Greenfield School Committee Meeting - November 8, 2023

001good evening welcome to Greenfield Public School school committee meeting it's Wednesday November 8 2023 6 PM we are at the johnon community center 35 Pleasant Street per the open meeting law any member of the public may make an audio or video recording of this meeting and just a reminder we do have a slightly new policy that if the meeting extends Beyond 8:00 p.m. we will take a five minute break for members at 8:00 pm and at this point we'll do a a roll call and call to order please secretary extrom let's wait until I get Kate on the phone okay is that all right we yeah we do have uh one possibly two members as per our uh president in the joining us by phone this evening um they are at a school committee conference

002uh on the cape and um we'll be trying to get them on the phone for just a second let's Hi how are you sounds great I'm gonna put you guys somewhere so the microphone can hear you and I'll have you on speaker yep hello can you hear me yes can you hear us try it again one more time can you hear us hello kind I'm working on hold on maybe it's me try again hello testing that's much better thank you it was it was my fault I had my volume turned down apologies let's do a roll call please um and just want to let everyone know Susan Farber is not here this evening she typically takes minutes and notes and so I'm going to be doing that and I'm sure I will drive everyone insane

003with my clicking so member Den here secretary Exum I am here member Johnson mad here Vice chair Martini here chair pretti here member wall here mayor W Gartner and is not going to be joining us this evening we have a quum okay thank you we are called to order at 6:03 p.m. uh I will take a motion at this point to approve the minutes from the October 11th meeting can I have a motion please so move that was member wall and a second second member Johnson mad thank you and is there any discussion of the minutes okay hearing none we'll move to a vote anyone abstaining from approving the minutes don't you have to dooll call oh I'm sorry yes we have to do a roll call vote so let's do a roll call please

004member Den yes secretary exam I Imes member Johns manad yes Vice chair Martini yes sure priy yes member wall yes they are approved okay thank you and I should have noted also we've changed the order of our uh usual agenda just slightly to accommodate the folks that are at the conference they'll be with us probably for about the first hour of the meeting um and then we'll be logging off and um I think probably many of you are here for the discussion on reenvisioning the district the redistricting process um and we're going to have our report from the student representatives and then have the discussion of the the redistricting process after that and then public comments which just a slightly different order than you might be used to um and uh at this point we

005would take my favorite part of the meeting the Tumi Brothers report from the student Representatives please guys thank you um so to begin with student council um November brings such stuco Staples as lip syncs pep rallies and partnering with the Boy Scouts to scout for food um scouting was a huge success in the last few weeks together we helped collect over 2,000 pounds of food and next week several students will attend the regional state conference at Long Meadow High School uh planning for pep rally is coming up along or it's coming along well this year and we will be hosting a scavenger hunt in Leo of the annual turkey Bingo students are planning their Spirit Week costumes and collecting their pennies for Penny Wars all M all money raised from penny wars will be donated

006to the Special Olympics via our annual Polar Plunge Key Club participated in the first annual trunk retreat at Stone Burnham school on October 29th great costumes and dancing great Halloween decorations and yummy treats were provided for over a 100 trick-or-treaters we are preparing for the traditional Green Wave Turkey Trot which will be held on Wednesday November 22nd at 8:15 fun walk run DJ hot cocoa and Thanksgiving themed games and memory making along the way Spanish club celebrated dios moros with face painting before school on the Day of the Dead and they continue to play uh to plan and fundraise for their upcoming trip to Spain Italy and France in April they're currently selling holiday wreaths and planning for a fudge fundraiser their school meetings have included practicing ordering food in a restaurant and of course

007dancing to prepare for their performance in the Thanksgiving pep rally fall Sports have come to a close with a great success field hockey and boy soccer made the state tournament soccer traveled to Salem Academy in the perlim round and lost 4 to zero they put up a good fight as it was 1 and zero at half field hockey won their round of 32 game 2 to one in overtime versus Northbridge High School in the round of 16 game the girls lost a nailbiter two to1 in overtime at Su and high congratulations on the miaaa state tournament we want to wish all the senior fall athletes good luck in their future endeavors winter sports start Monday November 27th look for basketball ice hockey and indoor track schedules on AR live go wave French Club H hosted

008a well attended movie night on October 23rd where they enjoyed a light-hearted French animated film un monre which I'm sure I butchered um they continue to fundraise for their trip to France in April and have begun preparations for coffee house the coffee house talent show event which will be on Thursday December 14th from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. in the ghs auditorium their next meeting will be after school on Monday December 4th and all are welcome to join drama club is excited to announce their spring play myth Adventures by Eric kobal a comedy drama retelling of five classic Greek myths auditions will be held after school on Monday November 13th and Tuesday November 14th in the auditorium and are open to all ghs students Library Club hosted the fourth annual ghs Comic-Con after school on October

00925th um they welcome students and Librarians from Mohawk Trail Regional School and the Pioneer Valley Regional School uh we want to thank Greenfield Public the Greenfield Public Library for collaborating uh as well as the guest presenters from liy here the imaginary Bookshop tumble science media and podcast and game designer Chris Foster of hidden door the advanced European history class has been working in the library researching Renaissance artists while they culminate um which will culminate in the students giving 12 to 14-minute presentations on the artists they researched as part of their learning they are excited to be taking a field trip tomorrow to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston to see a special exhibit on strong women of the Renaissance and to visit the Museum's other Medieval Renaissance and classic Greek and Roman art on

010display band celebrated their six seniors at a football game for the years dedicated to the music department they will be Marching In the Veterans Day Parade members of the community have asked why the band is so small it is challenging to have a thriving music department when the program keeps being impacted at the elementary and middle school level they hope that this will be a priority in the future to help rebuild the program NHS officers have begun a campaign to seek to speak to underclassmen about the current situation in the hallways in the bathrooms at ghs the students leaders presented to both the eighth graders and the 10th graders at their class meetings last week and are preparing to talk to the 9th 11th and 12th graders at the future meetings the topics of the

011presentations included showing respect to teachers and other students not congregating in the bathrooms vandalizing and preventing others from using them not wering the Halls during classes and other ideas about making the building better for all students we continue to plan for our adopt the family project in December and volunteer work with the ghs tutoring in a possible nursing home visit uh student anxiety was rather high as grades recently closed for quarter 1 and students began to shift Focus towards the incoming term and the scheduled changes that are going to come in the following few weeks at the same time many students are now baning together to prepare for the lip sync performances that will occur on Wednesday the 22nd uh just before we leave for break the year's theme is artists and each grade is

012met numerous times already to throw together their act generally Spirits are stable as we are approaching the break and the academic load can be forgotten for a few days while the situation has seemed to improve a little bit students still feel qualms in regards to the situation of the bathrooms um some have begun to open yet the ability to conveniently access restrooms conveniently has been challenged the restrooms that are not open are closed due to repairs that are needed this makes it difficult for to find an open space and beyond that for those that are open they are facing overcrowding as students flock to them to occupy the space during class time these factors all culminate to hinder the accessibility of these facilities for students seeking to use them for their intended purpose administrators have

013had to be stationed outside of certain locations and times of passing to ensure that people leave and move to their oncoming class um that concludes everything we have written out but if you have any questions we would be happy to answer them thank you guys other questions from the committee not hearing any questions thank you both for being here appreciate it we'll see you next month okay so we're we're going to do um a walk through in in in a discussion uh within the committee of uh the reenvisioning the school facility project and um I want to give the superintendent an opportunity um to first talk about uh how what the overview she's put together um as well as what we've learned anything else she wants to add there and then going to also have

014Jean wall as the chair of the committee um that facilitated the work um also give have an opportunity um to speak and then the members of the subcommittee are uh member Den um and member Johnson mad and if they want to speak after member wall um we'll do that and then we'll have a general discussion um at that point um we are not planning to vote on anything this evening uh because we've really gotten a lot of feedback in in in the past month or so that shows that folks uh I think everyone needs to be a little bit more up to speed on what exactly is being proposed and why and what we've learned as a part of this process for the last 2 years um but we will um take an opportunity during

015the discussion to actually talk about the votes that um I would propose we take and I say it that way because um often to help us organize the work of the committee um as the chair I will propose the Motions that we put forward and motions are always up for not only debate but also revision you may have heard if you have ever attended a meeting or you attend regularly that will ask for friendly amendments to motions or something like that um in order to give us a starting point um I've had a couple of motions prepared that if we want to and it feels like it's a logical part of the discussion tonight we would walk through uh those and perhaps um either take some more time to think and plan to come back

016as a committee with different motions in December um or we would um kind of plan on those and see if our thinking evolves between now and the next meeting um so that's a little bit about what we're going to do and then I think it'll be interesting to see having public comment after our discussion that's not the normal way that we do things um and so we'll uh certainly see how that works and what we might glean from doing it in that order um and so at this point I would ask that uh Christine give us an overview um if you have the materials if you're following at home you have the materials on your phone or your device or what have you um there is a not only a write up of the history

017of this reenvisioning project but also a draft of um the redistricting plan as it relates to the transportation details so I'll stop there go head thank you okay thank you so as you mentioned um I put together a little history just of from the beginning the first uh first action that sort of prompted the conversation because not long after I started in Greenfield um Jean had reached out and said can we talk about what you might think we could do with Green River so we went for a tour so that that was really the first um step in this conversation and then um the orientation to the subcommittees and the work that was being done around um Equity specifically at that time um talking about Equity across the three elementary schools and I do remember

018th those were some of the questions that were asked during even my interview about curriculum across elementaries and resources things like that so that was sort of the impetus for the conversation with the committee around all of these items seem to be connected to some degree and it made sense that we somewhat begin at the beginning and figure out how many students we might be talking about in The District because it was challenging to talk about how to potentially reconfigure and reuse Green River if we didn't know what our anticipated population was going to be so committee members may remember at that point um we had a contract with nesdc to do um excuse me I'm not sick I just want to make sure everybody knows not spreading germs up here um that we uh

