Greenfield School Committee Meeting - December 13, 2023

001[Music] good evening this is the Greenfield Public Schools school committee meeting it's Wednesday December 13 2023 we're at the Johns on Community Center 35 Pleasant Street uh gctv is recording this meeting should the meeting extend beyond 5:00 p.m. a 5 minute break four members of the committee will be observed we're did I say 6 PM did I really I am so sorry should the meeting extend beyond 800 PM a f minute break will for school committee members will be observed thank you all for being observant and we'll move right into the agenda with a roll call please secretary extrom member denie here secretary exom I am here member Johnson mad I am here Mr chair Martini here chair pretti here member wall here we're here um mayor wed Gartner is not expected and do we

002have a quorum yes we do have a quorum we have a quum we are called to order at 6:01 p.m. I can tell it is going to be a good meeting uh we'll move into approval of minutes we have three sets of minutes to review and I would take a motion to approve alog together the three sets of minutes from November 8th November 14 and November 20 so moved wait there's a mistake that let's second it first okay and then please second thank you and the mistake is please which set on November the uh 8th it is where the chair down at the first page JW chair in the second sentence wanted to create equity not inequity second line do you see it there Susan Farber thank you other Corrections okay we'll move to a

003vote anyone abstaining any no votes all hold on please go ahead we need to do a friendly Amendment for with that uh approval of the minutes with the suggested edit as opposed to as they see oh sure so we'll yeah we'll yes we'll approve with the suggested edit as once corrected um any any no votes any extensions so that passes unanimously and we'll go to public comment uh Susan Farber who's our first person just go ahead and give us your name and the town you live in and then you have three minutes Alex coie I'm from Greenfield I have some notes here sorry let me pull them up hello my name is Alex gly I've been fortunate to live in Greenfield for the past 12 years I'm a parent of two elementary students in in

004the district I'm grateful and appreciative of the work the district and the committee have done all the time required to overcome challenges and affect positive change in our schools for our children I'm also grateful to all the teachers and administrators districtwide for their hard work and dedication I agree with the changes proposed to keep fifth graders in elementary school I agree with redistricting to make all of our schools populations reflect the diversity of our community I don't agree with this happening right now the decision laid out before the committee is a false dichotomy we do not need to displace young children from the school communities they've come to know and are comfortable in in order to achieve redistricting and keeping fifth grade in elementary school a group of children who have already had their comfort

005routine and normaly so disrupted by the pandemic with the closing of their dayc carees preschool schools remote learning cancelling of activ ities quarantining and isolating from friends and family we can achieve these goals and put into action the work of this district and committee without displacing disrupting and having a negative impact on the children of both in District choice and those whose home school would be changed simply by allowing students to stay in their current schools while phasing out interdistrict choice and phasing in redistricting we can have the desired positive impact on students while eliminating the negative impact on all the kids who would be uprooted both of my children are in District Choice my wife and I made this decision based upon geographical convenience we made this decision under the guise that this would

006be the school our children would attend and stay for their Elementary School career as recently is the beginning of the school year when enrolling our kindergarten many other parents have made the same decision for different reasons but under the same premise and promise and other parents still whose home school will be changed through redistricting will lose the choice to keep their kids in the school Community they have made their own and our comfortable in children are resilient and adaptable to change however haven't we asked this generation of kids to be resilient and adaptable enough to change in their young lives so far because of the stress a change in school could cause our children my wife and my initial plan was not to not discuss the possibility of a change in school with them until

007it was decided however our daughter found out through her friends at school that this was a possibility before we had the opportunity to talk to her she went directly from finding this out at school to crafting without any guidance or feedback from us a letter to read at the next school committee meeting that night well as a parent I had mixed feelings about her speaking during public comment I felt the importance of empowering her to be heard as an advocate for herself outweighed my qualms I'm glad that in doing so one member of the committee's response calling her a third grade child who has her own personal challenges entitled did not register I also forgive this member as I know she just like all of us has the greater good of our children and community

008at heart this being said I would ask the committee to make their decision based upon the wants and needs of the kids it will affect and not anyone's Personal Agenda we've heard from children and parents of intradistrict choice who do not want to have to relocate what about all the students and their parents whose home school would be changed shouldn't this be a choice for them as well not an imposed decision these two groups were given an exp expectation of stability when they began Elementary School Alex I got to ask you to wrap it up we'll do thank you so in closing why risk the negative impact on all the students who would be relocated to achieve a goal that can still be achieved if we just delay implementation if these changes to redistrict and

009move fifth graders to improve our schools and help our kids why force them now and create a negative impact on these same schools and children if we exercise prudence and patience this will create the greatest change in the long term with this I thank the district and committee for creating a great plan and ask them to wait and implement it when it can have the greatest benefit without any negative impact on those is intended to help thank you for your time sorry for going over you're okay thank you just your name and where you live and you have three minutes hi everyone my name is Stacy ston I live here in town um I have sort of two items that I wanted to touch on in the three minutes the first is support for intr

010districting or for support for the redistricting without intradistrict Choice yeah I can support for redistricting without intradistrict choice and I recognize that this is a difficult issue for many people including the person who just came up and spoke but but when I was reviewing all of the work that had been previously done on this issue by the members of this committee and members of of the school administration it seemed like the choice to redistrict without intradistrict Choice was the one that had the clearest number of benefits the fewest numbers of negatives and the fewest open questions that are let yet to be resolved um and when you're making policy that's sort of like the perfect trifecta that you go on when you make decisions um I recognize that for some students this will be a

011very impactful decision but as someone who attended two of every type of school two Elementary two middle and two high schools because I had to move around as a child your kid is going to be okay I know it's going to be difficult at first but like you mentioned they are resilient and it doesn't have to be as traumatic as it you know might seem um so I just wanted to voice my support for that the second issue is that um you know I'm going to be on joining you in just a few short weeks and I've been getting contacted already by certain folks um alerting me to issues that they would like me to raise on their behalf so I'm doing that um the issue that has been brought to me is about volunteering

012in schools and I have a a question which obviously you can't answer but has there been a change in the way that the policies for visitors especially parents are being enforced um one parent alerted me to their in their Elementary ENT classroom they were no longer able to join their child for a gingerbread making activity and that actually the whole gingerbread making activity itself was getting scrapped because the whole point was to bring parents into the classroom to be with their kids and that they were told the teacher was told and the parents were told that this was disallowed that for me is a mixed message when I hear we want volunteers we want more Community Support we need parent involvement and yet we're making it somehow more difficult or nebulous as even to how

013to go about doing it that's just like we're working at Cross purposes um and so I just wanted to raise that as something for you all to to hopefully look into thank you thank you just State your full name and where you live and you have three minutes sure um my name is Seth Melon and I'm a parent of two Elementary age students in the Greenfield Public School System I'm speaking speaking tonight over the concern of the estimated increase in class sizes of the elementary schools and the proposed changes to be voted on tonight this increase in class sizes and decrease in the number of classroom teachers as best I can tell is a result of trying to fit fifth grade into the three elementary schools while many parents during the listening sessions of 20202

014expressed a strong desire to move fifth grade out of the Middle School it was not made clear or at least I didn't fully understand that an effect of such a move would be a substantial increase in class sizes in the elementary schools to be clear if the option is to have fifth grade in the elementary schools and have bigger class sizes or to have smaller class sizes in fifth grade in the middle school I personally would rather have um the Greenfield school committee prioritize um small class sizes it seems imp imperative to me not to make a voluntary decision that increases the number of student to um teacher ratio um there are many reasons for this most notably all children will likely receive less individual attention to to um get the help that they need

015to be at or above grade level in reading and math and as a result of large class sizes many families that live in Greenfield May Choice out so that their children can be in smaller class sizes in surrounding towns um I greatly appreciate that you all listened to the parents of Greenfield students and are trying to act several changes in response to those repeated concerns um it was not until the last three months or so that I understood moving fifth grade into the three elementary schools would cause such an estimated um increase in class size and I'm concerned that many other parents may also be surprised at the outcome and when given the choice would ask that you prioritize classroom size um if your plan is to hire more assistance to support the larg larger

016classroom sizes I would like to point out that it seems to me that Greenfield is having a hard time finding and retaining assistance for example my son's kindergarten class does not currently have an assistant teacher it seems more strategic to me to keep great teach the great teachers we already have than to create a scenario where we have to solicit other highquality classroom staff that may not materialize I understand that my preferences may be different than many other parents and stakeholders of the city and I ask that now that you've created a plan that fits within the budget and addresses some clearly stated concerns um please wait to enact the plan until you have had broad feedback from parents indicating that they understand the ramifications of the plan and want to move forwards with it

017much like you formally asked for feedback in the listening sessions of thanks thank you I'm sorry I didn't I didn't catch your name could you say that again Seth Melon thank you I wrote a list getting organized at my old age is your name first where you live three minutes web I live in Greenfield um I listened to the budget meeting the other day um I was really happy to hear talking about fixing the elevator at Federal Street School you know it's one of these things we can't keep putting a Band-Aid on over and over and over again and I know it's a lot of money but I feel like it's a long overdue lot of money so I hope that when it comes around we're able to get creative and find a way to

018make sure that both sides the North and the South side of Federal Street School are fixed um I mean we can talk about the fact that it's going to take six years for intradistrict kids to phase out six years is what the number was that I heard when I was listening to the budget meeting which seems like a long time for something that has already been going on for four years another topic is as Stacy already touched on was the visitor verse volunteer supervised versed unsupervised how there's been some miscommunication possibly I'm hoping down the pipeline that's not allowing parents to participate in classroom activities while being supervised by a classroom teacher I know that when I volunteered for the book fair I had to be fingerprinted and qued and even though I was supervised

019the whole time by the gym teacher who happened to be in the gym and I could visibly see the office from my location I was still fingerprinted and qued and watched every movie and read every document or slideshow as you would like to say so I'm just trying to figure out because I've read through a bunch of policies and it doesn't say anything specific when I read stuff it says we encourage parents to participate so how are we encouraging parents to come and participate to make gingerbread houses with their with their with their child or caregivers with their child if we are telling them they need to be fingerprinted and cored to come into the school to participate in the classroom event supervised I did send out an email and I did get a response

020back a delayed response at that back that didn't really clarify my answer um it just seems that there's more to this topic or again there's some miscommunication I know when I I listened again to the budget meeting it did say that the people who are going to do the elevator didn't want to get fingerprinted but we are still allowing them into our building they would just need to be supervised so I don't understand how that same procedure wouldn't apply to parents of students is where I was curious um I was again you know we talk about the differences between elementary schools back to budget there was some discussion about some fencing money that was going to be transferred from one school to another school that needed fencing and it was for me I'm like okay

021so we're not putting this money in this school for fencing is there another area we should be putting it into in this school instead of taking away this money to put it into another school thank you thank you anyone else for public comment don't be shy okay thank you all we will move on to it's just one to me brother it is um the other one had his wisdom teeth out today so naturally he's taking the day off um be a little surprised if he was here but we're going to start with student council as per usual um the student council completed another successful Spirit Week the week before um Thanksgiving students Dred in various themed outfits during the week which was captured by the yearbook staff which turned into a slideshow at the end

