001welcome to the Greenfield Public Schools policy subcommittee meeting um we'll start with a call um member Priti here member uh Den here and I'm Glenn Johnson mad and I'm here so call the meeting to order at 11:02 um your recording for broadcast on gctv if any other person's present or also recording you must notify the chairperson at this time hearing none okay don't see anyone here for public comment um I saw the minutes from October did we get the minutes from February I might have missed it I did and they were emailed um so Annie our new um school committee and admin oh there they are great is here she sent them on my behalf excellent you watch the video and create them for us wonderful and I'm looking at them and they are digestible
002even in a minute so I appreciate that so I would hear a motion to um approve both sets of minutes so moved is there a second second um any discussion all in favor oh I guess I should uh call the roll Calla remember genive yes remember fretti yes and I'm a yes all right superintendent if you would uh give us the overview wellness policy yes yeah what we're doing here with the wellness policy yeah so first um does it help if I share my screen I think so yeah okay um so one one thing let's go all right is that we are referring to it as the wellness program because the school committee has a policy that re requires the creation of a program to implement the policy so that's really what this represents and
003Amy I believe you've you've spoken to that point at meetings previously um I believe so we'll go through um I will go through there has been quite a bit of you know grammatical clean up um just can you uh change the view please Christine if you got a view and Page width or something like that um no I mean within that document there's a view uh uh see a file edit view yes what is it you'd like to see oh oh maybe I oh I'm not sure you want it big is that what you want you want it big yeah just think you're looking for magnification fit that's what you want you want to see it Glenn I to see it now I can see it give a um okay so there are some broad
004areas of focus for um the district to support Wellness districtwide these are some general things I'm not going to go through all of this you folks have this most of this is very much the same as what you got in the materials for the subcommittee meeting like I said there's been a little bit of cleanup around grammar and things like that um nutrition guidelines speaks to the health pieces that we follow the lunch Services um a couple of points for discussion vending machines are not are not available during the school day so if they have been they won't be um so that's you know that's part of the guidelines from uh desie and all of our health and wellness connections that um no vending machines allowed during the school day um all of this is
005about you know serving meals that follow the um national food service program national school lunch and breakfast programs um there are a lot of things that we will strive to do but there are some things that I think think I'm going to point out to you folks that I think might raise an eyebrow um because even though they've been in the health and wellness program I'm not sure that they've actually really been enforced which we're going to need to the first being we um you know know food as rewards basically in this program we're talking about the fact that we are not going to have food in classrooms for birthday celebrations holiday celebrations so parents um or Guardians will not be able to send in cupcakes for the class to celebrate the child's birthday or
006things like that they shouldn't be doing it now but this reinforces that um so that's you know I think there may be some reaction to it but as long as you know administratively we know that the committee supports the work that's identified in this program um then you know that's I think that's the important thing from an administrative standpoint um so all of this again that we'll have water available um the other thing that's going to be a little bit of a difference is that we are saying in this that we're not going to Market food items that don't comply with the snack standards and basically the national school lunch program so that means we will not be advertising the butter braid fundraiser it can go home it can happen but we're not going to
007put posters up in school anymore about Butter Braids because that doesn't follow the guidelines so I mean you folks have to decide if this is what you want I'm telling you what it says I'm at a disadvantage because I'm not a parent what oh Butter Braids Glen listen those are good they're um pastries Frozen pastries and you defrost them you put them in the oven and they're like fruit filed Danish but it's a thing yeah they're highly processed highly processed which is why they taste so good yes they do taste good I gotta say I I unmuted though just to quickly interrupt that in my experience with both of my kids there have not been food rewards in the classroom at in any at any level um we've never had that we don't yeah we've
008always known that that was the rule so I don't think that piece will be too big of a of an issue I think maybe for our our families coming into the district you know preschool kindergarten um that might be a little bit of a change but I'm I'm glad that folks who sort of start here stay here are familiar with it um okay the other thing I guess I'd like to point out is this program is really um regulation procedure it's not really policy um I guess the you folks would have to talk about um whether you vote or not but I think you know when Melissa and I spoke about it um you the committee as a whole um making a decision if you're going to support it I think is is something I