019the committee we had a contract with NASDAQ to do enrollment projections and then to do what was called a best use of educational facilities study that involved D um surveys from our building administrators um information from them about demographics and space our facilities director Eric um did a lot of work with nzda around all of the configurations of the building providing documents um and then members of that committee from NASDAQ came toward all of the buildings and wrote up a summary which has been on the district website since it was presented um spring of 22 so that was um that was the beginning and then there was conversation about the options nezda presented four options for the committee just looking at here are some things you could do um I'm summarizing obviously we're speeding up

020the timeline here um two of them seemed to come off the table um due to cost one of them involved reopening Green River um people may remember that there's a heating um system that needs to be upgraded the cost when I got here was over 700,000 I'm sure it has um increased dramatically since then and given the fact that Green River hasn't been used for a number of years there are other upgrades technology being one um depending on the use of the playground could be another so we're talking well over a million dollars just to get into the inside of it um the other option that was taken off the table somewhat um early on was an option that would require construction at all three of the elementary schools um that would have required engineering

021studies and then um the cost of any construction on top of that so the committee seemed to eliminate those somewhat quickly so that left two options the First Option One was that we would reconfigure the district with three schools having grade bands so one school would have had K1 another school 23 and the third School 45 so that was um that was moved forward to have the administration do some of the logistical work um part of that included some of the transportation information there was going to be some need need to make some fairly um involved changes we thought in the transportation because getting students from across the whole city to three different elementary schools within the same time frame was going to be challenging would have involved potentially changing hours for the schools changing

022drop off pickup times and likely involve the addition of one if not more buses with a financial impact so variety of impacts of that there was convers ation about um from the community members from staff that that was not necessarily an appealing option and um could we consider something else option two involves having three elementary schools and re and moving the lines for each school's catchment area um so through public comment through emails staff feedback what evolved was what we lovingly call option 2B which involved a little bit of moving the catchment areas and creating three K through five elementary schools that option seemed to be somewhat appealing so the subcommittee asked the administration to move forward get some information do some of the leg work to see if it was feasible the first thing

023we did was to look at well how many students could we be talking about in each school that involved looking at the current enrollments the breakdowns from each School based on Transportation where they would go uh keeping in mind one of the primary goals of this effort was to create a more balanced distribution of students across the city um and you know to look at how we were Distributing our student population into our elementary schools another priority that came out of it was um a very strong desire by I think everyone to get fifth grade out of the middle school and to get eighth grade out of the high school um so looking at those as priorities um we were able to look at redrawing some lines across the city to uh more evenly B

024balance the demographic enrollment balance the city into each of the elementary schools and then we sat with maps of each building and the potential enrollment in each building and said wow we have we might have space this could work um so that's where the conversation about Choice the impact of intradistrict choice the impact of not intradistrict Choice um came up looking at enrollment so we calculated enrollment projected enrollment um in two ways so that we could look at actual space we looked at transportation and um then came down to the fact that this was feasible um in terms of having the physical space and um so that's that's kind of where we are for you folks to decide which configuration you're interested in moving to um I'm not aware although I could be wrong that

025option one was ever officially taken off the table I know it's not you know everyone's preference but um option two is still on the table which would just have me redrawing lines every year the challenge with that would be potentially that would affect um a fairly small area of the city annually or every couple of years based on enrollment in different schools that it would shift back and forth um which I think you know that's that is challenging people have raised concerns about having students change schools in any of the models that we've talked about and so this you know the option two if the committee chooses to go that way could potentially result in students moving um you know based on enrollments option 2B there are there are pros and cons for sure um

026the the pros are that whichever um decision is made um regarding the intradistrict choice scenario regardless of that um we can get K to five in all three of our elementary schools based on the projections that we have um we can get 8th grade into the middle school we um have the ability to provide all of the special education services in all of the buildings all of our related Services the interventions um so they're you know from a programmatic standpoint it does appear that it is able to be done which meets at least two of the goals of the committee um I think all three because the reconfiguration of the city in terms of which um areas of the city would um be assigned to different schools um does make some changes from the way

027it is now the challenge is that we could end up with some space issues um primarily that occurs at Four Corners and if this is where the the the conversation about what the population looks like in the building um would do if the students who are currently attending schools that are not their neighborhood schools remain in their non- neighborhood School schools um it it is anticipated that four corners would need an extra third grade fourth grade fifth grade we can house an extra third grade fourth grade fifth grade but what that would do is put um some of our specials teachers would have to use a cart and move between classes um period by period because their space would be moved and then due to space there is a substantially separate special education program at

028Newton and there is one at Four Corners and we would need to move swap the two schools um due to the space available in both buildings we can do that we have the space to do that um if we don't have the students who are intradistrict choice in their choice in school there would be two grade levels of grade three grade four grade five at Four Corners and we would have space for art and music and we would not need to switch um the location of the special ed programs so that's the general overview but I can go through a little bit of the information in here I'm not going to go through all of the dates and everything that you have you can see that um the next pages are just a summary with

029the pros and cons the bulk of these summaries you can see it was from Fall of 2022 this was compiled um based on our community meetings I'm looking at Glenn he was at those um so this is feedback and then um after after these meetings we also added feedback in um from staff when we went to the elementary and the secondary levels to get staff feedback so that this is a compilation of the general feedback Pros cons and outstanding questions and at the top I put a summary a very brief summary of what that option would look like because I'm sure everybody isn't as um immersed in this but so then there was an update provided I updated this in October of 2023 to show any um updates obviously so this shows the addition of

030option 2B um the pros and cons are somewhat um I had done a summary which is on the website of it's just summary of options updated October of 2023 has two separate summaries one intradistrict choice phased out the other one is leaving intradistrict Choice as is so you could see advantages challenges and questions remaining um separated out but this is a summary um option 2B oh no I lied I put them both on here look at that look how comprehensive I was um option three we eliminated due to cost this is a summary of that option four as well eliminated due to costs that's the construction so this was a this is a summary of the review of our current in it was current last year and projected for next year enrollments um I want

031to make sure that folks are clear when they look at the numbers with this this reflects what would be the newly Drawn Lines and then um whether we had the students from intradistrict choice in the building or not so what Jake our transportation coordinator did was manually go through all the students because he has the transportation information for all of them whether they Access Transportation or not and identified numbers of students who would be in each School in either scenario as a district we do not have a field in our student database to indicate whether students are intradistrict choice or not so I cannot easily query that number um but this is basically the differentiation it is not just straight Choice numbers of students from Choice one way or the other um this also reflects

032um the projected newly Drawn Lines so um so you can see what the population numbers might look like with or without intradistrict Choice um and the newly drawn um attendance areas Four Corners has the most significant change with about 35 um Federal Street has a variance of about 20 and Newton has a variance of about 15 um and it goes in different directions so if choice is in effect um feder a Four Corners goes up if we do not have intradistrict Choice Federal Street and Newton go up just from their current enrollment so again these are estimated we know students move in and move out we knew we know people move within the city so these are estimated but at any point we're always using estimated enrollment um for our decisionmaking so we looked at

033the enrollments we rolled them up as we say we used a standard of reasonableness for class size there was no school committee policy about class size there are no finite numbers included in the unit a collective bargaining we certainly recognize there are a variety of factors that we need to consider when looking at class size um so you know that that is a piece of what we looked at administratively so there's a breakdown of what we estimate project class sizes to be where we have a somewhat noticeable increase I included that um whether we have in District choice in place or not for Newton and Federal Street we have two we expect we would have two of every grade level either way just because of enrollment changes um regardless so the that aspect does not

034change for either of those buildings um we could have a couple of class sizes that are a little bit higher but um you know we're we're able to talk about the needs when we get to actual enrollment at that time to see if we need to do anything differently um Federal Street would still have um you know ability to reconfigure things if we needed to add another classroom at Federal Street um but at this point all of the spaces anticipated to be used so Four Corners this is where the um space challenges come in you can see if we have the original numbers leaving everyone where they are so to speak um we project there would be three classes of grades 3 four five um you can see some class siiz numbers for the upper

035grades at Four Corners would be a little bit High higher than they are um again that would be a conversation when we get closer to the actual start of the school year um having conversations about potentially the need to add supports into those classrooms um but that's what we're expect we anticipate class sizes could look like so you can see we look at space I broke that down for Newton for federal one of the positives of um the redistricting is as we're looking at reconfiguring we realized that we can move things around to address an issue at Federal where the nurse's office is it is not in a good space it is not in a handicapped accessible space um so with the reconfiguring we've identified a space where they can be that is handicapped accessible

036has a bathroom so that that would be wonderful to take care of that need um I go through a summary of what we believe the space situation would be at Four Corners like I just um outlined middle school and high school we don't expect any space issues middle school is almost replacing the exact enrollment so Michelle doesn't expect that to be an issue and high school obviously we would be um not using some classes so um there would be no space issue there then we needed to look at the schedules for our staff for next year projecting again all of this is projected estimated anticipated right now at the elementary level we have um a situation where our art music and PE teachers at the elementary have come to an agreement with us that their

037contractually required preparation time can be reconfigured because we have two of each art music and PE that serve all of the elementary schools and every elementary school classroom gets all three specials um the way to do that involved some creative use of time and space and they have been exceptionally flexible for the past two years agreeing um to a non-traditional way to use to have their prep time allocated um if we have two classrooms of every grade level in all three elementary schools the current art music and PE teachers would be able to provide service at all three elementary schools and have their preparation period as it is outlined in the contract if we have additional sections of any grade levels we would have to add portions of art music and PE so if we

038had three extra sections of a grade level we would have to have basically a art music and PE teachers working about three periods a day so that's less than a halftime person in each of those subject areas um so that's just a challenge you know that we'd have to figure out um at the middle school to add to the complication for next year we need to add full-time social studies and full-time science right now they have half year of each because mcass is going to be um there's mcast implications Civics is being piloted so that's going to be added so we really need to provide our middle school students with a full year of instruction so that we're really able to provide instruction on all the standards so that they're in a better place given

