like to do with that money thank you a reminder that the motion we're speaking to is whether to take up this uh begin a comprehensive study and deliberation process to evaluate the potential of an SRO in our school district member childs would it be
076possible mayor would it be possible to alter the resolution to make a little bit of a friendly Amendment so it's not quite so SRO specific and uh gear it more towards uh investigating what we could do to improve safety and also studying where the safety concerns are because I didn't know about that attack that happened at the high school so I I do think we need more information and I think this resolution as is is far too limiting and inflexible especially when we don't know we're voting without knowing what the specific program in mind would be and what alterations like okay I'm biased towards the Comfort dog anything that gets kids able to pet a puppy I'm gonna want to figure out how to and sorry aside from that I'm being very ineloquent here um
077my issue here is where I know you wanted us to be focusing on this narrowly but we do need a broader approach to what are all of the variables at play How could we make the schools safe what will work for Greenfield specifically and what are greenfields needs and just a simple yes down should we discuss SRO is so limiting and it closes down a discussion that I'm worried we won't reopen to look at other things that can be done to improve safety or other areas where the kids are vulnerable where we can help them sorry if that made no sense to answer your question members can um ask the person who made the motion whether they would accept a friendly Amendment and then that could be um accepted by them and this and the
078person who seconded you just need to be completely clear about what the um amendment is that you're requesting and now to the mayor so um Ian thank you for all the research that you did on that um that was rather impressive um so I think it it's important for us as school committee members that that we actually have all of the information uh to make up to to make up our minds about about something I think it was interesting to note I heard what iann said I don't think most of us knew that that this event occurred that there were in injuries and that two people went to the hospital and I think that's an important step for us to start with how can we make up our minds if we don't know why there's
079a real imp important thing here in a Hospitality of HIPPA there's different things that we have in the school about what we should know or shouldn't know but as school committee members um knowing that there's an altercation with injuries is something I think we should be informed about um that would help us make up a make up our minds I would accept a friendly amendment I think that listening to the stories tonight um I I I think get we want our police to to have a presence even if it was at the beginning and the end of school with the with the there um with Frank but um we should be taking a look at this and um it it sounds to me if we needed somebody somewhere it it it might be at the
080high school so I would be in favor of taking a look at that and taking a look at it in a different format before and after school or or in school but I think we owe the the the children that to take a look at that and protect their safety and I also think that as school committee members um we should take a look at what we would ask to be informed about not details but um injuries thank you I'm just gonna say that um what the public can come and speak to us about in public comment is very broad you can come and tell us anything you want tell stories but as school committee members we just need to continue to be careful about um restoring the the boundaries between our role in terms
081of setting B policy and budget and not getting involved in the day-to-day operations and um it's really the superintendent's purview to um oversee the uh response to situations that like the ones that were mentioned in public comment it's not our job to kind of get into the details of a particular incident at a particular school are there any other comments member den and then um I have a comment after Martini first please go ahead oh okay um well I wanted to say thank you to member child for doing that research and also for your um s you're a suggestion of a friendly amendment to this motion because I also think that it's um not comprehensive to entertain a study that is only of the possibility of bringing back an SRO or sro's to Greenfield um
082if that's the only thing that's being studied then that's very limiting um in terms of of what the district can do to increase safety and uh I would I would be um interested in a much broader truly comprehensive discussion about that um I do want to say that um Greenfield does have safety plans in place but we don't necessarily talk about them in a public forum because that would reduce security for the district so that's something that the committee has addressed um regularly in um our executive sessions and something that are former superintendent I haven't had a chance yet with our our new superintendent but um but that our former superintendent made herself very available to me personally to um ask lots of specific questions about so that I could feel uh like I really
083understood where we stand with the comprehensiveness of our security practices um I have heard a lot of um folks talking about essentially two things one is um School behavior um and the other one being gun violence and in terms of school behavior um I member Childs I can um share my Recollections about our previous discussions on this committee about that because what's most memorable for me is our um discussion in 2021 because um like many other schools we were experiencing a very high level of very challenging behaviors um in school and uh so there was there was quite a cerous public discussion about that and uh my recollection aligns with member geneves uh we had a lot of students in particular come and speak to us and uh I my my Recollections that the majority
084of them probably the overwhelming majority did not want to have a police officer in their school um and in terms of gun violence and that's something that I think we have to rely on data about and um and actual real um things that we have learned uh hopefully from others experiences uh I it is not forgotten for me that having an SRO in Parkland did not help uh having an entire school police department in U valdi did not help um to prevent those tragedies from occurring so um I am not at all convinced that having an SRO would prevent something like that uh here or anywhere else um and I would also like us to remember a couple of things um that are really important uh and for me this comes from my experience um
085partly as a social worker um like one of our public commenters tonight I spent a lot of my career working with um children and families for whom um interactions with the police are very threatening and anxiety-provoking and um I would be really worried about the impact on vulnerable um students in some of our populations because of that and I would also just like to respond to one comment um from another member about um making calls to DCF and uh having that not be effective to have a social worker knock at the door and needing a police officer to get in and find out what is wrong um having been a DCF social worker for a very long time um and having responded to many reports of um students not attending school I would just like
086to say that I never once had the need to involve a police officer in order to address that problem and uh so I would I just wanted to note that um now I would like us to remember in light of those experiences of mine that Greenfield Public Schools has a history and a very recent history of engaging in disproportionate exclusionary discipline against students of color and disabled students we only just got um out from under scrutiny from the state about that and uh I would like us to be very mindful that we're not far away from those issues and in fact we still have largely segregated schools in Greenfield and we just heard our student representative talking about uh the need to address racialized language at ghs um we have to be really cognizant of
087how um those students will be how certain students will be affected um potentially by having an SRO and lastly um I have previously asked this committee to view every decision through a lens of how disabled students will be affected and that's because I come from the perspective of being a parent of two children with disabilities uh and from the perspective of having um uh two beloved nephews who like one of our public commenters are autistic and would um very likely have some of their mannerisms and behaviors be misinterpreted by uh a person who could harm them in interactions with police so uh I would really um I would really like the committee to please Center students with disabilities when they're considering this decision um who according to um research that I am aware of are
088more likely to face U punitive and negative uh interactions with an SRO so uh those would be my comments um I would not support the motion as is thank you thank you member Neve um I wanted to speak to the amendment um I agree with member Childs that we should have a comprehensive discussion about uh what's going on because I I didn't know about um what occurred at the high school either um I also know that there are a number of things around that that are not in our purview but I'd like to know uh the details of how and when and um we will be informed of things that rise to a certain threshold and the problem that I have is with the amendment I think that the original motion of bringing up discussion
089of whether or not to add an SRO into the school if we've brought that off the table then we need to have a vote about that specific motion and then I'd like to see another motion made about having a comprehensive discussion of security measures revisiting them and seeing if there are new things that we can apply um but having them smushed together I think is just a way to also just open the door to whatever so I think that we should just take independent votes on that um but I could not support the motion as is any other discussion just to be clear there has not been a request for an amendment to the motion so the motion we're we've taken up from the table still stands um so let's if people are ready we
090can go ahead and vote on that okay um so the motion was that the school committee begin a comprehensive study and deliberation process to evaluate the potential addition of an SRO school resource officer to our school district District so a yes vote would say that the school committee will begin the comprehensive study and deliberation process and a no vote would mean that we would essentially not take that up and not begin working on that in depth any questions before we vote so sorry I'm trying to figure out the way because I had my question a moment ago um so the sorry we will be able to make a new Amendment right after this vote then not Amendment sorry New Motion right after this vote then uh we could hear motions related to the topic of
091school resource officer in schools um we can also you know under new business members can make motions that we take up other items such as you know something else okay I think it will be related enough to SRO that there will be a new motion after okay okay all right so we'll now vote on the motion that is currently on uh that we're currently looking at um member denif would you please call a roll call vote of course um Vice chair Martini no member Goodwin yes member Childs no member seon no chair Johnson mad no uh mayor dorer yes and I am a no so the motion fails thank you member Charles you have another motion okay I would like to move that the school committee begin a comprehensive study and deliberation process of what
092our safety needs are and evaluate what potential Solutions will improve our safety measures is there a second second discussion mayor did you say something oh you second okay no I just seconded in motion okay is there any discussion I have a question uh the secret recording secretary has a question yes Susan Barber I would like member child's please to repeat that motion slowly sorry um because I was partially cribbing it so school committee began a comprehensive study and deliberation process to evaluate safety needs and what solutions would work in Greenfield to address those needs so that way everything's on the table okay discussion and I think member Martini I just had a question um which relates to what I said earlier about the need for the committee to keep our uh safety procedures uh especially
093certain parts of them um out of a public forum in order to maintain security uh in the district and I don't I don't really know how um how that would work so I wondered if the superintendent would have any input on that I would think all of those convers ations would have to be executive session thank you and member ston I I want to tease apart for a moment a couple of I think notes that are getting all jumbled up in this conversation now the shift from from SRO in particular to safety which is an as yet actually undefined term that we're using we have not set for ourselves what we mean by safety yes physical safety is a certain part of that um absolutely making sure that students are not needing to go to
094the emergency room as a result of a thing that has occurred on school grounds that is like bare minimum um but I think we're also talking about safety emotionally safety among peers um safety of expression and and being able to learn about themselves as human beings um there there are a number of different things and I I wonder I am curious as if part of the motion as you're intending it to be having a conversation among the broader community that is defining safety that that that points to an even wider rate because I also want to point out that um when the school district chose not to fund a school resource officer they did have two other positions that were created one of which I don't believe still exists but we did have a racial