022of the pep rally the lip sync theme was musical artists and each grade gave an amazing performance the senior class took home the well-deserved Victory with their Taylor Swift mashup throughout the week we had penny wars and collected $566 for Special Olympics this money will be part of our donation to the upcoming Polar Plunge in March looking forward to our December events of ugly sweater day staff appreciation breakfast potluck dinner and pep rally in December Key Club is making a positivity campaign based on student responses at the Turkey Trot we're creating a food pantry for students to combat food insecurity um and the Key Club is serving as elves at the Salvation Army and Christmas party and they are baking cookies and Stone Soup Cafe to help their fundraising efforts um they meet after school

023on Thursdays winter sports have started and hockey's first game is this Friday and the girls basketball start on 1214 and indoor track on 1217 all schedules are on Arbiter live and we hope to see you at an EV um Library club's book to movie filmfest series started two Fridays ago and a well attended showing of the new liveaction version of The Little Mermaid and will continue mon monthly all the way up to March the next film they are showing is a haunting in Venice on January 15th which is based on AA Agatha Christie's book the Halloween party copies of the book are available for students to borrow in ghs library and families are invited to read along by borrowing books from the Greenfield Public Library who co-host these events this film series is free and

024open to the public um French Club will host their annual or their biannual Coffee House event on Thursday December 14th from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. in the ghs auditorium you can come hear performances from students and staff enjoy some coffee and Ender Raffles for cash a KitchenAid stand mixer Yankee Candles and more it's $5 for admission uh to support French Club and their trip to France in April drama club has become rehearsals for their play myth adventures and our student actors are having lots of fun and making great progress they're currently seeking volunteer community members with expertise in stage management or technical theater to potentially Workshop or Mentor our student crew as they reive the revive the multifaceted Club um you can contact Anna Hartman at an har1 gpsk12.org if you would like to help

025out um and the last thing yesterday an email was sent out in regards to continued misuse of student restrooms to parents um it highlighted a lot of negative language and vandalism that occurred leading to request of parents to Aid in the enforcement of those infringed upon policies this speak speaks to a larger issue as a whole that's been continue on for a multitude of years the actions of the students who committed those infractions do not represent the stance of the student population as a whole who grow weary of the continued shutdowns and setbacks we are just as eager as everybody else to see strides made forward and to have the school return to its functional standard of normaly um that concludes what I have to say but if you have any questions I would be

026happy to answer thank you Shane any questions please remember Johnson musan I was just wondering if you were setting the rules and the policies how you would address the issue with the bathrooms I can't give an accurate answer right now in hesty um because I don't know the full story um I think having repercussions serious ones um or at least holding people accountable for the actions is the biggest part at least from a student perspective I've seen a lot of people just kind of walking off scottf free without what appears to be any R percussions so making it a a little more known as to where the standard is and what is being tolerated um and again I don't have the full picture so I can't say for sure whether or not that is happening

027or not thank you any other questions or comments for our student representative thank you Mr Tumi have a wonderful holiday break okay so we'll move into item five budget update uh business manager Andy pette has a holiday concert to attend for his one of his children tonight and so he's been given permission to not be here and uh Christine's going to give the budget update okay so the um all of you got the reports from the most after the most recent warrant there is um there there are a few places where as we've talked about before you may see some negative numbers that's because at this stage um one example is the preschool tuition account because we do not have all of the projected Revenue because the year is not completed so that status should

028change um circuit breaker also you know Andy has talked about many times that as the year progresses we reclass expenses from one account to the the other so that we eliminate deficits um by charging the things to the account in which they were budgeted um so that will happen in January and the same is true for school choice and the special ed tuition account so in general those costs are charged to the local and then um periodically throughout the year we reclassify expenses in chunks rather than um doing them all individually as we get funds in um for the revolving accounts so um in terms of salary We are continuing to review um We are continuing to review our salary because we do have some open positions so we're looking at encumbrances to ensure that

029we're adjusting appropriately um and then the operating expenses nothing out of the ordinary has occurred we are tracking as expected um in terms of expenses at this point I just will share that the committee knows well that that can change at any point but at this point um we're tracking as expected thank you do we have questions or comments from any school committee members about the budget I'm not seeing any if it's okay I had included the um I can talk about the budget hearing timeline now or in my report it's in both places so whichever let's save it for your report then yeah since it's because it's written out in the report that's fine whatever is preferred okay thank you um Okay so we've got now items six seven and eight on the agenda

030related to our ongoing discussion on redistricting um and uh that involves a number of different I guess moving Parts is the best way to describe it um so I thought it'd be helpful to start with an update as far as where we are at because in in between meetings um discussions continue at all levels and and um we've continued and I know that the Administration has continued to look at ideas that have been brought forward even as recently as last week would you say that that's yeah um yeah and so we're we're GNA talk about first talk and then um I know at the last meeting not everyone was here but we did um uh put put it out there I I have been the only one that came forward with motions uh kind of

031as a sketch for what we might do to address this and move it finally over the Finish Line um but we'll see where we're at in terms of motions if anyone else has brought motions to consider we'll consider them all together and try to come up with um uh some final decisions and because I do think it's at least more than one motion but we'll talk through that um if you have a general update for us do you have a General update I think um we haven't done a ton more work in any specifics um the only thing I will just remind everybody that um administratively we will Implement whatever decision the school committee makes um I think it's quite clear that regardless of what decision there is there are pros and cons um the

032number and specific people who may be impacted by those Pro perceived pros and perceived cons can change depending on what factor it is but the um there are many different elements that you folks of course wouldn't necessarily be considering with this discussion because you're not responsible for the implementation of all the different pieces for example um scheduling at the high school we have to do course selections shortly and that impacts the budget it impacts the schedule and your decision about redistricting impacts course selections and the schedule and the budget um so the basically um there's a lot of impact that is you know this this decision is somewhat like an iceberg and that the tip of it as complicated as the tip of it is there are many many other details that are not necessarily

033clear to the committee they wouldn't necessarily be it's not your responsibility to deal with those details but that is in in great part why um from an administrative standpoint it is exceptionally helpful for there to be a decision sooner um the primary reason as you will hear when I talk about the budget timeline for various reason reasons and dates I have to have my superintendent budget finished by February 2nd so if a decision is made for example at the January school committee meeting that would leave me less than three weeks to adjust the budget I am fearful that there would be inaccuracies in trying to adjust the budget with all the complications related to all the pieces that could be connected to redistricting um in three weeks obviously if the committee chooses to make a

034decision in January I will do the budget I'm just I am cautious about that kind of a timeline um but I will answer all the questions to the best of our ability using the numbers that we have and the processes that we've sat and talked about from an administ administrative standpoint um but just know that at the end of the day we will do whatever the committee would like I would like to clarify one point the conversation about how long would it take for all all intradistrict students to age out would be six years because we have students who are currently in kindergarten and for them to get to the middle school which at that time would be sixth grade um so they need to go through grades one through five at the elementary so

035for all students to age out that's the timeline and that's why um but that's that's just a clarification in case that was not clear as to why that would be the case so any questions I'll do my best and if I can't remember Karen will and we'll uh thank you and I just want to remind folks who are following this discuss discussion and interested in all of the details for the November school committee meeting uh the superintendent did put together a very comprehensive overview of everything that has been um discussed and planned on um and numbers put together until this point um and that was not included again for the December meeting but it's simple enough to go on the website and review uh that document which is very comprehensive um I know I have

036had a couple of questions that have come up for me since our last meeting but I want to open it up to the rest of the committee for any discussion or questions of the superintendent or questions of other committee members in the subcommittee um that might have come up please go ahead member Johnson wasad uh superintendent can you speak to the question about um class sizes what I can speak to somewhat um so in the summary that Amy just referenced there was a section where um we have estimated how many sections of each class would be needed um I'm looking for my other um hold one second please I have quite an accumulation of things going here so if you bear with me I think I have my chicken scratch numbers but maybe not um

037one of the things that we did do is look at if we had um two sections of classes um [Music] primarily there's some impact at all three schools um depending on the decision primarily um at Four Corners if we have two classes of the anticipated grades four and five for next school year only um we would definitely have class sizes that were a little bit larger if we have two sections versus three um if it's two class sizes we es two classes we estimate please know these are all estimates the class sizes We Believe would be about 25 or 26 if we have three classes it would be 21 or 22 estimated we have um a lot of moving Parts connected to class size um for example as you folks know we had a private

038school opening Greenfield so we had students unenroll that we could never have anticipated um if we were doing estimates two years prior so I do have my rough numbers so if you bear with me so these numbers were estimated working on the um working with the factors of leaving intradistrict Choice as it currently is or not having intradistrict choice we didn't reconfigure this with any um other option so these were the numbers we were working with if we continued with intradistrict choice we estimated at Four Corners that grade three would have 54 students grade four would have 57 grade five would have 64 which is why we estimated each of those grade levels would have three three sections if we reconfigured everything um moved the lines for school enrollment and did not have the intradistrict

039choice the estimated class sizes would have been grade three 42 grade 450 grade 5 53 which is why we said two sections um again these are estimates these are the numbers we used for factoring I just want to be clear about that um Newton is fairly consistent in numbers whether the students through interdistrict Choice remain in the building or not because of potential realignment of school enrollment lines um they the only significant change could be at grade three it might go from 30 to 36 but either way class sizes with either of those numbers are quite small um grade five would be 46 48 regardless so fairly consistent and then um Federal Street again looks like the numbers would remain two sections um the highest could be if we reconfigure School enrollment areas and do

040not not have school choice um in District Choice the grades four and five were are estimated 45 and 43 but still that would be two sections so there is some variation but primarily at Four Corners does that help yeah and if if you looked at the worst case scenario in terms of class size what would this what what would you anticipate in terms of possible negative impacts on learning and how could those be mitigated so this class size is always um it's something that's discussed periodically I don't have um any research I didn't pull any research um to bring tonight but you know there there is discussion frequently about class size often in the last time I reviewed the information which again I'm not saying was was in the last six months by any means

041um any discussion about class size is generally considered more so at the earliest grades um you know happy to look at it we the teachers through the um curricular materials that have been identified there are natural times when students have oneto one or they have small group instruction um you know certainly it's it's proportionately um a little more challenging to address more students I'm not going to disagree with that and we certainly could look to hire um instructional assistance again um it is correct we do have openings so that you know could be a challenging resolution as well um so it's I guess the the impact of class size versus the choices the other choices um you know something the committee would have to to prioritize which is the which side that falls on I

042don't know how to say I mean it's it is a factor certainly not in most grades though and then um I imagine that for some students um if we didn't do a a phased approach it sounds like there are many arguments against a phased approach um for some students they're very resilient might not be that difficult other students may have already have relational trauma it may be really difficult and and significant so what would the what would the schools do to to help those students who are having a hard time with it if that happened so we have not gone into a ton of detail about um that piece only because a decision hasn't been made but um we have we would Implement strategies that are somewhat cons consistent with things that we do for