039the added testing so we have to add teachers at the middle school to do this because of the schedule so while we do expect there would be the reduction in some sections at the elementary school some of which may happen anyway because of um population Bubbles and changes in that um some of that staff who might not have a position at the elementary often elementary teachers are licensed from grade kindergarten through grade six so there's opportunity that they may be able to take some of those additional positions um and space you know changes happen people retire they move some teachers may elect to take higher level Middle School positions so um but we do expect overall that there would be a reduction in I believe it is four positions at the end of all of

040the reconfigurations sorry I'm not seeing it right now I'm I know it's in here um we would we do expect that a health teacher position will need to be shifted because they're providing service to the eth grade so we expect that would need to be shifted down um so there are there are some staff shifts that would need to happen um I have Karen and I have met with the president vice president GAA several times to talk about how this could work um and we are scheduling meetings with the fifth grade teachers and the eighth grade teachers to talk about the impact I have a date um that was just scheduled for the fifth grade and we're working on the eth grade date so that we can meet with them explain the process and um

041answer any questions that we could have so so we do expect that there would be some additional electives available at the high school right now we have teachers at the high school who teach some sections of High School courses and some sections of eighth grade courses so with the eth grade moved um some teachers such as Chef yafi in our culinary program um he does teach sections of 8th grade so that opens up the opportunity for him to provide some additional elective courses we're not you know our students access his courses they seem to enjoy them we're going to um we've already asked him to propose some additional electives that could move some students um into some new and exciting options um so we do have some potential to um offer additional electives um at

042the high school so that we are moving up the course selection process um so that we have what are called the tallies you know students go through they choose the courses that they would prefer to take the guidance department does tallies so then we have total numbers of students who are interested in in whatever course um so we're moving that up to prior to um the budget season this year so that we can not only look to have a schedule solidified earlier but also address any potential budget impact if there is any in that regard um sorry it's a lot and transportation so this is just a list of sort of other things that we need to consider that we are considering um we are out to bid for a transportation contract because that's perfect

043timing when we're looking at redoing Transportation factors so as soon as there is a Excuse me yes member Martini yes I'm sorry to interrupt but member J and I have to go at this point oh I'm sorry thank you thank you thank you enjoy the conference thank you have a good rest of the evening bye bye bye bye so can you just note in the minutes that we're at Quorum at 6:41 thanks okay sorry okay no that's fine um so as soon as a contract is awarded um Jake and I will meet with whatever transportation company we work with to provide the routing information that he has configured um there is some possibility we would need another bus but we'll have to see um one of the pieces that again is connected to all of

044this that came up in the conversation is the school committee has a policy about Riders and Walkers and distance from each school um we aren't actually really following it right now um there were some practices that were changed prior to my arrival that are still in place so um that'll be hopefully at December's meeting that we can talk about that we need to Jake and I need to walk some routes um where potentially students would have to walk versus take a bus so we're going to walk those routes to see if they fall within the policy criteria of unsafe or um because obviously that will factor into the decisions about Transportation but if we need to make changes to the policy that would be the time the other piece is we need to consider any

045of our collective bargaining agreements in this um we already know that we need to meet with our um unit a excuse me folks to talk with with them about the change from fifth grade teachers teaching two subjects a piece so right now one teacher would teach Math and Science the other would teach English language arts and history so that would be a change um significant change for them so we have already initiated um to schedule a meeting to have that conversation to figure out how we can support those teachers in making a change like that um we also need to look at any impact that this could have on our custodial staff um for example if we need to hire movers or potentially additional summer help that could have an impact so we need to

046look at that and then we also need to look at the final decision by the committee and what if any impact that could have on our lunch rotations and therefore um our cafeteria staff so those are just places we might need to um have some further discussion to see if there is impact act on any of these folks um that we need to address we also would need to buy or collect boxes packing tape um we need to have the time frame addressed for staff that would need to pack up and unpack their things so we need to take care of figuring that out um anything that might need to be purchased for the move primarily from 8th grade um to the middle school we need to just think about that I'm you know I

047don't know that this would be but an example of do we have lab tables for Sciences at the middle school if we don't can we move the ones from the high school or do we need to get other supplies it's just an example of things um we will have fifth grade teachers teaching a subject that they have not so we will have to buy additional teacher um copies of instructional materials so we need to know all of that sort of before the budget because that has an impact and the other um things that I think would not be necessarily right on the top of anyone's mind we need to talk with um Christy Mo the director of the rec department to see if this has any impact on the after school programming and how her

048students um have access to programs in any of the schools or um we also need to talk about about um excuse me any impact on Athletics I don't know that there would be but we have middle school students who participate in our JV and even Advanced athletic programs so we need to make sure that if there is an impact we think about that the elementary schools last year had a five lunch wave structure um they don't have it this year but we would need to go back to that next year if we're K to 5 at the elementary schools so that's also things that we need to think about and it's possible that we would need to hire more before school staff for the program that the district funds because with the addition of fifth

049grade and an elementary I don't know if families would want their fifth graders at before school programming but it is possible so we may need to factor in Staffing there so those are all the things that we thought about and I think when we look at the contractual uh obligations we look at the scheduling issues the budgeting issues the transportation I think the committee can understand why would we why we would want um this to not be a decision that we make late in the year oh I say are there any questions I'm sure there's a thousand um I I I think it makes sense for committee questions of the superintendent now rather than waiting until after the committee um um talks but I'm flexible like do do you all want to ask questions now

050I know I wrote a few thing down things down well Christine was talking um do folks have questions now okay so why don't we do that um whoever who wants to go first remember extra I saw you nodding your head first so why don't you go ahead okay so um I don't Karen I'm going to need you to help me with this a little bit um prior to this is sort of related and unrelated I guess to um redistricting or restructuring um prior to co the high school days were set up differently correct me if I'm wrong right now they have hour and a half classes they do a Tuesday T and but prior to closing for coid they had the schedule was different they had shorter class times but more classes in a single

051day yes no it was long before that think I'm looking to my no that's that's why I'm asking cuz no I think we changed the schedule in 17 I think it was 17 we changed it so it's been like this since then it has yeah okay yeah never mind then was that your only question yes how about member johnsonon or member wall no okay I just have a couple of things that I want to make sure I understand um so when you talked about the lines specifically the district lines for you know whether it's Transportation or or who goes to what school I guess uh it's one and the same um you said annually we would look at that you're talking about if we have option two two 2 B I think or two maybe

052it's two um well we really look at it annually anyway okay um but things that would affect it substantively would be things like a new development being built that could have a bigger impact normally just normal movement of students has not had a huge impact to this point I don't know if in the past it ever has or if it will in the future but there is some you know margin of error so to speak for the transportation but if we are looking to um better um represent the city in all three of our elementary schools we would need to be mindful of how just that's something we would need to be mindful of with that goal in mind but we do look at it every year we just haven't had to make any adjustments

053to this point okay okay that I know of okay um I'm going to save I think that question because I don't even know if it's totally Rel one of the things I forgot to mention yeah is we did draft the new Street and assigned schools um it's on the website the changes are highlighted in yellow it says really really big on the top in Orange it's a draft I I know that this is a lot and it's a subject that has some strong emotion for people but I want to make sure everybody's hearing that all of this is projected and estimated and draft so um it does say draft at the top this is what it looks like it is on the bottom of the front page of the website there's a fair list growing

054now of all the resources connected to this discussion and this is one of them that's available there so you can look um I don't want to minimize the potential impact on any family the list of streets is not long um that doesn't mean people don't have you know concerns about it but I just want to point out there's not a ton of yellow so if you look at the front page and you don't see anything immediately you do need to scroll through to see the yellow um highlights so that's the projected new distribution of streets to each school I have one last thing I believe can you because this is always a hard concept for me um and I don't ever mind saying that I don't get it over and over again um can the

055the3 FTE and the specials explain that in a way I would understand it and I'm going to love and I'm not trying to be as you would say fresh I'm I'm just trying to understand it and I say not being fresh I'm gonna phone a friend and let Mrs patod speak to that because she and Mr Browning have been working on the elementary Special schedule for two or three years so I'm going to let her speak to that I even when my kids talk about it I don't understand when they go to specials or what yeah so right and and I'm not sure I'll adequately explain it either um but when you add that extra third fourth and fifth grade the specials are the teachers that cover the classroom teacher for their prep so in

056order for the classroom teacher to get their contractually obligated prep you need a specials teacher to cover that class and teach teach that class so they can have their prep so when you add those extra in order to also provide your specials teachers with prep but also so that you have people to cover classroom teachers for prep we have too many classes for the people that we have hired so you need additional adults then in art PE and music to cover the additional classes because those six already hired have maxed out what they could potentially teach in a class a full day they'd have to stay so it's okay that I don't understand this is what you're saying okay um okay no I I do get it now but it's like it builds on yeah

057okay and one of the things that was in place when um Karen started in her role and I started in mine is not all of the elementary schools had the same specials and that's something that got rectified that that Karen worked on even as I was um onboarding she was already working on that with Dr H who was the interim at the time and we've managed to make it consistent with the incredible flexibility of our current teachers to do that so we really feel like it would defeat the conversation about Equity across all three elementary schools if we were to have a different special that got hired just to provide the prep at at a school with like we wouldn't want to had a different class only Newton School would get basket weaving because that

058would be weird right so it really would be maintain for a number of reasons it would be weird well it would be I'm not aware we have standards for that class correct but it would mean some students would get for your example basket weaving but they would not get art music or PE and then other students would not have the benefit of basket weaving right so it would sort of contribute to the issue I think that you're trying to solve so we really would need art music comp that's like a really bad Rubik's Cube problem I don't like it which is why I defer the elementary schedules um Special schedule to Karen yes okay thank you and I remembered I did have one more question I think is a lot easier K mcus and our

059buses we have like a dedicated number of buses with them right is it eight I think so okay and what you're saying as a part of this is that might need to increase like we might need to tell K mcus you know we actually are going to need nine or 10 buses in if because we've chosen this scenario yes it's possible okay and we're hoping the possibility maybe would be nine not 10 but yes we need to look at the actual children right it might just be one bus but yeah okay it's still that's I wasn't sure of how it works I guess I don't really need to know that other than it's kind of helpful to understanding how how the whole thing would come together is that we would say to kcus hey we