095pra like a restorative practices facilitator position that was created and we did have a community connections coordinator or Community Advocate I forget exactly the title but those positions were also intended to serve in this sort of role and I would love to hear more about how that went if they don't still exist or if they do still exist like what's going on with that um and I also just want to lay out that you know that that was only two years ago that we did that and it takes a lot longer than two years for those kinds of programs to have immediate impact um but I can I can tell you that while it does take more than two years for systemic impact I'm also in the school three days a week I'm at Federal
096Street I volunteer there and even just me being with those kids for the few couple of weeks that we've actually been in school um you know I've got some regular kids that now come up to me and we we chat every time I'm there like we're Buds and they can tell me things and it provides them like I'm not a not a police officer I've never trained in that way but I'm still now someone that they feel close to Safe they can trust we talk about emotions we help put in feel we put name like words to the feelings they're experiencing when they're peeved off by a peer that sort of thing and I feel like when we're talking about safety those kinds of interactions are ones we need to talk about as well and
097I'll just wrap up real quick as a plug if you're in the community or you are a parent and you have even an hour hour or two in your week come be with the kids even if they're not your own kid and and that is part of how we keep each other safe as well that's how we keep our kids safe other discussion um can you repeat the motion please that the school committee begin a comprehensive study and deliberation process to evaluate safety needs and what solutions would work in Greenfield to address those needs oh sorry I did have a direct question to the maker of the motion and I wanted to give them an opportunity to respond I think it would be impossible to look and see what all of the safety concerns are
098if you aren't opening the discussion to allow the public the teachers the students to tell you what the those concerns are so I do believe there would be a public part of the discussion though of course there would be some specifics that would have to be an executive session for legal reasons but we do need to allow the community to give their opinions to give their experiences we can't shut people down especially not on a topic that concerns their kids safety physical or emotional because they're tied together I'm going to comment um I'm not supportive of the motion as presented it just it it's such it's a very broad uh discussion um safety just covers so many different things I also feel like part of what we we are running into tonight is um some
099of the questions and challenges for us as a school committee in terms of deliberation on the topic what items get discussed in full committee what items get discussed in executive session and um I think that it probably will take more time and thought to craft a motion that will be specific enough to really give us what our charges as a school committee and if we're taking this on um I guess separate from that I do have questions about whether we should be taking this on it seems to me that the primary reasons this has come up is because there was a disturbing and upsetting school shooting that took place in one community and then since the last um meeting there people are reporting on an incident that happened in a school and I'm not sure
100that necessarily represents that this is a strategic question that the committee should be taking up I don't know relative to other school districts how um unusual it is for physical fights to break out in schools um I uh so in in high schools I I'm assuming that's quite a common experience so um I guess I one thought I have is whether we might um direct an if she's willing to do it to spend the month kind of studying the question and coming up with a proposal for the committee about um what that work would be and what it would look like and how it would be done and um we could evaluate whether that discussion needed to happen in an open session or an executive session um so I guess my question is um whether
101you might consider withdrawing your motion for the moment and accepting that charge over the next month I would be willing to do the work um and I would be willing to withdraw the motion to in order to give the time to do the work unless I have a fellow Committee Member who who strongly feels that we need more action sooner in which case I would like them to have the chance to state that before I withdraw it just to be fair for anyone else anyone want to speak to that I'm not seeing any objection okay so I will withdraw the motion and spend the next month putting together what this could look like Community please email me do my work for me sorry just kidding can I make a request member Martini yes I would
102just like to ask that um part of that information include what other school committees have actually done um in uh similar studies if you can find that and uh because I I always want to know where does precedent lie with other school committees and I would also appreciate um um some input from the Massachusetts Association of school committees if you wouldn't mind requesting that from uh I'm not sure who would be the best person Liz leond or um someone else at masc who could please advise I'll work my way down the contact tree until I hit the right person okay thank you okay thank you for a wonderful and constructive conversation um we're not responding to the chat in the zoom unfortunately we just aren't capable of doing that right now um we'll move on
103to reports of the administration and I'm not oh there's Andy okay Andy can you come off mute and make your uh yes Andy pette business manager good evening can you hear me yes we can hear you excellent so you have in there as I mentioned at the last meeting we've got a a different report that we've included for consideration and honestly recommendation going forward uh but the first part the first page of the report is the standard revolving account gift account and scholarship account information as of October 7th then the next pages are the school capital accounts uh that had been requested that we provide to you monthly uh then starting on after the sixth page of that first report you have the original monthly update format that was used and we've used prior um
104when you scroll through Andy I'm sorry to interrupt could you give a little more orientation rather than saying the first second or third one okay sure so the first page is the standard revolving account gift account scholarship account report do you see that that's a stand standard that has the school launch Athletics all the revolving Accounts at the top section at least when I got it through the school material packet that's how it's coming up okay and for people in the room this is kind of what it what it looks like yes correct one page that's correct okay then the next pages are the capital accounts the next page one two three four five we're just looking at hard copies that I don't think are the same that you're looking at so you need to
105describe what's at the top of the page so we so the top of the sorry okay the top of the page has fy07 borrowing order it's Elementary School windows Yep and then fy21 Capital outlay order so on and so forth and that that next report is is six pages so those are all the capital articles that in capital expenditure budgets that were requested that we provide to you monthly yep then the next 14 pages are the I'm going to say the old way of reporting the monthly update so the first page looks like the uh it has the north parish and it's NP teaching staff you know cut off I'd say as far as the description goes with the total North Parish of the 1210 348 yep we got it okay so that is the
106normal report that we provide to you and it's 13 pages I apologize so just for discussion purposes this was in our recommendation based on the workshop that we did as far as potentially exploring changing the way that we look at it I'm giving this to you as like a reference as to this is the way that we've done it but then when you look at the next section Yep this is our recommended approach to how we would like to go forward because if you look this actually breaks it out by cost center by salaries and wages contracted services and supplies and materials this in my opinion in our opinion is easier to digest because it's segregated by personnel and non-personnel expenses and we've gone a little further and on personnel and contracted services and supplies
107and materials thank you so as to so that's the I'm GNA say the the layout and I I I guess our recommendation would be to go forward with that this this version that has the salary wages contracted services and supplies and materials so I can now if you will I would want to I can get into giving you the update as to financially where we stand um if you look and see I mean we're proceeding along um this again I want to refer back to the workshop where uh the hats off to the payroll we've got salaries encumbered we have most of our known contractual obligations encumbered where when you get to the bottom you see that we have you know a remaining balance of 54,2 68 but we've got just over $20 million fully
108encumbered that's good practice that's good practice to have our known expenses encumbered for at this point in the year now the next step as we've always talked about and with uh we've just hired a replacement in the payroll to help out we are now going through in doing as I've said the the realigning of the Personnel because we are we know our grants now grants have been written and approved and so we're going through and then going to be re reallocating positions and realigning with all the hirings that have occurred through the summer so this is all I'm going to say good news as to far as operationally how we are proceeding uh with uh the status of the budget and the management of it as as we stand right now and again I always
109want to say I tip my hat because this is the way that Greenfield has always done it uh and so with that I can answer any questions you might have as to any of the specifics member deneve hi Andy thanks for coming on doing your budget uh update virtually um you are a member of our admin team right I would be considered as one I guess I would say yes we're no different than a traditional business manager position so we receed W written excuse me we receive written reports from our superintendent and our assistant superintendent we receive budget lists from you why don't we receive a written report from you I I don't know what's happening and I don't have any way to go back and acquaint myself with what has happened in the past
110because there's nothing in written form it's just line items that's my first question I think that's not a question for Andy I think that's a question for us as a committee we've never directed the business manager to uh provide that and so I think Andy has given to us what we have accepted in the past um for budget so we can deliberate and decide whether we want to request some type of narrative from the business manager but okay that's that's totally fair I definitely am ready to make a motion about that when the time comes um my other question is there are some things in the warrants that I have questions about um what is mtrs filing mtrs filing that is the filing are you talking about the the invoice from TMS for that yeah
111there's a number of invoices from TMS for mtrs filing yes that's because there it was brought to the attention of the district that the mtrs filing was about two years in a re prior to us getting there and the district didn't have the personnel to do that and we have that uh capacity so that was not that is not in our standard contract that we have with the district so that falls under the special projects Clause of our contract so we have staff people that are helping the district get caught up with its mtrs filing um does it require any sort of special certification to perform mtrs filing nope so it's a data entry position no it's more than data entry it's it's reconciling information uh doing research on variances from what it is that
112would be listed as contractual and retial earnings versus non- retial and making sure that what is being categorized as mtrs eligible is indeed mtrs eligible and if there are variances then there are research that's required as to why there would be a variance of you know whether or not it's a stien for something and was that stien listed in a contract and therefore eligible for mtrs or not I just I ask because it's $141 an hour job and so I just want to find out the details behind it so I can understand it so I appreciate you answering those questions I have two more questions sure go ahead then we'll move to member Goodwin um there was some significant warrants for bills for graphic design and I'm wondering what it was for there is a
113football ad that I'm wondering if the graphic design was for that um you're asking about the invoices from TMS yeah so the focus of this agenda item is on the business manager report the the we do have a contract with the agency that Andy happens to work with for work that is directed by the superintendent but it is a contract that was signed off on by the school committee so I just ask members to keep your questions focused on the report from the business manager on the business of the schools so how do we get how do we discuss these because we're expected to put our signatures to them and I have questions because I don't feel comfortable putting a signature to warrants that are written this way I as we've discussed many times before
