001foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] one good evening and welcome this is the Greenfield Public Schools special school committee meeting for Wednesday October 4th 2023 it is 6 p.m this meeting is being held fully remotely in accordance with the governor of Massachusetts March 29 2023 order extending certain provisions of the open meeting law GLC 30A section 20. per open meeting law any member of the public may make an audio or video recording of this meeting gctv is recording this meeting and we will move right into our agenda which starts with a roll call and a call to order please secretary ekstrom I am here I'm Vice chair Martini here sure priority here number wall here Mary Gardner here all are present and we have a quorum wonderful uh thank
002you everyone for being here uh just a reminder and I will remind again when we get to the section of the agenda about public comment um and the chat uh the chat function is not a part of these meetings in fact if it's used for any discussion by anyone the meeting can be in declared declared in violation of open meeting law but we will allow folks to indicate in the chat if they're so able when we get to public comment to give their name um at that time in the chat box and we will go from there we'll also take public comment verbally uh if folks aren't able to put it in the chapter so we are here for uh the first part of our agenda item number two is a public discussion uh with
003the Massachusetts Association of school committees um on our superintendency transition and um I just want to give a little bit of uh introduction um of where we're at um so uh in August uh superintendent DeBarge uh informed the school committee that she planned to retire at the end of this Academic Year June 30 2024 being her final day as our superintendent and it pains me to say that I will say that out loud and publicly um and we uh it had a brief discussion um at that time as a school committee um and we're pretty unanimous in in the fact that we wanted to um seek the advice uh as our next step from masc uh the masc the Massachusetts Association of school committees is a a non-profit uh I guess I would call it
004a professional organization that helps to guide School Committee Member School committees um with all kinds of things related to services and superintendency and other personnel and issues that come before school committees I know that I've sought Liz's guidance on a number of things that we have come to the Forefront for us and when we last searched for a superintendent and we were so lucky to find superintendent DeBarge uh the masc did run uh the search for us uh in that regard um and so we um we I want to get some um some input from you Liz before I turn it over to other folks to ask questions or give comment um and if you could talk a little bit about if I've missed anything about what masc does for school committees or for us
005specifically or anything else you'd want to add there and then any input what we're really looking for is your guidance your expertise your input um on what a school district like Greenfield does in this situation how we move forward so I'll let's turn it over to you thank you thank you and thank you for having me us I know Glenn is planning to come um so we're a member driven organization we exist for school committees and and by the um the dues we collect from school committees we provide services to school committees including superintendent search policy assistance which Christine has really put me on the I'm on the back burner but she's been moving full steam ahead with it so uh we got hung up for quite a while but she's been moving along really
006well with that work um we do trainings as you well know and we are available for anything and everything that comes along the way in terms of questions or concerns or assistance that's why we exist um I will say it was a pleasure doing the search with Gene chairing that committee she did a wonderful job and I could not have been more thrilled to be honest when um Christine was hired you were very lucky to get her and I know she's done a wonderful job there um there's a few things around superintendent searches that we traditionally like to share with school committees and first and foremost is you'll remember we did a full-blown process last time involving community and a large search committee and the whole the whole um realm of superintendent searches it was
007laborious and time consuming and the end result was wonderful the law says that school committees must hire a superintendent and that's where it stops it's very broad as I've heard Glenn say um last night at a meeting we were in about a superintendent search if you decided tonight that you wanted to vote to hire someone I won't say me but someone as a superintendent that's well within your legal authority to do that now having said that we know you all have Community constituencies School community and Greenfield Community constituents that would like to have probably some say in the process or at least have the opportunity to be heard we are we often times the first thing we do is encourage School committees if they have a strong interim sorry internal candidate to consider that person
008either as an interim or giving them an initial contract to sort of you know feel out how the the relationship will work between the committee and the new and the candidate you have many added benefits there someone who is internal doesn't have to come in and spend 90 120 or longer days getting to know the players getting to know folks in the community getting to understand how the district Works they literally you know hit the ground running they're ready to go because they know how your District functions and who within that District makes things happen um it's always a win we've experienced it's always been a win-win situation for districts when they do that they don't have to deal with that sort of long drawn out process and they they in in our experience always