060need another bus or two one of the challenges to yes another issue is um people will talk about and it's accurate that some of our buses are half empty which is very true but within our policy it speaks to all all students within a certain distance from the schools are entitled to busing so we need to make sure we have seats on buses available for those children some of those children don't access the bus but it is it is their it is their benefit of attending our schools and within our policy that they have access to that busing so I do recognize some of our buses look pretty bare but if we have the day where those students say I need I need to take the bus home today and there's no seat for them

061um you know that would be a challenge for the district so that is part of why some of the buses look a little bit bare and our policy mirrors what's required of Mass General law for transportation it's not that we just made up that we have to provide this it's that the the state tells us that we have to provide transportation for like three different scenarios and that's why the buses might look empty yes that's such a government thing right we are you know the government yeah yeah um the other piece is you know if you folks decide to change any of your policy for example I think it's up through grade six there's a a cut off mile and a half anything over a mile and a half for up through grade six yeah

062which would mean in practicality you potentially could be providing it's grade seven yeah thank you you would be providing Transportation theoretically for two-thirds of the Middle School yes you could or you could decide to make a revision there which again would impact how many buses right but thank you again why we'd want to do that earlier on well and so that leads to that's a nice segue and I did not intend my question to happen that way it just did um that as we move through the process what we have learned is that we have policies the school committee has policies that deal with basic pieces of this Walkers and Riders and how the Mass General law treats that our attendance areas is a a second one and then how we assign students to schools

063is also um a policy that we have and when we decide how we're going to address any changes we're going to tie them to our policy and we have learned as a part of this process that and this happens in organizations it happens in education it happens when you have hundreds of policies that need to be followed that sometimes practice in policy come apart a little bit and have to be pushed back together and you don't just necessarily push them back together but you might um adjust on both sides to make it work uh the way that we feel is best for the students so okay that piece aside any more questions for the superintendent and thank you okay um so the next thing was I want to give the committee time I'm sorry that

064member Den isn't on the line anymore um give the committee time to give their thoughts um and and member while I would just pass over to you and if you wanted to go first or you want Glenn to go first however you want to do it you want me to go first okay I'm going to sort of start from the beginning the committee to reinv Vision our schools was formed about four years ago when some parents complained that their children were not being treated fairly they felt that for Corners was allocated more funding more experienced teachers and more access to extracurricular activities uh the superintendent has worked very hard to correct this problem and to ensure that every child receives the same level of funding and the same level of educational Excellence so that part

065of it we have uh collaborated and we hope solved the problem then the public also criticized the schools for having the fifth grade in Middle School and the eighth grade in high school these children were considered to be far too young to make that transition as you heard from the superintendent's report much work has gone into finding a solution for this problem the committee felt that having banded schools with the k Garten in first grade in one school and second and third grade in another school and the fourth and fifth grade in the third school would be the most fair and Equitable solution to all these problems this would enable teacher collaboration and give us enough flexibility to allow classrooms that work for every child each grade would have at least six classrooms in that

066scenario however we were told by the public that children could not be expected to move every 2 years and neighborhood schools were the only possible solution the schools have the space to accommodate moving the grades back into the original spaces if the schools returned to the original intent of having neighborhood elementary schools the committee learned that the students who lived in Leen Woods were moved out of Four Corners to allow more P parents to Choice their children into four corners which was considered to offer a superior educational experience to truly have neighborhood schools the children who live in Len Woods will have to be moved back to Four Corners this will also help achieve the diversity and Equity that is the goal of all schools the complaints from from the parents about this option that

067they demanded is astounding to me as someone who grew up in the South during segregation this is reminiscent of that era during that period of my life the majority of white parents only wanted to preserve the comfortable status of their child it probably didn't even occur to them that other children were suffering to achieve their child Comfort the absence of equity was not a consideration that seems to be what is happening here in Greenfield to preserve the Comfort comfortable status of some children's children others must suffer as a member of the school committee I cannot adhere to that concept my primary objection to allowing the parents at Four Corners who choiced into the school to keep their children in that school is that the special needs students will have to be moved elsewhere there these

068are the most vulnerable vulnerable children in our schools and they don't have the ability to come to school committee and tell us about whether they want that to happen to them um they don't have the ability to organize groups to tell us how important classrooms with bathrooms and a private playground are to them it also isn't fair to the teaching staff to ask them to give up their negotiated benefits to accommodate children who feel entitled to stay in the schools outside their neighborhoods I understand that change is difficult but the school committee has to make sure every student has the best Poss possible education and making the necessary change for everyone it wants is the only fair way for this to happen many will have to change so your child won't be alone and the

069staff is spending the time to learn how to make sure your child feels comfortable and gets a superior education wherever they are in all cases if the children remain in their current School the school will have changed from its current configuration and four corners will be quite crowded thank you do you thank you um I guess one comment I wanted to make is that um I I think we deserve a pretty good grade in one level and and maybe a a bad grade in another level which is that I think that if you look at the handout um it lists the session side options that we had for meetings to discuss the report and to discuss the uh options that we were considering together and I was really um really appreciative of um you member

070wall and the superintendent for working so hard to have these six different or five or six different um meetings out in the community at different sites and there were people who came and participated in that and your feedback really informed the options that the superintendent's been talking to us about tonight so thank you so much for attending and thank you member wall and the superintendent for your leadership and hard work to make that happen there was Transportation available I think that interpretation would have been available if it was needed um so that's great and I think it's a model for um the way public bodies like ours should be getting out in the community and listening to people people but uh just judging from some of the comments that I've heard recently I think that

071we maybe deserve a slightly less good grade for our ability to get that information out and let people know that those meetings were actually happening because I'm still hearing from people who didn't know about them and so that communication is our job we feel like we did it we thought we sent out the emails or did the broadcasts or whatever but clearly some people didn't get the information and we just need to learn more about how to communicate in a way that the public can hear and understand what we're doing and what we're offering and I just wanted to say that I think that um there are many many parents and families in Greenfield who are deeply concerned about equity and uh do know and understand that there are changes that need to happen in

072Greenfield for better Equity across our neighborhoods um and and I think that uh at the same time of course parents must look at all of this through the lens of how it will it affect my child and and what will it be like for them and I just wanted to say that uh we hear you and we care and it's you know when we're making decisions as a committee it will be looking at what's collectively going to be best for the students of Greenfield and I I don't think we can guarantee that every student will be 100% happy with with the changes change is going to be difficult and and and it may not work as well for some students as for others for some students the changes will be an improvement um but uh

073we will be here um listening to you and and caring about you and your children and respecting you and your feedback to us about um about this process thank you um other General comments or discussion at this point from the committee about moving forward does it make sense for me to talk through the motions that I would propose and we could go from there we don't want the Motions to be a surprise for anyone um and I would hope that if if what I think we need to do isn't what we need to do that we would do something different so you know we have a month to kind of figure it out um so the the way I have envisioned it is that we would actually need um to do two motions related to

074um the redistricting process and so the first one would be um that we would adopt a specific option as I say in the motion I've written that we would adopt option 2B redrawing boundaries for the elementary schools to better reflect the makeup of the city and allow for three elementary schools housing G grades K through five and moving grade eight to Greenfield Middle School so that would be the one that I would put forward um and certainly if the committee moves in a direction that it feels like we're moving away from 2B that hasn't been the case we've been moving if I think towards it pretty consistently um that we would look at at changing that um you know for example I really liked option one personally the banded grades and I think more than

075anything we heard from the GAA that's our teachers in their Union please know um and we have to respect that we have to work together on on those pieces so um that would be the first motion and that's just one example of how it might change if we were to change how the discussion is going and then I alluded to the fact that we have policies that we're not following so um you know specifically of course I had them out and then I shuffled and put them away um but specifically it's uh JC a and all the policies are on a website if you go to school committee and you go to policies um they're alphabetical by the first letter and they're in sections um related to certain parts of school operations so jca specifically

076is about the assignment of students to schools and had we been following this policy um the way it is written we really would not have intradistrict choice and this is the policy that's on the books so we've got to come to some sort of reconciliation between practice and policy um as a part of this and so the motion the second motion that I would propose to get at what um we are hoping to do is that beginning with the 2425 Academic Year uh school committee policies JC jca and EAA which is assignments of students to schools um the Walkers and Riders policy and then the other one is the attendance areas or like the transportation piece that those would be closely followed elementary students would attend the schools to which they're assigned based on District

077boundaries even if they currently attend a different elementary school so we might need time to talk we might need the time to think about it but as the person charged with getting us through the problem solving piece and landing at a solution that's kind of how I see that it would go but if I'm missing the mark Or there's a different way we want to approach it I would want to talk about that and of course anything else you'd want to discuss related to this now would be the the time can I just please I just want to remind everybody that in terms of the administration's work we can do the K to five regardless you know there's logistical issues but these can be separate conversations so I just want to make sure that there's

078Clarity that one um one can exist they can exist together or they can exist separately but if the vote is to do option 2B for example um we can do that I just want to make sure everybody is understanding that there um yes okay thank you discussion yeah I'm just wondering you know we just had an election we'll have effectively three new school committee members on here starting in January these are Big in weighty choices I'm just curious how the timeline that the superintendent needs coincides with the possibility of putting off any weighty decisions until January it we certainly would be looking at some budgetary impact um the transportation contract um will have just been awarded I believe early December Andy if I'm right early to mid okay um I think the biggest issue is

079is the budget impact um so um I say this very respectfully to any departing or incoming members um the longer that there is a decision delayed the less time we have to actually Implement anything and the thing I want least is to repeat what I have been told was the impact on people when this changes from of grade levels from one building to another occurred previously where it was done you know almost overnight and staff had very little time that's something we've you know we're trying to not have happen especially if we need to talk about training options for some of our fifth grade teachers um if we need to arrange to have tours of buildings for families I'm just you know all of these logistical issues and given the amount of time that it

080takes to do these things because you you all know we're not um um you know just this isn't the only task on our plates um should new members come in on in January and feel that they are not ready to vote we are then pushing it out and pushing it out if this vote is happening in April I it's I'm not sure how well we could Implement for September so that my fear is that we're well it feels like we're really early in the year given what we need to do it's not really that early in the year so sorry other questions or comments I'm not hearing any others so I think what I would propose is that um we obviously hear from the public we have another month at least to hear from the