009would appreciate apprciate if you would consider so that um everybody knows that the school committee is in support of these steps um I think that would be but just point for discussion okay so I see Elizabeth's hand up Elizabeth do you have a question I do I was wondering um when you were talking about Butter Braids and and such and food food rewards how does that um how does that work with Valentine day because I know that's a big thing also does that also cover cover that or are they not going to be doing that anymore no food for Valentine's Day shouldn't be doing it now okay just a question because I know that's a big one too okay thank you yeah I I agree with you completely it's it's a big one um so
010the allergy precautions this these are things that we do you know um we are not we're talking about being nut safe in the Greenfield schools um so we will have nutree areas in each cafeteria students cannot share food um and then certainly we have if there are classrooms where there are allergies we do communicate with families about your child in this classroom can't bring not foods to school um but on the whole our district is not n safe not nut free um then celebrations and rewards um so this impact ice cream social for Honor role at the high school would be gone um they could do it after school that certainly could happen they could do it after school um we could give certificates for an allaha cart purchase through the food service department if
011wanted to honor our students at the high school who got honor rooll there are things that we can do but we could not do the ice cream social that is as it is currently held I mean Amy I know you were on the subcommittee so you yell if I'm saying something that's different than the discussion but um no no that's all accurate it also noted that on the um subcommittee it was never discussed in that way there was not that level of discuss discussion about that specifically I did um all the building administrators had multiple opportunities and reminders to review this so um they should have um so the um so no there will be food for curriculum related activities will still be permitted Taste of World cultures is still something that can happen if
012a um Elementary classroom is reading about um a different country and the teacher wants to do a food tasting from that area of the country to enhance the unit that's the type of thing that could still occur working with the school nurse um Greta to support that but outside of that no classroom cele celebrations will have food we also have an insurance issue if people bring food in from outside um people who provide food to the schools their insurance would actually be liable if something happens um it would be on the person who sent the food so I would certainly um I would not want to take on that responsibility so the other thing is there's some physical um elements that we're supporting recess every day at the elementary and middle schools um on full
013days we don't do recess on really release days but we're not doing them now um speaking to collaboration with the city to make sure that our recess spaces are um meeting safety standards I don't know if you folks realize but the rec department does all of the wood chips for our playgrounds they do um um the equipment on our playgrounds and DPW does the um lawn and yard maintenance so to speak for all schools except the high school we pay for a private vendor to take care of the lawn at the high school but um and then of course we want to make sure that our students who have disabilities can participate in all of our recess and physical activities um PE we do require PE up through and including High School is a graduation
014requirement so that is not being changed um there's no replacement for PE that that's we don't recognize um any other activity for PE requirements um and these are the standards National PE standards other activities that promote student wellness that we'll try to do things before and after school that encourage physical activity healthy eating um being Mindful and promoting not using uh Vapes or electronic cigarettes and then um strive to have joint use agreements with Community Partners we do with the rec department for example um and then the in whoops sorry then the integration of the social emotional competencies and continuing to work to um have all of our staff implement the social um social emotional learning competencies excuse me and to integrate those into curriculum when able which we are able and then to support
015um cultural linguistic diversity I think one of our best best um examples of that is Taste of world cultures so we continue to do that um we also um another example of this is working with our um there was a sports banquet where families actually um cooked and brought in food and um Mike ceski our athletic director worked with um chef yaffy at the high school to ensure that students from the days in who do represent um different cultures had the ability to cook um to contribute to that banquet um if they chose to and then some General Health Services this speaks to a lot of our nursing support Health um information going out I'm sure you have all seen information about our dental program and vaccine clinics so that's all something related to this
016staff Wellness um this is something you likely have not seen that we do send out information about um Wellness programs through the health insurance and there are other benefits such as um discounts on gym memberships things like that that all come through the insurance and Greta actually has a very nice staff lunch program it's for a cost but staff can order a variety of healthy food choices on a daily basis and I have partaken many times and they are very good and for a very reasonable price um physical that members ever come and um participate in that haven't Glenn but if you want a meal we will get you the menu I want to have lunch with you sometime you absolutely can you tell me uh listen though I'm going to tell you if it's