114at these meetings anytime a member has any question about any invoice that they're signing off on on the warrant this superintendent is high accessible to answer those questions as is Andy so I say that would be probably the place to start if you if the if the problem Rises to a level of something that affects the school district policy um budget so on that would be an appropriate item for the school committee so let me make sure I understand so if I have a question about an invoice I'm to ask him but not now well it's that right yes that's correct it would be a one-on-one question I think because what we have before us is an agenda for the school committee which our role on the full school committee is to set policy to
115set budget and to evaluate the superintendent so getting into the details of invoices and what is this for and what's that for I think would be more appropriately handled in a one-on-one question if something came out of those questions that really became a uh in the purview of the school committee I think that would be appropriate okay I I have to respectfully disagree with you because I'm having a one-on-one conversation with them and there are things and this is budgetary and there are things that are not I think well I have questions about so um if you want me to write my questions down and call him I mean it wouldn't be any different than this but I'll respect that but I disagree with it but happens to work for a vendor that the school
116committee has a contract with to provide services to so the questions about graphic design are really not related to the agenda item that we're discussing right now which is the business manager report not not the it's not a report of the contractor it's a report of him in his role as business manager on the business of the schools okay any other questions relevant to that I'm not hearing any and uh member Goodwin so I I just attended chartering the course on Saturday so this is very much in my head and one of the statements um that that I took to my heart was we are responsible for approving warrants and if we have questions we should get questions answered because it's our job for oversight of this I just feel like every time I see
117warrants they've already been approved but my name is on things I have questions about so I guess I'm trying to figure out if we're not having com conversations here the next month is going to come they're going to get signed and these are things that keep showing up every month they're not something that just shows up once so I guess I'm I'm trying to put transparency in my questions and I am not comfortable with my name on some of these warrants and so I'm being told I'm legally when somebody you're all signing my name when you sign so that is making me uncomfortable so um I think this is a topic for uh recommendations for future agenda items so I would suggest that we bring it up then um and uh we can we can
118discuss those concerns at that time um I'm just conscious o wanting to respect open meeting law and what we did was create an agenda and told people what we're going to be discussing and we are moving into discussions that haven't the public hasn't had a chance to be made aware of um for example our policies and procedures around warrants and such so yeah member ston um I had a a question about the Federal Street elevator and just where that process is at um speaking of school safety I I don't want our cafeteria workers to have to keep carting the milk upstairs the RFQ or I should say the RFP has been uh turned over to the interim CPO on a city Side and he's reviewing for publishing uh he understands the urgency of getting that
119done thanks any other questions on the report of the business manager okay let's see my agenda I guess we're moving on to assistant superintendent good evening I'm gonna just try to share my screen in the zoom okay thank you for your patience so in terms of my report I the report I submitted I'll take in reverse verse order um because I listed the recruitment second and the accountability first but um we're going to talk a little bit more about the accountability just wanted to notify the committee that I attended Mass hires fall multi-industry job fair last Thursday at Hampshire mall in an effort to fill vacant positions um it was a good opportunity to engage in prospective candidates uh we had generated some interest from everything from custodial positions that are open to IAS lots
120of questions um so certainly checking in with principles about names that we collected there U Mass hire does a good job of opening it up and getting a wide variety of Industries to these job fairs and they're planning another one in early November at Greenfield Community College so my hope is that it is in our backyard that might generate some other interest if all our position aren't full by then in terms of District accountability uh I just have it really is at a glance I think the data that comes out from desie in terms of accountability um you can go to pretty significant depths um this presentation does not do that but I am certainly happy to have the conversation um I think it's important it was an important opportunity to preview the accountability findings
121to the committee um ultimately these are the ratings that determine um what supports or interventions a district or a school may require from desie or um you know on the other end schools of recognition also through the accountability we touched on this a little bit last last month when we talked about neas but I think this is a pretty comprehensive report that desie does and the information the data was just released publicly about two and a half weeks ago so um I'll go through the presentation happy to answer questions there is a lot of information but I I do admit it is scratching the surface but I figured it was a good place to start so in terms of the accountability system itself is it's bringing together a number of measures in order or in
122an effort to provide clear and actionable information to dist and schools about performance in a number of areas um and not just those areas but how are your subgroups how are all students doing in those areas and it really breaks down those details um to the granular level ultimately the accountability results answer two questions how is the school or District doing and what kind of supports um does that school or District need in terms of our Rel relationship with the accountability system in terms of our strategic plan this is a a a brief I would say crosswalk I think the development of the Strategic plan clearly had some of these data points in mind because it touches on a number of issues from in curriculum instruction instructional supports um and Communications and Outreach um I
123think if pushed I could have connected the operations portion of it as well but um you know I do think there is it is well aligned with our strategic plan and the work that we're trying to do here I listed some resources this um image on the left well it's not in it's probably not visible to many people right now this is at the bottom of every schools and I'll click on our accountability report right now if you scroll to the bottom here it is really just a glossery of details about what that report says what it does I also included links to the interpretive materials in the glossery of accountability terms just for reference points if you look through at the top here it does this is where you can see our overall results
124you can get into student group results oops excuse me right so as you scroll down here this is high need students but you can list go into any one of these indicators and get a more in-depth look I will make note that there are a number of subgroup populations that we might not have data for because we're not hitting the typically Des is using 20 as the number before you get a rating on it um so there are some subgroups that we wouldn't have data on I'm sorry this is the district yes this is the district you can go to this far right Tab and this goes into the schools and then you can click on any one of the schools to get that more indepth look at each of our schools I have a
125lot more on my screen that I'm trying to maneuver around to avoid the zoom back to my presentation um this is this link here will just take you to Desi's um district and school accountability web page right so again more information about how in depth this this data can get and then the glossery of accountability terms I included here as well so this is a snapshot um this takes a look this is our accountability percentiles essentially um looking at all the information in the indicators of the school's overall performance relative to other schools other like schools I should say similar grades it's not perfect match but um they do take and as you get into those data reports you'll see High School versus non- High School even in a place like Greenfield High School right
126now because 8th grade lives there you get non- high school ratings because of that one grade being there um so in 2023 there is right some some good news and there's some data that's probably hard to look at but you know we had we had four schools requiring Assistance or intervention in the account in the accountability system in one year the district went from four schools to two schools requiring or needing intervention um again looking at just the pure numbers people might say like where can we do better how can we improve here and those are the questions we're asking ourselves but I Al also think it's important to stop and recognize the growth that has been made there's some pretty significant growth on this sheet um in one in one school year um and
127sometimes that's about a certain a curriculum that's been implemented or that's about a group of students again this is schoolwide though so it's typically not about one grade sometime you'll see it one grade makes a jump um and as you dig into that it it could beg some more questions you might ask also what does this mean for our Statewide system of support work with our ssos friends um they are they will remain in green field if people remember back to when schools were rated as a 1 two 3 4 five they've shifted things a little bit but the the ratings still do mean that you essentially go by the lowest rated School in a in any given District so as long as there is one school requiring Assistance or intervention I anticipate ssos would
128be here um our meeting tonight is preceding a meeting with ssos this week that that we're going to dig into this a little bit more with that team um and get feedback from them about what they're seeing with it as well so again this is because of the timing I want to make sure we shared something but um we'll continue to get more in depth in this data moving forward so some highlights a 10% increase if you go back to um that main page you get rated based on you are you making progress towards your targets your targets are assigned based on how you've did in the previous year really the previous two years um in 2023 Greenfield made uh moderate progress um exceeded or met 43% of their targets last year it's 53% substantial
129progress but I want to be clear when they give you that rating of 53 that's two years of data um so again year one in 2023 it was um I'm sorry this year we made 61% towards targets either meeting or exceeding targets last year the district hit 61% of their targets so it's again these are things that we should be highlighting right celebrating those taking the small wins while recognizing there's work to be done um we met or exceeded Targets in all of these categories here um and here I tried to go through through and say where it was um all students are lowest performing students non- High School grades just to give a little bit of context um these bottom two just want to note these are focused subgroups in the district um this
130school year but English learn English Learners and former English Learners in our non- high school grades met or exceeded 68% of their targets last year so it's that Focus right Right comes from a place where we looked at the data but clearly some of that Focus started well before last year and the um instructional prioriti prioritization plan got put into effect and um that shows here and same with Hispanic Latino non- high school students met or exceeded 68% um of targets and it is not the same group to be very clear it's not just because Hispanic Latino and English learners it is two different groups just happen to meet the same number of targets areas in need of improvement so just again when you get into the data page that you'll start to see like
131you we got a zero points it's basically a zero through four rating this is what the those numbers mean zero means we declined four means you exceeded the Target and then um you know there's the the one twos and threes are no change or low growth that's when you look at the student growth percentile um improve below your target so some improvement but maybe not significant and then you met your target is a three so you'll see chronic absenteeism another Focus area in the district in the um instructional prioritization plan all students and our lowest performing students Zer out to four um and again those next three are all zero to four and just again highlights not the right word but I did say like that zero means that those chronic absenteeism did increase in
