MSAD#51 School Board Meeting 3/1/2021

001e e e a 10c countdown we're good to go okay uh welcome everybody to the March 1st 2021 board directors meetings for msad51 um for those of you before we kind of get into the meeting we have a long meeting I'm guessing tonight we have a lot of things to share lot of information to be communicated you will note that the um agenda has been revised and the reason for that is because when we originally posted this agenda we had had a couple of things um so the uh pandemic and post-pandemic planning presentations from both uh superintendent Jeff Porter and the building administrators were originally going to happen during the workshop portion um we do not record our Workshop so therefore all that information would not be available to the public after tonight so we

002chose to switch up the order move those presentations so that they are part of the public live stream and then we also knew that there would be a large amount of public comment around this topic so we chose to add in a separate um public comment right before the workshop so that it follows the information that the building administrators and Jeff um has presented in case that answers any of the questions that you may have arrived with tonight as you all know we have um restrictions on how many people we can allow in the building so we ask that when you are done with your public comment that you exit so that we have room for other people as we already have a line um in the lobby so um we are here to listen

003um tonight we know that there is a lot of um conversation and dialogue around the community about getting our um kids back in school and we are all here to listen to that this evening um we will we don't need to call to order because we are actually in person um or do a roll call so we'll start with student um with recognition around student forums that happened I believe last Wednesday um and Jeff and Chris Hoffman I believe yes thank you we'll kick that off uh thank you Tyler um indeed um it's a pleasure tonight to offer some recognition to one student leader here at gy high school has taken a great deal of initiative in leading our Student Government um our student government has been in existence for a number of years now

004and has always been a growing place for students to um Express their voice on school matters and school issues and in this particular year we think that voice is more important than ever and uh the student government under the leadership of of Hannah Peretti has done an excellent job of working with me and uh Student Government adviser teacher Rich Taylor to continuously provide student opportunities for input through uh ongoing meetings and listening sessions and specifically student surveys and student forums and so this past week we had our second of of uh second major student open forum for to solicit their feedback about Sur most recent student survey and Hannah also facilitated that discussion and her leadership has been essential to providing students that ongoing voice and to Growing the opportunity for students to share that

005voice in our school planning so um I do think Hannah has a few words to share with you about that process and her efforts but I do want to um thank her publicly for all the she has done for our school this year thank you Chris um so hi my name is Hannah Peretti and I'm a senior and over the past year I've had the privilege to work as president of student government and as this year has progressed um we've had the opportunity to hear student feedback through two student forums um so when we begin this project we start by going over it in large groups and then we form small groups and this amazing small group of about four students and Mr Taylor and I um organized a survey in which we asked questions

006about demographics so what grade what kind of classes students take um and then questions ranging from mental health to academics to even like what time do you go to sleep at night because we know that all these things have been changing since the beginning of the pandemic um and then we ask questions about stress levels and um things relating to our academic uh life and so at the forums uh We Begin by presenting that data and then we choose questions that in the qualitative section of the survey students have left for teachers um which is usually a small group uh plus Mr Hoffman who answer these questions questions about contact tracing questions about why the Administration has made certain decisions and even questions requesting the continuation of certain aspects of online school um we give

007Mr Hoffman and a group of teachers and the opportunity to answer these questions and elaborate and then we open the floor to questions and feedback from students and also from teachers um because we understand the importance of communication between those groups and so we had one in early December and and then we had one last Wednesday and we believe that it's really important to um increase the levels of student and teachers um discussing to hopefully better our uh learning and health needs um at gy so um I want to thank Mr Porter and Mr Hoffman and the school board for recognizing me in student government um and Mr Taylor and we've put a lot of work into this and I'm thankful for the opportunity to share in order to continue the conversation about bettering our

008school experience so thank you thank you so much does anyone from the board W to make a comment go ahead um I just wanted to say thank you Hannah for all your work I know that the student government is an essential part of the school and it's great that Chris looks to the student government for that feedback and can work with them thank you this to the chair um I just want to say thank you I just want to also make note that I appreciated um that you involved teachers in your conversations I think the more that the the two groups can talk and and and spend time I I know that Jeff shared with me I was unable to attend that day thank you um which I was really bummed out about because I

009was really looking forward to attending and I hope to attend um the next ones that pop up um but I know Jeff had shared that there was really great conversation between students and teachers and really great connection through those conversations so thank you for taking the time to set that up yeah I just want to add thank you um Hannah just uh amazing facilitation of that meeting um the topic uh this past week was concurrent learning and and trying to get thoughts from students and teachers on that um and um you know thank you to Mr Taylor for organizing um with you um those events for kids and and for teachers um it's really a terrific way for students to be able to voice their uh questions concerns and and be involved in the process

010so it was a great experience thank you I look forward to hearing about the next one um so our next item is approval of minutes um first looking for our motion for the February 1st 2021 minutes so moved second any discussion go ahead seam MB kland I was not afforded the opportunity to speak the last meeting about the 124 minutes because it was a virtual meeting and the chair did not ask for comment these public participation at board meetings uh rules were also not in effect at the time they were also never publicly read at any meeting uh it took you four years to actually follow the public comment policy and then couple couple months to change it because I kept calling you out on it anyway superintendent Jeff Porter who is for some reason

011also the msad Schoolboard secretary often leads out information in the minutes that the community might want to know on 1214 items were action vote to extend superintendent Jeff Porter's contract I had asked why they didn't approve why they had to approve an extension to a three-year contract in today's covid economy as people in the town were unemployed and businesses are shutting down this information is public it's not confidential did you folks know Jeff Porter currently makes $147,700 after the motion carried 80 vote to authorize the chair to negotiate the 2021-22 salary and benefits not everybody knows but the town of cumber Cumberland employees all 100 of them many supporting families here in the town were not able to get a raise this year so the town could offset prior chair Kate Parn 5% school budget