081public on this um we're going to hear from some folks this evening um and I will come back in December with the Motions that I've just uh put forward um and I would encourage members to work on any alternative motions um to also bring forward so that we have the best problem solving um available when we're actually uh going to vote all right well can you'll email those um can you email those motions I will I will absolutely yes um and I want to thank both of you uh askp and uh Christine for uh the work on just getting all of this comprehensively put together and all the meetings with staff and the logistical pieces and I know Christine you've actually been doing like walking and driving through the district with Jake right littleit more

082yeah so there is a lot that goes into it um and I think everyone for um being a part of of the discussion and as soon as I find my agenda in my pile here it is all right so we'll move on to public comment oh thank you is there anyone that still needs to sign up for public comment okay we know who you are we can just call we can just call you last how about that all right all right um I'll do the timer so uh Miss ranor is first and we have addresses here but if you could just State your um name and this the town or city that you live in and you have 3 minutes but let me get my timer feel like I'm a roadie when I say my

083name that shouldn't count Margaret ranc cour Greenfield Mass go ahead um I happen to be a teacher at Four Corners and you can roll your eyes but I'm not here to speak as a teacher from four corners for 27 years I've worked for this town a great majority of it I was at Federal Street I did not leave Federal Street to go to greener pastures once upon a time I was the only fourth grade left at elementary and Dr Holland wrote A Blog and I saw the writing on the wall and said I got to go because I belong in elementary school no offense Middle School not my gig so I left a piece of my heart at Federal Street I still miss it I love that Community I'm in a new community I love

084it also but there's something left out of all these conversations and Jean wall you're breaking my heart because there there's a misconception every school in this District all six of them I assure you have the most talented dedicated hardworking resilient and resourceful teachers I have ever met at all of the schools all of them and what's happening is you're we're belittling some of the other schools we're demeaning them it's horrible it feels awful on all sides so please know it is impossible to work for Christine and Karen and be Slackers and not provide a fair education to all kids we are held to the highest level of accountability responsibility and behavior and I am hurting for my teachers in the other schools when you say their children are suffering they take that personally it sounds

085like they are not good teachers and that it's just not true so I'm asking everyone on both sides of the table when you're speaking passionately about what you think is best can you do it in such a way that you do not be mean delittle belittle demoralize the teachers in this town teaching is hard in 2023 no matter where you are it is challenging it's exhausting I'm tired I'm shaking because I'm I'm upset please think before you speak that if we're trying to do the best thing do it in a way that does not pit one school against another because I'm telling you at Four Corners we will take any children that come in front of us and educate them and I believe that's the same for all six schools everybody please hear me we

086need to work together and we need to do what's best but not in a way that just puts more strain on people people that are working themselves to death we are exhausted and I am very proud of all of my colleagues all of them in every building thank you thank you Rose you're next you already knew you were next you have three minutes thank you um so first um I want to say two sentences about redistricting and that's it um one you're going to upset people no matter what you do and I'm sure that you know that um but two the question you need to ask yourselves is who you're willing to upset either the people in our community with immense privilege um who won't get what they want or the underserved people in our

087community who deserve to have an equitable education um but that's not the main reason why I'm here um I'm actually I guess in an off topic way here to talk about assistant superintendent Karen patod um because before I came to Greenfield I was a math interventionist for 6 weeks at a different district and it was six weeks long and only six weeks long because I did not have the support that I needed to be successful there I'm now on week 63 as a title one math interventionist in Greenfield because of Karen patod uh I have a unique perspective because Karen is the supervisor of the title one program so we work together often Karen gave me a chance and intentionally created a community of interventionists in all of our schools to help us build ideas

088and offer support and it means the world to me I have no doubt that she would continue this community work in our district as superintendent um I could take all three minutes raving about how wonderful Karen is but that wouldn't be enough time um I do want to highlight the fact that Karen doesn't have to drive 50 minutes to lead our district it's no no like offense or anything but um but she lives here and she was a principal here right and she's the closest working employee to Christine um we will not find any other candidate with those credentials Karen has the trust of teachers behind her and choosing not to appoint her would be negligent and catastrophic to our school Community the only reason I would say not to is because that might mean

089she won't be my supervisor anymore and that would make me sad so thank you thank you oh now we don't know who's next it's Joy Whitbeck please hi Joy just um State the town or city you live in and your full name and you have three minutes sure um I'm Joy Whitbeck from Greenfield Massachusetts um I first want to thank you all for your commitment I don't know you all personally but I know the vital role you've chosen to take in our community so thank you for taking the time to do that um I also understand appreciate all the years of work and commitment that have gone to this point and I want to make sure that we're not rushing to a conclusion in the end um I think that redrawing the school assignments ending

090INRI interdistrict choice and moving the fifth and eighth grades all at once is a whole lot of change that seem to make the pieces fall into place but also create a lot of change for a lot of students um I don't know why we can't allow the current students at whatever school they're at if they'd like to stay to stay and age out and then move the fifth and eighth grades if we do that they'll age out quicker obvious viously if they're not staying in elementary school through 5ifth they'll be out quicker and then we could move them you know then move everybody back down and then you won't have that problem at Four Corners of three grades up until fifth um I greatly appreciate you want to correct the mistakes of the past by

091allowing the intrisic choice and moving a segment of population out of four corners and moving Fifth and eighth grade out of their Elementary and Middle School status um but I don't think that doing all of those three at once is going to impact the students the best way possible I think if you slow down and make a couple of the changes and then move Fifth and eighth it'll have less impact on the students overall um yeah uh I just also have to say as a resident of Greenfield for 42 years a product of Greenfield Public Schools and now with my own children in Greenfield Public Schools it's rather insulting to suggest I don't care about the Greater Community obviously my kids are first in my world but this is my community my entire life so

092to suggest that I don't care about someone else's children is ridiculous because those children will be sitting as the school committee in 25 years so we all have a role to play I guess thank you Luke Martin please you know the drill I think so Luke Martin uh Haywood Street I have two children in the schools and I also teach at the high school um for the most part I I support the direction you're taking with reenvisioning our schools uh from very early in the process I've been in favor of what has become option to be uh what I've come to address tonight is the process of making these changes as you move forward it's important to remember that Greenfield has made laudable efforts in recent years to become more trauma informed in our approach

093to educating children we're not talking about trauma just in the traditional sense of major life-altering events but also the various stressors and disruptions that can negatively impact our children's ability to learn bullying food insecurity transience a lack of acceptance or inclusion for certain groups uh recently our staff at the high school was asked to listen to a podcast to dig deeper into this topic it was called unpacking trauma-informed education and it explained that trauma-informed schools are not only sensitive to kids external trauma but must also quote disrupt things that cause trauma inside of schools that schools need to look carefully at how might someone experience trauma there and how do we disrupt that from happening this is something I think you need to take into account when you consider immediately shuffling kids around based on

094new boundaries and ending interdistrict choice that dozens and dozens of children will be uprooted from the safe and stable environments that they've come to know not just intradistrict Choice kids but those from Leiden Woods Oak courts or anywhere else that's suddenly found in a new school zone these are children who have had their education already disrupted by a global pandemic and many of whom continue to face a variety of other stressors and challenges we should not further disrupt their school experience by uprooting them breaking the bonds they've developed with peers and trusted adults in their buildings and asking them to start over in a new and unfamiliar place the same podcast noted that predictability is one of the core tenants of a trauma-informed approach quote predictability is one of those core safety needs because trauma

095really disrupts our sense that the world's a predictable place so when we can create predictability it helps create a sense of routine and structure that we can settle into to feel safe I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that tearing kids away from their friends and trusted adults is hardly a trauma-informed approach I don't think this is a surprise or new to you in the survey sent out to staff last June option 2B included a quote phasing out of that choice uh it seems we understood the damage that could be done by making such changes too abruptly but somehow now we're considering pulling the rug out from under kids who entered an elementary School believing they'd be there until middle school somehow now it's Being Framed as a choice between moving

096in District Choice kids or the Asus program but it never should have come to this false choice we should have foreseen the space issues that complicate this option and not have committed to making these changes by next year now we're stuck with a logistical Nightmare and a false choice of moving some kids versus other kids why can we not wait until enough students have phased out to allow for the fifth grade to comfortably move back how long would that actually take uh this is easy for me to say because my children aren't going into fifth grade next year and those parents may have a different perspective but to me this should not be a hard choice about which groups of kids unfortunately have to move next year instead you should be asking what kind of

097timeline for this restructuring would minimize or eliminate the disruption for all kids kids are resilient they adapt they adjust they grow I'm not suggesting that kid forcing kids to change schools will traumatize them in the traditional sense of the word but we claim that we're adopting a trauma-informed approach to education saying so is easy but the way these changes are made will say a lot about whether we actually walk the walk um lastly I want to say that uh to member wall that being put on par with Southern segregationists in the Jim Crow era is astounding and entirely inappropriate and I can only assume that you don't understand the feedback you're getting from parents I hope that's the case thank you thank you Sarah Chase um I had prepared a statement but I feel that

098I have to if you could move the microphone a little bit closer but I feel that I have to say something else before I begin um I'm feeling in this community and now straight from the school committee itself a lot of finger pointing about racism and things like that and I think that people need to not always judge a book by its cover I'm white my husband is black my children are mixed race and they are choice to Four Corners and I am extremely insulted at what Gan wall had to say about people that might be choicing their children there my children go through a lot living in this area um with racism and people calling them certain words and I am called certain words by having a black husband and I just think it's

099a disgusting way to talk about people this is my statement my children are six and nine in grades K and four at Four Corners my 9-year-old has been there since she was in kindergarten we sent her there because I knew some of the teachers I'm an educator myself and I was more comfortable with a one Lev School than the giant school that Federal Street seemed to me with my precious baby girl we are very involved in the school Community there and have been for years now so not only my daughter but my son who is just starting out his Elementary School experience there are extremely comfortable and happy there it is an incredible school to despite all the public schools face these days I have always thought that having the fifth grade in elementary school