132those groups from 23 to 24 um students with disability student subgroup in our non- high school grades only met or exceeded 7% um of their targets so I think one thing that the superintendent and I have talked about and we've talked about with our leadership team is part of the reason that we have some of these focus groups is not all students are having the same experience in the Greenfield Public Schools and I think some shifts need to be considered to to make that happen and some shifts are small some shifts might be bigger Advanced coursework is only a high school um rating and it only considers 11th and 12th grade um students so if we have students who are taking AP courses in ninth or 10th grade or taking dual enrollment courses those students
133aren't hitting this Target because they're not in the measurement um and then fouryear graduation rate um we declined and then extended engagement rate that just means essentially if you didn't graduate in four years you persisted you remained connected to the schools so the work ahead is continue to follow the Strategic plan I think like I said at the beginning it's well aligned um as is the instruction prioritization plan developed in collaboration with the ssos team um you know all students with a specific focus on students with disabilities English Learners and our Hispanic Latino subgroups um high quality grade level culturally responsive practices um that are rooted in best practices for literacy professional development with Partners through teaching lab both for educators and for district and school leaders not just in the classroom um and then
134a focus on attendance really promoting the benefits of good attendance in stronger communication um schools are having weekly attendance meetings and then trying to build in those W wraparound supports where possible so um I one that likes to focus on the highlights because I think there's a lot to highlight and it's a credit to um the administration the teachers the counselors the instructional assistant over the past few years to really dive into this work um so kudos to all of them and then certainly recognize like there's still work to be done but um My Hope Is that we can continue that momentum so happy to answer some questions and I know again even though this is at a glance there is a lot to digest questions for Mr Sullivan yep we have a new language
135in our district have we found elll people to help our Haitian population so we have resources to support that population but the the SE the sheltered English and the endorsement is not about Spanish or English it's about good practices in language development um so I think we're trying to focus on those especially with our earliest Learners and I know as students get older some of that becomes more challenging but um we we have our L teachers and I think sometimes the students acclimate a little bit better sometimes than parents and families so the language bridge that we now have available um I think it's helping with some of those communication efforts other questions oh M and Eve I have a question um one of the wonderful highlights that Karen used to give us when she
136was assistant superintendent was information about all the grants that she was writing and so I was just curious if you are also doing that work and if so are there any new ones that you're excited for or any that are on your target list for the future yeah I I think the one I think we announced it two meetings ago maybe it was August the Innovation career pathway work I think that's one that um that team met actually yesterday and there's some excitement around that and building out what Pathways could look for look like for our students and you know some of the co the the founding principles or tenants around that is about Equitable access removing barriers for students so that they have access to Advanced coursework and those types of things so I
137think the those types of opportunities start to marry some of the things that we're seeing here that might be challenges and open it up to uh more students um or a more diverse subset of students that's just one um there's certainly others I know we're working on anal Grant right now and but I can certainly um add some more information to Su future reports um I know we wrote one for the career counseling at the high school as well that we're waiting to hear back on so happy to include some more information on that other questions or comments I have a question about um the accountability percentile slide um is what are the factors that go into these numbers I I I was wondering if it's um well I guess that's just the question I
138was wondering if it there's more kind of process um data that goes into it versus just outcomes or is it purely an outcome based uh metric okay at screen justs there so in terms of achievement this is where it gets into mcast so here and you'll see sorry you'll see that this carries a weight of 47 and a half% so you're going to get that total here and then growth is that student growth percentile so how are students growing on MC Bas Lake Pi that gets that 22 and a half these three categories are only in the high school ratings so you'll see over here 60 and 20 because they don't have the gr oh Stephen C can you please turn on your microphone sorry I can repeat that if need be um so for
139the high school that's weight everything's weighted the achievements at this 47.5% the um growth is 22.5% you have have 20% of high school completion and then 10% of your score is based on chronic absenteeism and at the high school level the advanced coursework to get your 100% for non- high school they're weighted a little bit differently because you don't have the factors like Advanced course work graduation rate extended engagement okay I see so essentially like if you just looked strictly at mcast numbers you wouldn't see as deep a picture as you do here because it measures other factors besides just grades I guess absolutely yes and right achievement and growth are very much based on mcast results the other factors involve a lot more information thank you of course and then not that you asked
140but down here it kind of goes through how you wait High School versus non- high school and um you know the total percentage of the points so thank you all right thank you for your report um thank you I have a question oh question sorry member Martini yes and then I see member denif okay uh so I wanted to know if could you please elaborate on what specifically um um is going into that frankly dismal score for students with disabilities in the district and um what is being planned in terms of immediate and longer term next steps for them um I know I'm asking for something that probably could be its own presentation and I would be very happy to have one of those um specifically in regards to students with disabilities and special education
141at a near future meeting of course so I did call it up here on the screen so it is all the same factors um I did double check on the high school they did not have the number to qualify so they didn't have that number 20 um so you don't get the weight for that subgroup so just so everyone's on the same page this is all really um grades 1 through seven 3 through seven um because of mcast so it is all the same factors from chronic absenteeism to the student growth percentile to achievement on mcast so because it's non High School it is a bit more limiting but those are the factors that come into it and then I'll just show you all so you can see it if you go into the detailed
142indicator for each you can go in here it's going to tell you English language Arch achievement for non- high school and then you can see students with disabilities and part of the reason um the target was this e e e remember Den we are scheduled for a five minute break at 8:00 p.m. and it's 8:20 yeah they um they top of the meeting says should the meeting extend beyond 8:00 p.m. a 5-minute break for members will be observed it doesn't say it will be observed at 800 p.m. but it does say there will be a f minute break so thank you um any other discussion questions for the assistant superintendent all right great let us take a five minute break [Music] n [Music] a [Music] a [Music] n [Music] n [Music] ah [Music] a [Music]
143he [Music] n [Music] a [Music] can the um folks on Zoom still hear us let us know if not I can hear you okay superintendent report thank you um we were talking about some of our subgroups and our elll population being one of them but we do have some highlighted good news today um the access scores that we just received for our L students our uh Middle School had tremendous growth growth 56% of our L students increased toward their learning goals in grades 6 through eight so I wanted to share that but it was so remarkable that the desie office of language acquisition actually asked our Administration along with our elll teacher from The Middle school to present today to a conference on a webinar about what we are doing for our L population and
144how um it's actually showing some positive uh growth for our students so I wanted to share you'll notice in um the reports that we share now though we are uh continually linking any of these items to our strategic plan work so that you can uh distinctly see what we're doing and how it's really supporting the 5-year plan that we have in place and um not just uh the topic but I've tried to also put in parenthesis a little extra info about what part of that topic they were supporting so you'll see that in blue moving forward in my reports um some staffing updates our director of Technology John galdi is leaving us on Friday um for some personal reasons and we do wish him a fond farewell um we have had a great response though
145for the posting and we've interviewed uh numerous qualified candidates and we have two more on Friday that we will be interviewing so hopefully we will have a replacement fairly quickly in that department um member seon asked earlier we used to have it was one position it was the combined Community Connection social justice coordinator I don't remember the whole title but um it was eer 2 funded and when eer 2 ended the position ended but prior to eer 2 ending the Personnel person departed from Greenfield and we just never found a replacement for the past year um we had a director of Behavior Services who took on a lot of that work and then that person um retired so we have had the director of Behavior Services position in our general budget it has been open
146and we have finally filled it we hired Katie Miller Murphy she started with us on Monday hit the ground running um really glad to have her on board because she will be doing a lot of the oversight of not only our attendance meetings in all of our buildings but working with our counselors our bcbas we also have rbts that we will be putting at our elementary schools to help Monitor and um really help with some of the behaviors that they're seeing that are challenging at that level they will be working together um also to talk about sort of practices we've been working closely with frog and how to roll out a solid uh zero to five plan as I call it because we do need to Pilot and to think about the planning process I
147think everyone thinks you can just be restorative practice uh communities and don't understand really the investment that you have to put in place and if you don't do it with purpose and intent it falls to Pieces so um we will be working with them closely and we have two counselors at the high school that are um trained through um Boston um we sent them to suffk University two years ago and they are very interested in continuing this work so um I do um really want to remind though you know that with regards to behaviors in schools um we have tried to really support the EM social and emotional needs of our students and at the same time um we were in a rethinking discipline initiative as member Martini uh previously stated and we finally have
148um been grown out of that as they say and we no longer under that umbrella with desie but many of uh folks don't understand that Desi also changed the regulations around suspension and there are um requiring schools provide alternative measures and you have to document these alternative measures and the success or non-success of those alternative measures and then actually move to a suspension so um what folks uh think can happen with regards to removing students from school really is not as um easily possible as in many years ago some of those includ uh alternative measures include you know parent meetings lessons with counselors on their behaviors safety plans um after school detentions um but you really do have to monitor and document all of that so I just wanted to share that because having someone
149like the director of Behavioral Services is pivotal in actually Meeting those requirements under desie regs um I also want to remind folks that I I along with the rest of all members of our school district are um obligated to follow furpa and we have to keep the privacy of student information um and protect that privacy for all students under all circumstances so that also um often puts a snafu in what people um think we can speak about and not speak about so I just um really want to just remind folks of that we also um uh had a first grade opening at Newton Elementary and I really am excited that we will be welcoming a new teacher Danielle Italiano is coming to us um with teaching experience in Holio and ammer she will be starting
150in about a week and a half at Newton um and really want to thank Stacy McDon the IIA at Newton who's been covering the classroom working with the other first grade teacher and teaching lessons for us uh Rockstar IIA and we really appreciate her support and uh patience during this time and look forward to having a first grade teacher on board um many other staff have been welcomed but we are still struggling as Stephen alluded to earlier to fill some IA positions some custodial positions we certainly are doing as much out Outreach as possible um there will be another recorder ad in the paper so there will be another marketing invoice for that because sometimes the best uh bang for our buck is local people who read the paper and maybe not Beyond School spring