017nugget and tater hot day I'm eating a kid lunch so that I eat I will say I do eat kid lunches I said that when I got here that I would eat student food and I do and it's good so um physical environment really this is all thing I appreciate that it's reiterated but it really is required um that we have health and safety process and protocols and that we have to monitor air quality and ventilation and all of that as you know we have to be tobacco free um you've heard quite a bit Christine sorry I just Elizabeth has her hand up could we suspend our normal laws of RS of order and just have an informal conversation and Elizabeth if you want to pipe in you can okay thank you um yeah I
018was wondering um why if you could tell me why we do not allow um substitutions for PE such as Sports and other activities I don't know I don't know if Karen knows the history of that but what I can tell you clearly is that the health and wellness committee did not want to substitute um Karen do you know any history I can't hear Karen Christine you need to mute if Karen's gonna talk at her computer no she's talking at her at my computer I was talking so you weren't missing anything um historically probably I'd say six or seven years ago we did have this conversation at the high school in consideration of changing grad requirements however um at the time there was very few uh equitable athletic schedules that we thought would meet the PE
019requirements with desie so you pretty much had to be a thre sport athlete or do something all year long in order to equate to the desie guidelines and regs or you know marching band was only for you know eight events or something and the hours that you're required to have physical activity just didn't equate and we could never figure out how to make that work so that it was equitable to a PE requirement so I mean you certainly could revisit graduation requirements but currently the way they stand there is no substitution because the uh equitability of what the activity was didn't actually meet the hours from desie I understand this came up at the yelo conference this was one of the things that the the kids really wanted to talk about was having um was
020having the option to look at PE substitution so I want to make sure that I understand why and maybe figure out a way that we can have a follow-up conversation so that they know that we've looked into it and and understand it and so that they understand it um but um so maybe there's like a little bit of Outreach we could do there or something but um that came up so much so I wanted to find out because I know that we don't have a state law that says that we cannot do substitutions so I don't know if there's some literature that we can pass on or data we can collect um you know to pass on to the community on that yeah I mean it's just important that we're we're clear about what the
021administration will do and what the school committee will do so when we say we we mean the administration would would address that um if we want to change the policy or look at that that's the school committee role but in terms of the communication with the students and and everything that would be the superintendent's do domain thank you for the clarification one of the questions I was going to ask was um Elizabeth did the students actually indicate that they had talked with Derek about this question because he has not brought it to me suggesting to me they've not talked to him that's a really good question and I'm not sure about that because that's a question that I was always asking them have they gone up the chain of command properly and um made their
022desires known and so I don't know if they have and I think that they feel a little unsure about how to do that that always comes up too so it could be that they really wanted and don't know how to voice it or maybe they tried to and it didn't work or you know I don't really know so that's why I'm just putting it out there because that was a really strong request and I want to make sure that I can say that I've gone through this list and I understand it but I mean I don't know that they would I'll um I'll follow up with Derek um students generally know how to get in touch with one of the administrators at the high school but I will um follow up administratively about that question
023I mean what's nice about yellow is it kind of creates this Zone where the students feel like okay this is a place where I can talk and be heard and you know sometimes I think it's harder when you have to take the initiative yourself as a student to talk to an adult about something where the answer could be yes or it could be no and so it's difficult to initiate that conversation sometimes but hopefully they will sure but I will follow up thank you um thank you sure any other or am I good to zip through physical environment I think you're good okay so the physical environment we had talked about some of these things are required like tobacco free buildings and grounds we have our safety protocols youve you've certainly heard plenty of that
024um so Facilities Management Mike Buro works with principes every day about the building you know environment and building related issues um prohibit advertising on school property of foods and beverages not available for sale in the district schools again that kind of goes back to some of the fundraiser um restrictions and even a recommendation from this committee subcommittee to avoid participating in fundraisers that don't support the message that's consistent with this so that would be you know do we do the butter braid fundraiser I think pto's would have an opinion on that because my perception is they they're rather lucrative um so again the way it's written is recommend right correct intentionally yeah so not really about it's not really about saying absolutely not know how no it's just saying this is the recommended best practice