012increase from last summer now remember this past summer the correction on Kate perin's mill rate math was off 100% I suggested here on 1214 that the chair reduce Jeff Porter's pay and also realized that when the new budget cycle comes around M51 now owes the 100 people in the town of cin they're back paying a new increase I asked on 1214 to consider ms51 only saying giving a 1.5% increase in payroll this year so the town gets 1.5 or maybe even get gets made up to 3% or greater don't say because of the teachers contract those can be negotiated and that's on going on now the ms51 employees now ow the town of cumland employees back pay for people here tonight watching at home superintendent Jeff Porter contract runs through 2024 now point of order

013um Madam chair are these addressing the minutes that were on the table for February 1 or February 22 no because the last meeting the chair did not ask for public comment prior to doing the vote understood but two things I'm just questioning if what we're talking about here are February 1 and 22 and the difference between minutes and a transcript now minutes are not a transcript no but the town of cin minutes are so much more exclusive and inclusive than the minutes that are provided here by the superintendent Jeff Mr MCB I would agree if this wasn't a recorded meeting that anybody can sit in the comfort of Their Own home and hewn meetings are also recorded on and on YouTube as my apologies for interrupting may I proceed I would like you to keep

014your comments on the agenda items so that would be February 1st and February 22nd okay and your time has I I'm sorry I may have interrupted his time yeah I think so probably about minute's worth fa fair enough I will give you 30 more seconds okay so what you're saying Kevin is that I can't actually talk about the minutes from the meeting that you didn't allow anybody to comment to the last meeting I would say that in front here so by having public comment on any topic that this board is able to vote on is as I look at the agenda here I see approval of minutes February 1 2021 February 22 2021 right you actually changed the public participation in board meeting policy I I'm sorry I'm answering your question mcy uh so to

015those two pieces of approval of minutes I think that anything that sits within the scope of those two meetings absolutely and then I I you know not trying to be difficult here but these are all recorded and and if it is something that you want to encourage people to read your your comments and certainly I would encourage them to sure so just to be clear Kevin if if there's a meeting that's online a virtual meeting where the chair does not allow comments and now you've changed the actual policy to no longer include public comment prior to board votes that seems a little disingenuous to me I I'm not certainly not trying to be disingenuous Mr MCB I'm just looking at for this meeting we're looking at two sets of minutes those were the ones that

016if you could restrict your comments and again I apologize no that's fair I I certainly appreciate your uh take on that I will close with Jeff Porter is grossly overpaid for the job he does here thank you okay any further discussion on the minutes for February 1st 2021 no all in favor thank you and then a motion for February 22nd 2021 minutes so moved thank you I'll second okay and any discussion great all in favor thank you so we will now move into public comment as I mentioned earlier tonight if you do have a public comment that is related to pandemic planning planning or returning to school we are asking that we hold those till the second uh portion of public comment if there is public comment for any other items or topics um please

017approach the [Music] podium seeing none we will move in I'm sorry if you would like to speak you can approach the podium so this is the three minute public comment portion is that accurate if it is not related to returning to school or pandemic plan pandemic planning okay Shan MCB to Cumberland uh after five requests we actually got ms51 to stop hiding the secret little group of equity leadership committee you can now see what the people are doing as a radical indoctrination of your children through critical race Theory uh ms51 Schoolboard is now in violation of federal law recently Jeff Porter legislators cath Kathy Breen and Steve morard all failed to denounce ibram X keni in this tight relationship with USM now that gly has partnered with them after the previous failings of CCI with

018Shay Stewart ble an Maximo is even pushing his book I have copies of a press release if anybody would like them several members of the msed staff want to change the policy just like they did earlier with public comment so they can flood books to students about the mythical white guilt and Institution racism it's called M51 policy igj selection of educational materials in this woke epicenter of main the gly PTO are going to do a training on how to raise anti-racist white kids seriously an Maximo and others want to have a BLM week at gy you know BLM the Marxist domestic terrorist group they reportedly raised $90 million from leftists putting signs on their lawns however blmm only reported to used 22 million the other 68 million went to the DNC or lining their own

019Pockets black-on-black murder rates are soaring almost exclusively in cities where BLM introduced leftist politicians to handcuff the police I appreciate our worldclass SRO Kirk mausen for being here tonight to protect me from many of you up on stage being white is not a crime so stop telling our kids it is stop pushing your narrative on our kids and stop going backwards all this does is encourage victimhood turning people against each other and leads to endless debate over trivia at some point liberals need to embrace equal treatment for all and stop trying to create the hundredth exception to the rules for microaggressions and rules we're all supposed to live by we already have a mechanism for this it's called free market capitalism and anti-discrimination laws judge a man not by the color of his skin but

020the content of his character that's a quote from Martin Luther King who would be greatly ashamed of gy furthermore all parents who live in Gil should ask for 14% of your taxes back as Gil is reduced its services by 20% lastly this doesn't feel like America anymore it's unbelievably sad to say this freedom of speech appears to be dead and by motion of this last policy we can see the school board doesn't want to hear from its constituents everyone's walking on eggshells for fear of their jobs their families their reputations fearing they might slip up and say something the speech police like an Maximo might disagree with until other parents learn that the group of bullies up on stage don't want to listen to them you will be playing defense instead of offense the price

021of freedom is high and always will be and it's a price I'm willing to pay your time is up are you time to step up parents because one day you'll be on your own thank you is there anyone else that would like to speak for public comment we will move on to communic ations I have a statement go ahead Peter in the early 1950s there existed a period of American History known as the Red Scare during this time certain elected politicians accused officials in the state department the military the entertainment industry Academia and other American institutions of being communists and traitors reputations were ruined and few had the courage to come to their defense they were led by a senator from Wisconsin Joseph McCarthy the culmination of these activities occurred in 1951 when General George