009get somebody who's already committed to the work in the district so there's that now I know that there's a couple of new members here so I'll explain the superintendent search process there is there are a number of firms who do superintendent search work professional firms as well as masc the cost for such a search can range from anywhere from ten thousand five hundred to about sixty thousand dollars depending on who you hire um any sperm that you would be interested in hiring you should be sure of a couple of things and one is that that someone from that firm will be with you every step of the way um through the process that they're not they don't sort of come in occasionally and check on the work they've assigned you to do but they're there
010right by your side doing the work and that you don't pay anybody until you have a successful negotiated signed contract with a candidate um masc I think goes a step further than most that I'm trying to sell anything here um but you should also be sure if you're interested in doing a full search and you talk to any other firms that um within the first two years if anything happens with the candidates so that they're no longer in the district that they will come back and do that search for you at no cost that's really considered an unsuccessful search at that point um it can take anywhere from depending on how committed you are to an expedited search from um three months to four or five months is more typical it involves a lot of
011moving pieces as Gene will recall Tina and I got to be very close during that period of time yes so um having heard that you do have someone in District who who is of interest to you we would certainly encourage that you pursue that to whatever degree your most comfortable pursuing and it's always a healthy option for the district and if I'd go further and say if if Christine has been that individual's mentor um and sees that individual as someone who'd be successful I would put some solid stock into that she's a good one sad to see her leaving thank you Liz I did get an email from Glenn that he said the link in the agenda was not working and I resent that link to him but I don't know if either remember extra
012or if Liz if you could also assist it's been a few minutes now and he's not on and he's not responding to me so I'm sorry that he's having trouble and I know exactly how I know exactly how to help hold the phone okay no worries no worries um and this you know this is really intended to be a discussion and I guess one thing I did forget um to mention as a part of it the introduction and maybe it's fine to mention now is that um our school committee does have a policy um on the the um Personnel that we do directly hire which includes the superintendent assistant superintendent the director of people Services the business manager um and I believe the registrar or yeah um and I think that's the full list that
013we can do appointments to those um positions so we should be aware that um that is a possible option uh for us and um I want to actually I do want to give superintendent to barge time to to speak a little bit but I actually want to um we'll wait until Liz uh is off the phone with Glenn um but I did want to if there's comments or questions from anyone right now um it would be great if uh we could we could move on and talk a little bit amongst ourselves about uh comments or questions we want to have answered tonight if anyone wants to jump in now I would just like to add that the time that it takes to do a superintendent search is unbelievable there are multiple meetings every week where
014you interview candidates you have to have a search committee which takes a lot of time to put together it you know it if you want to do a search you really do need to have somebody with a lot of time to spend on on the project uh as Liz said she and I got to know each other quite well through the whole process because it takes an unbelievable amount of time thanks Gene yes it is um and I I guess um well this is back oh Glenn's here sorry you had trouble Glenn I hope I'm sorry and I'm the person who has no patience for uh for technology that acts up but thank you uh Liz had a backdoor strategy celebrity okay great well I'm glad you're with us um Liz has already given us
015a little bit of an introduction to um where we're at no you know you and I have spoken briefly about this uh as well um and if you would want to add anything uh I think it would be appropriate now to hear from you regarding um our situation here in Greenfield with a superintendent who's um very kindly given us an additional year after they said they're no longer that they're going to retire um which is great um but also you know moving forward uh what masc is seeing out there and what you would suggest um for us at this point well what we always suggest first is to look in-house because the presence of a strong internal candidate will affect the size of your pool at the same time barring a catastrophe or a scandal