025right yeah and you know the question could be had is is a PTO fundraiser really the school because it is a separate entity yeah so um just a point for discussion what the school would be participating in it right what we do is give the information to students to take home to deal with outside of school yeah so I guess that's the part where we're we are participating in it by giving them information about it um we participate well yeah I mean it's a it's a thin because we send information home about a lot of things that aren't okay sponsored events but yeah I appreciate the the sort of the discussion about what that really looks like but yeah so family engagement we want families we want parents um community members to sit on the
026wellness committee there's a requirement that the wellness committee meet intermittently every school year and do an assessment of our wellness program every 3 years so we'll continue to um look for families to serve on that um just again communication um desires things that we will strive for um this is the accountability piece that every three years that we would review make sure we meet the requirement there is the um hyperlinks are live so that's um helpful and then policy and program updates so really the wellness committee would be making recommendations to the superintendent and the policy subcommittee about any changes that need to be considered for the wellness policy how does the um how does the food reward policy oh maybe this has nothing to do with it but what about for example the PTO
027wants to do teacher appreciation and are thinking of a coffee bar for teachers does that then not is that not okay is that he this Wellness is not about staff okay I just wanted to make sure okay yeah thank you um we encourage healthy behaviors from staff especially in school but I think you know the PTO sponsoring um you know coffee and maybe the PTO would think about doing fruit and whole grain muffins instead of donuts in Danish or something to that effect and you'd be super in line but this really does not affect um adults so that's it that's the end there's some resources linked at the end which I think are helpful um and that's that's it I mean I don't want to say that's it that's a lot of work and it
028talks it's a lot of reflection about our um practices that need to be clarified and shared and um can I stop sharing or do you want to look at anything else okay I'm gonna stop sharing it's fine with me yeah okay so um I might need a little refresher so on our February 14th meeting when we voted on the wellness policy that was before these revisions or was that a different policy no it was it was this it was the what we've since redubbed as the program you know further conversation about unless this group would like to change what's in the policy manual and replace it with this but you know this is really implementation as opposed to um I don't want to say theory that doesn't sound right um um but more of the
029belief system this is more the implementation so yeah so then let's see um this the school committee voted on it in February now there are some changes so is the question I guess we're hearing kind of like two questions one do we don't vote on it we basically it's not really vote to approve but vote to endorse or support the superintendent in carrying out the program and then do we need to essentially do that again because there have been some changes since the last meeting think it was last voted on um you can I I don't think the changes were substantive 95% of the changes were grammar okay you know um just making lists of things have the same tents and things like that so 95% of it was grammar there were a few things
030that we took out like there had been a line in there saying that that um staff had access to the wellness equipment in the schools before and after school we don't see a functional way for that to actually happen I don't know how Elementary or middle school teachers would have access to the high school fitness equipment at at random hours so we um when I say we that was um Melissa and I sat and went through and just looked at some things that had been recommended but you know weren't necessarily functional like that we took out lines that were redundant in like four places it said that we'd provide um health related information to families so we took those out in a couple places left it in one um but those I mean that's but
031certainly we can resend it out you could do a new first read if if that's what you folks prefer to do well again it we did it as part of the consent agenda and not as like an official first reading of a policy and I think that kind of makes sense because it's not actually a policy so it won't require the two readings and everything like that um I just want to maybe because it was in the consent agenda I don't know if we really broadcasted or support enough for it which seems to be part of what I'm hearing from you that you would like from us or is that could we just hear at this um meeting just vote to endorse it and shair that as a report of the policy meeting at the
032next meeting or something like that what works for you in terms of getting basically getting the backup you need from the school committee on this I think what whichever part if if having it as a report under policy and then a group endorsement makes it um stand out that would be great great okay um well then um I move that we as the policy subcommittee um endorse the health program as presented by the superintendent so moved okay I got a motion is there a second yeah second all right any discussion um I have a couple of things yeah so this is not directly related but regarding the conversation around um the uh Sports and um being able to count as PE um so you mentioned grad requirements Christine you have to refresh my memory is