022C Marshall arguably perhaps our greatest Soldier Statesman after George Washington was accused of being a traitor so great was the fear of re rebuke that even General Eisenhower failed to come to his defense well as early as 1950 a senator from Maine Margaret Chase Smith in her Declaration of conscience speech decried the smear campaigns of these politicians this was followed by a CBS documentary by Edward ruro denouncing the demagoguery that was so prevalent during this time well well it took the Senate another three years to finally vote to censor Senator McCarthy which it did in 1953 with it the senator and the Red Scare eventually faded away is a sorry chapter in American history now let's fast forward to 70 years to Cumberland and North Yarmouth in 1921 where our own Red Scare is unfolding

023as three members of our school board are referred to and I'll quote as Communists marxists and morons similar invectives are heaped on our superintendent these are classic smears that would do Senator McCarthy proud as school board members we might not possess the eloquence of Senator Smith but it's time to state that these statements have no place in what should be civil discourse in the discussion of issues now I want to relate that under the First Amendment of the Constitution these individuals have every right to make any statement they wish in a public forum I took an oath to support the Constitution when I joined this body and I took one when I was commissioned as an officer in the United States Army which eventually led to a Ser year of service in Vietnam they absolutely

024have that right right but they have some responsibility to be civil in their comments now I do want to State publicly that I do sometimes respectively disagree with my fellow board members while I strongly support our Equity efforts and goals I did disagree with small parts of the language in the June Equity letter I also feel that with the charged political atmosphere that exists in our country that people are afraid to speak out due to their fear of their families and their economic livelihoods and divisive rhetoric at both extreme ends of the political Spectrum does no one any good this activity has had Economic Consequences to our two communities the public may not be aware that over 50 that's right 50 Freedom of Information requests have been filed by individuals during this period during the

025time when our superintendent and business manager has spending been spending countless hours in efforts to keep our schools open they have been diverted from these efforts by the necessity of compliance with these requests also some of these requests need to involve our outside Attorneys at considerable expense to our district while Freedom of Information requests are an important factor in in the need for open government this level of request does students parents and taxpayers of our two communities no great service and some would say borders on harassment finally I want to say that I'm not the most religious person in the world my theology to quote Hank Williams Jr is somewhere between raising hell and Amazing Grace however last January Connie and I went on a two week pilgrimage to the holy land with members of

026the Episcopal dicese of Maine our guide was a Palestinian Christian in a cannon in the dicese of Jerusalem we visited the usual sites but early in the morning without the crowds had the chance to read the applicable gospel readings at each site this was especially meaningful at the Jordan River the Sea of Galilee and in Jerusalem it culminated with walking of the station across at 6:00 a.m. on the final day the trip resulted in a lot of personal reflection and those teaches and guideposts on how we should deliver our lives continue to be relevant 2,000 years later maybe they should be relevant in our public discourse thank you thank you Peter is there anyone else that has anything to share during Communications I just want to say um Peter thank you for putting taking the

027time of putting that together and I think that we should just be respectful of each other and we may not all have the same opinions but we do have the same goal is to educate our kids and to do the best that all of us can so thank you Mike I so appreciated that statement Peter I subscribe myself to it um I appreciate serving with you that was that was really I I appreciate it um the only other thing I wanted to add is that um the targets on our board happen to be uh Kate Tyler and an uh if you can't tell they're female uh none of the male members have been targeted that's misogyny right there and it's politically charged um and you know it's not hard to figure out that I'm the

028chair of the Town Democrats so if this was politically charged I would think that I would get attacked too but um so I think that there's there's something to be had and thought of there so just this whole thing has been just a huge waste of time a huge waste um the space crisis in this District figuring out how to get new building um and so much more and this has just been a huge waste of time and waste of resources and I hope that the community can just say enough it's time to move on but again you were so much more eloquent than I was Peter may have a chance for a rebuttal Madam chairperson I will not recognize you no okay I'll just talk anyway M yes but massages isn't one of them

029I'm not um Tyler don't engage please isn't and we had asked after public comment for people to leave didn't we I do want to just clarify sure actions are misogynous no people I didn't claim people here are misogynist but the actions absolutely positively have been thank you I'd like to just um quickly say something if you don't mind please um I've been in the field of educational uh leadership for 25 years I was a school principal for many years assistant superintendent before coming here as superintendent a few years ago and I have watched all kinds of meetings all kinds of um tough decisions that had to be made people that were upset um and those are just part of the part of the deal of Public Service what is not part of the deal of

030public service is when that people are certain certain people are targeted and I feel uh terribly as superintendent that we have three members of our school board uh that have been in that situation for the last eight months and I apologize olze on behalf of msad51 um that that has had to occur and um I am sorry that it has had to occur because it shouldn't have and I'd like to just say that um the level of discourse in the public Community should be better than that and it does take a community to step up and say enough is enough thank you anything else I want to thank everyone for their comments tonight um this has been a really hard year for a lot of different reasons and um what was said tonight is really

031appreciated I also just sorry oh yes go ahead I also just wanted to thank the board um and thank you for the statements made and um for the uh other motions this evening keeping us on task because I am proud to serve on board I am proud that my kids are um in this district and one child going to be in this District we have a lot of really wonderful people here and I will keep working for every single student that we have in this District every single resident that we have in Cumberland and North Yarmouth thank you ma'am okay I'd like to move on as we still have a lot ahead of us I think there's a million things I'd like to say right now but I'm going to continue on with the agenda

032um so our next is presentations um which is first with mental health uh res a response to mental health conversations that we've had over the past two months with Greg Marley from Nami Maine and I wonder Jeff if you could give us a little background on this yeah I'm very happy to be able to uh introduce Greg Marley to the board tonight um Greg has is widely um recognized um as a as a leader in the state of Maine on suicide prevention um and Greg I had asked him a few weeks ago if he would attend a board meeting and discuss um some of the recent losses in the community and and have some uh you know dialogue with the board about that and be able to offer some strategies that might be helpful to