100is appropriate and am happy this committee is considering this however until recently the information that this mve would displace my children along with many other children in the district was not clear at all so unclear in fact that when we filled the paperwork out for my son to join his sister at for Corners there was Zero mention of the fact that this could be temporary and I have lots of emails between myself and central office where this could have been mentioned to me and there was no mention of that that change was looming on the forms we filled out the children of the Greenfield Public Schools are not numbers they are little people with developing brains that need to feel safe and secure to have the capacity to learn there are also little people who

101have emotional needs and struggles that need to be taken into consideration including my son removing my children from the only school they know would be devastating to them I implore you to please consider my concerns along with all of the concerns of the others here tonight advocating for their children to have consistency in their schooling and be allowed to finish their ele Elementary experience where they started it I also hope in the future when you do vote that you do vote to do what is right by the children of Greenfield including those that are inter District Choice who have done nothing to deserve being uprooted and that you vote to let them phase out of their schools thank you thank you and Rebecca is it right out Rebecca did I say that right write out

102okay and just your name and uh the city you live in and uh you have three minutes okay my name is Rebecca R out I've lived in Greenfield for 14 years at Four Corners the fifth grade solution has not at all been arrived at it's an incomplete plan don't put that on inter Choice families as if they created that problem or stand in the way neither the inter Choice families nor the special needs program at Four Corners called Aces should be threatened to have to move or pitted against each other due to the addition of a new grade level there the inter Choice families are a population with not a lot in common we are from a range of soci economic levels types of families reasons we chose this program Gan your comments are misinformed

103off Bas and insulting interdistrict Choice was provided by the school district although you allowed kindergarteners to come in this year which was again your choice you're making it seem like now the people who want to keep their kids in the school they started in are being intractable communication before July was fine this option 2B was fleshed out fully for the first first time only in July subcommittee meeting the first time the inter Choice Community was put at risk of upheaval and we've never been notified in August the superintendent briefly spoke about this emerging plan to the school committee discussing as a solution that quote fits everyone but she failed to mention that it does not now those families are being called out as the problem you need to go find a solution that works for

104everyone at Four Corners and keep everyone who's already there instead of disadvantaging one or another group here's one idea have you considered mobile units for the three three fifth grade classrooms next year they seem to be quick to get on site I attended several classes in Mobile units in high school it worked or perhaps the three classes of fifth grade from Four Corners could be placed in another school for the next year or two regarding redistricting this plan and the corresponding documents have created a bizarre narrative in which inter Choice families seem to stand in the way of redistricting this could not be less true and is certainly causing divisions the opposite of what we need to build community one of my my requests for clarification is can districting and Inter Choice coexist it seems

105that fifth grade stands in the way of all that whenever factions of a population are pitted against each other you can bet there's a bureaucratic entity that has created this division well this is happening to parents here in Greenfield and invite you all to look no further than those seated before us today for the reason we can do better as a community I acknowledge my privilege to have even known about the inter Choice program I think it is Antiquated and should not exist in the future I know all the town schools are equal in their quality I think bringing light and woods students into four corners makes all the sense in the world if there is consent from those families Equity is giving resources and especially agency to the people who need it and to

106let them Define equity for themselves I care very much about this these affected communities Laden woods and Oak courts deserve the right to choose if their children age out of their current schools figure out the busing Nightmare and the funding issues that comes from that that's called equity as the current proposal State States I just do not believe that uprooting th uh roughly 100 children across all soci economic neurode Divergent and racial lines without their families consent creates any Equity at all but I'm proud of our town for having so much caring about this issue rational Minds have thus far treated our children like lines on a spreadsheet but we need to create stability for all of our students if making that happen requires a little more Logistics I have the confidence that the same

107rational Minds can figure it out thank you in advance thank you Melissa is there anyone else who wants to speak this evening okay I feel like I should talk about redistricting for some unknown reason give us your name and where live web I live in Greenfield um I attended every single meeting from virtu ual with Jean and Glenn and Susan Holland I listened at school committee when it was remote back in September during coid when it finally came back to life again um I'm very lucky to have the knowledge to be able to follow the school committee on lots of topics um my first school committee I know I'm changing subjects here Kia Burton King dragged me here to talk about transportation and to always offer the um courtesy if anyone would like to walk

108with me from my house to Newton they are always more than welcome to see the unsafe fruit um that exists in that area um especially during winter time but back to redistricting I live less than 500 feet from a low-income housing you know I talk to these people I interact with them every day some of them are not comfortable coming up here and talking to you about the importance of getting fifth grade back into Elementary getting eighth grade back into Middle School um as Amy knows we went to Greenfield Gardens for a meeting and we were locked out of a building and those are just some of the daily things that things are promised to them and then they don't happen so coming forward isn't always so easy um I will say I did take

109a quick look at the bus the changes in the sheets and I did notice that Sullivan Lane which is also part of the Greenfield housing complex and part of Oak Court was left out of the geological um thing so that I would encourage that to be looked at a little bit better or even that area you know we're talk about making Green Field making the lines make more sense not having off streets off Li and road going to Newton having the community I will say at a lot of our topics people said how important neighborhood schools were and some of the people who were at the meetings School of Choice to other schools and then said yes neighborhood schools are what we want and now I'm seeing them say today well I mean I want

110neighborhood schools but I want the neighborhood I'm already in the community I'm already invested in not the one I actually physically live in um I remember the playground chatter when my daughter went off to Newton how I how could I possibly send her there and and that was real that happened at a I had moms coming up to me and a few other people saying are you sure you don't want a school of choice and I was like no we're we're good we're going to our neighborhood it's going to be great um at that point I had already been volunteering at Newton for four years through the last days in housing crisis so I'm just going to say thank thank you for showing up and thank you for listening to everyone even the people whose

111voices don't always project as loud thank you is there anyone else you may come on up just real quick for the record I live on Lincoln Street which currently goes to Four Corners where my children go so it's not my kids that would move it's everybody around them and everybody in other other schools so not everybody that appears to be on that side of the room versus this side of the room which is kind of disturbing but not everybody is us against them thank you Joy anyone else who hasn't already spoken would like a opportunity okay I I thank you all yeah go ahead please we just need your name you're going to have a hard last name that I won't be able to spell right no go ahead what what's your name Tera oh

112I didn't recognize you with the hat on sorry Tara yeah turn them ohz and you live in Greenfield right I live in Greenfield um I just wanted to make a quick comment when we talk about neighborhoods schools um we live on a corner and one if our mailbox was actually on the other side of our house like we would be Four Corners so our direct two neighbors are actually in my daughter's class and that is our neighborhood um and it would it feels random and alienating to her to see her two classmates who are in her class who are her neighbors who she looks out the window and sees going to um a different school so I just wanted to mention that this sense of neighborhood it is defined by the superintendent school committee it's

113not necessarily this innate thing so I just wanted to clarify that that I feel like even though we choice in I feel like we are in our neighborhood school we are closer to Four Corners our neighbors go to Four Corners our property is half on four corners territory thank you thank you I'll keep asking until there's no one so anyone else want to speak again I thank you all for being here and uh especially for the comments and we will at this point move on oh it's Andy Mr pette with his budget update for us thank you Andy for being patient not a problem so you have the update in your packets um we are proceeding along as um best as we can regarding uh with some of the transitions that we're experiencing um you'll

114notice again some of the I just want to highlight some of the things as far as some of the big deficits that are showing up if you look at the revolving account report there are very little expenses that are charged of the revolving accounts are encumbered so we're going through the process of uh moving those encumbrances out of the local budget into those revolving counts specifically in the tuition area circuit breaker and then the transportation as well um I can answer any questions you might have regarding the local report and any of the revolving accounts any questions from the committee I just would say that I work in College financial aid and when I start talking people leave the room as well so don't take it personally thank yeah that would be awesome I we're

115going to put you on the spot a little bit um especially for our folks who um on the committee who are probably aware that we are working on uh Transportation bid with other um towns and uh it's come up because we've had to um go to city council related to the length of the bid being 5 years and the standard is 3 years if you could just talk briefly about how the the timeline how it's going what we're doing sure uh this is the second year I believe that we have taken part in a joint Collective bid of several school districts in Franklin County and the last time it was done was was five years ago so five years is up so we're now going out for the second bidding for those districts that choose

116to participate the law for the governs procurement in Massachusetts says that if you go beyond 3 years if you are entertaining the desire to go beyond 3 years you need to get the approval of the appropriating authority to extend to go even Explore for Beyond three we're looking for five so we have to go to the city council as the appropriating authority to get the authorization to do a five-year bid the the process is it might sound like it's the cart before the horse but we just we need the authoriz ization first before we can even in a sense bring it to you to have the school committee ultimately vote to accept a contract from a vendor so the way Transportation Works in Massachusetts is the community has to fund Transportation the school committee and

117the administration manage the actual operations of the transportation so we've got a bid out now that was coordinated with nine districts in Franklin County uh it's being coordinated by the Frank Council of governments um the bidding as Dr DeBarge mentioned is going to be opened in December with the hopeful awarding of a contract by then um once we do the bid opening we then will go to city council with the fact that it's a five-year contract which we found we were able to find in a pass that that was actually what was done was it was presented to the city council that it was a 5-year contract and then ultimately school committee chair signed with the the awarded contract um regarding this discussion here the the it's a cost per bus per day contract so

118even if there's any potential impact financially regarding this redistricting discussion how it goes we will be very easy it'll be very easy to determine any cost savings and or potential additional cost because it is a cost per bus per day contract thank you are there please secretary EXT Go ahead I just want to ask a very direct question that I think will encapsulate what you just said so the longer it takes for these steps to be gone through because city council needs to do something and we're on the street as the city is trying to get involved the longer it will take for us to work on a budget which means the longer it will take for uh not work on a budget but to get more accurate numbers the longer it will take to

