Greenfield School Committee Meeting May 8th, 2024

001good evening and welcome to the Greenfield Public Schools school committee meeting for Wednesday May 8th 2024 um member Den would you call the roll call please yes secretary Den I'm here Vice chair Martini is she virtual she is I see her here okay chair Johnson mad I am here mayor dorer member Goodwin member Childs here member sexon here all right we are all here except for mayor disorder all right I am here thank you Katherine I had you on mute so you didn't hear anything that was happening okay thank you oh thanks for joining us and thanks for those joining us from home and thanks for your patience with some audio uh issues we're working on today to have some folks able to to attend remotely um so the meeting was called to order at

0026:07 p.m. this meeting is being recorded by gctv if any other persons present are also recording you must notify the chairperson at this time I don't see anybody uh so we're gonna um I'd like to take a motion to adjust our agenda to put the report of student representatives to the committee first is there someone who could make that motion so moved motion seconded all right motion from annechild second from Stacy ston any discussion uh let's all in favor say I I I the motion looked unanimous to me so um we will hear now from our student Representatives thanks for being here yeah thank you for the motion for allowing us to go first we appreciate it um so beginning first with student council the student council attended the regional student conference on April 24th

003Auburn Mass was elected the vice president for all of student councils in Western Massachusetts this month we'll be replacing Flags in preparation for Memorial Day at local cemeteries um celebrating teacher awareness week and holding class officer elections as well as eboard elections we also met with incoming principal Mr Browning to review concerns and hopes for the next school year uh Key Club just finished a very successful reading project uh reading to students at a and spending some quality gym and playground time as well as Distributing books to the YMCA learning null Hillcrest School and Head Start students they are planning another children's literacy event in may as well as a field day for a spring Sports have three weeks left in their regular season as of April 26th the state rankings are as follows baseball

004ranked 34th um at 2 and six with 10 games left softball 11th 6-1 with 11 games girls tennis is 16th they're three 3 And1 with 11 matches left western Mass playoffs start May 19th and state playoffs start May 29th with state finals happening June 14th through 15 boys and girls track and field pvic is Saturday mayth at mohawk with uh States being May 23rd through 25th boys track is 3 and0 and girls track is uh 1 and two both have three meets left um you can get all the schedules on Arbiter live and we hope to see you at a game soon uh 25 ghs students staff and parents had a very successful trip to France during April break they look forward to more educational field trips at home and abroad in the future French

005Club prepares for the spring coffee house talent show tomorrow night Thursday May 99th from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. in the ghs auditorium admission is $5 and refreshments are included lastly in partnership with the French Department of Frontier and Hopkins ghs welcomes a group of high school students stents from NES France who will be learning about American culture and creating International connections during home stays in our community through May 12 AV club is currently on break until Mr Carina returns from paternity leave uh Spectrum recently designed and ordered their t-shirts to wear in their Franklin Country Pride Parade in June this month they will also be celebrating their senior members and preparing for the parade and rally um and then student Representatives the ones present at the table um have held two meetings with the administration

006regarding the content of the student reports with a fixation on the discussion of bathrooms conversations have occurred in an effort to gain a mutual understanding of the ongoing issue at our school within the building one that impacts the Safety and Security of students when using the facilities such meetings have been organized to address a separation in administrative and student understanding and we hope that they will be a continued means of administrative involvement in the future as a means to receive the direct voices and opinions of students um that concludes our report today it's pretty brief but if you have any questions we'd be happy to answer any questions thank you very much really appreciate it have a good [Music] night okay we'll move to our vote to enter into executive session pursuant to massachus General

007Law chapter 3A section 21 A3 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigating position of the public body and the chair so declares the committee will return to open session we have a motion to enter into executive session for that reason so m a motion from secretary Den is there a second second second from Member seon any discussion roll call vote secretary um secretary J I'm yes Vice chair Martini is yes okay chair Johnson mad yes mayor dorer yes uh member Goodwin yes member Childs yes member seon yes it is unanimous okay we will go to Open Session and we will return [Music] oh [Music] for us to start we don't have oh we do have everyone home all

008right okay welcome back we are back from our executive session um and now um I would hear a motion to approve the contract for Boe it employees some is there a second second okay motion from Member ston and a second from mayor dorer any [Music] discussion I just like to publicly thank um the team that worked on this the administration and Stacy seon represented the school committee while in these negotiations and sounds like everyone came in good faith and worked cooperatively so we love that uh and so I would uh let see let's call the um the vote all in favor say I I I I member Martini do you want to I oh okay and um and I will abstain and the motion carries um oh uh with uh unfortunately with with member good

009went out out of the room unfortunately but uh the M motion carries so let's see we will move on to reports of the administration and I believe that Andy pette will be joining us by um speaker phone all right Andy are you there I'm here can you hear me yep we can hear you can thank you excellent okay so you have in your packet the we're on the home stretch here so our monthly report of the local budget and the revolving accounts um We are continuing to go through Year End closing and journal entries um we're reviewing all encumbrances to make sure that we've got everything incumber there will be some encumbrances coming for some normal year- end expenditures that you know we're just getting final numbers on that will ultimately increase the incumbered amounts

010uh and payroll is also going through and doing another review to ensure that we are have all our you know incumbrances for the summer pay for those that get paid over the summer uh and we'll be doing some re classes you know potentially if you look at the revolving accounts as of right now you know the only one with a uh quote I say deficit is the prek tuition uh and that could be again looking at the revenues we're just reviewing to see if we've got more revenues outstanding that we're going to collect but if need be we have the funds available to address that through whether it be another revolving account or reclassing expenditures back to the local fund similar to what we've done when there's been an athletic uh a deficit in the

011athletic revolving account with that said I can answer any questions that anyone might have yes member Goodwin Andy I just have a couple questions because I didn't know what what those numbers meant and the math teacher in me likes to know what numbers mean so there was at the end the year to date on page eight it just says business administration [Music] manager the accounts payable person and the two people in the payroll office okay and then another question about the Vans which like so I read the warrants and one of the bills was to replace a water pump in the Honda so the Hondas as I drove a Honda for 20 years so it's only got 25,000 mil on that van didn't it come with a warranty when those things were bought I would

012have to review that um if it's 1300 bucks for a new water pump you you know and that was the bill and I was like most Hondas it's 100,000 miles before you have to pay anything so that was just one of my questions and then so I'm looking a transportation like you're paying $400 a month to transport a child to Springfield and I've held those van doors and I've done that but couldn't one of our vans have done that I mean is somebody really looking at the efficiency of our vans versus paying another company to transport kids so what I can tell you is that well go ahead Andy no you you can you can start I'll fill in if you if I don't agree yeah you'll agree um the um day-to-day scheduling of our

013vans is over seen by the transportation coordinator so any runs that can be done by our Fleet are done by our Fleet um depending what the bill is and I don't know specifically and obviously we don't want to talk about specific children but at times there are um we are transporting students under mckin vento which often or they're always should be a cost share situation so the warrant wouldn't reflect the offset set from another District if that's the case Okay um but I can tell you with certainty that we are um using our Fleet to address the fiscal pieces so if we're transporting if we are paying to transport that's because for whatever individual reason um that was the most effective way to get the student transported so you're the only person who really knows

014this you and Andy are the Vans making money for us oh Andy can tell you that quite clearly we've but before he says his answer I will tell you as part of the Strategic plan y one of the pieces was going to be um an evaluation of the transportation structure that we have in terms of the internal transportation and then we had a change in coordinator so we've not asked the new coordinator to do that yet she's still getting the lay of the land um but that is part of the Strategic plan okay so Andy do you want to give her the answer was it the question about are our vans making money for us that is the question yes uh I have to admit honestly uh yes and I was somewhat surprised we've seen

015a steady increase over the years as to the revenue that the transportation program is generating so if you look last year uh on the transportation revolving account we had 265,000 as of May 6 we've collected 310,000 400 31,41 310,000 38 uh tripping over my tongue there so it is generating revenues to offset the overall Transportation program uh and if you were to look at the trends uh it is been consistently increasing over the years since uh I guess the Vans were bought prior to our arrival so yes uh like three years three years years steadily steadily increasing as to their revenue generated so you think even with the salaries of the drivers and the insurance and parking them someplace and that you know they're now five years old so it's it's never going to be

016a self-supporting program when you look at the total cost for it which you know uh would be it would be pretty we'd have to charge the districts that we are currently providing services to you know they would they would end up going elsewhere looking for okay uh their transportation providers from what it is that we're doing so uh but it's you know that's not out of the out of the norm for uh you know we do have as much as I hate to use the word h a hybrid approach of providing our own transportation and Contracting out what it is that we we can't provide so when you look at the total funding sources for our transportation and the transportation both regular Ed special education um yeah it's uh you know it covers you know

017uh not you know doesn't cover half of it but for what it does cover we'll say that it's increasing okay just thinking the future because getting older well that's why we have that um analysis of the transportation structure as part of the Strategic plan obviously it won't be done this year but it is part of the fiveyear fiveyear plan thank you any other questions for oh yes uh let's see go with secretary den and then the mayor hi Andy I had two questions um just because I was wondering if you could just tell me what the line item means on page eight the second to the last one above the school committee it just says contracted service but could you just tell me what contracted service that covers just so that I know in the

018future when I'm looking at this sure that is the contract for our services that's the TMS Services line correct okay and then the the other one and that's 148 320 correct like we're looking at the same thing yes okay and then the other one that I wanted to ask about is on page seven and it's the same question I'm just not 100% sure what it means um contracted professionals or professors it just says p rof and that's to 2295 $70 so I'm just wondering so I know in the future what that means sure that's a combination of medical therapeutic otpt speech services those are the special education providers that provide our instead of the staff if we have to go out for specialized contracted services for medical therapeutic that's what that primarily is okay all

019that is okay thank you I appreciate it mayor hi Andy I have a couple questions um what is while we're on this page I have one that I want to know on page seven um oh it's about seven or eight down what is Administration for 310,000 224 it's under school lunch special education the director of special education the assistant director of special education and the uh SP chairs or I forget what their team etls etls yes sorry thank you I have I have three more is that okay y you have the floor um what is what what is your order of spending what do you spend down first Grant Capital operating uh well the grants most of our grants are written for specific expenses so we have to spend the Grant in accordance with what

020the grant was written for um so it's kind of a two prong you know I'd say that's a I'd say a unique thing so we we use the grants for you know and yes we do amend grants when if there's a potential change in plan that we'd be allowed to do but uh they're pretty much written and we adhere to the grant plan as was written uh there are parameters regarding for example circuit breaker circuit breaker we're required to spend at least the prior year balance that we received the amount that we received so we have to spend that and then uh you know the the local budget uh we again adhere to our plan for a local budget but again with just a quick history with Ed reform uh School committees were provided significant

021flexibility as far as the use of their fund because of the value that at Reform Act of 93 placed on education um you know kind of stating the obvious but so we end up using the funds and that's why even though we see negatives there's a balance at the end but you know that balance is going to be eliminated with our end of the year spending that hasn't been encumbered yet and dealing with potenti deficits as I alluded to earlier uh and uh we'll be uh looking and re-evaluating if there are things with that balance that we need that uh we had to either cut or that would help out for the future as Allowed by ever fourth thank you and we have to vote on um every time when we do the budget we