033Cumberland and North Yarmouth during this time um we had an opportunity to have a team call with him uh a couple weeks ago social workers guidance counselors administrators were on that call um and Greg kind of helped us through some of those issues and then we invited him uh to this meeting in the meantime I'd like to thank uh Bill Shane the town manager of Cumberland Rosemary Roy the town manager of North Yarmouth for engaging um with a number of people on our team and also on their teams um in working through some issues between the the three organizations that we could uh find some consistent language and help uh for people who are struggling with mental health in our community um and we also have a team of uh that's being led by our

034school psychologist right now that's putting together resources internally for our district um but I'd like to U welcome Greg um to uh to our district tonight thank you very much I'm proud to be here um and I regret as I often do in some of the work I I do that I need to be here um this is a hard time it's a hard time for everybody so I'm going to talk a little bit about the uh stresses of the pandemic on Mental Health um and not just of your students but of your community and some ideas on on where to go from there um my background is I'm a clinical social worker in the state of main I've been working in Community Mental Health um since the late 1980s in a variety of roles

035Crisis crisis management working with law enforcement and about the past 14 years primarily in prevention and suicide prevention um that's what I do and since this pandemic shut us down about March 16th I spent a great deal of time working with school communities and school professionals around the state on how they do their work and how they struggle and accept the limitations of the pandemic um and where every conversation starts Parts is a recognition that the adults are as impacted as the students the school board members are as impacted as the school staff and the school students so it's impacted us all our daily schedule our access to basic needs particularly until we figured out how to hack the system a little bit for many people the finances and the impacts on finances continues how

036we act how we do our professional work and for everyone ACC access to Care Health Care Mental Health Care and um what I see are doing a lot of polling in the presentations I do around the state and everyone feels what is shaken a lot is their sense of safety and their sense of hope and I think we're really at this point we're in a place where more than anything else we need to look at how do we increase hope so for youth it's all the things that are carried by their their parents and the adults and perhaps even more so because they're more vulnerable in some ways in their adults so their daily schedule and structure they out of home supports particularly for those kids with special needs special learning leads um how do

037they access those supports obviously for many of your children access to peers peer interactions and what I'm hearing over and over again that sense of uncertainty first we're in school then we're out then we're in school then we're out the pandemic es and flows and we can rationalize it but can our kids so that uncertainty is there um in their sense of safety and their sense of hope and in my work around Suicide Prevention the loss of Hope is what scares me the most so one of the things that has been positive in this some of the stigma around Mental Health and accessing care for mental health is breaking down I love this cartoon it says you know at least having anxiety made me feel special now everyone has it and that's true and we'll

038get to there so I want to start out before the pandemic and this is results of the main integrated youth Health survey um going up to 2019 and one of the questions or three of the questions asked are about seriously consider considering suicide planning a suicide having a plan to means um and committing or attempting suicide so in 2019 overall of our high school students over 16% of them said they seriously thought about Su considered suicide in the past 12 months 133% had a plan and just under 9% acknowledged making a suicide attempt um in terms of symptoms of dep depression um 2019 203% of our male students in high school and 41% of our females acknowledge being sad most of the time at least two weeks in a roll to the extent that it

039compromised their ability to function so that's before Co so let's look at what happened since then and most of our data is really about adults because kids are hard to survey really hard to survey so this is a shows the difference between um signs of anxiety and depression disorder preco which is two 2019 and postco January 2021 so about 11% of adults prior and about 41% um now um but let's dig a little bit deeper again we don't have good data about kids but we do have good data about young adults this is results of kind of What's called the household pulse survey that's been a rolling survey ongoing throughout this period of time and among a many things they ask about anxiety symptoms of depression sleep disturbance and levels of suicidal ideation that seriously

040considering suicide and this is for boys or males are orange females are blue and I'll show show you some data kind of across a lifespan but the most significant impact were those kids just out of um just into adulthood 18 through 24 so the rates on that leftand side you know 0 2.4.6 point8 are 20 40 60 80% so between 40 and 45% significant anxiety about the same moderate depression and about 75 to 80% m depression and about 70 to 80% sleep disturbance and just under 40% seriously considering suicide um and this is males and females this is the difference between those who are in college so college students likely and those who are not in college just about the same and historically those kids who are not College Bound have well in terms of

041suicide death half the rates of those who are in college um and significantly more mental health and now in this pandemic it's about the same because everybody's affected and the final piece that I think is important for all of us who are a little older in this room is this the levels of depression and anxiety you can see from the left to the right is 18 to 24 25 to 49 50 to 64 and over 65 so from 56% to 49% to to um 39% to 29% now if we had the data on adolescence who or school age where would it fit where would you think you know that leads us in a direction I don't know I'm I'm really thinking that probably 18 to 24 year olds are impacted a little more strongly because

042their ability to adulthood has been impacted so what are we going to do what are the drivers and what can we touch certainly social isolation isolation from supports those who find their supports at school and are not finding at home so stressful and UNH home safe environment particularly when we're going remote clearly that uncertainty that unpredictability about the future I'm talking to school professionals who are saying you know kids who I have seen you know completing their um fafsas and taking the steps toward College hood are not doing it because they're they're they're not saying what they're saying what's what's the use anxiety those missing key milestones and for some kids like for some adults those Milestones are hugely important and I always always in my work what worry more about those who have underlying

043trauma and underlying existent mental health issues and vulnerabilities so I'm thinking we've got hope coming but we're not there yet um and that's kind of the the backdrop here you know what are we doing to support that um the first six months of this year we did not see a greater number in rate of suicides um I am seeing the flood bursting over the dam over the past two to three months and I'm really worried about what the rest of this year is going to look like um I'm seeing really increasing rates of people who need hospitalization and can't get it people who are hospitalized suicide attempts um and kids who are disappearing into substance use so we're doing a great deal of work around the state um both virtual and face tof face um

044and in the middle of this in April we started a a teen tech support line to try and find one venue where kids could reach out and connect with somebody if they're not finding that at home it's not a crisis line but it's available noon to 10: p.m. in staffed by young people who are supervised by clinicians um we're also seeking and receiving funding to do expand the number of Youth Mental Health First Aid trainings we're doing in schools and out and adult Mental Health First Aid trainings in communities um and um I'm really hoping that this school system in the next year or two bring sources of strength as a peer based um peer support program I know we you've been chewing at it but it's been so challenging to make decisions in this