043our regular incoming students as well as we have the ability to provide additional supports for students who have challenges with change or anxiety or other school-based um challenges we have social workers in our buildings that are very kind and good at supporting our students um we can schedule individual tours we can schedule meets with staff in building um we would do things like the ice cream socials the playground groups for students to meet their peers um there there are a variety of things that the principles have sort of given as um ideas for ways that they could welcome any new students into the buildings um if the committee chooses to move fifth grade into the elementary that is one less grade um that would be welcomed to the middle school you know that's one less

044transition because that the incoming grade wouldn't go and then the exiting seventh grade would not need to transition into the high school at that point so you know we would be able to um add some additional activities for any new students transitioning in um family meetings there there's a lot of different ways we can support students and if they are known students within the district um having staff from one building participate in any planning and meetings and transition supports that would be needed or something else that we can ensure thank you sure uh secretary exam please excuse me I don't know if you'll know this off the top of your head but what is do you have any idea what the average class size is at the middle school for fifth grade now let me

045check I told you I might not know everything I'd have to check I'm we're gonna oh are we phoning a friend pH a friend we would estimate um about 18 or 19 depending the class and is that because is that because uh the um fifth grade those electives as well or are they still the the mod their day modeled like it is of the grade school no the middle school has a middle school model where they change classes and all of those things they do and they swap there's teams of two at the middle school so students swap between two classrooms so it's more more a middle school model okay thank you member Neeve go ahead um have you thought about um um this is sort of to piggy back on what Glenn asked have

046you thought about family engagement actions that you can take um this year before we're faced um after the summer with potentially moving all of these children around have you thought about um have you made a plan for reaching out to families sending information home in newsletters or folders having meetings about this issue because I feel um like I'm not ready to make a decision on this issue because I don't feel like there's been any family engagement about intradistrict Choice specifically so like I mentioned already um we have not made concrete plans because the committee hasn't voted on anything yet there are several pieces that I haven't moved on um until there is a decision including meeting with grade five teachers grade8 teachers those pieces are somewhat um on hold until there is something specific to

047talk about but certainly there are many different ways that we can reach out to families um including some ways that we already have you know sending the summary of the redistricting home to every Elementary student um in their backpack was was one of the ways that um you know we tried to engage or at least make sure families had information um so we're the administrators are quite happy to make concrete plans and share them with the committee as soon as there is some something to plan for my only thought about that is that we did a several meetings throughout the community where we met with families and talked about about this whole process in the beginning and now that we're faced with in District choice I feel like we need to take at least a

048little bit of time and meet with them in the same sort of setting so that we can get um their opinions and thoughts on how best to make this transition because I do believe that it is a transition we have to make but my second part of my question is if we voted on the re reenvisioning moving the fifth grade and the eighth grade tonight would that give you enough time to begin your budget process and then could we vote on intradistrict say in January I would say that the committee can do whatever it would like and I will adjust so okay I just wanted to see what your timeline was like on that um the budget is you know I I can do the budget in whatever timeline the committee gives me I just

049would like to put the caveat out that the shorter the timeline the more opportunity for mistakes so but whatever you folks decide if you folks um as a subcommittee or full committee want to host Community meetings again just vote and tell me that and we will schedule them are you all set M Den are you all set for the moment okay yes go ahead Vice Martini uh I have several questions um and a couple of them are along the lines of what has been asked already so I hate to be redundant but I didn't quite get the whole answer that I was looking for um when it comes to uh class sizes I really appreciate the breakdown that was provided last month thank you that was a very um helpful comprehensive document and it really

050helped to outline the differences between redrawing lines with or without introd District Choice the questions that I still have are um about the possibility of delaying redrawing lines or do nothing um so could you uh would you be able to explain what the differences would be between doing nothing for the next year and um what the impact would be on class sizes if we did that versus redrawing lines without in District choice I will do my best thank you so what I will say in general well let me reframe I'm trying to answer your question in a way that is as clear as possible I know um and as I said and I will continue to say that this whole thing is a lot of if then and some of them are if then and

051estimated so it's until we're unless we are talking about the actual students that are in the seats in front of us and making a decision about them for today everything is an estimate because everything can change tomorrow so I just want to make sure that members of the public understand that that's I know you understand this is a crystal ball gazing yes corre thank you yes um so if let's just for the sake of my clarity say that we just use the information that is here but we delay it a year and if we talk about um well I'll just say either either way whether we have in District choice or we don't have in District Choice the current fourth grade will have moved to six and the bubble for lack of a better word

052at this point that we anticipate in grades three and and four and five at Four Corners if we leave intradistrict Choice as is we'll decrease by one because the fifth grade that would have been there next year will have moved to the sixth grade does that make sense okay so what that would result in is instead of using for those three grades nine classroom spaces we would be using eight classroom spaces so the space configurations that were of concern especially in my um opinion the primary space issue of potentially having to move one of our special ed education programs um could be eliminated because we would have an extra classroom if we waited one year if you don't have intradistrict choice and you wait a year I'm not sure that it would um have any

053substantive change other than an extra year of students will have aged up because the space wouldn't change the classroom spaces that we are using I don't expect would change but it would allow an extra year of students um to move up to the middle school before there were any changes did I answer the question you wanted to ask I guess I'm looking for a comparison of class size in grades three and four as they stand now and would stand next year as is versus redrawing lines with no intradistrict choice the challenge I'm having is I don't have the current class sizes in front of I have the anticipated for every grade I can think of but I don't have the current do you know what the current I bet she does if you hold but

054one minute I'm happy to hold no do we have any elevator music oh um well she's looking I don't know if you have any other questions that I can answer I have plenty of other question why don't we move on and then we can come back if she does a little search okay so um I I will go uh I'll jump to the uh other question that I had that is similar okay um to what has been said so um School community activities they have increased since the pandemic and that's been really lovely uh to have more opportunities for um students to spend time together outside of school uh and doing positive things so that's um that's very good I in from my knowledge so far um there is not as much um of that

055available in inter school um so that um students who are currently attending different elementary schools have a lot of interaction with each other um which I think is something that's um essential when we're talking about redrawing lines and helpful in general when students transition to Middle School at whatever grade level they do that at so um I wanted to know what Staffing funds connections with other departments like the rec department are um available to be used for transitional activities and if we were to do redistricting what resources do we have to make that happen um and any of our staff I would say are potentially available you know any of the change that we're talking about um I expect that I will need to be meeting with our Union representation just to make sure because

056we need to be accountable to members of our unions about um holding to their contract language and if there are change changes in their work we need to have conversation about that so I'm putting all of this out there again as a pending discussion sort of conversation but um you know the staff participates in family engagement or outside of school activities um every year there are events that occur um you know logistically we can talk about ways to um you're talking about having Collective Elementary activities correct that's what it sounded like yeah uh I it would be helpful to me um to know that we would be able to provide something like a calendar of events and activities that are going to be broadly available to families as part of this transition oh so once

057there is a decision whatever activities we create to help with the transition piece you would just want those um shared out in a in a calendar that's available like publicly yes and I want to make sure that we've budgeted appropriately to support activities like that um generally those types of activities are not a big budgetary impact um one piece that I already said is our staff does um it's they choose but it is also a contractual requirement that they participate in outside school activities I will say you know many staff participate in more than than um they're required we also are able ble to use Title One funds if we have snacks or activities that are provided at those because one of the goals of title one is family engagement so even things like the

058Bingo for books or the ice cream socials are things that we utilize um Title One resources to support and um you know the a lot of the um outside of school activities for families are funded by PTO so that is a conversation that would need to be had um because each school does have their own PTO um but I don't necessarily anticipate that budget or resources would be a challenge it's more the actually just sitting down and planning and inviting okay um and just one um other related question do we have the ability to offer um transportation to such events for um families for whom that would be a challenge we do offer that currently so I expect we could continue thank you we do have class current class sizes okay I just want to

059recap the question so I answer what you're asking you would like to know current class sizes and compare that to what it could be next year in both scenarios of redistricting basically basically yes perfect okay so you correct me currently at thir grade okay so we have the current third grade they're at Federal why don't you just answer instead of me trying to read your notes current third grade Federal Street has two thir grades one's a 16 one's a 17 there's currently 33 of them Discovery School has three third grades class sizes of about 17 there's 51 of them at Newton there are 34 third grades there are two class size at 17 current fourth grade Federal Street has two classes they're 17 and 18 Discovery has three they're approximately 16 Newton has three they're

060I have other questions but I have said a lot so I will refrain if someone else would like to pipe up well please keep going so the the general idea is um the class sizes would be consistent or increase generally would be consistent or increased by a couple of students generally um the Four Corners as I said um if they have three sections um they would be about 21 keeping in mind um you know we have a class rolling up so comparing a current like this year's third grade is next year's fourth so this year where'd you go give me your give me your stuff back so this year's um okay sorry didn't throw me at cirk ball Kate um this next year's projections again projections at first grade Federal would be 30 Four Corners

061would be 3 2 Newton would be 27 so that would be two sections of each based on our general um standard for dividing classes second grade Federal would be 46 Four Corners would be 34 Newton would be um Federal third grade 39 Four Corners 45 Newton 31 I just say fourth grade or third grade third grade fourth grade Federal would be 33 Four Corners 51 Newton 34 and then if we had a fifth grade at the elementaries Federal would be 35 Four Corners 48 Newton 42 oh they're not um I don't huge variation not huge variation no just we don't have huge variation except for the bubble grades where we have um you know a larger class that's going through um obviously you can see that as I'm reading current um estimated class sizes for

062next year there's a few um and they hit all the schools at various grade levels that is that is typical by the way to have grades that have higher enrollment than others so we deal with enrollment fluctuations every year we do um move teachers from one grade to the next as the bubble moves from one year to the next um that happened for this school year we had to um ask some teachers to move from one grade level to the next to accommodate a larger class moving up in the grades so um you know there there could be some impact on class sizes if if you make the change but we also have the potential of having increased class sizes just by students moving in or lower class size because students move out um and

063kindergarten projections are outstandingly challenging because many families who have kindergarten students um sometimes they enroll very late in the summer and so that's a that is a moving um number until quite honestly even after the start of school I guess my very long point is um class sizes are always a factor that we're monitoring and can change frequently and without anticipation depending on a variety of factors that doesn't help but it is the case so member Martina you said you still have more questions s yeah but they're about other things and see member wall would member Wall go ahead when we started this whole discussion last year the year before whenever I think our goal was to have the vote in September of this year so that the whole year could be spent planning for

064what's going to happen uh and how to go forward and how to make everybody comfortable what I would like to propose is that we postpone the actual imple implementation of what we vote for tonight for a year that we go ahead and and make the vote on intradistrict and redistricting now but postpone it for a year and do the meetings that need need to be done with the school committee make sure that all of the children feel comfortable with what's going to happen instead of voting tonight and in January and make budget problems I it just seems to me like it's all gotten too rushed but we need to make the decision tonight in some way so that would be my suggestion on what we do go M forward thank you member wall member Den