151so we're hoping that that will Garner some interest and I just also want to restate member seon's um shout out to the community that if you even have an hour and want to come um cover lunch or recess we would love to have you sign up as a volunteer and get you on boarded so that you could help us in those areas and we appreciate your efforts at Federal Street I know principal halin loves having you um a lot of the work that we're doing with instructional strategies is also tied to District learning walks we have some formal learning walks that are happening with our professional development teaching lab partner um we are using this with a focus on literacy this year so in all classrooms we will be looking at the um engagement of
152students student discourse um students ability not to opt out and engage in the lesson and uh how they are accessing grade level standards but six walkthroughs a year um for Stephen and I just isn't acceptable so he and I have begun our own site visit walkthroughs so one week I'm at middle and high he's at elementary and a and then we flip and we're using components of the same um rubric that we have been using with the teaching lab we've done it on a smaller scale so that we can also be in classrooms more often um I linked the Strategic plan there but um for us really monitoring how we are collecting student data what we're doing to look at student data and how folks in classrooms know what students need is our priority and
153then I had uh mentioned earlier that we have been randomly and I put air quotes randomly selected by Jessie for a full comprehensive Jessie District site review um we met with the research team it's called the American Institute for research who does all of des's work on site and comes to visit uh we had our introductory call we've gotten uh signed up for the portal in which we have to produce pounds of information um and then they will collect data they will be on site and they say they will an analyze and integrate the information they collect to provide a snapshot of what the district looks like and then um push out a final report three to four months after that I just remind folks though because they are coming the week of November 18th
154and part of that is going to be uh interview with school committee members um interviews with the mayor interviews with parents and families um so we have some form letters that they've provided us and we will be pushing out more information so that folks know where to sign up if they want to be part of these groups and I will also be sharing information with all of you if you want to be one that they interview they will also be in our classrooms in our buildings and um they will be meeting with all administrators our director of pupil Services um and we will continue to schedule all of that as I get more information um each week um just an added update because the mayor had asked for updated um enrollment statistics and I had
155given those overall ones each month um we are at 1376 which is about uh 30 student uh less than we were um as of September 9th um I do caution though we have a everchanging EB in flow with our uh migrant families who are at the hotel many of them have secured housing in Deerfield at Cliffside and are uh slowly moving out but we are slowly moving other folks in so the enrollment fluctuation is constant um I did um attend a Franklin County superintendence meeting today and there were six other schools and five out of the six also said their enrollment was down about 30 kids so we all thought that that was odd and um interesting all at the same time so for us um it it really does seem to be a constant
156moving uh Target with some of the transiency so and that is my report and I'm happy to answer questions questions for the superintendent not seeing any thank you very much oh yes I'm sorry I wasn't quick on the raising hand part pardon me um and Karen this would be fine later not tonight but just by school at some point but and thank you so much for doing that I appreciate you I if you want to jot down the numbers I did bring the numbers by school okay great I'm writing all right AEL 87 Federal Street 195 yep Discovery School 186 Newton 175 okay Middle School 325 High School 407 thanks a lot thank you so much I can I can send that in an email too if you needed it nope I I wrote it
157down thank you very much you're welcome other questions for the superintendent I just let really appreciate your follow through in terms of organizing your report with those connections to our strategic plan I think that's both valuable in the month and also will be valuable to us you know as we're looking at evaluation of you and you know how well you're responding to the things that we've asked you to do so I really appreciate that um okay now we move on to the conent consent agenda um are there any items any school Committee Member would like to consider separately member child's I would like to consider the school catchment separately and pull that out of the consent agenda okay it is uh number F approve the catchment street school assignment list for 2025 26 any other
158items that folks would like to okay so I'd like to hear a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented with the exception of item F so moved motion from Member Den is there a second second second from Member child's I heard first um any discussion member Den would you please call the vote by roll call uh secretary genive I'm a yes Vice chair Martini yes chair Johnson mad yes mayor dorer yes member Goodwin yes member seon yes member chobs yes it's unanimous okay um then uh we'll start with a motion to approve the catchment street school assignment list for 2025 26 so moved okay there's a motion is there a second second okay discussion I just wanted to uh give the superintendent a chance to provide a little bit more context on this especially
159for the public because they're not really going to know it so the big question is where do these numbers come from how was the decision made sure um the catchment list that you have was actually the draft of the street assigned ments that began the redistricting process years ago um and the bus company the former superintendent and um the principles of the elementary at the time had to decide on um availability of classrooms in the building in order for fifth grade to move back down because you have to have space for those students to be in rooms and um while I appreciate some of the concerns around uh some of the other streets that may be close to Oak courts not making it in the new catchment list um the Quick Glance that I did
160look at um without getting too into the weeds it was about 32 additional students that would have to move to um Federal Street so um that alone just at a k through four run would put us probably in um a situation with needing a potential extra bus or it would put Federal Street in potential for needing three sections of a grade level um just by adding the numbers and I didn't go deep into the weeds to see you know what grade levels or how we would manipulate all of that um but then after Communications with the transportation company um as well as Elementary principles before our last redistricting ad hoc meeting um we talked about the catch areas and the numbers and um can hopefully um follow through and have all of the fifth grades
161uh be two sections in each building moving forward with the exception of a potential third section needed in a school but uh we've been looking at space and trying to configure that um I also later in the agenda there is a timeline just that came out of that ad hoc redistricting meeting and um time is of the essence which is why we had talked about uh needing this assigned list to actually be voted on and approved because then the communications with families that are affected by the list actually have to begin sooner rather than later because the policy says that they can choose to age out or they can choose to go to their new home school and we would need to communicate with families on when their choice needed to be made and why
162in order to secure transportation and have space available in the buildings um I had originally had it on for our November meeting and thankfully um member Childs and member seon were like we should do this sooner rather than later so we moved it to October um and I think once we actually get this solidified a lot of the next steps can happen other questions or comments I just want to clarify can opt out of this only in the highlighted streets so those that affected here if you're homes right now their home school is where they go to school right next year their home school will be different right so in our discussions we gave families the option if you're a third grader at Federal Street but your school has changed you want to probably spend
163fourth and fifth grade at Federal Street it's the school your family's known and love but maybe you don't maybe you want your family to move to the new home school for ease of Transportation pickup drop off busing um we are still providing Transportation regardless of their decision for the families that are affected and that's why it's key to um really be certain about which highlighted streets we're agreeing upon so that and I saw your shake of the head member uh Goodwin so yes um it is a lot but we are are going to do this yes we [Laughter] are any other discussion all right um member Den would you call a vote you're on um secretary genive I'm yes Vice chair Martini yes chair Johnson mad yes mayor dorer yes member Goodwin yes member seon
164yes member Childs yes passes unanimously thanks everybody um so you might notice that our school committee reports item on our agenda um looks a little different than it has in the past uh this is because on Monday um we received notice from the clerk's office that um they would like us to have um uh specific items under each subcommittee um so that the public can reasonably know what will be discussed so in the future I think if your um committee wants to report at the meeting um please email me um a week before so we can make sure to get the items you'll be discussing into the agenda um so with that um budget and finance subcommittee um remember my team okay yes hello so uh budget and finance did meet in September and uh
165we covered several topics including the dissemination of the school committee's new budget development calendar for FY 26 as well as implementation of school committee policy dbd which is in part about public engagement in the budget development process as well as upcoming capital improvements necessary and a brief presentation from Andy regarding our fy2 24 end of year accounting so as you know the school committee recently approved our first annual budget development calendar um and our next step in carrying out our policies in this area is for the committee to determine How We Gather input in the budget development process um so just to make it easy for everyone our policy DVD States the first priority in the development of an annual budget will be the educational welfare of the children in our schools however the district
166will also attempt to balance the valid interests of the taxpayers budget decisions reflect the attitude and philosophy of those charged with the responsibility for educational decision-making therefore a sound budget development process must be established to ensure that the annual operating budget accurately reflects the school district's goals and objectives in the budget planning process for the school district the school committee will strive to one engage in thorough Advanced planning with staff and Community involvement in order to develop budgets and guide expenditures in a manner that will achieve the greatest educational returns and contributions to the educational program in relation to Dollar expended two establish levels of funding that will provide high quality education for all our students three use the best available techniques for budget development and management the superintendent will have overall respons posibility for
167Budget preparation including the construction of and adherence to a budget calendar so with that policy in mind we reviewed the ways in which the committee uh in which the community already has opportunities for involvement in our budget development process which are also laid out within our annual budget development calendar uh that we just put out there for everyone and those ways include um emailing the superintendent via our staff directory emailing the school committee making public comment at a school committee meeting especially at pertinent times which are outlined for people in the budget development calendar such as September and October about Capital Improvements during November and December about the development of the next year's operating budget and during February and early March about the proposed operating budget and also uh if folks have an interest in
168a certain Department within the school then um they may contact contct the school principal or the department head for that department through the staff directory to let them know their ideas especially when individual Department budget proposals are under development in the fall for the next year's operating budget uh participating in school councils is a great way to do this and people can check the district calendar for upcoming meetings of the council for each School uh those being the existing ways that we could identify that uh the public already has uh opportunities for engagement in the budget development we then discussed whether these means are adequate and uh we agreed that we would like to make ourselves more available um in order to provide more opportunities for engagement so uh toward that end we discussed several