033that a school committee thing setting graduation requirements it's a poliy I yeah I don't know that we have like do we I don't think we've done that on an annual basis like how do we've never talked about grad requirements in my experience on school committee um so that was just that's just kind of a question I don't want to do anything with it I don't like I want it sounds like there's more information from the students in a discussion with the principal that really should be the starting point but I it brought up for me oh graduation requirements like what do we do with those how often do we look at that um we have not had a reason to request the school committee vote to change them sure um but I would expect that
034has not been part of one of the sections yet so yeah okay that was my followup question is yes all right um and then thank you and then similarly I know the discussion that we had at the wellness committee was that um school committee could either create a wellness policy that says we endorse this program or if we already have it we would revise it to make sure it reflects that and I don't remember where we left that and I can't in a quick review even find something that we have that exists that addresses Wellness but I'm probably wrong we have a wellness policy it was and I'm not trying to quiz anyone to find it or no there's a link in this document to the school committee policy oh great okay looking um okay
035it it's fairly generic and basic says will oh well there was a link in this document and we can read say I didn't see it but I could I definitely could have missed it let me no there was there is a policy that speaks to Wellness um and I will look for it the title of it is School District wellness policy um remember what section it was in I never can figure out the sections they're not they don't correspond to anything that makes oh right now it's a mishmash too okay all right um I'll send it out to the three of you and I'll I'll link it back in here um it's pretty generic and generic enough that like we probably already covered in terms of should we review it and make sure it I
036don't believe it's in a section that's been reviewed already so the even better we'll find it we'll find it on our journey that is fine with me yeah that it says the school committee will ensure this that we Implement health and safety guidelines or something that generic okay and then I just have thank you for that and I just have one last thing and it's just a a little bit of kind of political stuff um you know and mainly towards uh chair Johnson mad I am um revisiting often still the way that um City councilors addressed the school committee budget at the last city council meeting and uh I I um applaud you uh the way you handled it um and this to me I one of the things that I haven't resolved yet in
037terms of the commentary from from city councilors is in regard to when when I was in school in the Greenfield Public Schools we only had a principal we didn't have assistant principles and um this whole process and the wellness program and all of the things that desie requires around this are yet another piece of why we are often feeling like there is this real tug between you know saying oh we're topheavy or you know we have too much administrative staff and also being confident as a district that we are meeting regulations and requirements and able to also leverage those things to have ask for the resources that we need for our students and I just am really the you know hearing a counselor talk that way and then seeing what we are going through regularly
038and what the administration goes through regularly to meet Des um is should tell you everything you need to know and then I'll stop politicking about all of it that was the last thing I wanted to say and thank you for the time thank you for your comment any other discussion before we vote on the indorsement [Music] motion uh I guess I'm just gonna app Pine a little bit it's kind of interesting I could definitely see where we're going and you know it's it makes so much sense to me to separate like celebrations from food and there's students who can't eat certain foods and you know there's ways that it reinforces unhealthy behaviors and all that at the same time these things are so deeply wor woven into a culture I think it takes a longer
039time than just writing up a program and just immediately you know it's it seems like our community is probably stretched enough by the no cupcakes thing before we start tackling Butter Braids you know it's like just kind of take taking the community meeting them where they are and taking it one step at a time I guess so now I want to try those Butter Braids very badly but I I'm I'm assuming they're not vegan Butter Braids I appreciate your thought GL and I think that we can um I think the wording in some of the sections regarding strive to yeah suggest recommend we we fairly intentional yeah yeah exactly that's great yeah um and I was quickly trying to find the health and wellness policy and of course I can't I know but we'll find
040it I could either so it makes two of it will be all easily accessible and searchable shortly yes all right are we ready to vote my friends okay remember PRI yes member denie yes and I'm a yes so our endorsement passes thank you and thanks to everybody for their hard work on this okay we'll put it on the school committee agenda for Wednesday yeah that'd be great perfect thank you okay um and um with that I think I would hear a motion to adjourn so moved is there a second second okay let's vote member forti yes member genive I keep wanting to say Omar oh I know I'm sorry I couldn't get that to change but um yes and I'm member Johnson mad and I'm a yes and we are adjourned at 11