016or a major crisis uh the community will follow the lead of the school committee assuming there's nothing else bad going on I mean if there was a two million dollar budget deficit and and uh and and the business manager just took off with the money uh you wouldn't uh you wouldn't have that kind of support but in the case of what green feels done over the past few years uh you either your community will follow your lead so you have as much discretion in the world about what you want to do and about half of our districts don't even amount to search they will just go ahead and make a promotion assuming that the person they're promoting is someone that will be accepted and assuming that it's someone that the school committee has confidence in
017in other words you don't just promote the most senior person standing you promote someone who may have been groomed or someone who's ready and the public invariably accepts it then that happens in about half of the cases in about 25 percent of the cases there are internal candidates and they uh the school committee wants to see how they fare in light of what else is out there and then in 25 of the cases they just look outside because that's what they need to do let's see the uh but but we have uh we have advised school districts and and I don't know what your situation is uh other than what you've explained to me briefly uh if you have some an internal candidate in whom you have confidence that candidate will have a head start
018and will probably be or is because I I know what I know well I know who your current superintendent is um that person is is uh if that person is is has been mentored by the outgoing superintendent as the confidence of the outgoing superintendent uh you save yourself a lot of time about worrying about you know there are three people in the community who say we have to do an Intergalactic search and see what's out there there are a few people who want to be superintendents now and uh a lot of the people that do from out of state and most of our out-of-state candidates are retiring out of state and you know most of them figure okay I'm retiring in in Peoria Illinois hey Greenfield quality of quality of life is good out there
019I think I'll go to Greenfield for three years how hard can it be and they just have no idea what a superintendency is is like in another state so I I would say if you have confidence in what you have internally you should make the move with confidence and the community will feel it and they will support you otherwise you could you could start a search if you wanted to thank you I think that's a good introduction Glenn I appreciate that perspective um and I at this point since you're both here and we've gotten the groundwork laid I really would want to open it up to school committee members to share questions and comments for these folks yes please mayor go ahead okay welcome Liz and Glenn um I um I know that there are
020vacancies in and around us a lot of them I'm wondering if you have a sense of what the pool would be if for some reason or whether we decided to do a search are we in a highly competitive situation are we um you know one more uh officiable type of thing no one's going to be afraid of of Greenfield this isn't like one of those districts where people can see oh Greenfield never go there no that's that's not the situation that you're in uh the pools are not as big as they were a generation ago and fewer people want to step up and do it it's difficult work and uh it can be very rewarding but it but many superintendents do the Lord's work without a lot of recognition you know parents have you you
021have parents who are single constituency people they're concerned with their child and uh nobody else's child and sometimes they put a lot of pressure on superintendents I don't know what your labor situation is like uh in terms of your contract that's always a challenge it's tougher than it used to be uh and then uh I I think I think you're in good shape and I think people would not be hesitant to apply to Greenfield but there just aren't that many people out there who would want to do it and you'd be competing with Amherst uh right who else is out there I'm East Hampton so proudly um did I hear Hampshire Regional was also searching I I don't know I haven't seen anything officially on that yet um but inches week to week I don't
022have any inside information I just you know thought I heard Scott a lot about it yeah this would be my third or fourth superintendent search over several years of being a school Committee Member off and on so um that they're not they're not easy to do uh member wall is exactly right you know they are time consuming they are not always as effective as we would like them to be given whatever pool decides to to uh member of the pool of search people who are searching come forward so I would suggest you I I was I wanted a sense of in essence what the market was and thank you for your for your honest answer I appreciate that yeah there we don't have the number starting up to the the numbers that we had last
023year for some reason uh post covert a lot of people had figured okay we've gone through covert now now I will retire or go to do something else uh if you do elect someone that you want to promote or someone that you like I would make sure that you have a commitment from that person and a mutually uh agreeable contract that will keep that in Greenfield you don't want to be doing this again in three years [Music] thank you um I see that secretary Eckstrom has her hand up please go ahead Susan so that we aren't in a place that that people sorry I just want to make sure I wasn't muted uh we aren't in a place that that people would think oh God not going to Greenfield um I don't know that that's