065I see your microphone is on did you no but but while you ask sure um I I sort of agree with with member wall I think that um I'd like to vote on the format for re envisioning tonight I'd like to make the suggestion that we postpone the in District Choice question until next month um I I'm a little frustrated that this idea of family engagement is about when we make the choice to do it or not that engagement should have occurred well before we're in this position I'm sorry I just have to say it we needed to talk to all of you about how the interdistrict choice would affect your children we should have been talking about it all throughout the fall um and I personally would like to extend an apolog ol for

066not spearheading that if I needed to do it I'm sorry and I also want to apologize that you're all in this position I think that's it's really tough and I understand and it's terrible that we can't make all of this easy and right for everyone some people are not going to be happy and that's just sort of how it is but it's a transition that we have to make together and so for me I don't think that the parents are racist I think that they're afraid of their voices not being heard I I think that they're afraid that they're not going to get the time and the energy that they and their families need to work with this situation and I'm sorry that we have not made a plan to give that to you but

067I'd like to make a plan to give that to you because I think that in the end everyone is going to be satisfied with what happens because we will hopefully spend the time to give everyone a feeling of belonging in our community so that we can all move forward and see that the kids are really a lot more resilient than we think and this could end up being a really good thing so I don't think we need to postpone it for a whole year but I certainly would like to take the time to hear some of the quieter voices that haven't come forward and maybe we have to go to them but those are the voices that I'd like to hear from before I make this decision but I'm wondering why can't we decide on

068the format for reenvisioning tonight is that something that we could decide on tonight and then hold off the intradistrict choice because they're two separate pie you asking me to answer that question I guess so I'm wondering if they can be separated that way because on it seems odd on the agenda that we're talking about in District Choice first before the format for reenvisioning wouldn't the format lead to the discussion of intradistrict choice why are they opposite um the items on the agenda are there mainly to make sure we don't break open meeting law and we are not um beholden to address them in any specific order and I've been asking for three months now for folks to come forward with the on the committee with the um motions they would like to see and the

069process that they would like to see um and I think it's difficult I'm not saying that we um are able to arrive at a decision in an easy way um but I I also there's a couple of things here so item six which technically we're still on as an update um is about making sure that the Administration has a chance to update us on anything that is new since our last public meeting and also um it I anticipated that like I did members of the committee would walk away from last month's meeting with questions and things that they wanted to to think about um I have often told the committee certainly the officers and certainly the superintendent have heard me say when I'm asked a question or I'm presented with a problem I don't know

070I have to think about that for a little bit I don't easily think on my feet about it so the update piece is a way for us to have a conversation and see where we're all at and I'm so pleased to hear that folks are coming uh up with ideas that I think can help us get across the Finish Line um this month and have actual votes taken this month that help help the administration the community the teachers um and the families all plan um and the so the other piece is um specifically to in District choice and the redrawing of the lines the boundaries um they are two separate things they're treated by the administration which we've heard over and over again as two very separate things um and they have separate processes which

071is why they're separated um on the agenda but they certainly as we have heard all of our families talk about and our our staff and and teachers talk about they are certainly also connected so we have to address them in both ways unfortunately um I still have I still myself have one question I'd like to ask of the superintendent of the administration that I haven't heard asked yet but I want everyone else to have a chance to have their opportunity and then we can talk about actual motions that we would take and how we want to approach those so does anyone else have anything in terms of comments or questions related to the update piece before we before I ask mine okay so Vice chair Martini kind of stole my thunder on one of them

072which is great it means we're thinking similarly um the the first question I have um and I'm not putting you on the spot we've talked about this privately and I'm asking it in public I said to myself I don't know the answer to this and I feel actually a little bit embarrassed to say to the superintendent I don't have the answer to this question and did I miss something really big in our talks and that question is we've heard that we don't keep track of intradistrict choice which students are in a school because they've been choiced in there from their home school to a different one we've heard you say that you don't keep track of that so how do you have the numbers how do you get the projections in that with that question

073so that is absolutely correct whenever way before me the option to choose an elementary school outside of your neighborhood school was implemented or at the point at which we adopted power school as our student information system a field was not added for anyone to check the box that indicates whether or not a student is outside of their neighborhood school we have a box for the students who come from different districts to us us as school choice the state um program so the way that the numbers were gathered for us to do estimates was Jake waldsmith our transportation coordinator literally went through all the students one by one and identified who would be in different areas the numbers that we are looking at that are not straight numbers of students who are in buildings based on

074intradistrict Choice the variation between the numbers we talk about if we have intradistrict choice or if we do not also include the students who would move schools if we redraw lines so for example if the neighborhood of lighten Woods is included in the neighborhoods the streets where um students are routed to attend four corners when we look at the numbers for Four Corners we move all of those streets into the four corners area and then remove students who are in the building through intradistrict Choice which again are counted and moved basically manually so we have the total for planning and estimating purposes um we have this challenge each year when we're looking at enrollment because students move in and out of different neighborhoods um and different schools so there will be some variation um streets

075are identified in ways that we want to keep um as many students in the areas where they are currently routed there has been a lot of conversation um relatively speaking in public about um streets specifically that are connected to Four Corners and why they were or were not included in the street map of um streets that went to Four Corners I cannot speak to why that was or wasn't at the time um so I just wanted to share that it was a manual process um once there were two factors that would impact sort of um the next step in that would be um we are moving forward to the last process of awarding the transportation bid so that we will have our known Transportation vendor and then the second piece is that vendor would have

076to get all of our streets all of our students who are expected to ride buses and they would basically do the routing um and let us know what the routes look like and we would have more specific numbers of students within the areas that we've identified that would be attending each school but this is the estimated way that we would look at how to um consider the numbers of students in each area very long answer but no that's okay and then I mentioned that Vice chair Martini kind of stole my thunder because the other question that I brought forward to you that I couldn't remember that we had discussed or not was what happens if we delay the redrawing of the district lines to 25 26 school year and you've kind of answered that already

077that at least for the big issue of space there's an improvement there yes the in in my again in my estimation looking at the numbers we have and rolling them forward yet one more year and I've reviewed this with Mr Browning because that's the building where the three classes are um it looks like based on the current numbers that we are rolling forward two years that if we delayed A Change by a year um that would free up a classroom at Four Corners which would allow the aces program to remain at Four Corners which was a concern voiced by many people including me about not wanting to disrupt um specialized program I do want to share a couple other pieces connected to the delay it's not a it's just an objective statement it's not a

078vote of um preference um the implementation of full year science and social studies at the middle school I believe would need to be moved a year to coincide With The Changes because the Staffing patterns that would result at the elementary level would allow us to um address much of the cost of the increased teachers needed at the middle school the other piece would be moving 8th grade from the high school to the middle school would allow us some additional staff that are needed to provide the contractually required number of preparation periods at the middle school so doing any one piece without the other creates impact so if for example the decision is to delay um any change in the format until the 2526 school year which is absolutely something that can be done if we

079don't don't keep the change to the Middle School consistent with that the committee would be looking at a superintendent budget reflecting at least eight new positions just for the middle school so I would not recommend moving in that direction I would recommend keeping both of those changes to occur at the same time um the other piece which again all of this can be dealt with if um if we wait the year and leave intradistrict Choice as is just as a an option at Four Corners we would still have two grade levels with three sections so we would have two classrooms where we need to account for how to provide all the required preps but if we have an additional year um one that that could change because enrollment could change enough students could move within

080the city that the class sizes are different and we don't have three sections just by natural change so it's hard to sort of predict all of those pieces out two years it's something we would have to figure out but we would have until 25 26 to figure it out so um okay those are just other you know um pieces that coincide thank you thank you for that um does that prompt other questions or comments from the rest of the committee I I saw Jean first and then uh Glenn and then uh member Martini so if we voted tonight to redistrict in a year and to also restrict all students to the schools where they are in the district we would have a year then to work with the students well a year and a half

081to work with the students and their families and to make sure everybody understands what the future will bring which would be better than saying next year you're going to be moved I mean does that make sense I think so I think we're kind of all headed in the same direction um and let's get the other questions or comments out there and then I can put out what I think we just heard and would want to propose for motions or at least starting point motions member Johnson M go ahead I'm just curious so with um if we decided to get rid of intradistrict choice would one of the implications of that be if a family moved from one part of the town to another in the middle of the elementary school term that that student would

082be changing elementary schools as well potentially generally yes I mean it as a matter of like if we were implementing the policy sort of as written um one thing that we don't do is ask students to move a school if they move to a different location for example after April break you know um students are able to stay and finish out in that regard um if for any reason the committee would like to revisit the policy in that regard that's obviously your option but um one of the challenges with students not being in their neighborhood school is we would wouldn't be providing busing which we don't do now for families that are um choiced into a school not their neighborhood school so you know that can be a factor that's challenging for some families if

083they're not able to access a bus but as a policy is written now yes I would be looking for students to move um at the end of the year in which they move um but that like I said that's up to the committee at the end of the day how you want that policy written sh Martini go ahead uh you already um read my mind on a couple of the questions here um because in in thinking about um the possibility of putting this change off for a year um I had to consider things that were brought up at the last subcommittee meeting for re envisioning um one of which was the need for six additional full-time staff at the middle school in order to provide full year social studies and science um and um just

084now I think you said it would be eight positions actually so could you clarify the yes those two numbers pretty sure pretty sure I can um we would need to increase the science and social studies content teachers um I'm thinking hold please what I'm what I'm considering in my head I'm reviewing the need for additional preparation periods depending on the drafted schedule do you remember sorry this these are all these pieces so they have to add team okay so that the configured the middle school schedule is not currently configured with full year science or full year social studies so one science teacher teaches I'm giving very rough half year of one group of students the other half year of other student so we need to increase that um to accommodate the schedule that was drafted

085for the Middle School assuming full year science and social studies we would need additional teams therefore we would need additional preparation periods as well so that's a that's a piece of it is accommodating all of that okay uh and you've already answered that you would put off um implementing F year science and social studies if we put this off I would recommend that I think from a strictly budgetary standpoint if we were to increase I'll just use my number again for the sake of rough if we were to increase by seven staff at the middle school and we had staff that came in who would be placed at or near the top of the salary schedule that would be um almost three4 of a million dollars so if the committee wants to move to full

086year science and social studies for the next school year I am quite happy to put it in the budget but I think that will be um that is quite a bite to take um for the budget and um honestly that would mean hiring likely new staff that are outside of the of the district already and then if you were to implement the changes the following year and remove 8th grade students from the high school we would then have staff at the high school that could be negatively impacted because they are losing all or parts of their schedule so because many of our high school staff teach some sections of 8th grade so if we do it all at one time we're able to create full schedules for all of the teachers even with the loss

087of eth grade by adding electives or by having some staff split their day some at the high school some at the middle school so it's just um a number of dominoes that we would anticipate that I think are able to be avoided the negative is some of our students who are going to have to test continue to have less of the science and social studies instruction but we've been doing that already right uh well I certainly heed what you said about the mcast pilot coming um for my mind I um recognize the importance of mcast in certain ways and I would also say I'm much more concerned with the developmental needs of 10-year-olds um who are our fifth graders and the need for them to have F year instruction in really important subjects like that