022have to vote on revolving fund B balances do you um no revolving funds spending limits does the do schools need to do that or there different regulations I just honestly have no idea the I'm I would like to think when the revolving accounts are voted on uh I believe education revolving accounts are included in what the city would vote um but there are no Bal the only limitation regarding some of the revolving accounts specifically build use obviously it it's its title tells you what it is that it can be used for to offset expenses for any organizations that use the building uh school choice is used you know it's the definition of the school choice revolving account says that it's used to educate those students that are taking part in the Greenfield Public Schools through

023the school choice program can be used for salaries which we do use it for circuit breaker again that's the one that really has the the the restri of you cannot carry over more than the prior year receipts that you or I should say you have you have to spend at least the prior year receipt amounts that were received uh and carry over no more anything that if you were to carry over a balance more any balance above that uh would get turned over to the town or the city thank you okay last one and this one I certainly don't need the answer to today this is on the capital expenditures um and so you can you might have to look it up for the next time on the high school um when the high school

024was built it looks from looking at this one and I'm not sure um that there's $185,000 left and um I and the reason I'm asking about it is because I went to watch one of the um I went to watch a baseball game and they were asking me about the lights and we've set aside $20,000 I think for lights and if they're LEDs which are more efficient it's going to cost a couple hundred, to put lights on vet's field which that's what I would like it to be I'm going to talk to Carol to see if there's something you know if there's any kind of grants for that but um I did see that there was Field improvements used there so I just wanted to put a bug in people's ear or ask about that

025this is on page five of the capital um of the things that we borrowed for so um it would be at the high school and it looks like you the whole amount wasn't expended I didn't know if it was like that's what happens with our capital projects we still sometime we have retained things and we can repurpose it and so I was just wondering maybe to the next meeting if you could check and maybe I'm off base I would like to check though cuz the the line that was identified for vets field Improvement was fully expended okay on this um but I'd like to see if we can figure out what that was um I think solar wasn't I think perhaps solar wasn't but I just was looking at it knowing that there was another

026Energy Efficiency perhaps and I I'm getting ahead of myself but I thought I would just mention it so that's probably a good um history for us to review because the um Andy and I and if I may you may let me put you back under the mic the thing that would need some research I I have that money was used with msba borrowing and debt exclusion vote so obviously any use of that would have to be in line with what the debt was Deb exclusion vote was um so I I would say we would just need to to recommend that the city would check with either Bond Council or legal counsel as to whether or not if we're talking and I I apologize mayor are you thinking about potentially using it for lights well it

027wasn't actually it it was just a discussion item I know that people have asked me they've come into the office and asked me about lights and then there were people that some people came in and said if we did that real quick we wouldn't have to buy those energy efficient ones which I would prefer to buy the the ones that were recommendation my recommendation would be though whatever is decided would you would just want to run it by Bond councel uh to see as to whether or not um it would fall in line with a debt exclusion vote because any vote if you're going to repurpose funds that were voted via a debt exclusion it has to be for a comparable project in line with what the debt vote was and is that something we're

028all everyone is supposed to agree on does Andy do you know that can you repeat the question there is that something that everyone's supposed to agree on or how does that work I can I can save that for off I'll save that for later okay that's a that's that's a legal council question as to whether or not quite honestly as far as like the the author to repurpose it uh uh I would think would have to go at a minimum to city council but I I very easily could be wrong on that so again not being an attorney I would recommend asking legal counsel as to whose authority it is to repurpose that thank you that's that's all thanks a lot yes remember good one okay Andy you've been doing our books for quite a

029few years now so are our sped costs like what percentage do you think they're going up what percentage do I think they're going up as far as from 24 to 25 or yeah like every year are they going up is there a like a pattern to this do you see a pattern oh no there I mean it's very hard to say a pattern when some of our tuition costs which are the biggest ones are dictated by the OSD rate setting okay where previous year was 14% this year we're at like six and change I believe is what they said um and then uh we have the the standard I'll say the transiency of the ins and outs of the uh the the population um but I mean I can do a quick uh look and

030see as far as what we're looking at for overall special education if you just give me a second here I think some of the other factors that are going to challenge looking at any pattern is um Staffing that has you know we've had Staffing challenges especially since um pandemic so I think that's that's going to be a challenge in looking at any kind of consistent expenditures yeah like our contracted services are going to definitely be um representing the fact that we've had a hard time getting School sites so we've had to contract which is you know on the whole going to be much more expensive than hiring a staff person so some things are not Apples to Apples I guess I would say post pandemic costs you know so here's that here's an example I

031mean when you look at the trends you know we've had from 21 to 22 the overall actual expenditures in special education in the local budget went down 700,000 but the use of other other funding sources increased so it was about level 25 22 to 23 we saw a significant increase of 1 million 1.1 million 23 to 24 we are down in our local but we are increasing because of again with the funds available when you get an increase in circuit breaker that means we need to use more of that to do so and projecting for 24 to 25 when we look at well you know we saw uh some students aging out or moving out uh we're looking at an overall 9% decrease in our special education in total but as Christin I mean that's

032as of right now you know that that could very easily change and we see those fluctuations I mean the number of times that we have met with uh Mr messing to go over changes that we've had to make in his budget for year because of whether it's increased needs of services that weren't budgeted for um it's bit regular we'll say okay so here's the big question you have some amazing human beings sitting here who went to Boston to meet with legislatures to fight for the schools where do you think the fight is MoneyWise is it special ed cost is it transportation is it you know additional f funding for the homeless what is the where would the best bang for the buck go if we're talking to I'm going to say yes yes yes and

033yes okay all kiding aside but what I mean without being good but I mean I'm gonna say that the biggest my this every year it comes up with the fact that you know whether it's a circuit breaker and or even cly at the federal level the Ida legislation was supposed to be for 100% reimbursement for special education costs that has never occurred and unfortunately you know I'm GNA be very cynical I don't think it ever will and that's where you know one of the things that I I say you when I do these trainings with school committees and administrators it's all well and good to be talking about the foundation budget formula and all these things as far as net School spending required local contribution but when time comes for the budget velopment process down

034in Boston all the rules go out the door you know there's no penalty if they say you know there is never been a penalty about fully funding circuit breaker every year we're budgeting at 70% we're lucky if we get it up to 75% you know so it's things like that where you know I mean all and I'm all kidding aside again but I would say you know keep advocating for all of it because sooner or later you similar to what happened with the student Unity yet you know there was enough you know human and cry over it and then once they started to do the research it said yes we need to do another adjustment to our funding for Education that's you know that's I'm gon to say just we need to keep doing that

035okay thank you thank you any other questions all right let's move on to the assistant superintendent report thank you Andy thank hanging good evening everyone um updates on professional development we have one more half day on May 24th for our PD session last one of the year we've been continuing our work with the teaching lab and our instructional strategy work we are going on walkthroughs this week our last walkthrough of the year with all six buildings we will again share that data and plan our last professional development with uh faculty meetings that are ending the school year along with collaboration teaching lab will be on site on May 24th investigating history we've been working with educurious and naen extrom and she will be coming May 24th to finish up with the PD she's been providing

036to our Middle School history teachers on the new curriculum resources that we've adopted this year and our High School Math teachers will continue to get their ongoing support and illustrative math their last session this year is called enhancing access and that will will take place also on that PD day some curriculum updates with regards to Civics um Miss Zimmerman our eighth grade history teacher took our kiddos to Old Sturbridge Village where they got to attend an 1830s town meeting I shared a photo from the day the kids were very excited to go back to Old Sturbridge Village and I love sharing photos with all of you so you can see what they get to experience they did have to debrief and write um some Reflections when they returned and I got to read a few

037of them and it was nice to see that not only did they think it was educational but they had a really good time and thought it was fun and then um title one has funded some field trips and we took our third and fourth graders from every Elementary to the new Greenfield Public Library and uh really want to thank the children's librarian there she provided a great tour did a scavenger hunt with our kids so they got to explore the whole Library they had a fabulous time and you'll see that uh some of our Newton Elementary students they shared their photo with me of how much fun they had at their scavenger hunt title Von also tries to keep reading and math the focus when students are on vacation so that they're continuing their learning

038and they always sponsor a challenge over April vacation everyone who participates gets a little gift and then we do a raffle for students by grade level and they either Got a roundabout books gift certificate this time or a magic wings gift certificate to go to the butterfly museum so uh some of our very happy Federal Street Elementary School Prize winners are shown here and then just lastly as Christine and I continue our transition planning and our roles shifting here um I begun to meet with three high school student groups already thus far I spent the day at Greenfield High School and today I spent the day with Newton Elementary folks and I will continue to do that um it's just been a really great experience thus far just getting feedback from folks um really proud

039of all the work that we've done and started and they're really excited to see where we're going to continue um with the transition being smooth since we've been together for so long so it's just a really good day I'm also going to try to include some family and student Community groups um and those are to be determined I just haven't pick times and places but I'll get that information out as well and that's it thank you let's hear for the superintendent and then we'll get questions for both of you okay so first I'd like to make sure that we all know that this week is Teacher Appreciation Week and um I know that um our buildings have had some nice activities provided from pto's from some of our administrators trying to um somehow how reflect

040the level of gratitude and appreciation that we have in all of our Educators it's teacher appreciation week and I would also like to add to that that all of our staff have the opportunity to educate our students and have a positive impact and we appreciate all of them um the other special thing for today is that it's actually national school nurse day so our School nurses are being celebrated with within teacher appreciation week so that's also a wonderful thing we're very fortunate to have a full compliment of School nurses at this point and um they do a wonderful job with our students so we in Greenfield are extremely proud of the staff here and know the positive impact that they have on their students um speaking of staff not teachers but we have some administrative

041updates that I'm very happy I'm announcing them um because I can't but they're going to be Karen's administrative team so Destiny maker will be joining us at Four Corners she is taking Mike Browning's spot you folks might remember that Mike is moving up to the high school effective July 1st um destiny is coming to us from the Hoy public schools and she was able to be at Four Corners this afternoon with the staff meeting to meet the staff and interact with them a little bit um stie cororo will be taking over as principal of Newton School effective July 1 um Darlene is moving into our 504 coordinator position which we're very pleased to have and um stie is also coming to us from the Hoy Oak School so we're happy about that and she was

042also at Newton this afternoon to meet with the staff you're seeing a pattern that was planned um and then um Mr Morrison has moved his last day in green field to May 17th so Roland joyle who is a veteran administrator he was the principal of chicke high school for 18 years and then an executive director at the lower Pioneer Valley collaborative will be moving into the interim position at the high school for the last month of school Roland has actually been serving us as an interim Middle School associate principal since February and loving it here and so um despite the fact that he would have been quite happy to finish out at the middle school he did agree to move to the high school um having a veteran principal step in will allow him to

043take care of the logistical work as we close out a high school year including the logistics of graduation um and that will allow Gina Johnson and Michelle Gould or associate principles to keep supporting our kids and focusing on that instead of having to worry about some of the day-to-day operations so so I think it's a good option to um ask him to fill that role for us um speaking of graduation all the school committee members had at your spot your um a copy of your graduation and Senior Awards night invitation so please let us know if you'll be able to join and I'm very happy to share that we will be hosting our graduation on Saturday June 1st at 10:00 a.m. in the Greenfield High School AO torium and um as I shared with families