024always been the case since I've been on the school committee do you feel like that's something that is true now because of the work that Christine has done or um just I don't know for some other random reason I would say that there has been a significant increase in The credibility of the district over the last three to four years okay well thank you um uh other questions or comments from the school committee I have a couple but I don't want to jump in I want others to have a chance yeah please uh member Johnson go ahead if we did want to move forward with an internal candidate what would be the process you you might want to interview the internal candidate just for the purpose of resolving any issues that you might have and
025if you if you did that and even if you didn't you could simply promote the internal candidates subject to the successful negotiation of a mutually agreeable contract of employment it's that simple you could you could do that and hire Liz or me tonight in the same process as your superintendent would we need to take a vote in a public session to invite that person to come for the interview and I would interview the candidate in public I do it on a Saturday morning when people are more relaxed that's an interesting I like I like that idea I would not have thought of that so thank you Glenn um you know we can share with you even for internal or even external candidates and you could you could go through a very rigorous interview in addition
026to give you the confidence that you might be looking for I would say for the sake of credibility and that not that we are in uncredible in this Community I would think that the community itself as you said would follow suit more easily if we did a public inner some sort of interview process however we decided to design it uh with uh our internal candidate or internal candidates if there are others who want to step forward and that way you could truthfully say to your community yeah be transparently brought the community forward for brought the candidate forward for a public interview yeah ask some very thoughtful questions requiring really good substance and knowledge of the candidate and uh the candidate showed us that uh the candidate is ready or the candidate is not ready whatever
027whatever the interview shows but there have been a number of districts that have and we've had a half a dozen districts over the past two or three years who've done the internal uh interview for the purpose of establishing uh what they suspected but maybe couldn't confirm without doing the interview uh please remember Denise go ahead hi Glenn and Liz I had a question similar to um member John Smith odd's question but on the opposite end if we decide to do a superintendent search um would you be the one to help us find a firm and then would we uh interview the firm and would we choose the firm publicly or is that something that we would do privately we have a list of the people who do this work it's available to any member district
028so we would strongly suggest if you are going to do a search and you're looking at a firm we'd strongly suggest that you talk to them make sure that they will I wouldn't pay anybody until you have a signed contract what's going to happen is if the search fails a search consultant is more likely to blame you than themselves you know what do you expect from me you're a terrible District of that kind of stuff uh candidates didn't want to go to your District it's not my fault you might hear that uh but I suggest that you interview representatives of the firms that you're looking at there are a number of them out there that do this work uh some inside and some outside of Massachusetts and to follow up it is all a public
029process Elizabeth okay thank you other questions or comments from the school committee all right I'm going to jump in because I have a couple more um are you kind of uh touched on this I think um I guess you kind of answered this one so I'll skip to to my other question um can you tell me uh mafc folks a little bit about what we can um be doing that's more big picture than selecting a new superintendent I'm wondering about specifically how the school committee can support um our district leadership in um you know the the building blocks of secession planning so getting um our our district leaders and admin admins who are interested in moving into central office jobs are moving up within the central office how do school committees support that work and
030make sure that the district has the tools they need so when we have strong folks in District already we can promote um their their professional development and help to keep some of that uh District strength internally uh if you could answer that in any way I would suggest you first of all take a look at the concept called distributive leadership where the people in leadership share their responsibilities with others and at the same time higher with the sense of building a leadership track so for example if you are promoting an assistant superintendent to the superintendency are your principles prepared to move into the central office in some way uh is the special education coordinator a lot of superintendencies come out of special education I was saying that uh are they given an opportunity to expand
031their uh their roles and responsibilities do they uh are they allowed to represent the district from time to time do they lead projects like uh discrete uh strategic planning well curriculum selection do they serve on hiring committees and do they have exposure to the kinds of things that good leaders look for in their staff and including those those Concepts those are all part of the sort of the Pyramid of of distributive leadership where everybody gets a chance to uh to lead it's it's why a lot of school committees for example empower the vice chair and the secretary to uh to really in most of our cities the vice chair appoints the Committees which is the city thing and I you're muted if you could repeat that Glenn thank you um you said the vice chair