045pandemic so how can we work and how can we recognize the cost of this pandemic on the adults in the community as well I know you guys have had way too many suicide losses over the past two years and how do you work through the grief and how do you build resilience in your adult community at the same time you're doing it in your student Community Nami is willing certainly to partner with this community um to the extent that we're possible um and we're always open and available for calls and people looking with support navigating the mental health system we are not going to therapy our way out of this right now because frankly therapists are full we need to really bring some some creativity we need to engage our communities we need to engage

046the support systems that are available to us um and this is a community that has means so how do you support and create those and I'm not talking about means only money I'm talking about means in intelligence and Ed education creativity because that's what it's going to take and I am very open to any questions you have on this um would love to hear them yes sure she's asked me to put up the peer support text number um if anybody has any question it is uh text or 8398 so we don't need to put it up thank you so much I'm going to open it up to the board for questions or feedback sometimes it takes a minute to compile you have one of the things I've done in my work starting in about 2003

047was to work with school districts in the aftermath of losses and over the past six or eight years broadening that out into more Community losses um so roll at it you something yeah I um thank you so much for for coming out here in such a beautiful night of for driving um I I I uh I'm so glad that you took the time to talk about this I'm glad that it's recorded I uh I'm glad that you talked about the numbers that are important to people um it's unprecedented obviously right now and there there's a lot of our students sitting in their own rooms doing their own schoolwork not having somebody to talk to and the the piece that you talked about and and the the illustration that you put up about removing the stigma

048I think is absolutely everything or a long way toward everything um because if we are treating an injury a stress fracture a torn muscle anything like that then that becomes something that people are very willing to talk about even when they don't understand what it is or what's causing it and I think that there's a a great opportunity to continue to make it more comfortable for every one of our students every one of our parents and people in the community that just um don't have someplace else to turn uh your last piece up there of putting up uh the website as well uh perhaps there's some folks that can volunteer their time and skills and efforts to um to trying to ensure that people are getting the resources that they're most necessary thank you very

049much for doing this tonight you're welcome anybody else Mike and then maybe Jennifer yeah I really really appreciated this uh presentation and definitely hits close to home I have a 10 and a half-year-old at home who uh during the pandemic definitely uh went into bouts of depression and it took us a while to find a therapist for her to talk to and thank goodness we did um it's been a godsend um but my question is just and it's okay if you have no idea how to answer it but so there's a whole focus on treating the individual person treating specific people but how do we start to treat a whole Community well that was a that was the question that came up in the meeting that Jeff held with with some of his clinicians and

050what I'm saying it takes more than the school district I've worked with some communities trying to really address more of a cluster um and to support resilience and it has to work with the school and Beyond the school definitely including the efforts from school um but in the suggestions I had and what I've worked with before is other area support systems and agencies churches Boys Club if you got one um how do you get creative so let me give you an example of something that we're doing and it's actually scheduled for next Wednesday up in the greater Rockland Camden Rockport area they said you know we're struggling here we've got folks that are struggling what can we do and I've been doing these coping with covid conversations and I said well let's do it for

051the community because right now what and what the focus is going to be all right moving forward how do we build hope how do we engage in what is really statistically looking better um and so right now as of earlier this evening we had 25 co-sponsors churches all the schools in the region law enforcement town office offices the out main uh the youth group in the area um you name it people stepping forward and what we ask when you're co-sponsoring we don't want your money we want your support we want to bring people there we want your voice in the conversation of how we creatively bring resources and I'll do a presentation in that session but a lot of it is going to be about people talking about how and what they're willing to offer

052into the community as support and resources and that's the creativity and I think that you know if we're engaging everybody because we live in Maine and no one in Maine looks forward to a free lunch I learned that when my wife and I were diagnosed with covid back in April and we got quiet and I finally I put a post Facebook that says you know playing with our kittens while we cope with Co and it made me realize how many people read those damn things because people started reaching in delivering soup loaf of bread offering to do our errands getting groceries for us um and I realized initially I was reluctant to accept that help I said I'm doing them a favor because they can focus outside their needs and give to something larger and

053how do we harness that across the communities there are many people people who are doing okay financially there are many people who have a good stable context and they're doing okay emotionally and they're ready to give back and maybe I'll climb off my soap box thank you Jennifer um I I think you answered a lot of my kind of reaching out and the question about I think we really need to just look and check on each other as a community and our students even the ones that we think that are doing okay because I think this time is very isolating to everyone and thank you for taking the time to to kind of bring this up and have it recorded so people at home can see it as well thank you you're welcome and I

054think the only thing that I would want to add is um you know I do appreciate that Co is making it easier for some people in in our state and in our society to talk about mental health and and how we're feeling um and then tied to that I think um for people to really consider if medication would be something that would be helpful and to talk to their primary care provider um for just you know even a short to try a short course of something to help get get them over the bridge Madison um I just wanted to you know appreciate this for a minute you know when I first applied to be on the board as a student representative one of my big things was I cared about mental health I cared about

055the mental health of myself my peers my friends my family I really wanted to kind of think about what does the board do to help mental health because I care and to hear like to see these statistics about adults young adults even possibly students and how poorly they're doing because of the pandemic it hurts to know that I'm myself and a lot of my friends and peers are in those statistics of depression anxiety suicidal thoughts and to hear that someone like you is taking this initiative to care it's very you know heartwarming to myself to know that people are out there really trying and that we as a board are going to move forward with that and I just want to thank you for that as a student you're welcome um I just wanted to