119present things um I could be wrong I guess I'd say the the discussion regarding the transportation as it relates to the discussion that you just had I would say it is gerain to the topic but it wouldn't be a driving force in a topic because you would make whatever is best sense educationally and then we would have to determine the the funding of said decision as it relates to Transportation they you know the the delay in the process I think and when we chair pretti and I were at a city council meeting where we were talking about that and even the chair of the city council said he's not sure that anyone remembers whether or not it was brought to them beforehand so um we provided them documentation from legal councel as to the reason

120why we are doing the process this way um and so the ultimate result is we have time like let's play the worst case scenario that the city council decided not to authorize a five-year contract we would just have to issue an addendum to the bid that's currently out there saying that Greenfield chooses not to be a five-year uh contract awarding so and if I could just can I add in um if all of the details if the school committee chooses to move forward with a plan or or whatever configuration of that the decision is if there is an impact on transportation and the decision isn't made before the budget has to be submitted we can have an estimate and figure out if it's one bus it would be x amount of money because it's bus

121per day so we could say you know I make up an amount but if it's one bus it's 10,000 if it's two buses it's 20,000 and we could estimate from a budgetary standpoint I think we did that during Co right we have to add and it's a scalable formula in the contract for that okay oh no no I I don't know I don't have off the you really don't know he he knows I'd love if it was $10,000 but I was using easy map um one last thing I want to mention since I have been here for so long is that I vividly recall the executive session where the chair at the time Adrian yunes uh we all went into executive session to discuss the contract because there were some complications and the committee as

122a whole Glenn were you do you remember this at all I'm just worried because you're talking about executive session like sounds like you're just about to the minutes have been released it oh okay okay I think I think it was early 2019 when you guys talked about it um and ultimately it was the chair that executed the contract but it was in consultation with the full school committee and I asked all the ridiculous questions that I like to ask about it other comments or questions I just I just want so the reason we would want to do a five-year bid is because it might save us money that's I mean it's I would say yes and I'll say just because my company has done joint Transportation bids for clients uh of ours we did it

123for three communities we put in the specifications to quote a price for three as one or three individual ones and the we've done this now for four bid cycles and each time that we've done it the price per bus was less expensive for the collective bid than it was for the individual ones and the procurement you know it kind of logic dictates that the more united the more volume you get the less price Better Price It's like a union for buses yeah okay and the other thing I wanted to just say allow just because this was part of my own education on this um is that there is literally a Mass General law that says if you're doing a bus contract for public schools it can't be more than three years unless you have the

124permission of your funding Authority which I just find to be so micromanaging I can't even stand it yeah that's the law it's explicit yeah yes and because transportation is a unique uh thing that's required and uh but just for clarification I'll put on my mcppo hat is like any contract over three years requires it but it does explicitly sayate State Transportation yes yes yes yeah thank you Andy are yes another question go ahead so the other thing that I wanted to mention is that it's not like there's other games in town this is there's essentially one service provider who can do these things unless we want to pay a whole lot more for someone from farther away unless I'm mistaken I'm going to ni that because that's the whole purpose of bidding is that you

125hope and hope for an open market for participants retract that thank you all kinds ofers anything else thank you Andy um now to the most exciting part of the agenda which is item number seven a vote to declare the ice machine Surplus um and there is a document in the materials if you're following along that is literally says just exactly what I said uh we are declaring an ice machine Surplus I move to declare the ice machine [Music] Surplus that was a motion from Member Johnson mad I will second any discussion and our members are off the phone so we can just go through our votes for uh verbally um any sorry I'm sorry who was the second was it was me uh any extensions any no votes that passes unanimously thank [Applause] you that's

126how we feel better too right um and then items uh eight and nine are policy uh items and I'm going to pass it over as I do with these uh to to member Johnson mad as chair of the policy subcommittee take it away thanks for that chair um Christine would you set up the number eight second reading and vote for Section B board governance and operations for us you mean why are we doing this now yes yeah um questions came up about a couple of the individual policies and as um Susan had asked the question we located the fact we we searched records and actually saw the fact that it appears that there were two first readings but no second reading on Section B so we just need to have a second reading on the

127books so that we can finally move to the end of the policy manual which we are getting close to so this is a housekeeping item in in essence thank you and my um records indicate that those first readings happened in 2019 so I'm glad we're getting to this let's see so now I I have to get those little glasses but I don't have them so let me see if I can do this I've got some please please help how strong they need to be I don't know this will probably be good I almost put them on upside now I don't think oh that does help okay so we're looking for second readings of an existing set of policy uh see and these are good okay I move that we adopt policy section B board governance

128and operations as presented on second reading is there a second second that is there any [Music] discussion hearing none are there any no votes any extensions that passes [Music] unanimously great and um we waited so long to approve the second reading in section uh for Section B that in the meantime we have actually found one of those one of the policies that we just revised we're now going to propose revising ing again so um we had discussion early in the year about the uh process by which we do our organizational meetings and um I think our policy currently calls for things like having it at our first meeting in January um and having the superintendent uh kind of supervise the process until a chair is appointed so we have this whole policy the other thing

129that came up was an interest in having uh from some of the members of the committee in having public comment be part of precede the organizational meeting um and so through it was referred back to the policy committee to take a fresh look at the organizational meeting and through the diligence of member denie we discovered that there is actually language in the town Charter that covers how um the um organizational meetings should go um and so which is very different from what our current policy is so our current policy is in in contradiction to the what's in the town Charter or the city Charter so um we have a proposed Revision in front of you that both um attempts to bring our practice in line with what the charter calls for as well well as

130adding the provision of a public comment period and um I don't think it made it into your packet but I am happy to read to you all the parts of the charter that are referred to in this uh revised policy if folks would like that if not that's okay and I'll just say that the policy the revised policy as presented was voted forward to you from the policy subcommittee but not unanimously U member deneve and I voted for it uh chair priority uh voted against it so so I guess I'll start with a motion and then we can discuss yeah do the motion first okay and then discuss yeah great I got to get the glasses back get the I got them from Target they're called okay I need thin Optics and they fit in

131this little thing in my pocket they fold up nice and thin I'm not on commission for them either I get mine from Walmart okay um I move that we approve the first reading of amendments to policy BDA school committee organizational meeting as presented is there a second uh I'll second for discussion okay and is there any discussion I guess so we have adopt or this policy would adopt a organizational meeting structure that is similar to the one in the city Charter does the one in the city Charter contain a public comment period it does not okay I guess I would just um my oppos I I I've opposed this from the time it was uh presented I mean we just watched uh the house there US House of Representatives try for uh three weeks to

132elect a new leader they didn't take public comment because they're electing a leader within themselves um and I just find it really interesting that there's this need to change the policy I think mostly to include this piece and it it doesn't seem I just don't understand why I don't understand what what there is about this that needs to be a part of the process I will be voting against it I just wanted to say my peace I can say that um the the I think really there are two honest intents here I mean I don't think it makes sense for us as a school committee to have an organizational meeting process approved as a as a policy which contradicts what it says in the city Charter I really think the city Charter takes precedence over

133our over our uh policy and um to speak to the question of why I have a public comment period before the election of officers I I realize it isn't something that is done um in many B different public bodies uh these meetings often will happen in the late afternoon in early January and uh if there is any discussion it's amongst the M members and very few of any public members of the public are even present and if they are present there isn't a public comment period for them to speak um but I think that um the election of officers is actually among one of the most um important decisions the school committee would make in a year I think the school committee chair has a huge amount of influence over what is on agendas how

134agendas are handled uh how the interaction with the school committee with the public goes and so I think that the public has a um an interest in it and I don't think it results in um in what happened in the House of Representatives if the um the members of the public who are present each have three minutes to share their opinion before school committee me members uh vote I don't see that descending in into chaos so that is the the reasoning behind having the public comment period um included I forgot I'm facilitating yes M extr you're still in Char ex um I so I'm of two minds I mean I don't so I don't really necessarily have much of a concern regarding public comment or not it's really excuse me neither here nor there for

135me um however following the city Charters and doing as the city council does is is a model of running the meetings as as you know in parallel and so my inclination is to not um include a public comment period and and also part of it is and and I this may get it the way that I think about being on school committee when you get elected to school committee you are there you have been elected because people trust you to represent the best interests of you know whatever situation it is that comes up with school committee um in the schools and things like that so um I I wouldn't vote for a public comment I I guess I'll I'll add that um the charter also doesn't talk about the voting of a secretary but as

136a school committee we can choose to have a secretary and elect one and have a a means of electing one and and similarly if we chose we could have a public comment period it it doesn't contradict what's in the charter which is um what we actually have currently so any other discussion so uh let's take a vote um any who who um what how do you do this Amy uh who any members abstaining from this vote any members voting no on this three okay and members voting for I'm a one so the motion fails um 3 to one and I guess with the chair's permission I'd like to put forward a um a new motion um which would be to um approve the school committee organizational meeting um uh revision on first reading uh with

137the um omission of the public comment period uh that is the third paragraph of the um proposed uh revised policy um so I'll move that is there a second I'll second that okay uh any discussion I appreciate your willingness to compromise it's probably short-lived but I I appreciate it anyway thank you uh yes I think it would be really good if we could get this policy into alignment um with the charter before our organizational meeting in January so um I I think that we can um have have a meeting in January without a public comment but I certainly would encourage the public uh to take advantage of the other ways you have of communicating with us if you care about um the who leads the school committee we would love to hear I would love

138to hear from you and so any other comments on this would you forward your motions to me please uh yeah I gave yeah I will thank you yep um so let's vote any um uh any no votes on this um New Motion any abstentions all those in favor I passes unanimously thank you thank you if I could kindly ask for my glasses back it would be awesome I think that we're I don't know what number it is but we're going into the job descriptions oh we're at the 8:00 break oh yeah um oh we're at 8 so we uh we can uh move for a five minute break if that works for folks we can power through but let's okay we'll move for a five minute break so um 88:13 we'll give you to 8:15

139we'll come back than thank [Music] you [Music] n [Music] n [Music] n [Music] a the table and we're going to get started again and we are on uh agenda item number 10 approval of two job descriptions assistant business manager and accounting assistant and they are in the packet and uh Christine if you could just give like an overview of how we got here that would be great and actually I'm going to ask Andy to actually identify those sure uh what this is is like I'd say several years ago it was discussed about the fact that whether or not it's I'm going to say the current business manager model of a company being your business manager or what we call the traditional business manager uh it was discussed that we need to create a little more