032of the school committees appoints the the subcommittees in most of our cities the vice chair of the school committee and the vice Chair by the way is created in law so the vice chair of the school committee uh would appoint the Committees because the chair of the school committee is often the mayor and the mayor's busy doing other things so that's an opportunity to uh to uh relieve in most of our cities the Mayors on the school committee and in most of those cities the mayor is the chair of the school committee so that's why you see the vice chair having some specific Authority I see that interesting okay that's very helpful thank you Liz would you add anything yeah I was just going to add that I know your Charter is a bit different
033in in Greenfield I know um with the Chairman's chairpersonship I think that um I think that there would be a conversation with the current leader and with the next leader about you know sort of that idea of distributive leadership and how that works um in the district I'd be surprised that it doesn't work already although I don't know um knowing Christine um it's been a pleasure to work with by the way and we don't get to say that enough I think so I'm happy to be able to do that and I think that's the key to succession planning thank you thank you okay I'm gonna ask for any other questions or comments from the school committee before we move on to have superintendent DeBarge speak anyone else have questions for masc or comments they want
034to make in general awesome so I know Christine and I oh please can anybody tell me how Doris Doyle is doing she's still in town Doris Doyle I yeah mayor go ahead I haven't heard it again let me see I oddly enough I was going into the grocery store shortly after I left work today and Doris and her husband Bill were coming out and I'm here to say they're both standing and they are fine they were complaining about the heat which is a particularly Yankee thing to do I am not one I thought the heat was wonderful but they're doing fine and if I'd known that I was uh if I thought about it and knew that you had a connection then yeah but no Doris is Doris they're great yeah store in the uh
035route 5. say that again Glenn my distant Cousin Eddie lidwack is he's still running his little tchotchke store at this uh that I can't tell you it doesn't ring that's not a name I know either yeah yeah they used to be regulars I will say this Glenn I go all the way back to Eileen Turok so well I always look forward to meeting only seeing whenever I was in Greenfield and Doris was one of them oh yeah she's she's fine thank you So Christine um you and I spoke about you wanted an opportunity to address this situation from the standpoint of not hey I'm retiring but the standpoint of hey here's here's my input on um our assistant superintendent who we've you know that I don't want to call her the elephant in the room
036because she's anything about the elephant of the room this has been rather a public discussion um but uh it would be great to hear your thoughts on the process as well as um on askp well I appreciate it Liz Liz's comment about um you know the distribute distributive leadership already happening because it it is in varying degrees and [Music] um you know when I was coming up through my administrative positions I was extraordinarily fortunate to have someone who worked with me and always said you know what do you want to do what do you see yourself doing and whatever ridiculous job I told her I wanted to do like you know one day be a superintendent she said all right we're gonna do what we need to do to get you there if that's where
037you want to go and so you know that that is a conversation Karen and I had um you know you ever see do you ever see this and she said maybe I do so I said all right then we're gonna make sure you can do you can do it if that's what you want to do and we've said the same to all the other administrators what do you see yourself doing we'll make sure we give you some opportunity to grow into that future role and we do support people who want to do that um I am 100 plus I don't even know how many percentages I can share um confident that Karen can take over this District we do any of you who've listened to us have a conversation for more than 10 minutes know
038that we do everything like as a team um The Good Fortune for her is ultimately she can kick something up if she doesn't want to have to make the decision like snow days but um you know that that by the way ultimate worst job ever is calling snow days but um we we do all critical decision making as a team we take care of the district together ultimately it is always my decision it's always my responsibility it's always my fault but um I can't and we also quite frankly live by the Mantra you know if I get hit by a bus somebody else has to know where all my stuff is and so we do share that as morbid as it is we do share our work because you don't know what's next in life