044and staff yesterday Gina Johnson has agreed to deliver the um graduation speech for our class I think it's a wonderful um opportunity for them to hear from her administrator who's been with them for the past three years and she's very much looking forward to it and I appreciate her willingness to step into that I accidentally in all my excitement to share Gina was going to do the graduation speech accidentally mentioned that graduation was June 3rd it is not it is June first so um I apologize for that little mistake um the budget Karen and I intended the ways and means budget discussion that was held somewhere at the end of April and we shared the same budget presentation that night that you folks saw when I did the superintendent budget presentation we answered some questions

045and at this point um to the best of my knowledge mayor we're waiting for the city council to deliberate and vote on a budget so thank you questions from the committee yes member deneve I would just like to thank you Karen for all of the photographs that you include in your updates we're so far removed from the students lives so getting to see that makes it really worthwhile for us you're welcome I'm big on photos and staff always cringe when I'm around because I usually am like smile so I'll start sharing more of them as well thank you other questions or comments all right thank you I just need to find my agenda do I think I found it uh where on to our consent agenda and um I think um just in case not

046I know we have at least one relatively new member the consent agenda offers us the opportunity to vote on a batch of things that are sort of proor at the same time however if anyone wishes to take any item out of the consent agenda and vote on it and discuss it separately we can do that so first is there anyone who would like to remove anything from the list of consent agenda items not hearing any I'd hear a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented so moved is there a second seconded all right uh and so any discussion yes member ston I just had a quick question about what's happening with the picnic tables after we declare them just where where they going well so when first of all I will share they were

047purchased in fy21 and um they were purchased with the first round of covid money the covid um Relief Fund and um most of us administrators of the schools didn't know that they were where they are and so the mayor actually identified that they were on some city property and so what happens once we the committee declares them Surplus let me share we're not declaring all the picnic tables Surplus um the schools will retain some uh primarily we have some toddler sized picnic tables and some handicapped accessible ones that will definitely retain and there are others at schools already that we're keeping um so when the school committee declares um any items Surplus the first thing that we do is share that information with all other City departments who if they are interested reach out to

048mention that they would like to take the property that has been declared Surplus so unless I'm completely and totally Off the Mark which I don't believe I am I think that the city will take them and use them rather than purchasing new picnic tables so yeah great any other discussion on the consent agenda all right let's vote all those in favor say I I I any opposed and I'll abstain so the motion carries thank you all right we are uh close to the end of our policy review process that's been happening for um more than five years and so I'm very excited to say that we um we have some uh I had the um the motion all set up in my uh my computer but now it's going to require password which is hard

049for me so give me just a second I will I I can find these relatively quickly all right so we're going to take each um section of the first read at a time and um superintendent I know you have some items that um are school committee policies where we may you know we get to think about whether we want to retain that policy at all so if you can flag for those in those for us in the discussion that would be great um so the um the motion I'd like to hear a motion that we approve um the first reading of amendments to section H negotiations as presented so moved motion for from the mayor is there a second second and second from Member Goodwin uh any discussion uh superintendent just for clarification on this

050first section you'll see two copies of policy HF school committee negotiating agents um the one that is marked up the first draft I am recommending that the committee delete and um adopt the second version um the reason for this primarily is that the Greenfield original version was voted um in 2006 the second version is an updated masc draft from 2022 and Liz lefon who is here our masc rep um confirmed for me that no additions or updates have been made since 2022 on this through masc so that is a current policy for your consideration great thank you um and so so I think we can assume that the um document as presented is making that recommendation and thank you superintendent for clarifying that was the intent of the document um is there any discussion on

051uh on this section not hearing any let's call for a vote on that all those in favor say I I I and I will abstain so it pass um next we will move on to uh I would like to hear a motion that we approve the first reading of amendments to section K community relations as presented so moved motion from the mayor is there a second oh there is oh remember good one okay sorry I didn't hear you all right uh superintendent any comments on this section I believe there will be um primarily the the general format if you don't remember from all the other 100 sections prior to this is that there are generally a Greenfield um prior drafted section and then if there is an masc version of the policy it follows most

052of the time the language is fairly similar but generally masc had updated statutory language um and any legal changes that have been required since our policies were adopted generally in 2006 if not exactly that year so for the most part the deletions recommended are deleting the outdated Greenfield draft and then adopting the current masc draft um I'm going through I did recommend removal of um regulation policy is the school committee's belief about what should happen regulation is how I'm supposed to make it happen po uh regulation almost every time is not included in a policy manual with the exception of the concussion protocol that's required um to be in policy um I also took out some notes that were in there from masc such about why um particular language changes were made I just want

053to make sure I had no outstanding questions from the committee for the committee I apologize um I apologize I don't think so in this version no so anything that's redlined are the changes no outstanding standing questions for the committee thank you any questions or comments from the Committee Member goodwi I guess you know when I read it and I've been reading a lot of policy as a new Committee Member I I just was struck by everything that was the wording about inclusiveness was all read ined and then when I read the the newer version it I just wanted a statement of inclusion that was and I don't know if it's somewhere else and I just haven't read that piece can um so like on School parent relations goals can you tell me what the letters

054are um kba so yes it's very different I guess it's is is where I'm at um the masc version is very different than the Greenfield version right I mean I've read them multiple times and I would have printed it out but my printer and I are having issues so um it's like it's encouraged instead of it's a little more yes I think one of the things I know about the people in this room is we're all about inclusiveness and and um and basically making sure that parents are included so it just can't it one reads very strong and the other is not quite so strong as as a reader I just was like one says something really strong and the other doesn't and I'm fine with the other because it's more legal E I guess

055and that's what this is supposed to be um so the second the second one the kbba a different right so it so it's all there's all red strikes through it so is there another document that replaces that yep the the following policy okay so the language of kba um KB K well I guess I'm going back to her first comment about um you know if there's as we've done with every other section if there's um language that you want to um have the policy subcommittee of which you are a newly elected member consider will be later in the meeting oh I apologize let the cat out of the bag um which you may be a newly elected member to um you know that's that's the point of the subsequent policy subcommittees um it's your your

056choice around language um but k BBA the first was the Antiquated sorry Antiquated Greenfield version from 2006 the second identical kbba is the updated masc version so there is a following version of the policy and I respect that completely that because I know that lawyers are involved with what is written absolutely and that's what I like so okay so just to clarify the kbba the non-custodial parents rights that is all based on law that's not our preference that's the requirements this everything that is being updated has been it has been reviewed by masc recommended and then in any place where there were questions um and sometimes when there weren't questions but just particularly um legal heavy policies they were reviewed by our legal Representatives as well perfect thank you any other discussions on Section K

057yes please member ston well this is more of just some of some of them are red highlighted and not red stricken out and I was wondering if that means the same thing I'm just looking at one that's highlighted red yes I believe it was just weather whether I highlighted and hit delete or did it did the recommended deletion in a different order of things sometimes the uh editing functions were a little wonky thank you any other discussion or questions okay let's vote all those in favor of approving uh section K community relations on first reading please say I I hi all right and I'll abstain so that passes yeah um I'm clarifying I believe that the ones that are highlighted read such as kbba A- uh are because that at one point there had been

058a comment connected so that document that exhibit as um evidenced by the- E and the next page which is- r meaning it's regulation I have a little note on the bottom of the second page that says regulation should not be in policy so I believe that is the distinction okay is that okay that I think that makes sense because I'm also looking at the one beneath at the case CB where it happens again you're probably right yes there's comments on that as well great great all right so we just passed on first reading uh amendments to section K community relations now I would like to hear a motion that we amend section L Education Agency relations as presented on first reading so moved motion from Member p and seconded second from member ston um discussion

059on section L Education Agency relations superintendent just there's very few changes in here the only piece I want to highlight for the committee is um LBC relations with non-public schools this is should the um committee need to vote on the um addition of a private school in the district our attorney recommended the added language as the steps that should be followed so that's why that chunk of red line is there that's added language thank you any other discussion or questions on section L yes member deneve I just was hoping to confirm this process so L is the last one right oh yes so so once we do our second reading right around the corner I'm sure we're so efficient then it goes up to be hosted by m right so then will be a searchable

060database correct which we can cross search other districts and see how our policies stack up and and that opens the door for change that's all I'm saying I'm just the part I'm focusing on is section L is the last one for last I'm just I'm just planning the where we're going in the future with it okay wonderful it's been such a long journey thank you wonderful yes M ston you might not know the answer to this in that fine um is there any precedent around what substantial changes means is there like is there do we know because that's in our policy now do we know what that actually means and when we could invoke it if we wanted to are you referring to a particular I am referring to the brand new process that our

061lawyers suggested we put in of private schools it that would be driven by the legal references that are below um I am happy to confirm but I believe believe that that is actually the language in the statute but um that's F I can I can I can do the background read if there's a um additional question for clarification I'm happy to get that thank you sure okay anything else on our um section eight of our agenda policies okay and just so folks know the the process for these first reading ones we will have a policy meeting between now and the next meeting so if items occur to you or additional feedback or questions and you want to refer that to the policy subcommittee um you can do so and then it these items will come

062back to us in June um for final vote and speaking of that at our last meeting we approved on a first readings um amendments to um policy EAA Walkers and writers so um I would hear a motion to affirm our amendment of um I'm sorry um can I have a quick point of order did we actually vote on l oh no we did not oh I apologize in my mind we had all right all those in favor of um approving uh amendments to section l i i all right and I'll abstain so the motion carries thank you very much that would have been sad uh all right I would hear a motion that we amend policy EAA Walkers and writers as presented on second reading a motion from the mayor is there a second second

063all right uh any discussion on this who uh we'll say member pool um I'm I'm sorry there's an anpo in my life your anch child's I don't know who anpo is I can't even tell who she is and the name's just in my head second from M Childs is there any discussion on uh the second reading of this policy hearing none uh yes uh no it's um move that we amend policy EAA Walkers and writers as presented on second reading thank you yep and any discussion on that motion all right let's have a vote uh all those in favor I say I I I okay and I will abstain um so the motion carries and we're getting there it's very exciting all right we're moving on to the request for the field behind Greenfield High

064School to be named Donna Woodcock field superintendent so the um coach Mike kesy had reached out with the desire to have the um field hockey field named after Donna Woodcock who um sadly passed away actually one year ago today so it's I think very fitting for the committee to be hearing this today um the process in school committee policy is that we first need a written request which we got um very nicely outlined by coach Kay then if it is a building specific request which I considered this to be um related to the high school given that the field is behind the high school it needs to go to the PTO or school council so the school council did in fact um vote to support coach K's recommendation you have in your packet um coach

065Kay's letter and then on the back side of that same page the minutes um from the school council reflecting their support so then the um school committee policy speaks to a period of allowing for public comment so um I turn it back to the chair for the next step okay great well I think first we could start if there are any uh comments from school committee members on this um proposal all right so I guess I would propose that our P public comment period be um that we welcome um feedback from the community and perhaps that our we can um encourage people to come to our next school committee meeting and during the public comment period if they want to provide more input on that does that timeline work okay it does and then that