169options and created a proposal which I have made into a motion for approval as follows I move that the committee approve the budget and finance subcommittee plan for implementation of policy dbd Section 1 for FY 26 budget development as follows each subcommittee member will attend at least one meeting of a parent organization PTO CPAC lpac or school council prior to the December school committee meeting for the purpose of making themselves available in addition to normal means for public input in the budget development process for FY 26 would anyone like to second that motion I'd second that thank you discussion all sorry I should leave that to the chair I have a question Sloss friendly Amendment do you mean each member of the the budget um and finance subcommittee yes each subcommittee member okay budget and
170finance subcommittee member okay great if we can include that in the motion that would be great um any other [Music] discussion uh we have a question from Susan Farber I'm hoping that you would email that motion yes I be happy to do that sorry it was kind of long thank you so much sure any other [Music] discussion member seon okay go ahead um I'm I'm assuming this will be part of how this gets implemented but I also want to be sure that on the that there's proper notice given of those dates that you will be attending those meetings so that people know to go to them yes so uh we will definitely incorporate that make sure it gets out there we discussed in the budget and finance subcommittee meeting um means of disseminating our annual
171budget calendar um and I imagine we can use those same means um to notify folks of which meetings either member child or member jie for myself will be at for folks member Den I have the calendar of those parent meetings sent to me by Karen so I'm going to be adding them to our school committee C calend so if you would like to attend one even if you're not on the budget and finance subcommittee you can go and represent and that will be up next week no later than next week I promise promise thank you so much for doing that um the subcommittee members are committed to doing at least one um we are only humans and are extremely busy in our own U personal lives so uh we were not we decided to commit
172to one um if other but we don't want to necessarily make that something on the plate of other members as well um we take our responsibility on budget and finance seriously so if other members would like to voluntarily go and and make themselves present um then by all me um mayor dorer um thank you so much for all your work on this this is wonderful um would you like me to send to you before you get started too much what guidelines that I'd be sending to like the city on looking over the the entire budget or you know yeah yes please I'm I would be very interested in that um information I would just like to be clear that the purpose of um us going and making ourselves available um in this way is to
173listen and gather input from people and not you know necessarily to deliberate we're not we will do that in our open meetings thank you thank so much any other comments or questions I'll just say uh it's really wonderful it's a great model I think um to both put the work into developing this calendar and then get right to work figuring out how to engage the public in the process and I like your realistic approach of one one meeting per member and kind of focusing on what we can do um and not overstretching ourselves I I think that's that's great shall we vote member deneve uh secretary Den yes Vice chair Martini yes chair Johnson musan yes mayor dorer yes member Goodwin yes member seon yes member Chads yes vote is unanimous thank you so much
174for that I really um am heartened to see and be involved in um budget development becoming um more organized and uh engaged process here so thank you uh the second thing uh that we also discussed is current capital Improvement needs the most pressing of which include upgrading the GMS fire panel and making improvements to the fourth grade wing and nurse's office at Four Corners that are required under the Ada in resolution of a previous complaint uh the Four Corners improvements still require additional information though in order to provide an estimate cost so I will be offering a motion tonight only for the fire panel and we will discuss an additional request for the Ada improvements on another date once we have that information we also discussed additional Capital Improvements that are needed but less urgent
175um including a GMS awning roof replacement by the gym doors ghs lighting control system updates ghs track maintenance and painting and a exterior ior painting because these will uh because we already have a significant amount in Urgent Capital Improvement requests and because these other items are needed but it would be acceptable if they were funded later we determined that they would be suitable for earmark funding requests and to that end I will have a separate motion for them so uh before I get on to motions though I will um let the superintendent please describe those needs in brief for the committee if you could sure with the capital request um with the GMS fire panel um our facilities director has a meeting set up with Chief stran as well to go over um there is
176some um outdated parts that are no longer available so um when you replace a fire panel you have to also replace all of the detectors in every room which obviously you need so that you can have the panel in working functional order um so that was really uh important to us to put that at the highlight of our list this year the ADA compliance issues at Discovery School um I think for those of you that have been on the committee for a while realize that this is a OCR complaint that I believe is um at least a decade old if not longer and the last two items on the list list um are the nurse's office and the door accessibility that needs to be widened for a wheelchair accessibility as well as the fourth grade
177Wing um is only stair access to exit so um there does need to be an ADA Compliant exit outside that of the building we did have the facilities director uh meet a contractor to see um if there could be some estimates and quotes when this originally was uh on tap and then after um that we also met with the building inspector and after that conversation it looks like there may need to be an architect in some future planning um so there is uh much more um Deep dive needed into actually what it's going to take to fix both of those so what we originally thought um probably was a little bit too low in the estimation process so I put TBD back on there and spoke with member Martini just so that she was aware
178of where we were in that process for Capital um with regards to earmark I've talked to our legislators talked to member deneve um over the past year about having projects on a list readily available just in case and you know you never know when they could find some money so uh in speaking with the facilities man uh director we had come up with a list and uh prioritized these four really if um you know they can wait as member Martini indicated but if someone did find money and wanted to uh give it to Greenfield so that we could get these projects done we would happily accept it for these items thank you okay so uh with that information in mind I move that the committee approve an FY 26 Capital Improvement request in the amount
179of 150,00 for upgrading the fire panel at Greenfield Middle School I'll second that okay discussion member Den will you call a vote uh secretary Den I'm a yes Vice chair Martini yes chair Johnson mad yes mayor dorer yes member Goodwin yes member seant yes member CHS yes motion carries unanimously thank you and lastly I have one more motion I move that the committee authorize our legislative representative to communicate with our legislative delegation to advance earmark funding requests as follows $30,000 for GMS awning roof replacement $50,000 for ghs lighting system updates $50,000 for ghs track maintenance and painting and $30,000 for a exterior painting is there a second I'll second that second for member child's discussion member D and then uh the mayor um I just want to say that I've never done this before so
180I'm going to this is my homework I'm excited that we're going to try it but this is a try and see so uh if anyone has ideas or wants to work with me on this homework or happens to interact with any of the legislators and has thoughts and ideas I would welcome them um we did talk to uh several people at the day on the hill about how to do this and got a little bit of a road map but it's kind of something that it seems that once you start it you get an idea for how to do it and you learn how to put pressure at the right times and so that's what I'm going to try and I will ask for help uh in hyanis also of the people who do this
181regularly because this is something that happens all the time for other people so let's have it happen for us thanks for taking it on and I think you'll find uh that we're lucky to have our legislative delegation will actually help you uh talk you know you can ask them what should I be doing if I want to advocate for this and they will tell you so thank you so much for taking it on other comments or questions okay oh mayor please sorry up um I'm working off my iPad tonight I'm apologize not getting my hand up first of all member martini thank you so much for doing that I know it's a long night tonight but um could you send that to my jenny. disor one tonight you're not too tired tonight I am meeting
182tomorrow with the delegation and I'm getting better and better at this as weeks go by um asking for specific money and if you could put if you had an idea of which you would like the most I will push for that because they've actually been great and I know that that the superintendent and the assistant superintendent that you're doing that also but I just thought I have a meeting tomorrow so I could put in a plug if you let me know dollar amounts and and your one two three fours of those and thank you again so much okay I will certainly send you that by email and um member genive I was going to suggest that um the mayor has some experience now with um the process around earmark funding and communicating with legislators on
183this so uh I imagine that the two of you would make a good team on that front I'd be honored to work with any of you thank you thank you any other discussion comments questions all right member Den will you call the vote all right once again secretary genive yes Vice chair Martini yes chair Johnson mad yes mayor dorer yes mayor member Goodwin yes member ston yes member Childs yes and it's unanimous okay thank you um let's see moving on um we have the um indigenous regalia review we have it in two places on the agenda so we'll just discuss that under the new business item I'll just also mention that we did not have an executive subcommittee so no report from that for me um so moving on to the uh Community engagement subcommittee
184any topics not reasonably anticipated by the chairperson nope just that I've got an email out to schedule our first meeting nice um great uh re redistricting and reorganizing ad hoc committee I believe that the substantive work of that committee has already been discussed tonight would encourage members of the public to look at the Timeline that our superintendent created for what the next steps in the process are thank you uh school committee handbook we have a draft in your materials it is just the final draft there are some things that need to be filled in just little things like email addresses and some formatting and uh there's a few small bodies of text that member seon is going to insert um but there is nothing there will be nothing new added to this so if you've
185looked through it that's that's it anything that's going to be filled in has been identified the only thing that will change is it will be formatted nicely and all of the fonts will be one font it will look nice and it will also have a similar theme to uh Vice chair Martini's budget calendar so we will have some Green Wave logo some greenwave nice design and hopefully when you look at it online it will be cohesive and beautiful but um the time for letting us know if you want to add something at this moment has passed but in the handbook you'll see that there's an annual review section so when we do our school committee self- evaluation we will also review this and then if anybody has anything they want to add or any new
186things they have learned that should be added to the handbook then we can do that great so I'd hear a motion to approve the school Committee Member and community resource handbook uh as presented understanding that uh some details and formatting may change I will make that motion all right is there a second second second from Member Martini uh discussion m seon just one real quick when you read off the title of it in in your in the statement of the motion you said member and community resource in my I think I'm remembering that when we originally brought this topic up we sort of separated those two and said that this was really for members and is relevant to them and so I just want to be clear on what it is that this handbook is
187doing because otherwise there might be additional things that should go in there if it's also for the community um the handbook as presented call is called the school Committee Member and community resource handbook I personally would be for um keeping it focused on being a school Committee Member handbook but I wasn't uh I didn't feel strongly enough about it to make the case I guess so I think that was just honestly I think that was just a typo we've been in and out of the document so many times adjusting things that I think that is just that we forgot to take it off so it's being taken off right now but that doesn't mean that in the future we might not want to also do a community resource handbook yeah that might be wonderful okay