039so um I am I am supremely confident that she can do the job you know as someone who's who is retiring um it's it's a wonderful gift that I have from my family that I can retire at the age I will be and the experience that I've had but it's also sad because there's so much incredible work that's happening and we just you know the Strategic plan and the reimagining the schools and just I I can't even articulate all of the work that's happening and to know that there is the potential that that would continue without a speed bump is an incredible gift that you folks as this school committee can give the people who work here there have been three years of Blood Sweat and Tears that have gone into changes in this district
040and um to be quite pragmatic it would be a waste of time and money to have something change um but even more so to honor and respect the work that has been done by everyone in this district and I mean every single staffed person regardless of the position and to just collect them not worry about this and keep doing the work and know that you are all committed to what's been in place and what they've spent the last three years doing um I believe would be an incredible statement to the school's community and you've gotten emails from staff who feel like Karen can continue on the work that they've been doing and she's respected in this community and she lives here I don't know how much more committed you can get um so I don't
041know all right I can't say enough but I think you've already figured that out thank you I appreciate that um and I would also uh you know these processes can be they have to be public which we all can appreciate the reasons why um and it does become at times uh a little bit uncomfortable for all involved to to manage that process but I do want to um give uh assistant superintendent patnode an opportunity to just address her level of interest in this job I I know what she and I have talked about one-on-one um and Karen if you uh would be so kind as to just give us a sense of where you're at um in this process now I'd appreciate it sure um as Christine says I've been in Greenfield a long time
042I live here committed to the students of this District it'll be my 14th year here in greenfields I've held many hats and roles I started out as a high school teacher was an assistant principal was a principal and now in this role and I'm very interested in progressing to the next steps um I that's where I see my future in education being and where I'd love to have my career go and it would just fill my heart if I could do it here because I am truly committed to Greenfield and want to see all the good things that we've started and see all the successes that are to come with all of the work we've done thank you I appreciate that um any last comments questions suggestions from the school committee and then if they're
043if if we're done with um the folks from masc I would allow them to leave or stay your choice for the public comment period but first I just want to make sure the school committees have the um any opportunity they want to speak please Gene wall I want to say that is the person doing the union negotiations with Christine and Karen I saw firsthand the two of them working together and they are a team they their discussions are phenomenal and I also watched other people being brought in who were interested in some of the work that was being done so they could get trained to do it so what Christine says is is perfect uh in how she has managed as the superintendent to train as many people as possible to go forward and I'm
044sorry it's without her but there are so many things going on that that Karen has been a part of including the redistricting the the Grievances that she's listened to with I mean it I have been intimately involved accidentally by doing the union negotiations and the Grievances in the redistricting and the strategic planning and it's all done collaboratively and I can't praise Karen enough for the job she can do here for the schools and what she knows already thanks thank you Gene appreciate your perspective any anything else from the school committee members yes please me yes go ahead I you know I have known um assistant superintendent Cameron Patna for at least 10 years she um was our oldest English teacher and um he enjoyed being in our class he he wasn't he's you know he's
045a math kid so he wasn't really doesn't really embrace the language if you will um and but still enjoyed being in her class and um I know that prior to coven you know I've got a kid I our daughter isn't an easy kid and so I spent some time at the high school with Karen trying to figure some things out and then um doing teacher negotiations contract negotiations and things like that during covid Karen was on on the negotiating team and was great and in many cases was the calmer head than mine big surprise um and it's even more telling than all of those things to me is this past year I mean in in all the work that she's done is has been remarkable since being superintendent but more telling or assistant superintendent excuse
046me um more telling for me is when I went to graduation this past spring we'll call it spring um is that students who were graduating even though she hasn't been there for a couple of years we're still giving her hugs as they went through and she was the the smiles on everyone's face hers and theirs to see each other um really was wonderful to see and I've seen I've seen her be an authority figure at the high school as well and that's okay and and but everyone was still happy to see her and and for me that's more telling than anything else truthfully thank you how about I see uh mayor wiederkartner you've got your hand up oh you didn't mean to have your hand up that's fine um member Johnson moves out go ahead