066would allow um it would allow us to order a plaque if the committee votes in favor it would allow us time for a next prior to the close of the fiscal year if we vote at the next meeting correct great all right we'll plan on that we'll have a public comment period um just our normal general public comment period and then we'll have a public comment pering which will be a hearing on this particular item um at our June meeting does that sound okay to everybody all right and any comments from um the committee at this time I understand we're just learning about this now so if you want to make more comments next time but when we discuss and vote um would welcome that discussion all right and um excusing the superintendent for the

067rest of the evening we are moving on to the superintendent evaluation training um the superintendent had her last uh evaluation with us last year um so as part of our transition to a new superintendent we get to do this without you thank you and welcome Liz um why don't you do you want to just come right here and turn on the microphone you just press the button sometimes you have to press it twice to twice to get it to stick when it turns green you know it's working there you go I so I it's almost like I'm in an alternate universe here tonight sitting back here some in during this meeting yeah it's really wonderful to have you back with us it's been a long time well we're a whole new group since the last

068time we were here third since you started policy third mayor um Counting the interim the third superintendent that's right um and just to sit here and hear the the collegial interest and discussion is blowing me away welcome to the new Greenfield school committee thank you so much for having me here and if I do say so myself Donna Woodcock is a field hockey Legend as my girls attended Smith Academy and we had some incredible battles over the years coach Sherry Webb while I was sitting there I did notice computers out and since there is no screen um I emailed everybody the presentation that I had prepared for tonight because I only printed these teeny tiny little slides because it has you know sometimes Powerpoints and since this one is a little busy I have to

069say takes up a lot did you s it to me not on the scho committee link I will for around if I got it I'll send it and so this presentation really has two parts I found myself today four different times juggling the order of the slides um so I'm going to give you kind of a nuts and bolts first and then we're going to talk about Green Field now let me I don't know if you might want to take another uh second to resend cuz I don't think any of us okay great CU you know I used my Hotpot ah we do have Wi-Fi in the building and I can give you the yeah oh look at that okay glasses on glasses off um okay turn off the hot spot this first actually this

070is going to be a longer section we will go past 8 o'clock in all likelihood so why don't we um maybe not but why don't we take a f minute break now and then we can uh come back for fresh for our training see you back as the clock is turning from 7:37 to on your computer [Music] ah a [Music] a [Music] a he [Music] a [Music] a [Music] a [Music] a [Music] he [Music] a [Music] a [Music] 39 and we are Rec reconvening for our evaluating the superintendent training with Liz lefon from the Massachusetts Association of school committees welcome Liz thank you again it's very very nice to be here um I don't know you all but I have been involved with this District since around August of um policy was interesting and then

071Christine came on board and said you know I think the process is going to work like this like do we really need a meeting can you and I share Drive can I ask you questions can you know Mark up the document can we communicate that way on our own time and she just took off I'd get in a couple of days after I noticed comments in the drive and she'd already moved on to the next section so she's like yeah don't just call me next time um anyway thank you I appreciate being here we're going to talk about superintendent evaluation and Karen um because I'm not the one who actually actually I've been evaluated with a similar tool um but not as a licensed educator so just jump right in if I say something that's

072not right the beauty of this process is um that it's something that you will talk together about and make decisions together about before you get to the I've never I think uh yeah when you move the mic is it better when she moves the the no there's only one microphone that's on and then she has her laptop but I wonder actually if you move the microphone closer to you and if the then the sound level can be reduced then maybe it would get less interference if you can move it even a little closer this like see how I have it kind of like right in like this yeah but you could move the microphone closer but I guess you have some stuff there but I could move it closer okay how's that I think that

073might work better yeah okay thank you so the first few slides are going to be sort of the des's point of view on evaluation it's it's the kind of the technical side um because that is makes the most sense to start there um when desie initially introduced their evaluation system um the rubrics was so big and so cumbersome and it was dropped on school committees all at once and it was such a big change from the evaluations that talked about is a good communicator dresses well answers questions in a timely way that it took School committees a very very long time to accept the changes by the time school committee members had um clawed their way through that really cumbersome process for three or four years um desie went through and reduced the rubric um

074and made some recommendations that really made the process a lot easier um and then committee members really started to say this is good we can do this this is what helps us to grow together right as a team and this is what desie says the evaluation system is about um in that second slide and it does the whole know of as I was reflecting back on this when I was putting this together I think my favorite part of the being evaluated was doing um the self assessment piece this is what I said I was going to do did I do it if I didn't why didn't I do it um and it was very helpful um to start that way and understand how I could get better at at what I was doing before I

075even went into my evaluator and we had that discussion um it does link criteria in the rubric to you know the work that's being done and it has descriptors that talk about um what the work looks like as it's being done if it's being done well adequately not so well maybe um it requires a lot of attention so throughout the course of the year um after you've talked about gold and we'll get into this a little more deeply but you'll talk about goals um as they tie into specific plans you have in place for the district why these goals are important what will be the focus what um standards will tie to the goals um and what indicators are best used um to evaluate specific parts of the um goals that that you reach and

076agree upon so not only does that require some deep attention and communication but throughout the year you will hear things at the school committee meetings um that will be tied directly to the evaluation at the end of the at the end of the year um I often suggest to people that you make a note um so that people can keep a notebook or some folks have even liked the idea idea of a note catcher if there's something specific on an agenda that ties back to the evaluation and you have a note Catcher And you can jot down notes about the evaluation um it's helpful to understand how that builds throughout the year and how the work you're doing here at the table ties directly to the evaluation more on that so there's the desie tells

077us there's these three key components um it's a fstep cycle um where you where goals are created um and they're tied for the evaluation purpose to the standards outlined by desie and the and the administrators um in this case the superintendent's evaluation rubric so that fstep cycle starts with that all-important self assessment um and it really is um an affirming process in many cases is um and a good way to sort of uh write write yourself um and get back to what you in in the case of a superintendent so my job was certainly not as intense um as a superintendence but um you're constantly responding to what's happening in the moment because we're talking about students we're talking about staff we're talking about other emergency situations um and sometimes it's easy to become distracted

078from from those maybe not the overarching sense of the goals but the steps that you had agreed in your mind that you would take right and with the committee so there's the self assessment that brings you to goal setting you see the self assessment you talk about that as you're setting the goals you're looking at your strategic plan as you're setting goals and any other District goals or District Improvement goals that you have once those agreements are reached um the superintendent begins to implement the goals across the district right um to improve outcomes for students essentially you should have a midcycle checkin uh desie calls it a form formative review I like the notion of a check-in um right around December or so so that you can talk about you know we've gotten the start

079of school off we've gotten through the holidays here's where we are is there a need to make any adjustments in the goals that you've set based on what's happened to date or what might be coming our way um is there are any of these goals now less important than others do we want to shuffle the order of the uh priority of the goals that kind of thing um and then from there really the rest of the year goes on Focus um from the superintendent is on the work that has been indicated would be done and you don't come back together again until I don't know what your cycle is is it does it end before before election time or do you then evaluate in the summer there another piece you're going to agree on and

080we'll talk a little bit more about this what is the cycle because you have spring elections here right fall elections fall elections yeah perfect Jan school year yeah very good the two-part tool um as described by desie involves those smart goals that we've all heard about for many years um and how they tie to the performance rubric in other words what are the indicators what are the standards and indicators that will best tell us if these goals have been accomplished and to what degree and that rating system um ensures that that desie has establish ensures that you're rating on the goals the St and the standards um that they've determined um will lead to um growth in leadership improved performance as a leader in an educational system in Massachusetts desie loves to tell us how

081we do these things um in any case I think at the end of the day and with the changes that have happened um in the evaluation system it's a pretty good tool if you can commit to the process um and when I say if you can commit to the process um if you haven't been committing to the process it can take a little bit of adjustment on everybody's part right so when you create the evaluation document with the superintendent um specifically you are going to um the superintendent's going to bring in some draft goals based on the Strategic plan um do you have District Improvement plan no that is that but we also would be using the district prioritization plan with the ssos team as well excellent so you already have some established documents that

082talk about the work that essentially needs to be done and each year as the superintendent drafts the goals related to the evaluation you're prioritizing what needs to be done now sort of do now um the plan contains more things than anybody could humanly these plans three together now than anyone could do in one year um so you're prioritizing as you go um and you do that based on the draft goals that the superintendent brings in um there's a discussion um I expect that it would be a pretty robust discussion um and you reach some agreement on what what the most important priorities in the district are for the superintendent to focus on in addition to that I guess let me back up just a minute this work can be done either with the full committee

083or by a subcommittee larger committees sometimes create and this is not an overly large committee but sometimes they create a subcommittee for superintendent evaluation where three people will sort of meet go over the goals um talk about um um you know what the priorities are estab talk about the in the standards and indicators that will will measure that progress and all of that will then come back to the full board for approval because the full board has to approve this process ultimately just depends on where you want to do the work um sometimes a workshop setting with a small group like this can work quite well also so the superintendent ultimately gets evaluated each year against all of the four standards in one way or another they tie in there may only be three or

084four goals but you will pick indicators from each of the standards to help measure the um performance on those goals even desie recommends that you use you do not use all of the indicators um you'd Drive yourselves crazy if you did that um you come to agreement with the superintendent in terms of which may be between depending on the number of goals you have anywhere between eight and 12 indicators maybe six 8 to 12 indicators depending on how those match up to the goals and how they're going to measure the work being done if you tie yourself to more than 12 indicators um you're spending an awful lot of time in and you're going in very very deep um sometimes less can be more if you can find um agreement and settle in on something

085that really is going to get to the meat of the work being done and Liz can I just add you know what's been helpful since I think Jessie came out with them right when we came back from covid was the focus indicators worksheet we use it with our teachers because the Edie Val process is just as lengthy and and um filled with minutia with the indicators and substandards with those so it's been very helpful in aligning the work that not only administrators focus on but then how does it trickle down to our Educators so those are always helpful so as we as we get to the Green Field I'm just trying to hit the highlights according to desie here but we'll talk about how all of the goals tie teacher goals administrator goals superintendent goals

086um support staff goals I'm sure you you probably evaluate everybody here in the district right everybody has an evaluation based on the goals of the district so if you are a custodian for example and there's a a buildings and maintenance and operations goal you might tie your work you may only have one goal for the year but you might tie your work to see how do I support that work going forward um in any case getting my ahead of myself there some committees uh maybe with a mathematician on board talk about how they might wait some of the goals um the standards differently um it's I'm not a mathematician and I would never understand that as hard as you would try to explain it to me but you can wait goals it put more significance

087on one goal versus another um if that's something you all agree to as well and as you're discussing this you're going to also talk about the artifacts and the kinds of presentations as we mentioned earlier that will build on that will help you to gain an understanding throughout the course of the Year about how that work is going so I I just took a snapshot of standard one uh 1A curriculum under instructional leadership of des's um rubric here uh to introduce you to this you'll see it again um as it ties directly to Greenfield as we move along um there's the IND there's the goal which is instructional leadership the indicator is curriculum and in this case there's the series of four descriptors that talk about um how to measure the progress you've seen as

088it's described here um from unsatisfactory or with a new superintendent can be called developing which is much more positive um term to use than unsatisfactory um developing in needs Improvement uh it's another thing you can talk about and agree upon um nobody was um being a new superintendent regardless of your experience takes some work even if even when you have a mentor like Dr dear um I think you know that you know what you're in for um desie tells us that nobody's exemplary um I'm not sure what planet that desie works from because there are some exemp ex exemplary administrators out there certainly not across the board and if your administrators are getting your superintendent getting exemplary across the board certainly in their first three four five years you're not working hard enough together as