088um so and and I think it's quite obvious that we have to do these two things at the same time because it's an untenable suggestion to say we should add that many FTE um to the budget but it kind of relate relates to one other question um in regards to the budget you had also mentioned at the last subcommittee meeting there are two open positions at ghs that could go uh unfilled is that rate and we would have potentially um the need to hire a halftime history teacher so that would be one and a half less one of the positions that was unfilled has been filled it was an internal um staff person who knows the risk of if a change occurs that there could be a change in like someone made that choice to

089to request that position knowing the um potential consequence of that um but at the end of the day um that that position may not be um necessary based on scheduling and then there is another position um that is not filled it is not fully filled and we do not expect that we would necessarily require that if the current situation continues as is so if we get an extra you know 40 kids then um all bets are off but okay so I'm sorry for being a little Daft but um if we redraw lines for next year oh boy okay then uh we do not fill that one position that is currently open or we do um hold on the redrawing of lines is there for eth grade goes to GMS oh you're talking about doing everything

090now uhhuh okay okay if we were working with the numbers that we are currently working with I would not at this point recommend filling that position okay so that would be one a difference of one when it comes to full-time employment in the upcoming budget as of right now as of right now it would be one FTE that would be reduced but potentially seven increased yes at the middle school but potentially six decreased at the elementary correct and then um uh other potential changes again depending on what actually shakes out with the schedule which is why I started the entire update by saying um course selections is something that we are mindful of in terms of timing the high school is ready so of course selections also dictate um sections and schedules okay well I'm

091right with you because my next question is directly related to that so can I okay what is the eth grade foreign language offering currently and what would it be if 8th grade were in the middle school currently they have the option of Spanish and French based on the projected and drafted schedule again very um just I'm reiterating this more for um families who don't necessarily work with school schedules all the time this is not a definite it's an estimated and drafted schedule what we believe we will be able to provide is some level of Spanish instruction for 8th grade at the middle school exactly the length of time that would be available whether it's half year full year we would still want to continue to do some work with but we do see a decrease

092in the need for sections at the high school if the eth grade leaves um and given the need for an increase in preparation periods at the middle school it seems like a very natural way to ensure we have a staff person with a full-time job and that we um provide some level of language enrichment exposure or a full year of Spanish uh potentially but I don't know yet until we actually kind of nail down um the exact schedule thanks sure anyone else right now member Johnson M said just a quick comment appreciation of you superintendent and this is and superintendent this is really helpful to have you lay it all out and there are so many moving pieces and you have uh I know there are questions we're asking that are too detailed and haven't

093given you enough time to prepare but the amount that you have at your fingertips I think is pretty remarkable so thank you I point well made thank you thank you um the principles have been incredible in this process Jake has been incredible um we we literally talk about this in some way probably 4 days a week in some in some configuration of Staff because there are so many pieces we're trying to think about all of the options and all the possibilities and all of the changes that would occur so um it is complicated and I'm not going to pretend it isn't possible that there's something that's going to come up when a decision is made and we go to do the implementation um I'm sure there is something that we will look at and say

094oh boy we didn't we didn't think about that but um you know we are trying to be responsive to the questions that come up and relook at things um if the vote is delayed one year what I would say is that we would have the opportunity to move through this year having the conversations um about the detail like um working on the conversations with our unions about the impact on um redistricting on them even so much as we would have to do moving over Summers and so we'd have to talk with custodians about how that would look and Food Service about changes in lunch schedules and um all of those pieces it would give us time to have those conversations I would hope I guess from my perspective that the committee would choose to continue

095the redistricting subcommittee because you folks would need to let me know what you want to do in terms of Engagement and Communications how you want that to look the community meetings on the early end were driven from the subcommittee that was something that was asked and we we did so um that would certainly be a request if the sub committee wants particular type of of um engagement with families and communication I think that would be um helpful to come from an ongoing subcommittee about this thank you anything else for kind of the discussion part member denif please thank you Dr DeBarge for getting into the other parts of the iceberg because even though they aren't our respons responsibility as you said hearing that we could maybe fix some other things that were on the list

096by waiting is important for me to hear so that changes some of my thought process for the motion so I appreciate it okay I'm going to try to move into the actual over the Finish Line kind of motions piece and people may or may not know that I do a lot of math for a living and I know that scares the V Jesus out of my parents based on my math grades in school um and I do try very hard not to do math in public but my brain is saying if we Implement a delay of the redistricting lines to 2526 we may also be able to to accommodate a Kinder gentler redistrict or a intradistrict choice change and let me give you my example let me give you all my example I would want

097to try to talk through two things related to the choice question new intradistrict choice in the Elementary grades would end for 2425 so the upcoming year because we would agree to delay the implementation of the redistricting okay and then I'm going out on a limb here but I think also we could say that elementary students who are already in intradistrict Choice could all also remain until they grade progress to the middle school do you follow me on that do you all follow me on that frighteningly I did if so yes and I think May yeah yes probably on the years for smaller and smaller groups of students each year um but the math gosh I don't even like talking about math in public but I think it would work so I don't remember what you

098started with yeah I started with the new stopping new interdistrict Choice um and all Elementary grades for the 2425 school year okay so I think one decision that the committee will need to make at some point is whether you want that process to continue I there is a policy about it um it doesn't really speak to intradistrict Choice it was a process that was practice when I came into the district um the practice at that time was having an impact on class sizes at Four Corners and so um what I've done since I've been superintendent is the only consideration I give for intradistrict Choice are for the siblings incoming siblings almost always kindergarten of students who will still have a sibling at their School of Choice so if I'm an incoming kindergartner and I want

099to go to Newton which is not my neighborhood school and my sibling will still be in third grade that scenario I have been approving but if I am an incoming kindergartner who wants to go to Newton that is not my school of neighborhood and my sibling will be at the middle school I have not been allowing that so for the past three three I'm trying to remember if Dr H had dealt with Choice before I got here or not at least the past two years the only in District Choice um requests that have been honored have been for incoming kindergarteners who will have siblings in their school so I would estimate rough maybe somewhere between 8 to 12 students across the district for the past two years at some point the school committee is going

100to need to decide if you want to keep having that process or not um if you do not and we're talking about allowing students who are in schools of choice to age progress out we will have to stop allowing new siblings to come in because there will always be a sibling um unless what you're what you're saying is I've actually found another sliver of our school Community to make Angry where maybe they weren't already angry well um potentially yes what that would I'm trying people I'm really trying here what that would look like is there would have to be a decision about when that would stop and then any family who has an incoming kindergartener they would either need to make the decision if they want to have their two children in two different schools

101or if they would want them both to attend the neighborhood school because the older one would be allowed through this scenario to continue in their school of choice where the younger one would need to not be otherwise we will always have someone intra District choicing so that that population of families would have an impact related to your second question can we continue and allow students who are inad district choice to just age progress out if you wait the year I think if we wait the year to redraw the lines if you wait the year I think that would be the case because of that third um because of the classes at Four Corners an extra year will have aged out meaning we will have an extra classroom that would prevent the special ed program from

102needing to move given the assumption that our numbers hold thank you okay thank you um comments on that thoughts on that other ideas pleas I saw a member didn't even a member wall could we let these 8 to 12 sibling collectives age out and stop redistricting is that something what talk about maybe okay so here's the scenario mhm what if the family has a third child that's not in yet or what if the kindergartner uh I don't know I don't know if this is actually a scenario I don't think it is I was going to say what if the kindergarten is the oldest but I don't I don't believe that's a situation I think the again the school committee you folks could vote to do whatever you want I just think there will be scenarios

103where the one that is in kindergarten or card oh my goodness the one that is um the siblings may not be the end of the line there could be other siblings I got no thank you that because my brain didn't go there so thanks you answered that thank you member W please I just wanted to say if problems come up policies can be changed in the future this is not the be all to end all this is just to say that we want all of the schools to be Equitable that is that was the goal we were trying to accomplish and and uh these these other little things can be handled in the future not tonight sorry we're working through the details um don't do that uh we're trying to make sure that that an

104evolving scenario doesn't give us a hiccup somewhere else is all we were just talking about um so should we try for a couple of motions here and see how this works and I will explain ahead of time what I've thought through and put down as proposals for um I have three total motions to get us to a point where we're implementing um an equitable move forward for the district so the first one would be and this is just so we can visualize it that new intradistrict choice in the Elementary grades would end for students students coming in for students requesting it for 2425 I want to say coming in but it's not necessarily just kindergarteners coming in it could be a family wanting interdistrict choice at a higher grade but still Elementary and we would

105stop that as as well um and then the second motion would be for 25 26 school year we would follow the policies that have been uh put forward as relating to this process um more closely and those policies are JC jca and EAA um and those are included in the materials for tonight they've also been included in November and October uh committee meeting meeting materials as well um it so we would start following those policies more closely um and then in addition to that piece the elementary students already in elementary school through an intradistrict Choice spot would be allowed still to remain until they grade progress to the middle school and then the third motion we would with the 2526 school year adopt the reenvisioning our school facilities option 2B redrawing the boundaries for the

106elementary schools to better reflect the makeup of the city and allow for the three elementary schools housing to gr to house grades K through five and move grade 8 to the middle school so that's three separate motions that we would put forward one at a time discuss one at a time vote on each one anyone want to put forward something different an option a comment now yeah secretary exam I think having those three together I think the only one that would have to be decided this evening with those three would be the last one of adoption of two be the other two could be considered at a later date okay so I'm going to vehemently disagree with that okay in part because I want us I Tru believe when when we are entertaining something big

107regardless of which organization and who's doing the entertaining and the planning that we need to put it forward we need to sort you know I've said this a couple times put it across the Finish Line as Jean just said policies can be changed and this gives us a timeline that is much more friendly should there be those moving part issues those logistical issues that come up even you know within the next few weeks or in in nine months I think we've got a framework and there is nothing of course preventing the school committee from putting forward another motion later on that addresses something we hadn't considered already right so that's why I would vehemently disagree that was vehement if you couldn't tell yeah okay other comments questions before we try those yeah member Johnson was

108on I'll just say I I think it'll be clear to me once it's an actual motion I I got a little lost in there sure so let's try with the first one and see how we do so I'd like a motion that new interdistrict choice for all Elementary grades will end beginning with the 2425 school year I'll make the motion will someone second it second a second from Member den and let's discuss member Johnson we side and member Den you have your microphone okay um yeah I'm supportive of ending the in District Choice um on that timeline um I just think that I I I guess I just believe that people should go to their neighborhood school um so and uh I I realize it's going to be a difficult transition and people made decisions

109for their families based on an assumption of the you know existing policy continuing um but policies do change and looking at the bigger picture I think that that would be the best and uh the best way to to to proceed thank you V Martini please um I just want to clarify this motion is to end new in District's choice not existing new only new requests would not be entertained for 2425 moving forward okay thank you that was helpful clarification further comments on that okay so let's take it move it to a vote um anyone abstaining any no votes no two no votes so that passes with one two three four uh yes votes okay and then we have member den and member Johnson M knows we're no correct just want put that okay and Susan