047I'll just say um when we first got the sad news that um Christine was moving on I I kind of assumed we would be headed towards the search because I just I don't know I guess they always thought with the job of the significance and and everything that a truck a search would be just kind of um the ordinary course of business but hearing um masks presentation today and reading all the emails and everything and um supportive of working with Karen and she'll have us thank you Glenn thank you and mayor Rita gardening your hands still up so do you want to speak now you have a look on your face like you do you're on Butte though you're you're still on mute yeah my lips were moving yeah you're good now we can hear
048you go ahead oh okay um I only in the last three years have have really gotten to know Karen because I I don't have kids in the school anymore but uh what I do know is that I've been uh impressed with the numbers of internal staff as well as people from parents and so forth who have been very supportive of Karen is our superintendent and everything I have seen and know about her says that she is ready for the job and um there has been a lot of upheaval as we all know you and I especially Amy and Susan in the last three years so to bring continuity and comfort to the school system of Greenfield and the community who Embraces it I think is an extraordinary thing for us to be able to do
049and um and I see that in being able to have Karen is there it's our next Super engine thank you mayor you know the only thing I would add at this point is a little bit about process I think um there were some good questions about that um and certainly uh the part about having a public interview um on the way to an appointment seems very uh respectable logical sensical sensible all those things um and the way I see it is I know this committee as chair that we don't move uh quickly or without thoughtfulness um when it comes to making motions and moving forward with big things and that's to be appreciated because we have so many folks who come from different perspectives with um very thoughtful uh input to our processes that we
050undertake um but what I would what I think we we should consider is um that we certainly don't want to lose uh what we the solution that we may have right in front of us and so I would like to have folks plan for our regular meeting next week uh our regular monthly meeting to have a motion uh to appoint at the end of uh Christine's term pending a successful uh public interview and successful negotiation of a contract that would be the motion that I would introduce we are not doing it now we don't even have to discuss it now but I wanted folks to have a sense of where I'm at with that and I welcome folks to take a different uh tact with that when we when it comes forward but what I
051don't want to do is have a wonderful unique opportunity uh slip through our hands without with inaction um and you know the other thing that I would say because we do have public um interest a great deal of public interest on this is superintendent DeBarge alluded to the fact that we have had um uh emails and uh I've also had one-on-one discussions with a number of folks in the community about uh what to do next and without exaggeration well we've all seen the emails but for the public it's been entirely unanimous uh that we should be appointing Karen as our next superintendent um and from the the folks that I've spoken to um it's also been unanimous and um I I hope that folks would bring anything forward uh to the school committee within the
052next week or at our public comment uh next Wednesday if there are concerns or anything we should uh additionally consider that they want to bring forward the community you know Glenn and Liz both trust the community's input on this um much more eloquently than I could so um I want to make sure we have that clear that that's you know kind of where I would see this process heading and why um and with that said I'd actually like to um let Glenn and Liz know that they are free to go and enjoy their evening and we will move into the public comment portion and I can't thank you both enough for your guidance before and during this meeting today thank you very much for your time and your expertise thank you Amy I've got to
053go buy my Powerball tickets go that's right go go good luck take care thank you um and then I'm looking uh at our attendance here and um public comment is for folks who are actually logged into the meeting and the only one I see logged in is Stephanie who indicated when we started the recording when we started the meeting that she doesn't plan to participate in public comment and Stephanie of course not to put you on the spot but you have the opportunity to change your mind and do public comment at this time if you're interested still listening thanks thank you and I don't see that anyone else in it and you can disagree with me please if I'm missing but I don't see that anyone else is logged in that could be doing public
054comment does everyone agree with that okay so I would again stress uh to the general public who's listening in or listening to the recording that at our regular meeting next Wednesday the 11th at 6 PM after John's on we will of course take public comment and welcome your comment on this and anything else related to the schools and at this time I would also take a motion to adjourn that was enough I missed who Moved who moved it second extra move Johnson was sad second there we go okay and we do need a roll call boat remember yes secretary extra yes remember Johnson aside yeah Vice chair Martini yes chair Peretti yes number wall yes yes we are adjourned thank you so much 6 52 p.m great thank you good night good night [Music]