089a team um they say proficient is what we should strive for um however um I think it's extremely unrealistic to say as that last sentence under exemplary is a model or models this practice for others I think we're all capable of that not across the board um but so the structure of of the rubric provides that Continuum from the standard to the indicator to the descriptors this is uh it's the instrument itself um takes thought to accurately measure the work and you'll see why now you ask yourself how does this really all work together it does um and Karen knows a lot more about this than I do so from my perspective we start with those District goals um from which um as the superintendent begins to draft their goals for the coming year they

090consider what are the most critical needs what are our strategic priorities our Focus priorities in this case um and then goes to clarify the direction that that the work will go in um what are the desired outcomes which are going to be talked about in the goals if this then that right and as part of that process the superintendent's engaging critical Partners or stakeholders um as they think through how this goal is going to play out over the course of a year so the superintendent goals come as we said from those plans that already exist that you've already approved that that we've identified you've identified as the needs in order order to continue to improve the outcomes for students in the district which is really at the at the heart of all of our work

091um we don't do any of that work without the incredible uh staff teachers and administrators um Cooks custodians secretaries everybody's a part of the work um and everybody in the district is thinking through their goal or goals for the year um and how they can support the work that's happening uh superintendent also needs to think about the needs of the staff uh while trying to support the staff in their work as they're supporting these District goals um and how to engage family and community in supporting the schools and just simply engaging them in the schools so that they feel welcome and honored when they step in the door whether it's central office or a school building so step one of the process is where this group meets together and defines how the process will roll

092out you've got draft goals you'll come out of that meeting or perhaps two meetings with agreement on what the goals are and how they'll be measured on the tool that's going to be used I see the questions per calculating it's a lot I'm going to just you know what let me get through this slide and then I'm ready for the questions that midcycle check-in especially with a new superintendent is key so you all know how everything's progressing um where's the work on this goal has something happened Co do we now need to shift the work that we're doing right are we are we tweaking a goal or are we totally Shifting the goals at this stage of the game um and then the work really continues to progress through the summi of evaluation the superintendent

093has the extreme pleasure of being evaluated publicly by the school committee um and I don't really mean that that's tongue and cheek I don't I don't think I would enjoy being evaluated on television but you know you're a public figure now Karen or you will be soon um and so every individual member will complete an evaluation form those forms will go to someone uh maybe a subcommittee maybe the chair to create a composite the composite is to ensure that um the strong themes are highlighted but also to be sure that everybody's voice is heard in the compos composite right that composite is shared out with the public at the same time it's shared with the school committee you'll talk about it in an open public meeting and everyone will be so delighted with the process

094this is where sometimes the difficult discussions can take place um we would always always always encourage you if you have questions questions to bring them to the superintendent um before you come to that meeting especially if they're the tough questions um to see if you can better understand maybe there's a piece that you're missing maybe there isn't um but just so that um you're not getting at this open public meeting with you know being broadcast out to the public you'd be surprised how many people watch and so that neither side is surprised always a good way to build a trusting relationship so again the outputs are those presentations you'll get at meetings sometimes the meetings themselves um are focused on a particular topic um they will be evidence that comes from other meetings that happen

095within the district or supports that are being provided in other ways um the superintendent will provide you with evidence be before you complete the evaluation form including data on student growth not necessarily achievement alone but growth in other ways you know what kinds of programming has been offered what has been the increase in student participation in those programs um uh most talked about it day on the hill AP classes why were a classes only for those kids that were the top performers it's amazing what school dist districts have found out um when they've opened up AP to more students how many students have blossomed right students who were non-traditionally AP students um who were able to participate in AP classes that really enriched their lives maybe they maybe they passed the AP exam maybe they

096didn't but what difference did it make in the life of those students right so there's many many things you can think about there and all of those outputs are assessed against those standards and indicators last line um so instructional leadership standards management and operations family and Community engagement and professional culture across the district it's a big job do we want to stop for questions here Glenn sure that'd be great we can stop anywhere someone wants to raise their hand and ask a question I find that the best way to go nobody really likes to be talked to so we can have a conversation as we go other questions for Liz M Den Eve I'm so glad you're here um I am too this process I think has been a real pain point for this committee

097um in the past we have never had ever a year-long agenda or school committee goals and we've never worked as a team on creating those until recently we have draft documents that we've lightly discussed and hopefully we can look at those soon but um we've never worked as a team on this so that doesn't surprise me given where you've come from yeah so so we had a lot of discussion about how much we hated this rubric and how awful it was and and I had a little subcommittee that didn't get off the ground of finding another rubric and um looked at other things but having you here now makes me wonder if maybe the problem was that we just never worked as a team on this like we just didn't have these we didn't have

098this info and we didn't know what we were supposed to do because we've never done any of this you're not alone so I'm wondering if if we just to know do we have to use this rubric or can we explore other ones like a 360 degree interview process or something such has you can adapt the tool created by desie I know that there's been discussion by committees and I'd have to check with my colleagues I i' be quite surprised that anybody did the 360 successfully and part of the reason for that is anyone whose input or feedback or evalu evaluative comments that are used as part of the evaluation become public along with yours um um so there's that that's a huge piece and that would take um discussion with the superintendent and agreement on

099how that process would roll out I think there's legal implications to that because of the public nature of that process um I think that if I were a committee who were doing this for the first year before you know maybe we want to talk about this but maybe we don't want to do it the first year maybe we want to talk about ways we can really get at the things we want to know through through looking at the indicators maybe or maybe that's a good first step MH but remember it's it you need to have agreement on how that's going to roll out and folks who are going to participate um I know it's something that gives us at masc all a little bit of a twitch when people say let's do a evaluation um

100it's something you'd want legal counsel to weigh in on none of us are attorneys although we do have an attorney um I'd say to this committee work on understanding this process and grow from there see how you can grow from there okay so then um when we create the composite how do we share it with the public what is that process like well it's interesting because the law describes that and it must be made available to the public as soon soon as the committee gets it so if it's email so for example I think best practice says provide at the night of the evaluation meeting I don't know that I think that's best practice because now you're having the meeting and you're reading the composit all at the same time I tend to prefer the

101notion if you agree on it that you get it ahead of time so you can ask question what if you have a question for the superintendent that you want to ask right so but if it's email to you as part of your packet to get your packets electronically some of them yeah it should be posted on the website the packet with that composite at the same time so that the public can access it the same time you're accessing it okay and if you're coming to the meeting and folks think they want to access the composite there should be some paper copies available for them okay um so we so then my other question is just to confirm that we should align all of these goals that we work on together and that the superintendent brings

102in it should all be aligned with our year-long agenda well yes that's what the yearlong agenda is for so we have to make a yearlong agenda and we have to identify District goals and priorities as a committee in concert with the superintendent or super we create them separately and then she creates them separately and we come together she's bringing in her draft goal and since we're talking about you specifically I'll stop saying the superintendent she'll bring in draft goals that you will discuss and you will come to agreement on maybe they're perfect and ready to go maybe they need a little tweaking maybe they just you know need a little feedback right if now you're talking about the committee creating goals so um when the school committee creates goals the notion is your your work

103the goals you create for yourself the things you commit to doing will support the work of the superintendent and the district towards achieving those districtwide overarching goals that have already been approved um so it wouldn't be like to make sure that the marching band gets new uniforms or that we put a new sidewalk in front of the high school um it would be a thoughtful process with the superintendent how how can we align our work through a yearly agenda for example we'll create a yearly agenda so that the superintendent can tell us when things are going to come in so we can learn about what's happening with the goals um if there's u under um academic leadership instructional leadership um I heard you're using illustrative math so let me just make something up and say

104um you all want to understand how or one of the goals is to support this illustrative math with professional development watching the data seeing how it's working understanding um understanding how this is all rolling out in the system you may all decide in this year-long agenda that at some point the math director or curriculum director is going to come in and give you a report on sort of Benchmark data what you know whatever this curriculum person decides you're going to get to learn about illustrative math um you've done assuming Benchmark data throughout the years with the kids what are the changes what are you noticing where are you seeing the deficits where are you seeing the kids are doing well right what are the adjustments they're making because of this new program um it's to

105help you better understand that work that deep and thoughtful work that's happening in the schools every day you should be hearing from the various instructional departments about what's happening particularly in the areas of need right but you also want to hear about what's going really well so that you have a good balance so I'm going to follow up on the idea of a yearlong agenda with you okay are you done with your questions yes I just um you just shook something in my head because I know the masc talks about having staff presentations and you just talking about that and we've never had anything like that so that like for example that's something we put on our little draft goal list having staff presentations so that something that it has been mentioned is maybe not

106in our purview as a school committee but I feel like is it not something we should be hearing yes okay and it's also part of building a trusting relationship together with your CEO right these are never oh wait till this comes in um it's never about that it's about listening to understand what's happening in the schools right um how do you know how all this money you're spending is working if you're not hearing from various departments and again and I'm going to look at how far you've come in such a short period of time and so the time could be now for this right um this was one of the nicest school committee meetings I've been to in some time usually people talk to us when they have a problem they want us to solve

107if I had a magic wand everybody would get along and talk and work together and assume positive intent and I've worked myself out of a job I do you want to acknowledge people Glenn I know feel free to acknowledge people yourself I don't want to not acknowledge the mayor but um Melody had her hand up today is a special day I mean I worked for Greenfield Public Schools for 10 years thank you okay so four superintendents M and 10 years M you've seen a lot change so Karen has been here and she knows what needs to be done and that's why she's sitting there we have needed curriculum work for the last 15 years if you listen to the teachers the last curriculum documents were written by Carol Jacobs and Buzz nimow and they're up

108in an attic at Federal Street Elementary School the binders are so old they have countries that probably don't even exist anymore so the curriculum work that needs to be done to make our scores go up has been critical for for years and it hasn't happened because um I can tell you that in my presence in front of me three different superintendents made a public statement to their principles the reason they couldn't get the work done was because they were dealing with the school committee so I'm going to say to you we need to keep being positive and listen to the person who's in charge who's going to make things happen um I think this is a special day because in this room are positive people who want to be inclusive who can listen to parents

109and children and hear what needs to be done so I'm pretty impressed with the people that I have met and that I have um talked to and there's a lot of teachers hoping for good things um and they're saying great things about this this year um Christine has done a a great beginning three years to start it and Karen gets to make it all happen Christina's really laid uh a solid foundation here and over the past many months as I've listened to and read about the staff that's been attracted here I'm incredibly impressed there's got to be some really good work happening in these schools for the caliber of the people that are coming here to be coming here not one not two not three not like they're coming here I just heard of two

110really strong teachers that were hired to come in here tonight um you're doing some good things so be part of the team right that's going to continue to help build that now your com your comment about listening to to parents and community members that's your job but remember so that's a whole another separate conversation that we could have about roles and responsibilities and how that connects with the administration right um what we're talking about here tonight is just to Circle back is is incredibly important because it's tying to these things that you have already said are really priorities in the district um and it's something you want to keep your focus on those presentations from staff as they tie to your goals can be a great help to these school committee members throughout the course