188so then uh since it uh who made the motion I think it was I did could um would you accept a friendly amendment to approve it as the school Committee Member handbook um with uh poor Susan with the information added formatting and changing the title to school Committee Member handbook instead of school Committee Member and community resource Handbook of course and member Martini you seconded that are you okay with that Amendment yes okay any other discussion well I am so pleased uh with this we're really building infrastructure as a school committee thanks to your hard work and the budget committee's hard work um it's a lot to go from zero to one and it's a lot easier to make a change from version one to version two um and I love that you've included a
189a process in here for um revising the handbook on annually um so people can it could be a living document and grow and become more and more useful to us over time so thank you so much you're very welcome so with that would you call for the vote okay um secretary Den I'm yes Vice chair Martini yes chair Johnson mad yes mayor dorer yes member Goodwin yes member seon yes member Childs yes passes unanimously congratulations thank you uh where happened to my my agenda got buried by the handbook so I think we're on CES is that right where yes uh any items not reasonably anticipated remember good one no no I I didn't make it I got a flu shot and was down for three days so sorry was that the meeting or the banquet
190or both it was there it was the first meeting the next one is in December did they have a like their minutes annivers they had like the anniversary party did you get to go to that no it was in Worcester oh yeah too far for me too bad okay all right City Planning and construction rep so we met yesterday and you did sort of anticipate it because we did talk about the elementary schools so I figure I should probably wait till new business F or do you want Cliff Notes right now uh Cliff Notes now I don't think I could have anticipated what you discussed yesterday because the meeting was posted on Monday so but you're psychic no I'm kidding so basically we we talked uh we're looking at least 10 years out because we
191want it to be planned and strategic and not just slap Dash and especially because especially for you know these municipal buildings we want grants we want the state to pick up as much of the bill as possible and to do those it's a long process and the more groundwork you put in in advance the more say you have over the final project really um and so we did talk the the committee is split about um the elementary school situation where there's the financial side of things where eventually taking care of only one building that is built to Modern standards especially modern HVAC especially modern cooling with modern weather I feel like I'm using the word modern way too much anyways that there definitely could be a financial case for but then there's also the uh
192Community case of the neighborhood schools and the walking to school as opposed to buses so it is something that the building committee is actively wanting to think about how where Greenfield schools are going to be in 15 20 years as opposed to right now it is a forward-looking topic that yeah so that's where it is um thank you any questions or comments okay oh I have a question yeah uh are they using the nzda study cuz that one had far-reaching projections have they looked at that is that something they're using I am not sure it I should bring that to them directly just to make sure because part of it this was tacked onto a discussion of a different future study of O sorry of buildings and so my brain is jell okay mayores orer
193I love that mesda um actually the discussion was multifaceted because there were it's sort of like the priority of what buildings one would need um and I I think it deserves a lot more you know talking about and thinking about something came forward about maybe we should be looking at this and and you know what we should be doing with this or that or many municipal buildings City Hall or police St schools and you'd have to have all the department heads in there looking at it and then projected enrollment of course would be important I I did I didn't feel and correct me if I'm wrong um member CH I didn't feel like we reached a decision about that but it was a great discussion to have that is accurate it was a split committee
194without a consensus about the elementary school building's physical future okay thank you um let's see legislative representative not this month but next month I will have a report and a motion and mask division five representative not this month but next month I'll have a report and a motion we missed you last time when we we congratulated you on your your um award from mask for your incredible award work um as a rep for us and really taking on this role that this committee decided to fill after a long time and really going with it and going and doing great work so thank you so much for representing us so well you're very welcome thank you for nominating me who I honestly I wish I had I don't know how you didn't you didn't Nom I
195don't know how it got I didn't know that there was a chance to nominate you must be someone out there only way you're so stunning that somebody somehow did it I'm going to get to the bottom of this but I feel very uh I feel very proud and I'm looking forward to all of us winning it there's a future president here yes you're have a great advocate for us all getting involved in mask that's wonderful please so we went to Saturday we went to chartering the course and our mayor was recognized as only one of two Mayors who's ever attended chartering the course by Glenn coocher so that wow thank you mayor for making the time to go we really appreciate it that's great um and thank you for attending as well so are we
196now at the full uh everybody has been to charting the course we've all charted this is great good news all right District Wellness committee representative we should be well okay should all be well all right that means moving [Music] on um we have discussed item 7A school resource officer in schools the finance committee items item 7B have already been handled under the um Finance subcommittee report we'll move on to policy we're not I don't do we need a are either of these times sensitive that we need to vote tonight I don't think so okay so our new policy on policies calls for distribution of our draft policies you receive them then um discussion of them and then at um preferably I think at a future date um voting on them so uh tonight it guess
197the idea is policy has such far-reaching implications that it helps to slow the process down a little bit if we can um so reviewing this student dress code policy this was described under the policy item as indigenous regalia that's because this came to us originally as a request that we review our policies to make sure that for example someone who wished to graduate in indigenous regalia wasn't um prevented by our um policies or procedures from being able to do that um so the superintendent worked with our attorney on this any comment no um our legal council advised though uh if you read the last line in red that the legally protected status would cover and then you wouldn't have to revise the policy if other legally protected status uh incidents came up where they wanted
198to wear such regalia if it was a different culture or um otherwise so um we did the general addition so that it would cover that as well as future incidents that may occur um any other questions or comments or discussion about the student dress code item member child's so the first line in red um is there a typo in that line ah good question all right because I I think that sentence has had uh too many edits and some of them contradicted each other that might be true let me read it as it should as it would be as presented they have the right to determine how the student will dress providing that attire is not destructive complies with requirements for health and safety and which Administration reasonably and anticipates Andor cause disorder or disruption
199does that does sound at least minimally awkward and if not I'm not sure so I guess this is a good re for having a discussion what's funny is it's like it's saying okay so the dress is not destructive it complies with the requirements and it causes disorder and disruption so uh we need to get our negatives consistent well and I think what will do because May and does not are very different so I'm just going to run it by legal counsel one more time and then resend so that we have it accurately depicted okay but the intent of it essentially is to make sure that dress doesn't cause disorder disruption or destruction I guess so the lawyers will work it out and we'll have a new um draft for you next month um any other
200discussion uh I'll just say that I'm glad that um although we wouldn't think in the current environment that um a young person would have difficulty wearing that type of regalia at graduation it is really good to provide the protection in policy um uh so that um if the environment changes um the protection is still there via the policy so we will take that up again at our next meeting and next um we can review the foreign exchange student policy um superintendent would you cue this up for us sure if you recall we had two families who were interested in enrolling uh to exchange students from foreign countries uh we currently did not have a policy in place um masc does not have an actual policy in place um but uh Liz leond uh found some
201other school districts Who currently had a policy shared some drafts with me and then um I worked alongside our attorney for the draft you see in front of you this evening um because there is monetary um compensation with some students regarding what visa they come over or what exchange program they are enrolled in um we did put some language in there so that uh folks were aware um we limited to up to two each um year the majority were under J1 visas and the district does not receive compensation for students that are enrolled with a J1 visa and then some other uh requirements that just align really with our registration process um moving forward um I think at the end um we uh do need to develop some appropriate procedures uh moving forward after the
202policy is in place um but we first wanted to get a policy implemented so that uh when we have future requests which we do um have for uh potential January enrollment uh the two families unfortunately that were interested in having them early I guess there's very time sensitive uh requirements around getting someone into a household and um to vote uh for them to be accepted it was uh too delayed when we took it up at our last meeting so those families though are looking to uh find different students who may want to come to Greenfield and one I think has been successful for a January registration so um Council just said if we could get a policy in place and approved and then that we could streamline the process internally which would be helpful for
203future experiences thank you discussion not hearing any okay we'll take that up for a vote at our next meeting um I'd like to hear a motion to move the item e tuition underwriting petition up uh to the next item so that we can try and get um um member Den to be able to vote on this before she has to disappear from us she's leaving at 9:30 so moved is there a second second uh member Den will you call the vote uh member Den yes uh Vice chair mintini yes chair Johnson mad yes mayor dorer yes member Goodwin yes member seon yes member child yes passes unanimously okay um let's see Jesus is here if you want to come up um I'd like to hear a motion to um endorse the let me see I
204have written down the motion I move that the Greenfield oh I'd like to hear a motion that the Greenfield school committee endorse the petition as presented the tuition underwriting petition so moved so moved by um motion by M Charles is there a second second second from Member Den um Jesus do you want to just share a little overview for us and then we can discuss uh sure um I think it's important to understand that um most districts are facing the same Challenge and most districts are discussing the same challenge but they're discussing it within their own district and not really outreaching to other districts about trying to challenge this particular funding dilemma because they don't really believe that it's possible to um I think that the more um districts that are on record as wanting
205this to change the more likely it is that we'll be able to actually have a conversation that'll result in a movement to change the legislature on this particular issue thank you any questions or discussion I just want to thank you for all of the work you've put into this and commend you for your endurance and hanging in with us so long tonight thank you um with uh any luck this will also be on the agenda of two other school committees within the next couple of weeks mayor dorer I wanted to Echo what member child said because Jesus has actually been here through a couple of meetings on this and I am quite impressed with his dedication and persistence it's folks like him that get things past thank you Jesus laa thank you all right with
206that me you want to speak or you want to vote oh go ahead both yeah please um this is one of the three issues that we discussed when we went to Dan in the hill and it really resonated to the legislators when we had so many members from different committees I mean we had like six or seven committees that we mobilized so we can do that again and it means a lot when we all come in and say we all have the same issue these are our three top issues and this is one of the things that has to change so there's like three real concrete ways that we've identified of getting more money from the state and this is one of the ways so I think it's it's I think it's great if we