056say I really appreciated what you said about um that a lot of what you did was a presentation I think you said it was up in Rockland or um down east somewhere and you did a presentation but what really was meaningful was the conversation that happened in that space and I think sometimes when when we look at this topic it feels very daunting we don't know which way to go but the Simplicity of having conversation even on Facebook about being able to share that you were playing with your kittens um is something we can achieve and so I think knowing that we can reach out to the other community um organizations our our um Town Council and the churches and all the other community groups that we have we can create that dialogue and I

057I just appreciate you kind of simplifying it down to some of that I know this is a very complex issue but having the ability to have these type of conversations um is something we can do and we're doing it right now so I really appreciate that and people want to lend their voice we did another evening in call Maine after a series of suicides 95 is people on that Zoom I have never seen a zoom chat stream more active with ideas resources it was it was astonishing and they're taking that forward from that conversation to put some things together thank you Jeff did you have anything you wanted to add no I just want to thank um Greg for being a resource to us um I've actually had a chance to hear you before many

058times actually on different areas and I know that you've been a resource to many people in the state um during these kind of difficult times that happen in communities so thank you for being there and just being kind of steady for the state of Maine um unfortunately these things happen and um we it's just good to know that there is a a terrific resource out there the organization is amazing and um and I appr appreciate your lending your hand to our district um and our community um for you know which I know is not the only time that you've said that you'll be there so thank you very much Greg you're welcome thank you all right so we are going to move into the second part of our presentations um which will be led by

059superintendent Jeff Porter about pandemic and post-pandemic planning Jee are you planning to go to the podium or are you doing I'm going to start it I think here okay and then U we have the principles that will be uh but you're using this back ww uh yes so tonight um I will be starting uh the presentation and then will'll be followed by um all the principles the four principles of the schools um and the leadership team there and uh we'll be talking about two different parts one is the current pandemic status uh with regards to msad51 and then later I'll come back after the principles have had a chance to talk about what it would take to go green this year I will um talk a little bit more about what's ahead in terms of

060the post pandemic and looking uh beyond the pandemic but we're going to start tonight with uh the pandemic ex itself and where are we um obviously um some of this information is information that you've already have but I just want to reiterate uh the New York Times just this weekend yesterday in fact um was quoted as saying the country's vaccination numbers have started to increase again which is a good sign after a decline caused by severe weather but federal health officials warned uh State Governors against relaxing the pandemic restrictions saying that the next um the recent drop in cases and deaths could be leveling off and in that same article um New York Times said that Dr fouchi has echoed warnings that more roll roll backs at state or local levels would be unwise and

061that the country remains in a very precarious position it's very important when the chief Health officer for the country is making statements like that I think it's important that we pay attention to what those are in the state uh context in the state of main um on Friday um I was in a call as I am every Friday with uh the superintendent in Cumberland County um joining our meetings every single week um is a representative from the Department of Education and from the main superintendent Association and on Friday a a statement was released by the Department of Education from the Commissioner's Office saying it is essential that school districts across the state of Maine continue to implement plans that adhere to the six requirements for returning to inperson learning instruction regardless of their County's designation

062so each County gets a green um yellow or red designation um in All Counties right now are in green which is good news however the state is saying that we must still follow those six requirements the the requirement that we are following right now but we're following only because we have 50% or so of our students in on any given day is the physical distancing um and Facilities requirement which is a a department of education requirement um that comes from the CDC adults must maintain six feet of distance from others to the extent greatest extent possible maintaining 3et of distance is acceptable between and among students when combined with other measures outlined in the list of safety requirements including masks six feet of distancing is required for students while eating breakfast and lunch as students

063will be unable to wear masks at that time we've been eating in the rooms so this actually um it applies to us in the classrooms and we certainly have not um tried doing this in the cafeteria going to Green now so you're going to hear in a couple minutes from the principals talking about what it would take to go green now or soon uh during the current school year I'm just giving you a district Outlook um our district has been um CDC designated as outbreak status that means all of our schools we have four schools in the district um have been considered to be in outbreak status it means we have multiple cases that have been going on for um a a great length of time at this point um between September 8th and March

0641st today um we actually had three Cas three new Active cases today um we have had 65 total cases and that doesn't include individuals just cases one case so 65 um we have seven Active cases as of today March 1st we have 58 resolved cases in Falmouth there have been 21 total cases in the Falmouth schools since during that same period and in Yarmouth there have been 24 cases fouth has the same student population um as our district Yarmouth has about 500 students less than um our district District so because we're in outbreak status um as of um January 22nd and the CDC has not notified us that we will be leaving that status anytime soon um it's serious when your whole district is in stat is an outbreak um some superintendents in the state

065who have been in that status have closed all of their schools for a period of time um in our district we've chosen the in-person model as much as possible and we have an amazing staff that have made the Staffing and Cobble it together our administrators uh our nurses um our teachers um our staff has really pulled together to make sure that we can Preserve in school learning despite the fact that we have a very high total case count in our district for the population student population that we have so in terms of quarantines our district has had to date 985 individual um in es of individual people being quarantined some multiple times since September 8th uh we have 104 today active uh quarantine cases and we've resolved 881 by comparison and I don't have the

066number from Falmouth but for Yarmouth um we they have around 300 total instances of quarantine to this date just to give you a comparison getting to Green now here's what it would take in our district what it would take is that the Department of Education would need to relax the state social distancing guide or they're not guidelines these are rules there are guidelines and there are rules at the state level this is a rule there are six rules if you don't comply with the rules you could lose your funding and that's part of the law or part of the executive order these guidelines or rules currently prevent district from allowing students to be less than 3 to 6 feet in proximity we have have done the math we have done all of the space studies

067we did that at the beginning of the pandemic and we cannot bring all of our students in and meet this guideline in order to get to Green right now of the district and each individual School in it would need to be removed from the cdc's outbreak status at this time they have given us no indication in fact they continue to tell us that our case numbers are too high for us to be removed from that status anytime soon in order to get to Green right now the CDC would need to rule out the impact of the b117 variant which is expected to become the dominant strain of covid by the end of March and that's according to the main CDC in order to get to Green in our district a full staff roster would have