111of the year so they can uh understand along with you the work that's happening again I don't know that the foundation was there before now for that to start happening um and it's not it's um a presentation that you might have follow-up questions for the person presenting you might be inquisitive to know something something more um but never put that person on the spot so that others in the district oh my gosh don't want to come here and give a presentation again we're always assuming positive intent in all the work we do sometimes that doesn't prove to be the case but that's the exception rather than the rule right um and when you've been through a tough time um sometimes shaking those feelings can take a little little effort uh but you've got a good

112team here now and from all accounts you've got um someone that lots of folks would like to have leading their District so you've got a lot to work with mayor sorry turn your mic on so I think there's four of us that are new to school committee here some of you have been through this before um I'll speak as someone who's new that the first couple of months was having a lot of difficulty just with the initials of things and so I just this is I'm tying this into the presentation part I love you always come with the superintendent notes and you have pictures and I feel like that's a wonderful thing and it really gives me an idea of what's going on and um I I do feel like just speaking for myself I

113would have some trouble evaluating some things for example we talked about illustrative math and I'm I'm sitting here thinking no idea I'm I'm probably not the only one but you know a little something about what that would be like um that that picture that you give in the pictures is a good thing and so I just wanted to that's a comment and the other thing the way this works is the superintendent comes in and superintendent has goals is that I've watched some of these I actually I just watched part of your meetings before it didn't seem uh it's part of the process that the superintendent and the committee will work together on the superintendent's goals so that's one key element that that you're really uh you know um evaluating the superintendent's um progress on those

114goals and it follows at the beginning of the year I'm just trying to get the calendar part of this so so now it's May and do you meet do we meet in during the summer does a school committee meet all year we do yeah and so um so I'm sure that you've been thinking a lot about this getting prepared so you come up with your things and then there's school committee get together and they have ideas too is that how this works I think the way it's worked in the past and Karen and I can figure out together about how it might look going forward but that the superintendent has put together draft goals for this school committee to consider and then it's an item on the agenda when we discuss and we vote on

115whether to approve their goals or whether to you know modify um and so on and this is a an authentic discussion about this is how this is how she sees the work uh the priority work going into this particular year right and this is the Desi approved one this one that we have in front of us this is what most committees use is this what most school yes okay they do so sounds good to me the vast majority okay um yes and what once you've it's not an easy process initially but it gets easier the first one under your belt the second one you're not sort of like afraid of now you understand the process um and as you've worked together for a year and you understand the kinds of information the committee needs to

116get to help them through this process year two gets easier um Pro process it's all about process and figuring out what works best for everyone you know for a deeper understanding of how it how the how it needs to roll out the kinds of information the committee needs to get along the way it's very difficult um to get all of that that whole data dump at the end of the year and evaluate someone um I'm the kind of person who likes to take notes on things um anyway so I think that if their committee understands that perhaps someone's coming in or a report's coming in on a particular topic that's tied to one of your goals um flag that for them on a on an agenda and say tied to goal three um indicator two

117uh 3C or something right so that as they listen you listen for understanding and then you reflect back on the rubric later and say oh this is what I heard and this is how it ties in here for example what might I want to hear um going forward or what questions might I ask going forward to deepen my understanding uh were any professional besides you professional Educators in the room right so we need to work as committee members to deepen our understanding about the work that's happened in the district as a lay person we're not experts but we're tasked uh our key responsibilities budget oversight policy making superintendent hire and evaluation we have a lot to learn every single time we come to these meetings none of us comes knowing it all I have a

118question yes so one thing that we I feel like we we are good at but maybe need to keep getting better at is being clear about what our roles are as school committee members as opposed to the superintendent yes and part of what that means is we don't get involved in the operations of the schools correct but then essentially some of these standards are kind of about how well is the superintendent op operating the schools you know so we don't have have much of a view in there sometimes other than the artifacts and presentations that the superintendent presents that seems I mean I think that like you were saying before there's kind of a limit limitation to the process where a 36d evaluation probably wouldn't work in this setting because everybody's feedback needs to be

119transparent open to the public that's right and I feel like there's another element of that that maybe we just have to acknowledge is a limitation of the proc which is we don't have a ton of data on some of these things because we're not if we're we're mining our PS and q's and staying in our role we're not getting into all that you know but maybe you can speak to that I can in fact that's another conversation that we could have on another evening right because I think I really love the roles and responsibilities piece yeah um and finding Clarity from both sides on what that is um it makes everybody's life less stressful um but for example uh the focus again is on the critical need what are the priorities what's been identified here's

120the goals this is where the Deep work is happening maybe every day maybe not every day because you're putting so many fires out all the time um you have a relatively small administrative staff very quality qualified and capable administrative staff um but to have enough people to address everything that comes their way every single day you couldn't afford so the best way to afford and maintain this relationship is by building it building trust um and creating a team essentially you're working together to ensure that well maybe this goal didn't get accomplished fully and maybe it needs a lot of work wow but look at this goal and look what happened here it's always a balance and understand that everything you do is to help move these goals forward in the district right um trying to

121think while I'm talking about something you people in the community are going to talk to you first of all you were musty TV for a long time right I'm not kidding you were must see TV for a long time the best way to know that you're working as a cohesive trusting unit as a team people aren watching anymore because you're boring no there was no one here for public comment and you're getting work done guess what you're doing what you're supposed to do um and if you're the district that can keep but you've been here how many years tell me who the truth I'm ending my 15th next September will be my 16th thank you if and that doesn't happen a lot anymore in education and you know the number one reason that people leave

122their districts the school committee yes yes especially administrators but teachers feel that pinch too they want to be in a place where there's it's it's a team atmosphere people feel supported they feel respected and valued everybody has a bad day everybody makes mistakes well now we all make mistakes I make an awful lot of them myself guess what I'm going to try really hard not to make the same one twice especially when I feel supported and valued in my efforts the average um tenure of a super in tendency I think has dropped just below 3 years recently 2.8 2.6 be the district that keeps the superintendent by creating you know those Rich relationships trust one another talk to one another especially around this evaluation you'll learn a whole lot if you're not a professional educator

123Ator around this evaluation process as to what's happening in the district the important work uh community members parents angry parents especially are going to call you I was a school committee member for 10 years I made it a point to call the schools on the regular to tell them what I was happy about because I never heard from anybody who was happy yet you know there's good work happening all the time don't ignore that anyway enough of my pontificating um I think it's important when you're working together with anyone it doesn't matter if it's a partner if it's your children um when they're young when they're grown uh your grandchildren now uh the highlight of my life uh be vulnerable sometimes right nobody's always right okay back to superintendent evaluation okay all right so you're

124going to agree on the goals I'm going to so I'm into the I'm into the I'm going to get back to the slideshow so I can see what I'm reading um in Greenfield again just to sort of um come back to where I was you're going to agree on goals superintendent brings to you as a draft and as you do that you're thinking about what outcomes what outputs will these goals bring to Greenfield how are they going to benefit the schools the students right um at the same time you're going to agree on those applicable indicators from the rubric so what are we measuring what's most important for us to measure here don't overdo it on the indicators some of the work's very important the superintendent will have an idea of what rubric what indicator

125will um descriptor will best measure sorry indicator will best measure the work so listen be thoughtful but also look through those indicators to see if there's something else that intrigues you that you want to have that open conversation about if there's some area needing special attention have to discussion about is there a goal that we want to wait a little stronger than another Maybe that's something you want to get through one year before you think about that um and build that relationship with your new superintendent or maybe you're ready to roll maybe the superintendent's ready to roll with it but have that conversation you want to discuss the kind of evidence you're going to get and how you're going to get it will you see some presentations from curriculum leaders from principles um will you

126get reports will you use these superintendent reports start putting those in a folder called superintendent evaluation right so that you can go back and reflect on things you heard on a on a regular basis from the superintendent don't wait until the end of the year until you get something like this that you're weeding through while you're trying to answer those questions create that ever important yearlong agenda so you can get to hearing about about those things that are important uh that are that are highlighted as a superintendent goal so there's District goals this is there's not a graphic in here there's the district goals through the various plans that you have that I've been identified the focus priority areas superintendent builds goals on that all the administrators in the district including principles build goals on

127those plans the school Improvement plans are built from those goals teachers build their goals based on the Improvement that the school Improvement plans say that the schools are going to make everybody's goals originate in the same place and they're all for the same purpose so we're all working in the same direction and not at odds with one another so you will again um I love the midyear check-in and it's just a temperature taking it's not a really deep detailed uh we're going to dig in right here checking the temperature superintendent's going to tell you how it's going how the work is progressing you're going to ask what can we do to assist you what can we do to further your progress on these goals how does our work help you um so that again then

128then everything kind of goes away and the end of the year holidays come and you get through the the mcast and testing and graduations and then after you've forgotten about evaluation now it's summi of evaluation time but if you've been thinking uh from the beginning of the process and keeping a folder or notebook or however saving a a file on your computer um however you do this keep track of things that you want to refer back to later things that you look at like those reports tonight and say wow this was really informative to me scan it in your computer and save it somewhere drop it in the drive um so when the composite evaluation is completed at the end of the year um the chair typically will do that or it does maybe it's

129a vice chair maybe it's another member of the committee who already has deep experience in that area maybe it's a subcommittee that you've decided will do the composite for fairness but discuss that early on in the process so you know how it's going to be done and vote on it most importantly seal it right take a vote so everybody knows how it's going to be done um the compositors important um there are going to be varying comments there's going to be themes first of all that's the good news there will be themes um and then there'll be sort of those comments on one end of the spectrum or the or the other uh it's inevitable it happens we're all human um but the composite is designed so that not all comments are included but that

130everyone's voice is included right right so maybe it's the theme that's highlighted and not a particular comment some people love to see their own words not only in evaluations but in minutes not what minutes are for either right a minute minutes are summaries just what the composite is for you want to know about the themes you want to know the highlights and the low lights um ni a question Miss yes please so what if like what if there's a comment in kind of the raw data from the evaluation that really is not in keeping with the evaluation or might be you know um inappropriate in some way like how is that handled if so if number one if it is not en tied to the goals or keeping with those standards and indicators that you've

131said you're measuring it doesn't belong in the composite but as chair I would want to talk to that member and find out you know sort of what's behind it how can we where can we work on whatever this is good bad or IND different thank you you have a lot of responsibility Glen okay I think I can handle it but we'll see I do too so I have a quick question I don't remember which superintendent did it but it worked really well with this document was an an email like a little survey was sent to all of us and it was you just answered like so many questions and then it went back to the superintendent to give them feedback about their performance and it was really simple I know we did it as principles

132and I assumed it also went to school committee members but is that like it wasn't public it was just something like a check-in you know the midyear review is always kind of like it's it feels like as an evaluator I do the midyear review and I always said the state is like behind like Christmas is here and you're all of a sudden like doing all this and then you feel like you've just gone through all of this stuff and you're hit with the summative that the midy year is not really mid year midy year is like a month before where you sort of you can see the growth you can see it happen right so is it possible I'm just thinking that to collect so that the feedback is given through a different method you

133would agree on that early on with the superintend yeah and privately I mean that's the the thing about all of this is the the public piece is just to me offensive I mean this is really like offensive I wouldn't want to be evaluated public so I think you know to to seek feedback is is to me is a good thing it's reflective I mean that's the piece that really isn't as much in the superintendent as it is in the teachers where they're asked to reflect more yeah there's more observations Reflections so that's why I call the midyear a temperature taking I don't know if the superintendent wants to think forward about that and whether there might be some sort of check in along the way um the so the work that's done on teacher evaluations