207can throw our support behind this and it will signal to other school committees that are you know considerably smaller and have much smaller student populations and don't have as much weight to throw around that we can throw around weight with them so I'm excited and thank you Jesus for all of your work thank you um I actually since you brought it up I think it's worth saying um I think part of the issue here is that we tend to think about which districts we should be allied with legislatively in very narrow terms um this is an issue that affects Boston and they're not seeing the funding as a result of this they get 228 million in Chapter 70 funding and then they have $280 million in assessments against them for Charter School Public Funding um
208the mayor of New Bedford six years ago wrote an article to the mass Municipal Association about how charter school funding Public Funding negatively impacts public school districts and you know only a couple of months ago there was an editorial in the birkshire eagle from Pittsfield talking about how school choice impacts them as a low-income Community um I think it's just really important that we start having these conversations as a group and um recognizing that we do all in fact have a very similar issue and again it's not about whether charter schools are good or whether school choice are good as policy it's who should pay for it the municipality or the state thank you mayor are you asking to speak again I'll take that as a no no I just for got to put my
209hand down sorry okay um SEC secretary Den will you call the vote Yes secretary Den yes Vice chair Martini yes chair Johnson mad yes mayor dorer yes member Goodwin yes member seon yes member child's yes passes unanimously motion passages unanimously thank you are you taking off now secretary Den um well according to technology the kid is jamming out to the Cure in the kitchen so um I can stay for just a little okay well all righty um let's see where are we now structure of business manager employment or contract I feel like I I'm not sure how I did my best to be clear about what this item is about I guess a little context so So currently we get our business manager Services through a contract um the previously we had hired someone as
210a staff member to fill that role so um the item um that we are discussing is whether the committee wishes to uh continue to contract with the vendor for that or to um structure the work as the work of an employee and do a employment search to find someone so um there are a couple different issues about this that we just need to be thoughtful about um one is that in our discussions we can't at all focus on um our evaluation of the contractor in terms of whether their work is satis satisfactory or non-satisfactory or any complaints about them because they have they have rights under open meeting law to be notified and to have those items uh in a um executive session we also you know there are also items related to discussing compensation
211or strategic things involved in hiring I believe that might be covered under executive session so we're not having either of those discussions this is purely a discussion about how the work is structured whether it's an whether we want to um continue with that contract or switch to have it be an employee uh role um so the current contract goes through June 2025 um for context and um it's 9:35 so I guess one thing I I was interested in learning more about that I think before I could really vote I would really want to have this context and maybe you all would as well is what is the environment like out there for uh hiring business managers because I feel like that you know I'm a uh someone who cares a lot about workers and I
212kind of believe in hiring locally and having people with benefits and people you know embedded in the school district so all those arguments are great for me but I know there are also many positions in the district that we contract out because it's just difficult to find Qualified people for those roles so I don't actually know um enough about that um uh so I was wondering if the dist if the committee might consider uh asking the um superintendent to kind of um give us create a presentation for us on or um gather some information and share with us a presentation about the hiring kind of environment for this types of role and present it to us in November I say November just because uh as the superintendent presented to us there's going to be a
213huge amount of work required of the administration with the reviews that Desi is doing um so that's oh and December in December that's right because mid November is when all of our one-on ones are happening so it's going to be busy basically between now and then so what do folks think about that remember good one so I had the same question that you had and when I was at chartering of course I asked Liz and Glenn and the the people there if it was impossible to find a business director and they said they they find them pretty regularly for districts okay thank you other comments or questions yeah if that's the case is it possible to have masc come up and talk to us about how that would look if we moved from a vendor
214to a staff position and what we'd need to do and what the search would be about is that a search that we would have to pay for for example or is it just something that we would put out I as a description or would we we'd have to go to bid right if we chose a vendor so I guess I just have a lot of like logistical questions about it that I need answered and I'm wondering if masc is just the resource to to do that especially if uh the superintendent is so very very very busy absolutely I'd be happy to talk to them and see if they can come to our November meeting and um talk to us about that remember Goodwin I've been on committees that have hired um directors of business and
215we must have a a job description because we've had them yeah we do I think the last one was Steve nimow um and if you don't mind moving your microphone so that people can I just want to make sure it's getting picked up the last one was Steve um I think the the the move to hiring a company was supposed to be a temporary solution um because the superintendent was leaving and I think it's it's time now we're talking about things about building schools we're talking about investing a lot of time in different things and we have a lot of questions um and having somebody on the ground in Greenfield really I think will help us get questions answered um so I think I know I support the idea of a director of business that
216belongs to Greenfield Public Schools okay I think what I'd like to hear is a motion to direct the chair to discuss with mask uh coming to our November meeting and making a presentation related to the business manager hiring environment and the logistics I'd make that motion okay a motion from Member Den is there a second second from who seconded uh remember good one great um any further discussion and uh I have a comment additional question um I would need information about the um potential and probable cost impact of either proceeding in our current structure or changing it to a employee yep that makes sense and I guess some of that um could be estimated and predictable um another thing that could be um non-predictable if we did do a search and it wasn't successful like
217what do we do then that kind of thing so those are the kinds I will definitely bring that question to um to mask and uh for the presentation in November okay thank you can you turn your mic on I think we would review policy GCB as well because it discusses um the hiring of a school business administrator um it looks like the appointment uh the superintendent manages the hiring process and then keeps the school committee informed the committee votes on the appointment based upon superintendent's recommendation great thank you okay uh any other discussion the motion to um to ask mask to come and work with us on this in November okay um member Den will you call a vote secretary Den yes Vice chair Martini yes chair Johnson mad yes mayor dorer yes member Goodwin
218yes member seon yes member Childs yes passes unanimously okay great um so um there I got a email from member Martini requesting this item on new elementary school subcommittee um and I'm hoping that I will uh create uh I've created a good motion here member Martini but if it isn't what you were hoping for please let me know but the motion would be to create an ad hoc subcommittee to research and present a proposal on whether to set a goal of constructing a new Elementary School how does that sound sounds good to me okay great I'd like to hear that motion so moved motion from Member Martini is there a second I'll second it um let's dis any discussion okay I think the idea was you know we started to come up tonight with um
219member Childs uh uh for presenting us on that uh construction committee but um I think it would be good for us as a school committee to have a picture of whether this is something we think needs to happen and and then we can look at the feasibility of it um so I thought perhaps having a subcommittee ad hoc subcommittee um whose role was to research it and make a proposal to us on what our stance should be as a school committee would be good um mayor um I before I voted on this um the makeup of the ad hoc committee is like u h how is that going to be determined um chair uh the way our our policy um describes the Staffing of committees and committees is for the uh the chair to put
220forward um a slate basically and then the school committee can vote up or down um on the uh on the members to be assigned to the subcommittee thank you and um so if you if we do vote to go forward with this I would love to hear from people if you would like to be on it and I I guess I'd make the appointment of the members at the next meeting um member Martini I just wanted to um provide a little context so uh while we have been going through the process of discussing redistricting and uh integrating our schools uh in recent past we really had to wrestle with um some difficulties that could not be addressed within our current buildings for example we made this concerted effort to um not only integrate but also
221move our fifth grade back to elementary school but um there was an actual wish to move sixth grade back to elementary school and that was not um it was kind of a non-starter given our our current buildings and availability and um also we have had discussions in regards to the spaces and Facilities we have available for students with disabilities in our current schools uh which I would like to discuss more um and uh of course we have confronted uh a number of physical issues with our existing uh elementary school buildings which are um aging and uh present some really significant um concerns uh the original Newton School building having been built in 1915 and uh for example and uh the configuration of Federal Street school and the difficulties that presents in making it physically accessible
222for um disabled students and other concerns um has just uh led to this topic coming up multiple times um over my experience on the committee the last few years as to the wish to consider pursuing a new unified Elementary School and um we keep talking about it but unless there is a structure put into place to have a codified um well researched conversation about it we'll just keep talking about it and and I would like to move the conversation forward so I would um I would very much support having an ad hoc committee to get this going mayor dorer um so I think that's a very good idea to have a you know to have a a committee that's looking at this but um it needs to be a diversified committee a committee that has
223diversity of thought that's all I would say so I I don't know I I um I am thinking about whether or not I'll V I'll vote in favor of that well uh so I'm going to ask the chair uh this is my question to the chair before I vote will the folks be appointed to the ad hoc committee that have a diversity of thought on this um well I I think it's a tricky trickier question than you might expect because if I pulled people for their opinions on the topic before assigning them to the committee they' ENT be potentially deliberating outside of a public session so I don't actually know where people stand on it and that I guess my intent would be to choose people for the committee based on their interest and their
224willingness to work hard on the issue in a good faith manner without doing a litmus test for what their views were in advance of assigning them and hope that you know that if we have three people on the committee um that that would be enough of diversity but I hear your concern I'm just not sure exactly how to address it member Goodwin there's a lot to think about with this um and it's almost 10 o'clock so could we make the motion to vote next the next meeting on this because I think I know I'd like to really think about this a little more and my brain is shuts down at 9 sure you could do a motion to lay them lay the lay the motion on the table I move that we table this till
225our next meeting is there a second second it's um not debatable so I will um call the vote a member Goodwin yes member child's yes member ston yes I a yes mayor dorer yes all right the motion is okay sorry member Martini yes motion to table passes unanimously uh that's when we're on to requests for future agenda items M ston um it seemed like there was a desire to to have a an agenda item discussing the process by which warrants are approved okay great we can add a process by which warrants are approved to the next um agenda any other requests not hearing any I would take a motion to adjourn so moved motion by the mayor is there a second second second by member Goodwin um any discussion okay I'll call the vote mayor
226mayor dorer yes yes mayor member Goodwin yes oh um member Martini yes uh member Childs yes member seon yes uh member Johnson mad I am a yes we are adjourned at 9:52 p.m. [Music]