068to be available at once we have many many staff who have been on leave intermittently or full-time since the beginning of the school year under federal law for child care and medical reasons we would have to have all of those staff return and be required to return this school year in order to make green work in order to be green our district would need access to more space including more modulars there is not a lot of space in this community that's available to the district and space is only part of the issue the Staffing is more important to us than than the space but space is an issue as well and we are already using all of the available space when you came into this Auditorium you would have seen desks out in the lobby

069of this Center this Center is used day in and day out this Auditorium is used day in and day out the lobby is used we kids eat lunch in the hallways in different places in all of our schools they are in conference rooms we have special education programs that have moved into conference rooms small group rooms classrooms we have moved kids and teachers all over the place in order to make it work and in order to go green in our district the vaccine would need to reach herd immunity and um at this point there is no indication that that will occur um during the current school year according to everything that I have heard anyway her immunity status around vaccines the governor released um the schedule for the state of Maine in terms of vaccination

070rates and you can see see the one that I highlighted is very important all of them are important but July and Beyond is when um ages 29 and under are expected to begin uh the vaccination and there is currently no vaccination that's been approved for children ages 12 and under so that's something that they're still working on I'm sure that we'll get more information about what that means and when that will be available but as of today this is the information that the governor has released You released it on Friday so at this point I'm going to ask each building uh principal if they would um explain because we've got a we've had a lot of questions and I think they're important questions um that we want to try to answer and explain beyond what

071I did for each School uh what what would it take to get to Green this school year uh thank you Jeff can you come down from presenting so that we can uh share our slideshow please uh thank you so going to share just a few brief introductory remarks and then we will age through our schools and explain the various things that it would take for the district to quote unquote go green um during the Spring of 2021 at some point um and I just want to begin again for those of you that don't know me who are here I'm Chris Hoffman I'm the principal here at gley high school um and I just I want to start by acknowledging that uh the times we're living through are remarkable and difficult um we are incredibly grateful

072for the work of our amilies and our students in in working through those challenges as well as uh ever so grateful to our staff for all that they have put into um making learning as meaningful and possible as as can be uh this school year um we were asked to present this evening about what it would take for us to be green if you will um offering instruction to all of our students in the schools and we're going to articulate that as best we can um given the given the time we've had to prepare we had originally thought that we'd be discussing uh post-pandemic planning this evening and we'll do our best to articulate the needs of our schools to open and green this spring um indeed as as Jeff articulated um we have been

073operating under a certain set of guiding assumptions about what we could do within our schools and each and every today we're open with students we rely on following these health and safety requirements those being the the daily completion of a symptom screener uh which we have shared over and over again with our students and families which has been instrumental in several instances of catching students and staff members with just minor symptoms and preventing them from entering our facilities um as Jeff mentioned we are required to adhere to those physical distancing guidelines uh that rule set forth by the state uh all of our students and staff are required to wear masks even after vaccination uh we would of course continue with the same hygiene protocols and we would um to the greatest extent possible continue

074with the same traffic flow patterns to avoid uh student contact in our hallways um with broad brush stes and we'll provide more specifics by school going green now would require space as Jeff articulated uh require staff it would likely require changes to our school schedules um with the the possibility of reduced instructional time in certain buildings and and this shift would require a considerable amount of of time and effort to adjust to that new normal given the change in how the day-to-day would work and on that note I'll I'll turn things over to mayel Wilson school and principal Sally Laughlin to get us started good evening my name is Sally llan and I'm proud to have the honor to be the principal of mael I Wilson school um I also just want to acknowledge as

075I'm sure everyone knows that as one person I do very little for that school um our SEC our secretaries were up early this morning finding out who could come our nurses were contact tracing all weekend um our staff have been on email all weekend checking for status and asking how they can be best prepared and um uh my assistant principal Corey munzy has more than once uh stepped up and taken the lead um as I've been involved in other family matters so just want to be aware that this is a United effort and I also s just say um we have seen the parents as partners this year um there is absolutely no room for anything but partnership in a pandemic and we have greatly appreciated how everyone has worked with us as we've discovered

076our way so tonight I'd just like to speak for a moment to that wonderful thought of going green and what will it take to do this with the current current regulations so as as Chris mentioned we have a space issue as we measured our classrooms and let's just focus on the idea that the children as in other districts are uh three feet apart and the in the front of the room there's space for the adult to be 6 feet apart which is not currently how we're organized um we have classroom limits of 16 children in the classroom um currently we have more students in that in some of our hybrid classrooms and so that will require us when we think of regular Ed classrooms to acknowledge that we would need three more regular Ed classrooms

077to accommodate those class sizes um we also have we have been living as best we can to expect everyone to keep their mask over their nose and to stay six feet apart of everyone else um I don't think that's the conversation this evening I think the focus this evening is if we could go green it would be presuming we are having students three feet apart um in addition to the regular classrooms needing three additional classrooms our some of our Allied Arts programs would also need additional space their classes are larger than 16 and they cannot accommodate them in the small space that they currently are using with half that number but that's not all the Allied Arts um we think the fizet program can work just fine we have two different art rooms one of

078them is large so we just want to be very careful and nuanced that we've gone Space by space through the building have measured it and have asked what would this mean in addition we would need more space for special education I just have to take my hat off to Julie Olen and the entire special education staff who have done an outstanding job this year of figuring out how to provide um programming special education services when students are home remotely this is is so outstanding for the children because when they're face Toof face in school they are accessing the core programming and not being pulled it has also helped us because you can be working zoom in three different fam's kitchens along with one child in front of you in the classroom and you haven't violated

079any space regulations if we had all of our children back and we were working with those same special education groupings we would not be able to keep them all in the special ed spaces that we currently have and our best estimate at this time as we said we started this thinking just a few days ago for this purpose is that we need one additional classroom for special education services to be provided throughout the school day in addition we provide other types of programming for students response to intervention is uh when we are helping students who are not specialed students to receive extra support there will be need need for additional small spaces for them and finally right now we have these small cohorts who are six feet apart in the classroom they are able to