134is quite a bit different because you're talking about um individual classrooms and the growth right among a number of students in those classrooms MH but I'm glad you've done that work how many teachers did you have to evaluate depended on the year a lot a lot and a lot of first year teachers right thank you pandemic and so to your question that's something you want to talk about in that initial meeting whether it's handled by a subcommittee but it'll eventually get to the school committee or if the full school committee does this if we have comments that are outside of the structure of the evaluation which is based on the goals it's not pertinent to the evaluation you know have that conversation so people understand ahead of time and they're more thoughtful when they're completing

135the evaluation right let me keep my focus and if there's this comment I want to make my best advice to anybody here is to have you know meet with superintendent have coffee every couple weeks once a month I don't know bring I don't know find a way to have that chat you probably meet on a on a regular basis with the superintendent you know don't be intrusive there's a ton of work going on but you should know one another and and each other how to best support one another I think that's a really good point that there are comments and questions that school committee members might have that just basically lie outside the scope of the evaluation but there's still valid and important conversations that that can be had that's on you Glenn but they

136are valid and important conversations so people want to be heard they don't they want to be understood um they want they want their input to be valued so you know you you're in a position to honor that you are a good person to do that you know your kids have you ever had teenagers anybody have teenagers middle schoolers right listen you still have to talk with them ultimately you'll raise good human beings if you do um just think of it that way sorry sorry not sorry but it's all part of the process we all were sometimes we all get a little for whatever reason we've got to be heard we want to be heard we want to talk through it um sometimes the difficult I think always the difficult conversations help us grow question sorry

137I'm taking up way too much of your time but I could sit here and talk about this well I want to say that time I think it's incredibly valuable and I'm not worried about like getting through all of it I think there will be a point where we start to fade and I welcome members to let me know when you're hitting that point um but we may need to ask if you could come back another time also but just looking around like I see people seem to be getting a lot out of this so um so thank you so much so I took a look at um Christine's strategic priority goal one for example and I I don't know what number slide this is cu for some reason slide um instructional leadership goal provide administrators

138with support for review of data and implementation of best practice to provide all students with access to high quality instruction that's was her student learning goal the indicator from the rubric was one being uh two of them and 2 C so from two different standards so the uh one of the agreed upon indicators was to provide feedback to administrators following um review of practice and artifacts to ensure that the principles are identifying and promoting effective instructional practice so the superintendent has uh is spending time with administ ministrators to ensure that they're effectively um evaluating their staff members and And discussing how where I want to see the artifacts I want to see the feedback you're providing um and if it goes deeper than just this feedback I want to know what you're doing how have

139you documented it um to see uh family and Community engagement is C use multiple sources of data related to student per perance to identify areas of strength and need create a plan to improve areas of need um you might be horrified at the amount of time your staff spends breaking down data in right Am I Wrong individual student data where are Liz's strengths where are her weaknesses if this is a weakness how are we going to address it if this is a strength how can we best use it to help others in the classroom for every single student in the classroom um superintendent is often times in on these things or reviews with principles why it's happened um what they've learned from it right um I'm glad that you're sitting here and you can help

140with those pieces because these half days they're either sitting in professional development and they're learning strategies or they're pulling apart data piece by piece question by question question student by student to determine how to be more effective Educators so then you look uh across at 2C which is the indicator from the rubric and look at the descriptions about what that performance looks like in each of the four categories and it's only something you get better at by doing it um authentically there's the desie rubric on the next slide um so 1B I guess I've highlighted which was meeting with the principles to ensure that they're collecting the correct artifacts you read the descriptors and you say okay all right I can see that the superintendent for example monitoring and supporting principles and instructional staff um

141to ensure that these practices are taking play that looks pretty proficient to me or something other than that um I think desie has made it much easier for us once we understand what we're looking at and why how to evaluate the work that's actually happening um and because we're getting to the end here does anybody have any questions on that so far you've done it hundreds of times you don't have questions on it you could be leading this um desie has done us um everybody I don't say this about desie much and if you know me you know that's true desie has essentially done us a pretty good favor with this in terms of we're not making it up from our own opinions in terms of how we think or feel the superintendent's performing it's

142very clear how we measure it um and we have some resources on our website um that will help you there are some recordings I think of previous um learning lunches up there about superintendent eval by different um field directors but I will tell you again and I'm not often complimentary but desie has some fantastic resources including um video series on how to evaluate um that I've looked at many times myself and I've learned something each time it's hard to take it all in at once until you start the work and um Believe It or Not Glenn I know I've taken up a lot of your time but that's sort of where I'm coming with this I think the key to this is um understanding you are one member of a team uh your mission your

143the work that you're doing is the most important work sorry mayor being done in this town because it is City it's to educate the students who are are all of our futures right sorry mayor I'm a I'm a strong proponent of of really educating all of our kids to to the the very best we can some you know if we only had all the money in the world which we don't um teachers would be paid like professional athletes because as we heard at the state house without teach with with teachers all professions are possible right they're the people who make all professions possible and we all can think about teachers who've helped us get to where we are and so the work that you're doing um is more than just sitting at board meetings talking

144about finances it has a deeper meeting thank you so much Les are there final questions or could we have a brief discussion I guess about what what do members see as next steps or is there more you want to learn at Future meetings on this topic I think one of the things that I would be interested in even as a retired person is like and Karen's I know you are organized a calendar like with all the events that are going on in the schools because to me that's the indicators right there we can go see like you know graduation absolutely you know but things that are happening after school um there really isn't the central calendar I mean and I can even say as a principal I was bad about it making sure it got

145on the central calendar but even the newsletters like I picked out some things that were happening on the newsletter that I would go to and see it and Glenn was an amazing school committee member who came to my school and we always appreciated that because it meant he cared about what was happening in the schools um we never felt threatened we always felt appreciated and I think that's what we all want to do is make people feel appreciated so um it some calendar and I don't know if that can just come from if we got all the newsletters um and there were some in this packet but not all that have those things that are happening so that we can be part of that and attend them I know everybody's interested in doing that um

146we want to be seen so that we can hear what we need to hear and they also could be even if there's something special you think is an indicator okay don't get crazy as an English teacher and write a bunch of stuff so I'm hearing two items like on the one hand I think kind of off the topic of superintendent evaluation nice for the school committee to to know about events and be able to attend things but you're talking about the calendar in regard to the superintendent evaluation as like an artifact to show some of the things that are happening thank you other comments or questions somebody in central office may already have at least the beginnings of such a calendar and may not be thinking about sharing it um but you're right open houses

147um like the student reps were saying sporting events just remember if you want to visit a school during the day while they're functioning that always goes through the superintendent right other questions or I mean other thoughts about next steps or more needs around learning about the superintendent evaluation process seon I don't know if it's it's a a need but I am really looking forward to whatever session we have where we actually set out the Rules of Engagement that we would like to agree upon with each other and have this process question and I'm thinking for your sake that should probably be a session where we suspend the normal rules of order um so we can actually have a real conversation about it um when we get there yeah we could we could have that conversation

148I could kind of gather people's thoughts and then come back with the proposal for a process at a future meeting or something like that could be a way to go um one thing I'm wondering because I think part of the reason for this was like as member Den mentioned there was a committee that was kind of working on um on the evaluation tool itself and I I wonder if people are with me where I am with this is very much kind of what Liz was saying is like we're learning this process we're learning about the rubric together and we have a tool that's in place that will be in place when Karen begins so maybe we're really maybe we think about like trying it for this next cycle with our existing tool with some more

149training and information and then seeing if there is a need to change the tool or if the problem was more that um we need to increase our ability to collaborate together as a school committee with the superintendent and um and have a deeper knowledge of what you presented tonight so that's kind of where I am are there people seeing it differently mayor I I just want to say listening to this I think this is a different group and I think this sounds like a very good tool and I just look around the room and I see everybody is very cooperative and wants to work together I'm for trying this because it sounds tried and true throughout many school districts as opposed to a different one we seem to all talk and listen just remember Glenn

150the new superintendent needs to agree to the tool that's right and I think she has agreed to our existing tool basically is so this part of her contract if we wanted to change that mid contract we would need Karen's agreement on that um so uh right so it wouldn't just be oh do we want to change it it would be do can we get Karen on board with the idea that A change is needed as well correct and if I could just wait as someone who's evaluated hundreds of people using a desie tool that at first glance seems overwhelming and cumbersome um I've really have enjoyed des's Focus indicators which I know we will agree upon goals but when you have your sites specifically fine-tuned in on specific indicators that we really believe um together

151are going to be the best to move student growth and achievement I think it makes the rubric less overwhelming because then you aren't having to deal with 300 indicators and in all of these different areas but they really are the ones that we've agreed upon are most important for our students right now so I think um that's part of what's made those Focus indicators even better for Eddie Val for our teaching staff and having us have that waterfall of the district admin is doing this the building admin is doing this the staff in the buildings are doing this and it's really collaborated the efforts about where we're all rowing in the same direction because the focus is on that exactly I have a timeline question so when is it that we plan on setting the

152goals and selecting the indicators when does that usually happen and when will it be happening for you since you're new superintendent couple weeks I would presume oh you wasn't thinging it's that fast slow down um no I would think that Glenn and I could talk about that but for the teachers process your self assessment is in September draft goals are in October agreement on those goals is November formative happens in January summative in May so I would think there would be some similar sense to that but certainly a conversation Glenn and I can think about yeah maybe for the June meeting we could come with like kind of a draft timeline to share with the committee and get your feedback on it I and I would love to learn more about the focus areas you're

153referring to Karen so maybe we could have a presentation on that as well sure um I don't believe they're out for next year but I can bring 2023 is that we use this year with our Educators and administrators be great that would be great than you it's a great way to kick off your focus okay great speaking of focuses yes nice uh any other comments or questions or thoughts about next steps member Den when you're bringing this all together in June can you also include um our process of making the yearl agenda since if we're starting it at the beginning of our year which is really summer um it would fit in maybe nicely and then we would really know what we have ahead of us great yourong agend school committee yearlong agenda item in

154June as well thank you so much okay that's a lot less intimidating than it sounds okay that's good I mean I've heard about it before but um and I guess just remember like anything else in this field um there could likely would likely be uh the opportunity to have to shift things as the work moves forward but um it provides staff too with good notice if they need anything to be ready and you know that's planned thoughtfully in terms of all the other things that are happening in the school so do it once you're an old hat and if you could share with me some exemplars Liz of other committee that would be great thank you any other next steps people see from this conversation all right thank you very much Liz so much for

155coming and being so generous with your time and your year and knowledge the batt old days thank call text email you know me any one of my colleagues all having answer the most you're preparing young people really our thank you good night all right um I guess I would encourage members to note the hour as we move through the rest of the agenda item and feel free to make motions to table things um as as you think would be Ser best serve yourself in your bedtime tonight um so we're on to day on the hill report back and next steps member Den all right um this will serve also as my report for legislative representative so you could take that number nine off the back for our bedtime great um all right I'll try to