110Farber did you get that you have that if I can read the motion back to make sure I have that new interdistrict choice for all Elementary grades will end beginning with the 2425 school year that is what we just voted on yes thank you thank you okay I have a second motion well for these votes since they're so substantial could people actually vote Yes or No rather than just take I mean I want a roll call vote is that what you're saying doesn't even have to it could be just I but but I just feel like I want to hear the voices of people actually voting for these Solly reasonable sure thank you for for suggesting that okay so we have motion number two I move that but on motion number one to we already

111passed it well we he we heard the Nos and we heard the abstentions but we didn't hear who's voting I okay the people who voted I were myself member Martini member wall member extrom thank you so the second motion would be a motion that beginning with the 2526 school year the Greenfield school committee policies of JC jca and EAA are closely followed Elementary School students already in an elementary school through intradistrict Choice May remain until grade progression to Greenfield Middle School so move and a second second and discussion I guess the reason I I mean I'll discuss because I guess the reason that I propose it this way is we've heard of from so many families that there must be a way to consider a way to allow students to um phase out of an

112an already made an established interdistrict choice and I just felt like with the way the numbers are going and the plan going for the delay in the redrawing of lines that it seemed possible to try to accommodate with the community had so clearly told us they were interested in so that's why I'm proposing it and I will vote Yes for this can you repeat the motion please sure I move that beginning with the 2526 school year Greenfield school committee policies JC jca and EAA are closely followed Elementary School students already in and Elementary School through interdistrict Choice May remain until grade progression to Greenfield Middle School further yeah further comments question discussion before we vote okay let's move to a vote and let's do a roll call vote please uh secretary exam no secretary exam

113I a yes member johnman yes member Martin Excuse me Vice chair Martini no chair pretti yes member wall yes motion passes what was the vote count please there were two Nos and four yeses thank thank you and then there's a third motion related specifically to the interdistrict or the uh redrawing of the district lines um and I would take a motion at this time that beginning with the 2526 school year the Greenfield school committee and Greenfield Public Schools adopt reenvisioning our school facilities option 2B which redraws boundaries for the elementary schools to better reflect the makeup of the city and allow for three elementary schools housing grades K through five as well as moving grade eight to Greenfield Middle School can I have a motion to that so moved and a second second and discussion

114please I guess I I think the plan is a good one I think the timing I would prefer that it happen sooner I feel like our our minds tend to focus on the changes um that are presented to us so we look at we look at what we're going to loss that's like kind of a human bias is that we look at how a decision is going to negatively impact um students certain students but what we take for granted is the negative impacts of our current system on students who are already here because it just feels normal to us because it's been kind of going on for so long and we have a we have a situation now where two of the low-income housing uh developments are going to one Elementary School and one Elementary

115School does not have any of the low-income housing developments there and that creates really big inequities and problems for students that they're dealing with right now and so while I I you know I think we could have more robust engagement I'm not 100% sure we will have more robust engagement just because we extend the timeline certain things will go easier for us in terms of the change but I just feel like we should feel the urgency of the the students who are dealing with inequities now and um try to make these changes more quickly to to help them so it's challenging with the current motion on the table I guess I could respectfully ask whether you would accept a friendly amendment to to change the timeline to this year um but I'm not I'm not

116sure exactly how to vote because uh if this is the only timeline available I do want this to happen um but I may vote no just to express that I want would prefer an earlier timeline was it member Martini that made the motion I'm sorry was it member Den member Den you made it and and member Martini you seconded it yeah to open it for discussion I'm inclined to agree with Glenn and I would make a friendly amendment to change it to this year okay and I think I think that's a problem because I would absolutely vote no I think we very clearly established with the community engagement on this that as well as the concerns around budget and planning that 2526 is uh friendlier to all of those I do understand very clearly what

117member Johnson mad is saying um and member Den appears to agree with I don't necessarily disagree but I find it very ironic that member den and member Johnson mad both are wanting additional time to do it right but they want to rush the timeline you want all kinds of communication all kinds of Engagement all kinds of planning around how it will happen but you want to shorten the timeline I feel like giving a longer timeline 25 26 allows for not only better planning better staff uh uh engagement in the process Better Community engagement um in the process but we remain able to be flexible with additional changes um should they be necessary throughout the uh upcoming Academic Year 2425 which is why I would strongly urge that we stick with the motion now originally presented

118just a point of personal privilege since you mentioned my name I don't remember at this meeting calling for more Community engagement on this I feel like we've had Fairly robust Community engagement um I know that it could be improved there could have been more on the intradistrict choice uh element in terms of community engagement but I just wanted to to first of all say that I don't remember saying that and second of all in General Roberts Rules of Order we don't kind of call each other out by name we speak to the issues and and not the personalities and the people advocating decisions he's right and I'm the one that called for more engagement specifically on intra District Choice only and I'm not rushing anything I'm sticking to the timeline that we discussed within the

119revisioning subcommittee so no one's changing I'm not changing a timeline this was always the plan this waiting a year this is the first time we've heard of it so in terms of process um member Den made a motion I suggested a friendly Amendment it sounds like you accepted it I think we have to find out whether the person who seconded it would accept the friendly Amendment as well I think that's Vice chair Martini I'll accept the amendment because I think everyone should have the opportunity to make a vote on every available option so that we're really clear and uh there were a few things I was thinking about saying earlier and maybe I'll maybe I'll put it out there now um in terms of uh engagement from the community we've had a lot of people

120um contact the committee and share their views and I appreciate everyone having the vulnerability to do that uh and that we're talking about people's children which is the most important thing in their life um so um I want to just Express express how much I relate to a lot of the perspectives and points that have been brought up and a lot of the issues that we are talking about um for me just by happen stance in a lot of ways um I think I might be the only member of the committee who has a child in an interdistrict Choice spot who would be directly affected um by ending that and uh I also have a student who's through fifth grade at the middle school and I know how um important it is in so many

121fundamental ways that we change that um and it's not something that I would want for my younger student who still wouldn't be affected if we delay uh for a year but I can't I can't make decisions just based on about how I vote on something uh based on on my personal situation you know so a lot of so many people have been so thoughtful um and respectful in the way that they've shared their views and I really appreciate that one or two have uh Express their thoughts that the committee isn't listening to people particularly about um whether to end intradistrict choice and that's not true um people need to understand that there are numerous different perspectives and people with opinions on not just both sides but multiple sides um of that and um the committee

122is listening just not only to one person you know it's to everyone and trying to balance the needs of all the students um so uh that's hard and um there have also been uh you know one or two people who have expressed that the feelings of those people who are um upset or have fears on behalf of their children just aren't that important um or uh have expressed opinions about why people have made certain choices um for their children that are off base and alienate people and that's unfortunate uh I think and I'm not rehashing the vote that we just took but uh in explaining why I voted no I think it's inequitable to um allow in District Choice students like mine to continue and uh move students who don't have the same means and

123uh and I think that Justice delayed is Justice denied too so I really feel the inclination to to make changes for the coming school year rather than the one after um it's not fair having schools with drastically lopsided numbers of um students who are designated High needs in different ways it's not fair to the students to the staff um certainly to the families so um um that being said I I would I'm going to vote no on the proposed on the amended motion because even though I do think that the subcommittee has done a really really good job for a long time in trying to engage the public um if folks were not reached that's still on us um as a committee and there needs to be more time um and people need also time

124to make choices um and they will have more time if we implement this another year out so that's my point of view and I'm sorry that was really long-winded so you're you're not entertaining the friendly amendment I am because I want everyone to vote on the amended motion I'm sorry I miss I missed that okay so you're entertaining that we're go where we would um the the superintendent would like to speak go ahead I was trying to be subtle but thank you that was okay I just would like to clarify as a point of objective information given the vote that you folks passed to allow intradistrict choice to age out if you vote to implement the changes for this upcoming school year we will have a space issue at Four Corners that will result in

125the special education programming needing to switch a program at Newton will move to Four Corners and a program at Four Corners will move to Newton that I just want to reiterate that we went back to that math with the um second vote we can do it I'm you know logistically it can work but I just want you to be reminded that the timing goes back to that um those numbers thank you further discussion on the motion as amended Vice chair Mar Trini please I would just add along the lines of all those relating things um I am also a parent of two children with disabilities and it's uh I'm not going to support something that's going to um that's going to move those kids secretary extrom as much as I absolutely agree with you Glenn

126that I would love to see it happen much more quickly because I really I just I more of a rip the bandaid off and and make the thing happen as opposed to everyone mul it over and come come up with a nine million ways that it wouldn't work and I also have um worked in my tenure to think about the people who don't show up here and for whatever reason it is the the people that we do hear from I'm thankful um but the vast majority we don't hear from and so I've always been very conscious of that but I won't be able to support it because of the interdistrict piece that we just voted on and that was that was my deciding otherwise I absolutely would be there with you so we are past

1278 o'clock I would like to give the committee a choice to finish out this Vote or to take the break that we've agreed to take at 8:00 what would we like to do finish out and then take a break or take a break finish out and then take a break and anyone all right we'll just do that no one's speaking up so we'll just do that uh other discussion on this this is why I wanted to vote to do the fifth and the eighth grade vote first because now we're in a corner this is why I didn't think that the in District Choice should go first okay point of order this is not it's not it's not contributing to what we're doing that's wonderful but it isn't contributing to the overall conversation okay I I

128asked multiple times for folks to engage about how they wanted this to go I went forward with what I thought made sense so other discussion related to this motion the amended motion before we vote okay let's move to a vote so um I think it makes sense Susan Farber would you please read to us the motion as amended beginning with the 20242 school year the Greenfield school committee and Greenfield Public Schools adopt the reenvisioning our school facilities option 2B which redraws B boundaries for the elementary schools to better reflect the makeup of the city and allow for three elementary schools to house grades K through five and move grade eight to the Greenfield Middle School thank you and let's vote uh we'll do a roll call vote please secretary Extron member come around to meet

129at the end please I'm sorry can you come around to me at the end secretary extrm no member Johnson mad no member Martin uh Vice chair Martini sorry no chair pretti no member wall no em no that motion fails okay so we will take a f minute break and then we will come back and uh attempt to do the original motion again I think is what makes sense but let's take a break five minutes you [Music] he [Music] see him without my glasses on so thank you okay we're going to come back to order school committee um so I think I would actually like to try to reintroduce the original motion regarding um the redrawing of the district lines and I would try at this time to get a motion beginning with the 252 six

130school year the Greenfield school committee and Greenfield Public Schools adopt the reenvisioning our school facilities option 2B redrawing boundaries for the elementary schools to better reflect the makeup of the city and allow for three elementary schools housing grades grades K through five as well as moving grade eight to Greenfield Middle School can I have a motion to that effect so moved and a second second and discussion no discussion okay let's do a roll call vote please member Den come around to me again please secretary ask from yes member John smad abstain M Martini yes chair pretti yes member wall yes M Den yes motion passes okay thank you thank you all for your work on this we have what I would call a very a a a a solution rooted in a lot of uh

131work on behalf of the superintendent and her staff thank you and um amazing Outreach and engagement from the subcommittee for uh redistricting and I thank uh member wall and memb Steve and Johnson mad for that work um and of course all of the members of the community and our staff who engaged in the process throughout I thank you for helping us to get there and hopefully this is a a good path towards Equity um for for our district so thank you and we'll move into the rest of the agenda I have a question about the agenda sure under budget update it says budget hearing scheduling and timeline were we not going to do that did I miss something uh you kind of did you didn't miss anything we uh have it in two places it's