140structure to the business office and what we ended up doing is looked at the two job descriptions in the business office per se and just realign some of the responsibilities to create uh we'll say the quotequote the assistant business manager that would oversee both the business office and actually have some support and oversight of the payroll HR office as well that's always been the design that had been discussed and it's also we'll say effective so what we did is looked at the two Des job descriptions of the positions and just did some realigning of the roles and responsibilities to we'll say create some heightened level of authority to the assistant business manager position and re align and change the accounting assistant position per se creating some structure which hopefully will also not hopefully I can

141say will create some efficiencies and some clear lines of communication regarding the roles and responsibilities in the office as well as additional oversight of the payroll HR and I just add this was an opportune time because we unfortunately had Kristen in the business office resigned she you know moved moved on to a different position a different company um but given the fact that she um you know she left that was a good time to make any changes because it had less impact and as we move forward to post the position it made sense to ask you to approve a job description before we post it so um and we thank you for that well and I should also add for context that um we have a collegial relationship with the administration as the school committee

142in terms of job descriptions where it does not say anywhere that the superintendent uh is is required to bring job descriptions to us um there are a handful of positions that we hire as the school committee um superintendent being one of them and the rest are actually left to the superintendent but because of the I think mostly the immensity of the number of job descriptions is immensity a word I don't know the number of them um and just wanting to also know what is happening in terms of um administrative responsibilities we do this process where we um provide uh overview and an approval of the job descriptions although the hiring is entirely done on the operation side so um with all of that said uh motion I would ask for a motion to approve oh

143geez I move to approve the job descriptions as presented thank thank you member Johnson mad and the second was uh from Member wall and any discussion and that's secretary Exum please we should do these separately in the event that one of them changes later and because then we'll have to approve both of them no we can bring them back separately they need to be revised separately yeah yeah um as anyone have any discussion questions suggestions on the job descriptions hearing none any extensions from approving any no votes those both pass unanimously thank you and requests from the committee for new agenda items are there any I'm not hearing any we'll move on it's not closed if you wanted to come back to that if anyone has something um and then report from the administration we

144have an askp report right um I thought yes yes something in here yes let me just get to it yes the heat is off the AC is now on perfect Thom I'll be quick they're just asking us to move swiftly through the agenda yeah um just really wanted to update the committee on the huge professional development day we had districtwide yesterday so I just wanted to share some of the um PD that happened the uh think right pair share our instructional strategy work continued teaching lab was on site for our K22 teachers um really looking at our instructional practices and uh using the data aggregate data from the learning walks that we've been doing with ssos and the teaching lab and really just focusing on improving um instructional practices so that was a huge chunk

145of our staff participated in that um we are still in the midst of investigating history so educurious was on site to work with our fifth uh through seventh grade history teachers yesterday and the roll out of that new curriculum that desie has launched um again we're trying to really promote College and Career Readiness at our middle and high school really getting uh kids interested in learning more about uh their strengths and what they might like to do in uh study and maybe promote uh future electives that we could create so we did adopt navian and really want to roll out some of those College and Career surveys with our 7eventh through 10th graders and really try to align some of the new electives that are offered next year with those career survey results to peque

146the interest of our kids so looking forward to seeing how that all unfolds um as Mr Martin did allude to in his public comment we are really still committed to um professional development that deals with being trauma informed and really working with our students on an asset-based approach our district-wide instructional assistance um engaged with uh lordis Alvarez Ortiz who we've worked with for years and her partner Gabriella lachari was with us as well yesterday and worked with our IAS on on uh identifying students strengths and really how they could support them better and lead to better outcomes in the work that they do with our kids um I do have to add though that I did get some personal feedback got some texts last night from our IAS that quotee unquote said it was the

147best PD that they've ever had and how rejuvenated and energized so I really appreciate folks reaching out to me just to let me know that it's really um makes you feel good about what you've provided for folks for for the day and that they really got something out of it um our a staff have been working um year long with uh the director maril melli on guided play strategies and really uh using play to teach whole language get that language development really a uh an increase so they had a successful day and then we had a lot of other sessions many ones here and there we had CPI training we had second step training with our guidance counselors at the k seven level we had School nurses working online on building family relationships we had

148curriculum mapping and we also um uh Dave messing led a special education daylong professional development for our special ed staff in our uh service providers so it was really a a a very well uh energized and productive day I hope uh everyone got something out of it and really um embraced whatever session that they were in uh for Grants uh I just wanted to commend and I wish Luke had stayed because I wanted to give him a shout out our Civic Grant this year really was um focused on us providing relevant Civic learning experiences for our students AKA more field trips more um off-site experiences for them school committee interns perhaps that would be a wonderful cic engage wonderful we have to put that on an agenda right um we used to do that too

149Angie Mass used to have him do it with city council when Isaac was on the city council so we'll have to bring that back um but one of the things that Luke already uh came out of the gate and did with his uh US history class um they went to Lexington conquered in Charleston already and 50 kids were able to go explore and really have a a Civic learning experience so he has some other ones planned as well and U Miss Zimmerman in eth grade is engaging our high schoolers with the recorder so we've uh used the grant to get them online subscriptions to our local newspaper and she said uh kids are really intrigued with um having a paper to read and I read it every day so I forget how often people don't

150physically read a newspaper um but to hear that feedback was really neat and so I'm glad that we have the grant to really give our kids those opportunities and then lastly just wanted to update you it's the first year on the mentor program for our unit c folks and uh we have four instructional assistants who are leading the mentor program this year um and uh Christine met with them last month I had to miss the meeting but they are really working hard to provide the guidance and support that our new IAS need and anytime we have a new hire we link them with one of these season mentors and really have someone to be a go-to person and I think it's really helping out in that area so thank you awesome any questions for askp

151I just have a quick one about the navian are you going to work with GCC I think they have a career person we have a couple they have a couple of career people would love to yeah um who's who is it still it's uh Shannon Doran yeah yeah who yeah who's been in the area doing this work for a long time she's now at GCC yeah yeah so we should get you hooked up and potentially there's some capacity building there yeah what did she used to work with us when she was at Mass higher was she at mass mass higher for a long time yeah no that would be great awesome cool thank you any questions I didn't see any okay we're good we're moving on um uh Christine do you have more to tell

152us tonight go ahead really I yes I do um a couple of things we had first of all uh I looked at my phone a couple times because I had about nine 9,000 text messages about the forecast so this is just a reminder that it is win it is time to start talking about snow and ice and potential impact on school and there is some potential for freezing rain or ice for the morning so um Mr Warner from the DPW and I have um wonderful productive early morning chats about the status of things so um you know no news is good news but there it's time um we um I'm sorry that Judy Bennett wasn't able to stay because um you folks will remember she came to the school committee earlier in the year to

153um talk about the tree planting in honor of Donna Woodcock and we I have ordered the bench um unfortunately the delivery date is a little far out in potentially February but it we believe it matches the other benches that are at the high school it will have a memorial plaque on it um Karen and Judy have both offered suggestions for the inscription and the DPW is donating the materials and the labor to pour this cement pad that the bench will be um on so I'm very pleased that we're able to move on and and get this in place um to honor Donna's memory at the high school we have um a couple of Staffing changes upcoming um some not so great some great so the not so great um Jen relli one of the aps

154from the Middle School um will be moving on so that position is posted and Lynn Pard our assistant special ed director is also moving us uh leaving us um that position has been posted and Karen and Dave um started some interviews today but on the positive note we have a new director of facilities that is starting Monday we have had a very fortunate quick turnaround with him um so Michael budro will be joining us on Monday and um I want to thank Ben Murphy and Joe pugs I can't say his whole last name Joe pugs on the city Side they've really been doing an amazing job working together and filling in on things that I couldn't possibly know about facilities um in the two-e interim and then um Mike was already able to come in

155and meet with Ben today and start the transition so it's been you know as much as um we're sad that Eric moved on there have been some nice nice working together um in the middle and we'll have Mike with us on Monday excellent is that everything I don't know I think okay questions for the superintendent all right we will move on because the temperature is dropping winter is coming um I a report from the chair is next and I just have um two quick things I wanted to make sure that we mentioned here that we have uh scheduled for next Tuesday the 14th uh the appoint interview with askp for the superintendent role in The District um that is at 6: p.m. on Tuesday and it will begin actually with a meet and greet session

156at 5:30 p.m. um for any member of the public that might want to ask casual questions before we actually have the interview in public uh by the school committee um and the other thing I wanted to uh just acknowledge is is um actually Stacy sexon is still here uh Anne child's was here earlier and has left um and yesterday they were both elected to the school committee to begin serving their four-year term uh uh in January so congratulations to you congratulations to Ann um and we uh keep moving forward and that is my report and um subcommittee reports do we need to do anything with redistricting and then uh Glenn anything from policy at this point I just wanted to add that um mayor Jenny dorer will also be a school Committee Member too so

157congratulations to her and congratulations to Mayor WEA Gardner on a hard hardfought race I thought it was wonderful to see the demonstration of Civic engagement in the town very well said uh I don't know if do we need to try to get in a meeting before dece before the next meeting we do apparently we do okay so could um maybe you me and Amy could compare calendars before we leave tonight and then we can check with Elizabeth thank you sure and that's for policy in case people weren't following what we were talking about any you're good with policy I'm good okay and budget any report we are still attempting to set a budget meeting our our schedules all have very this conflict so we're working on it no one's letting it drop I'll say that

158awesome thank you and then um collaborative for Educational Services is another one but uh a member Den is not here right now she is our representative there um and then District Wellness committee is me I do not have a report at this time I did report briefly um last uh last meeting and just to bring to everyone's attention the materials also contains School newsletters and uh commodation letters is correspondence that we don't discuss but they are there uh for for folks reference and I would entertain a motion to adjourn don't all speak at once that was member wall and a second second and uh any uh discussion any extensions any no votes we are adjourned at 8:33 p.m. thank you