156read quickly but not too quickly uh on May 6th we attended the masc day on the hill event we prepared for this event with a meeting in March and in April with our division five leader Humera fudin and Jason Frasier uh we created a collaboration between districts here in Western Massachusetts those districts were lllo Sunderland Gil monu Hadley and Mohawk we had meetings with Senator olera Senator Jason Lewis who is the Senate chair of the joint committee on education representative ultrino who is the house Vice chair of joint education committee Senator Eldridge Ian O'Neal the education analyst for the Senate Ways and Means Committee along with senator Paul Mark and an unexpected meeting with Senator hwit we also have zoom meetings scheduled for next week with representative whips and representative sabadosa who were not at

157the State House on that day what we focused on was rural Aid that needs to be fully funded at 60 million rather than the 15 million presented in the governor's budget this was cut to 7.5 Million by the house ways and means but as of just recently like last night Senate Ways and Means moved rural schools funding back to 15 million and there are amendments being stopped for increase uh we also discussed the impris implicit price deflator that of 1.35% that more fully reflects actual inflation of 4.5% um this is something that we didn't know if we would be able to affect very much in um fy2 but people are filing to make the change for FY 26 with some catchup Provisions um so far there hasn't been any movement on this as of last

158night but this is something that we discussed um in all of our meetings we also discussed the per pupil minimum proposed uh at $104 by the house Ways and Means and um they did put an amendment on the floor for 200 per pupil minimum masc would like to see $100 the minimum moving forward in next fiscal cycles and as of last night the Senate Ways and Means concurred and $104 minimum has passed uh we also uh discussed uh Regional Transportation issues and special education Transportation issues um and we also discussed um setting the circuit breaker at 75% for both tuition and transportation cost as some Transportation costs are now higher than tuition costs for out of District special education and as of last night the Senate Ways and Means included language to reimburse out of

159District special ed Transportation at 75% there were also a number of other bills that masc identified um since it's late at night you'll probably all get these things in the mail if you get the little handouts you can you can read about them and um what they do but I'm happy to uh put something together and uh send them off in an email for your information um but some of the next steps that we identified as a group were that the legislators feel that may is too late to make really effective change and some of the meetings we were watching the budget go down the hallway as we're talking about the change we wanted to make so um we are suggesting that we continue to build this multi-district Coalition but starting in the fall and

160having virtual or in-person meetings with legislators quarterly next year is the beginning of a new legislative session and so that will be time to identify and bring our priorities to the table and the few legislators that we discussed this with thought that that was a good idea so hopefully we can start to create a little bit of a schedule to be uh in their faces earlier and more regularly um we were also approached about earmarks again and we were given an unexpected crash course course on how to do them properly so an important next step is to identify what Greenfield needs and have that info uh ready approved and collected so that requests can be submitted right away so that's something that we should really get right on and uh that's what we did so

161if anyone has any questions I'm happy to answer them and I hope to all see you there next year and hopefully we can bring along some teachers and some students because it is available to them as well questions or comments for Elizabeth that was excellent um I would that was a good job uh I think that's really wise and I would just put in a little FYI if you're doing this again for the fall if you write to Janine because I never can get to my other email I'll try to get on my schedule too because I think it would be important for me to go to some of those where we're meeting with the legislators oh absolutely just that's I I like be three days in before I get to the school one but

162just I know Stacy knows to write to the other one but I'm I'm quite interested and impressed thank you whoever went who went who went to the days on the hill you went and you went and Kate okay thank you for going because I think that's what's going to make a difference is people advocating it's a squeaky wheel that gets the oil and it's a lot of work to do all the preparation and go all the way there so I'm grateful on behalf of the people here it was a ton of work and I really do appreciate it uh your leadership in particular remember kind of breathing life into our legislative uh advocacy which has been dormant since before I got here so many you're very welcome and it was nice to see them sort

163of really excited to see so many of us packed into their offices we took all the seats and then some um and I think that that made a real big difference to see a group from Western Mass it's targeted on top of it from all the different districts lended a lot of weight absolutely and um if there are already items where we could put them together as a resolution that the school committee could vote on so uh so it's really the voice of the whole school committee you know the power of us voting on things like that I think would be great so as soon as you have any items ready we can get them on an agenda no problem I will send them all to you just one last thing I was asked for

164those ear marks our delegation for things for the city and I wouldn't want to step on your toes Karen um but if we're talking to them and you have lists of things that you need maybe you'll put some things together they gave they told me things from 50 to 100,000 and I put a bunch of them and then I told them about the fire truck that was 2 and5 million but we did get one of the things and I you know I'm was very pleased with their advocacy I made that list of things up myself but as soon as they asked for it I wrote it right away but that would not be within my purview or I I wouldn't think any of us so if you had some thoughts sounds like people are going

165to be going meeting you know so thank you yeah I think it speaks to like the coordination between the city and the schools and between the school committee legislative advocacy and the district's Administration and the mayor and trying to really all be working in harmony with each other yeah it which is tricky to do because sometimes you get a rep who's just like what do you need yeah it's very fast all of a sudden they're like okay give me your stuff and I'm like I need to talk to this person and it might take a week and they're like well we're like we're done so having something ready and maybe having it pre-written out and and being like if you want to empower me to hand those things off I could I could facilitate that

166when it falls in your lap which is exactly how it happens unexpectedly at random moments so it's hard to not it feels frustrating to not be ready and I want to be ready to facilitate whatever you guys need yeah and I and without Christine here I'll just double check whether tomorrow but I do believe she had talked to uh Joe comford on earmarks in that conversation so I'll just follow up to see what the content of that conversation was so I know what if anything was asked for thank you any other uh next steps on Dan on the hill great all right um so the next item is subcommittees and representatives and I don't have in your packet um the uh proposal for the um for the eval uh the assignments for the subcommittees with

167our new member it's very um not complex I just put member Goodwin's name in Where um where member pret's name was which means that the new assignment would be um member went to policy and program subcommittee um to be the representative to the collaborative for Educational Services and to be the representative to the district Wellness committee so I would love a motion to uh approve the revised subcommittee and representative assignments um uh dated May 2024 as presented so moved seconded all right a member a motion for member seon and a second for member child's any discussion all right all those in favor I I looks unanimous I will abstain um so welcome to the uh policy and program subcommittee member goodwi great to have you on board and I'm sure the collaborative end can someone

168tell me who made the the most motion again sorry member SE and who seconded sorry member child's okay thank you all right so that passed and then the next item is um one item in our policy um says that you will all of us will be presented with um the functions and duties of each subcommittee and I um have made a good start on that maybe you'd say a good start I've got a lot of feedback to incorporate from um Christine and Karen before it's ready to bring to you um so that'll have to wait another month but um I think you know just given the conversations that are happening by a shared document on Google Drive between me Christine and Karen it's becoming clear that these um these functions and Duty descriptions are a

169little bit overdue and I think will be a useful tool for us uh in um sticking within our our roles um in these different subcommittees so stay tuned but in the meantime if you if people have um thoughts um about your um committee and what kind of scope you would like to see or what functions you envision for yourself um please feel feel free to share those with me any questions on all of that okay um um great now we're on to school committee reports um report of the chair I will just say um really pleased with um the the training tonight I think that was a one of the big strategic things that we we wanted to do this year and uh really grateful for Liz for coming and for the the work that

170was done to to coordinate all of that so um from the administration so thank you all very much so we'll move on to report of the budget and finance subcommittee um member Martini do you want to give a report yes uh so budget and finance had a meeting on May 1 and the uh items covered were an update on fy2 budget and also an annual budget calendar for the school committee uh and to sum up uh R DeBarge provided a summary of discussion that took place um uh her presentation to the city council Ways and Means Committee uh at which she answered uh questions along the lines of uh items about staff changes line item fluctuations the church parking lot rental uh at and uh and Christine you admitted comment you wondered if you uh

171talked too long but I have watched that meeting I thought you did a great job um we'll pass that along to her Christine left before the superintendent evaluation presentation sorry I must have Miss that uh in any case uh following that uh she provided alongside Andy an update in regards to uh the FY 25 budget so uh to put in a very small nutshell uh essentially as you all know the mayor recommended a 4% budget increase rather than the 5.86 uh that was voted by the school committee which results in a $400 and some thousand difference and uh fortunately we will be able to make up most of that because of a billing issue with the bus company through which we will have a substantial credit as well as using uh some of our special

172education revolving and as a result of that we will be uh provided that the city council goes ahead and um appropriates the amount of money proposed by the mayor we should be able to avoid losing staff uh and following that discussion uh we talked about an annual budget calendar this is something that many school committees around the Commonwealth have and something that I have learned about through uh other trainings provided by the Massachusetts Association of school commun um attended previously and uh we began a discussion about developing one for green fields and this is not something that we have had up to now and uh so we began with reviewing samples from other school committees around the Commonwealth and I would encourage um anybody interested in this topic to go on the website and take

173a look through the meeting materials for that May 1st meeting so that you can see what I am talking about um we were able to go over themes that could be pulled out from this uh set of examples from other committees and uh those themes relate to time frames for uh important parts of the budget development cycle um such as for example um when school committees adopt their annual budget calendar which usually takes place at the beginning of the school year and then important points along the way um such as when Capital Improvement project requests uh are in when budget instructions and forms are distributed to leadership and when they're due back and are reviewed with Administration and um when a review of the FY next uh budget development is provided to the school committee

174so that the committee can identify its budget priorities within that and uh then of course come all of the annual items that most people think of as budget season um such as a preliminary budget presentation to the subcommittee and then to the school committee and a posting and a public hearing and uh and a vote by the school committee and presentation to city council so uh what is evident from looking at many um examples from committees around the Commonwealth is that there's uh a purpose to having an annual budget calendar for the committee and also for I think the public uh for the committee the idea is to help us to uh take a more organized approach to our responsibility in regards to to the budget um as one of the three main goals of

175the school committee and um for the public you will see that there is alignment um of committee time frames alongside um Administration the city and the state so that a person can have an at a glance view of a comprehensive big picture understanding of budget development uh and so we had a a good discussion about this and the next step will be to develop a preliminary draft of a uh of a budget calendar for Greenfield school committee so uh I would encourage anyone like I said interested to go ahead and take a look at the materials that were posted and please um feel free to share your feedback thank you so much wow I'm impressed okay any questions or comments from the committee not seeing any thank you so much member Martini um policy and

176program subcommittee our work is visible to you on the agenda that we did tonight uh there is not more I I don't think at this moment but if there are policies ever policies you have questions about or want us to take a fresh look at certainly let us know we could put it on one of our agendas um the executive subcommittee did not meet uh redistricting and reorganizing at hoc committee we also did not meet did not meet did the school committee handbook ad hoc committee meet we did not meet but I'll be pulling for a meeting in June great okay and uh we approved the contract tonight so thank you very much member ston for your hard work on that bargaining committee and our collaborative representative position was vacant this month so um we

177don't have anything on that City Planning and construction rep uh the regularly scheduled April meet not April May meeting sorry is next Tuesday okay wonderful uh we've had our legislative report our mask report and the district Wellness uh rep was uh vacant as well this month um so I think we can move on to adjournment I move that we adjourn ah excellent all right who was the second Melody remember good one okay all right all those in favor uh any discussion all those in favor of adjourning I I I I won't abstain from that one we are adjourned at what time is it my classes 9:22 9:22 p.m. thank you everybody that's the longest one we've had [Music]