132also in the superintendent update and so we're going to talk about it there okay um the we're on to item nine there is a memo in the packet related to uh new substitute teacher and new substitute instructional assistant wages um and I would refer folks to that subtitute I'm sorry substitute what whatever I said was wrong substitute teacher substitute instructional assistant wages um there's a memo reflecting that um we need to increase those amounts because we believe it will help uh to improve uh being able to get people to do the work uh so at this point I would ask for a motion that the substitute teacher and substitute instructional assistant rates be increased as outlined in the December 12 Memo from the superintendent so much and a second second and uh Christine please I

133just need to um point out that there was an error when the packet was put together there is supposed to be attached a document summarizing the rates from neighboring districts and unfortunately that was not what was stapled to it however I can give you a general summary so we are um lower across the board than every District that was looked at um including the fact that currently our substitute IIA rates are below minimum wage um there are districts that distinguish you know retired teachers um former teachers degreed level non-degreed level um suggestion that I had to make it a little bit more appealing would be to just have um whether or not it is a currently certified or retired teacher with the experience that would greatly benefit our students or someone who is not retired

134uh I mean not licensed um so that that is the um proposal and my suggestion is to bump the IIA sub rate to a little bit over minimum wage which is quite honestly just about 50 cents an hour more than most of our neighboring districts um I shamelessly would like to pay them just a smidge more um but as has been said we and reported including for me in my superintendent's report we continue to struggle to get subs of all kinds but we definitely need instructional assistance so um hopeful that this will um increase our subs we get on average anywhere between four and six Subs a day and we can have as many as 20 to 30 absences so um this is greatly needed at least as an attempt to increase the subpool thank

135you further discussion okay we'll move to a vote anyone abstaining any no votes I forgot the motion already did it happen it did it did um the motion was uh that the sub subtitute teacher and substitute instructional assistant rates be increased as outlined in the December 12 Memo from the superintendent we'll start the vote again any extensions any no votes so that passes unanimously thank you and we are on to um the policy section um member Johnson mad do you want to do the usual um with with these two items that would be 10 and 11 absolutely thank you for item 10 uh I move that we amend policy BDA school committee organizational meeting revised from Full section b as presented on a second reading is there a second second okay and um I guess

136I'll just give background and then we can have discussion um the policy committee moved forward a revision that would bring our organizational meeting in line with the town Charter um and also so it recommended um adding a public comment section to our organizational meeting at the last meeting um there was not enough um support for the organ uh for the uh public comment period so that was stricken and the um the policy that was approved on first reading is included in your packet without that um and we have not had a policy subcommittee meeting since that full committee meeting however we also have not gotten um any comment against the idea of of bringing our policy into alignment with the charter so I felt comfortable bringing it to us for a second reading without a

137policy committee meeting in between any discussion all right um secretary extrom do you want to call for a vote would you like me to do a individual member call uh nope you can do it regular any extensions any no votes motion passes all right thanks everybody um so we do have some Logistics to figure out I guess with our new thing so I how will that proceed superintendent in terms of like we're going to be meeting as early as possible in the new year January 2nd I think that the town clerk will be doing a a swearing in ceremony the way it happened I think last two years ago was that it was here and then there the the city council immediately went into their organizational meeting so I wonder if we could almost schedule

138it so that as soon as their organizational meeting is over or sometime soon after that then the school committee could do ours we all get sworn in the city council organizes itself and then the school committee organizes itself but so I think just as a you know operational um step we could potentially do the evening after um I don't know I'd have to check in with the city clerk to see if the city council has any other agenda items other than reorganizing the city council I don't know if you're suggesting backtack meetings that evening but um we could certainly look to see if the third is is available I think if we could do it on the second that would be great um so there are organizational meetings at 6:30 in the evening is it

139okay it's already posted on the City calendar city council organizational meeting here uh six oh it doesn't actually oh it does say here at uh uh 6:30 on the second so could we do ours at 5:30 so the way that we schedule meetings we would pull for a qu quum which we could certainly do uh well could we because we've got new members coming in so you can't even pull for a quorum right now but what I would recommend is the typical way we do it is we ask Lauren to do that piece and Lauren to at the same time Reserve uh the space that is available and Reserve gctv to be there as well so we need those pieces to be to fall into place to make sure we could schedule it uh yeah

140go ahead well go ahead GL no go ahead um so is it by virtue in the past the mayor has been the person to swear in school committee members so by virtue of changing the policy it would now be the city clerk well yeah that's true on a mayoral year sometimes the mayor gets sworn in and then the mayor swears everybody else but at any rate there will be some type of swearing in ceremony I think we should we should do it on that day I don't I think that you know I don't think the city council is going to go into a full uh I mean maybe you can look at their agenda but I my assumption is it's just going to be organizational so we could meet potentially meet here at 5:30 on

141January 2nd and I think that you would pull for Quorum the same way you would you ask the people who need to be in attendance whether they can make it or not so maybe this superintendent could just work with Lauren to pull um the people who need to be in attendance on that day and see if there's a quorum for January 2nd at 5:30 what my proposal I mean I'm the the chair is the one who does that process not the superintendent okay well I'll I'll I'll be chairing the meeting as the the um member proem so I guess I'll pull for forum and get it scheduled thank you I think did did we vote on the the uh did we already vote on the organizational meeting policy piece did we we finish that vote

142yeah we finished that vote sorry I just got confused okay um so now we're on to the first reading of policy section I instruction um I move that we approve the first reading of amendments to policy section one instruction as presented so just a point of clarification that it is not printed it's over a 100 Pages it is not printed for individual members right now it's not in your packet it is available in the online um uh materials for this meeting meeting if you were to go online you would find it there um we did not print it to to save the trees and uh any member between now and the next time it's voted on can certainly request from the central office to have the full uh packet printed for them uh to to

143review before we do the second reading do we have any sort of question sorry we need a second on the motion sorry second okay discussion do we have any sort of little collection of changes that have been made or when the changes have last happened since it's so large the markup of the suggested changes is in the online okay the markup is there so you can see what the proposed changes are sorry any other discussion Kate um I did look at what was provided electronically and it was really large and has a lot of red strikeout in it um I find it difficult to it just seems difficult to me to have an overhaul with that many pieces provided all at once and not to have some kind of outline or explanation of those changes

144in a concise way and also I will say if it ends up in the meeting materials in a link which I believe is sort of like what occurred for November which was 147 Pages or something it's really difficult for people to find something in the meeting materials that they are interested in amongst all the stuff that they're not so it would be great if we could get that posted separately on the website so you're asking for the section I of the policy manual to be posted separately for ease of access and viewing yes that can be done thank you can I offer just a helpful um note that might help with some of the red um yeah it absolutely is voluminous with red what the um format had been that had been started prior to

145me getting here is all of the sections have if there are Greenfield and then masc versions available of policies they're both in there almost always the recommendation from Administration is to follow the is to include the masc version so much of the red us see is the deletion of the Greenfield version of policies that are um duplicative from masc in Greenfield so just like half at least half of all the red is that okay I guess I have a follow-up comment um with much respect and appreciation to masc I don't know that all of our policies should be exactly what they say um I I and I don't want to ask for an explanation of every single difference in there um all at once because that is a ton of material um personally I would

146prefer that it be broken up into smaller chunks this is 120 pages and I yeah well I guess um yes it's 120 Pages yes there are a lot of separate little pieces I guess I'm curious why um the suggestion is to approve all of section I in one swoop as opposed to looking at the individual ones or whatever ones that is the because that's what we've done previously sure um a little context so this is part of our project with the Massachusetts Association of school committees over mask um the service they offer is to help School committees to completely to to take a fresh look at their entire policy handbooks to um overhaul them basically bring them in line with best practices and current law and then digitize them and put them on a website

147so they're more easily accessible to the school committee members and the public um this project was started before I came on which was I think in May of 2019 it might have been 2018 and you know it got significantly to delayed um I think usually School committees have moved through this process more quickly by now and part of it is that you do have a subcommittee that is looking at these things and a superintendent who you know we have hired to look deeply into instruction and I I think you'll will find aspects where the mask recommendation is not what we're going with um because we it is being each policy is being looked at freshly um uh and brought before being brought to the school committee um but if people want more time and um

148you know I I'm realizing that in general um the uh the process would be to bring this to the policy subcommittee the new policy subcommittee will be established at the first regular meeting of the year in January which means they won't really be able to meet between until prior to the February meeting so if you wanted we could do the first reading now um then we could vote on it and then it could be brought to the new policy subcommittee or there could be a motion to table to January and it basically wouldn't change the the timeline in that regard so um but personally I I think having it on a first reading and then the school committee in January could decide if they wanted to um to delay um you you could do it

149that way as well so I think that might be my preference be let's let's pass the first reading and people when they have more time to read it and they have questions and comments they can ask the superintendent they can bring them to the policy subcommittee um and then the next school committee can decide decide when they want to do the second reading Glenn can I say something thank you I took a panel on this in hyenes specifically on this issue so can I share what was told to me so once we complete this work it goes and gets hosted on the masc website and enters a searchable database meaning our policies will be searchable by all the other school committees and we can search their policies if we're not on there we cannot search

150our policies the way that we might need to in order to collect information quickly and um gather data points that we can compare to other districts so it almost behooves us to really just get it on there as fast as we can so that we can utilize that service and then we can go through and make all of the changes that we want and we'll have better better data points at that moment because we'll be able to utilize the searchable database of other districts if that makes sense so that's part of the hosting and one of the reasons why we do it and it doesn't have to be in line with masc to be on there it just has to be the work has to be finished we have to go through the policy manual

151and say that we are complete and if we do change something I ask specifically if we want to change a policy how long does that take and I was told just several tops unless it's a really giant thing any other discussion let's vote apologies any abstentions any no votes no uh and yeses I I motion passes thanks everybody thank you member Johnson mad for walking us through that okay we are on to item 12 requests for new agenda items anyone have requests at this time I do VI chair Martini please uh very unrelated well maybe not entirely unrelated mostly unrelated to uh stuff we discussed tonight but something that I um have been wishing for um I've been looking back at um meetings pertaining to the music program and uh and I appreciate the discussions

152and the information that's being provided but for my part I'm still unclear and it would be really helpful to me if you could please provide uh an outline like a piece of paper um of the GPS music program and that would be particularly helpful to me when we're talking about um the upcoming budget in January and February and March so it would be great if you would have time to U put something together like that around that sure thank you very much thank you Vice chair martini and do we have other requests for new agenda items okay we'll move on to reports from the administration ASP please I was told to talk fast I don't I know I just put my code on too uh professional development We are continuing the work with the teaching

153lab we had a faculty meeting today and um kind of wrapped up the think right pair share we're going to move on to questioning in January the administration had a full professional development yesterday at e team and we'll be rolling that out in the New Year investigating history um educurious our p partner has been working closely with our 5 through seven history teachers and providing coaching support in their role out of the investigating history curriculum and that's been going really well and we are still uh plugging along at the high school with the roll out of illustrative math in grades 8 through 10 through geometry um they had a professional development today at the faculty meeting with illustrative math they also have a onetoone coach from better lessons that they work with every other week

154so that's going well we had a site visit from desie Dr sharmi Curry came she's the associate commissioner of the ssos team she came on Thursday November 9th and spent uh the majority of the day with Christine and I and we toured all of the elementary schools um she wanted to see our highquality instructional curriculum resource ckla in action at the elementary level and I just added a little quote from her because um she wasn't familiar with CK until she visited Greenfield in our adoption and she was impressed with the content per grade level and how rich the materials were so it was nice to get that feedback um she also was very impressed that our school and District administrator uh I'll have a level of oversight in the implementation and and tracking of that

155Library news sadly our elementary librarian had resigned recently uh we are fortunate enough to still have our uh volunteer retired certified librarian Deb Kern who's been filling in she goes once a week to each elementary school so that students can still have access we are strongly looking for replacement so I urge anyone if they are interested to please contact me in the meantime though however if anyone would like to volunteer and help out in our elementary libraries if you could contact central office and uh connect with Lauren Rice she will help you with on boarding in that process and then my last update uh I sadly had to miss one of my favorite events of the Year this year I had a personal matter I had to deal with but we had our unit UHC

156Mentor mentee December celebration where we get together uh share positive things that have happened you know for the first half of the year um they are a very competitive bunch and so I am always tasked with providing games that rise their level of competition to the highest and I heard it was quite quite competitive this year um and we also uh eat together we do crafts and just really laugh and have a good time so I heard it was a huge success uh Mike Browning thank you for taking over for me and a shout out to my admin assistant who um realizes she's not crafty when I task her with some of these things to do for projects such as this but she does them anyway with a smile so that's all I have tonight

157thank you thank you are there questions from the committee for askp I'm not seeing any thank you Karen and uh Christine go ahead thank you mine's um not as much fun so we've started the budget process for fy2 and to that end all of the building ad administrators have shared with their staff that they need Supply requests for next school year um we're asking them to submit those to their principles um next week mid next week Andy Karen and I have budget meetings scheduled with all department heads and building level administrators um basically through January 12th through January 19th and then um the budget will get submitted as the superintendent budget for publication and then um you folks obviously will get it to vote so I this is related to the budget hearing request the

158city puts out a budget timeline that I have a copy of if there are any questions and if we work backwards from the date on which the mayor must receive the school committee budget that is March 11th the deadline for school committee budget vote is March 8th so if we work backwards we have to post for the budget hearing for three weeks prior so my suggestion to allow the committee um a little bit of room to breathe um if there are questions or a need for a second night my suggestion would be that the budget hearing get scheduled for February 28th that would allow that following week of March for a potential second meeting because not forgetting we need 48 hours for posting and then if we work backwards assuming the 28th is agreeable three

159weeks for posting of the budget hearing brings us to February 7th but then Lauren and I have to get material to the Greenfield Recorder on certain dates so that it is published on particular dates so that puts us sending the budget summary and the um press release regarding the hearing to the recorder by February 2nd if that followed backwards so we have to get the budget to the mayor by March 11th so I think we need to post for the hearing by the 7th of February any objections thank you okay I don't have any objections I'd like you to discuss a little bit how our timeline differs from the other departments in the city oh certainly this is based on um the timeline for um City departments so they actually are um it it's not

160a horrifically un inconsistent timeline they're doing department head meetings with the mayor um around the same time that the department heads in the school are meeting with me and Karen and Andy um we have a separate requirement for posting our budget hearing the city posts theirs separate we have to post ours separately um and then the mayor gets our budget um and then incorporates that into um her full budget book which is then presented and then the mayor has a timeline of April ail 1st to present the operating budget to the city council so the mayor needs our piece of the budget to create the full City budget so we need to be in the middle of all of those pieces with a final voted request so oh I have to finish my report I

161apologize I was so excited we got through that part thank you um so the I was very pleased to have the opportunity to present the mass Association of school superintendent academic Excellence award um Elise bonitz is currently the number one ranked student in our senior class she is a GPA of a 4.46 right now um an Inc has she has taken an incredibly rigorous course load she's current president of the National Honor Society she has and um a musician for the high school and um so we Karen and I and Derek surprised her in a class with balloons and flowers and embarrassed her horrifically which is always the goal and then um on December 7th I was able to attend the Franklin County um dinner where all Franklin County superintendents attend the culinary students at

162Franklin County County Tech um cook dinner they do a very very nice job and then all the superintendents are asked to come up one at a time and read the biography which you folks got at the time um through email we read the biography of our student and um it's a wonderful night I was able to um talk with elely and her parents for the evening and it it's extremely enjoyable to be able to do that um so her um a summary of that is here and again you did get her her biography but if you have any interest in getting it again I'm happy to share it and then Staffing um a couple of pieces oh wait let me go back I apologize I knew there was something I forgot um at a prior

163meeting I had talked about the fact that we would look at the transportation routes in town there are questions about why do some places get busted why do others not um safety of roots Etc I want to let everyone know that Jake and I did walk the bus routes um the other morning and I forgot my gloves it was a memorable day but um we walked all of the routes um around to and from Newton School um the route from different areas to Federal Street so we are going to do a little bit of work in crafting some suggestions um or options for cons consideration for the committee um I hope that that will be in January at the committee meeting for consideration um but I believe that it warrants um consideration of some changes

164and then um the sad things the aforementioned Jake has given us his resignation so we're losing Jake but I'm very pleased for him in that he's leaving us to pursue um another academic degree and I hope that when Jake finishes his bcba program that he will come back to us um that's a very um exciting opportunity for him um I did fight with him I told him I wasn't taking his resignation and he basically slid it under my office door so um I have posted we don't have applicants yet but he's going to be with us until the end of January so I'm hopeful um so a few other pieces that are um budgetarily related last year with the budget for this current school year um I did recommend and you folks agree that we

165cut the float custodian um that is not breaking in our favor we have had um custodial vacancies that were out for much longer than anticipated we have had some Personnel issues um con within our custodi IAL unit either leaves or other issues not necessarily um huge concerning issues but still situations that resulted in the need for our current custodians to work overtime so at this point in the year we have already um surpassed what was spent in overtime last year let me look we have a summary in FY 23 the maintenance custodial team um had just over 50,000 in overtime for all of FY 23 um to this point we have almost hit that total in overtime so really it is um you know a a recommendation to save budget money which in the short

166term had we been fully staffed would certainly have been fine but at this point um the overtime that we would spend for the remainder of the year if we stay at this pace will well over overlap the cost of a float custodian so um I'm going to post that position in the hopes that we can address the overtime expenses um assuming that we can in fact fill the float custodian position so the other um situation that um I'd like to move forward with is a a long number of years ago prior to my arrival there was an additional position in the superintendent's office and we're looking to um reinstitute a part-time position and I want to explain the re the bouncing ball of this in our payroll department we use munus there are many updates

167and changes that need to occur in munice for our processes to be efficient right now with the responsibilities that are in the payroll roll SL HR department Barry who is our payroll um primary payroll person and doing all of these HR pieces who would be working with the city Side to do all the changes in munus does not have the time to make the changes in munus because all of of all of the HR pieces that are in that office so we're just continually sort of behind the eightball um if he's able to spend the time working with the city to make the backend changes in munice then the goal is that our operations will be more efficient and you can see in the long run the benefits um so I would like to reinstitute

168that is a part-time position and it may not be needed forever but we definitely need to sort of provide time to make the adjustments that we need to address the problems that create inefficiencies so that we can potentially streamline operations again um I was looking at the history the position has gone through a few configurations it seems different responsibilities moved back and forth um but I did talk with Andy about the history of that position and his best recollection is that the decision was not that it wasn't needed it's that there was a very very lean budget year one year and that the result was the position was cut not that it wasn't needed so um so um and then we're back to using a staffing agency to try to help us fill some of

169our positions specifically our IAS we have had some success already and we continue to move in that direction so and then um I would like to thank our school committee members um Susan and Jean and the mayor who's not here um for so far two and a half wonderful years and I greatly appreciate all of the support and guidance and work that you have done and it has been a great pleasure for me to work with you and I will extend that same sentiment to the mayor um privately since she's not here so thank you thank you do we have questions or comments for the superintendent okay I'm not hearing any we'll move into the school committee reports um my report is only that I would Echo Christine's sentiment about our uh committee members who

170are rolling off um and I acknowledge all of their great work and um wish them the best and hope that uh they'll still uh continue to be engaged with the schools um and I have also made it very public that I do not plan on running for or being chair anytime again in the near future so I will be done uh as chair and that is my report and we can move into uh the subcommittee reports do we have anything else we would want to discuss related to redistricting this evening okay and what about anything from policy anything additional nope uh budget anything additional I mean Melissa Webb gave a really good budget report and we talked about elevators and and uh the cost of things rolling off and starting and so yeah no there's

171nothing okay if if there was something that was important to share at this point I absolutely would but it but it was all sort of what needs to be thought about in the future okay and the collaborative member Den anything to report no okay and I would just add uh the district Wellness committee uh work we should be aware as a committee that there um is a spot for a school Committee Member to represent on that committee and their next meeting is very close after the beginning of the year um I think is it on January 4 let me just it's really early so I just want to make sure folks are aware of that and um it would be the new chair's responsibility to that assign that person and I would just say publicly

172that I'm happy to continue in that role and also happy to let someone else transition to it however uh that would go and it is at 4 o'clock on the 8th Monday the 8th of January is when that committee next meets um and they are working on the wellness policy for the district so I think it would be be um helpful for us to have someone there and I'm just putting that out there we don't need to discuss it now we can discuss it with the new committee well actually so when is the meeting M Monday uh January 8th at 4 oock and they meet in the um central office area in the conference room there and the first regular school committee will be the 10th so the committee assignments won't be made correct until

173the 10th likely correct so I'm just wondering if we I don't know if we can but I I think it might be good to make a motion to I'll make a motion and see we can discuss it but um for Amy pretti to continue in that role for that um first meeting in January until the committee assignments can be made I'll second it okay any discussion I would just say I'm fine with that I really just think it's important we have representation there and if I continue fine if I don't continue after that fine too okay any further discussion uh any we'll move to a vote any abstentions any no votes okay so that will be the plan thank you member Johnson mad and uh that it concludes the regular meeting we do need to

174do an executive session um so I me make sure we are not returning an open session so uh motion to enter executive session please for exemption reason number two to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-union Personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with nonunion personnel as well as exemption 7 to comply with or act under the authority of any general or special law or Federal Grant in Aid requirements this is the approval of executive session minutes from the dates listed there uh can I get a motion to that effect so moved and a second second and um we need a roll call vote on that please member Jive yes secretary exm yes member John mad yes Vice chair Martini yes PR yes member wall yes and that passes unanimously

175so now I also need a motion to adjourn the uh public session please so moved and a second second and any uh we'll move right to a vote on that any extensions any no votes okay we are adjourned at 9:01 from the public session thank you all