080have lunch without masks in the current yellow zone configuration if we were coming green we would need to figure out how to break those cohorts and calf and have them supervised so that there are six there are the uh whatever nine children in the classroom or eight children in the classroom eating with a supervisor and the other children are waiting or in another area so just a little bit about space when we think about Staffing um Corey and I have been thinking about this a lot because we are preparing for three maternity leaves this spring and since our ad went out in January we've had two responses it has been very difficult to get people to respond to positions such as a substitute position in a school setting on people with credentials during this pandemic

081at the current time based on our estimate of additional classrooms we'd need we'd also need uh three additional classroom teachers to be added to the school um we would need to figure out with those added Allied arts classes where that Allied Arts Staffing would come from as well special education as we have children in different rooms that need services at the same time we would need to add special education staff members and our best estimate is three and a half nursing we are very concerned about the increase in potential contact tracing and the work of our nurses to keep everyone safe we believe that we would need additional nursing support if we had over the 700 children coming by 600 6 and excuse me 613 children coming back um in addition to that we have

08254 remote students that we are not presuming are part of this model and as we are adding classrooms the way our classroom teachers get a break in their day is because we work with an edte team and one edte member serves four classrooms to provide response to intervention instruction as well as breaks and coverage for the classroom teacher we anticipate it would be it would be in our just to have an edte added as well for those classrooms as you would imagine and I think others have alluded to our schedule would need to be adjusted one of our open questions is how we'll safely bring all students into the building and safely have all students leaving in the building we believe that right now we have about 150 students who are being parent pickuped and

083dropped off every day and a similar number on the bus if you double those numbers numers We believe We will need additional time in the morning and afternoon to safely bring children in and have them leave the building we believe that will impact the instructional day that's available another thing we'll have to think about is how our Allied arts classes that every classroom other than prek participate in how that's scheduled to be adjusted with those additional classes would fit in a daily schedule we are just beginning to ponder how we could manage lunches for all these children in supervised spaces with six feet apart without masks and we obviously have our outside playground areas but I don't think that's the biggest conversation so what are some of the things that we know we'll need to

084do in order to go green um as mentioned we'd need to hire the staff um another thing that we just would like to you know bring to the four in terms of time sensitive is that um three different times since last June we have ordered classroom desks to respond to having students socially distanced unlike some of the other schools Mabel I Wilson for a number of years have had children sit at large tables in groups in their classrooms um our best estimate and I'll show a picture in just a sec is that we would need I think it's 438 small desks or small tables um as we've been purchasing so that each individual could have that 3T of social distance and there would still be room to move between and among the desks in the

085classroom um so that's kind of an immediate need obviously there are many vendors but the folks we've been working with there's a 10 week lead time for purchasing desks see um another concern we have that just is something that would have to be done is we current have class sizes when you combine the two cohorts some of them are over 16 the thought of uh re uh changing placements for a kindergartener who's known their teacher and their classmates this year would be a reality for some classes because we'd have to reconstitute placements in classes to create new right siiz classes that's obviously something we could do but isn't something we'd recommend for small children um we'd have to move Allied artarts classrooms and create new learning environments as mentioned this all of this change is

086just work but it would be a master schedule that would be revised to look at when are we really starting and ending how are we going to fit in the lunches what about special education programming and how it impact students access to the regular program and all the other types of schedules we have um if anyone has a staff member or a colleague at mayel I Wilson you know that our multi-purpose room serves two purposes right now it it stores every last beloved item that children are not allowed to touch this year so if you go in our multi-purpose room you'll see dollhouses and globes and blocks and all these wonderful things that we have had to commit to storage in that um what was the cafeteria um as well as the large tables that

087like a kidneys size table that just would fill a room in only one child could sit at it we need to clean out that storage so that we'd have a more flexible space for Allied Arts programming and finally we realized that as we hire staff members we'd also have to remember about their technology and making sure we're prepared for every space to Be an Effective learning space with a projector Etc and just finally um just to help uh see why we would need desks I know it just sounds absurd um this is a third grade classroom and a picture I took this morning we were using what we've been doing this year is we've used the typical classroom Furniture that's been available and we've supplemented it with the little desks um we would need and

088if we were going to fit 16 students into that classroom at 3 fet distance we'd also have to be replacing some of the tables in the hodgepodge that we have in our classrooms because there would not be the floor space to accommodate that current approach so thank you for your time I look forward to questions later and I just really appreciate this discussion um next up I'm pleased to present Carol MacArthur principal of Brey middle 45 good evening uh I apologize in advance there will be some redundancy in the things that I share um but I was looking at all of these uh overarching topics from the lens of fourth and fifth grade so uh for starters um thinking about that six foot distance between desks um our classrooms currently accommodate 10 to 12 students

089if we reduce to the threefoot distance we gain an additional four desks um given that all of our students need to be facing the same direction and the teacher needs to maintain that 6t during instruction uh 6 feet during instruction um I would anticipate that we would need to double the number of Home Room classrooms to accommodate 100% of our students if we wanted to maintain the Integrity of our classroom placements we could do with fewer additional classroom spaces uh if we reassign some students to new classes as Sally had talked about um I would say that would not be my preference um our small group space for four five is limited in a typical year um that's no different this year we have small groups that are working at tables in the hallway and

090outside the library I feel like we could probably get by okay um with the current use of our small group space But we would inevitably run into some challenges um with small group instruction and testing for our Allied Arts feel pretty comfortable that we could accommodate 100% of our students in PE um and Library if we had additional classroom space um it is likely though that the table dividers that were built for art would not be deemed sufficient for distancing um the tables are rectangular um the partitions are in a section of four um so I don't believe there would be enough room for students to sit side by side even with the partition between them uh and still maintain that three- foot of distance our stem and music classrooms would definitely not accommodate a

091full class size so um prediction around two to three more spaces for Allied Arts another option um might be to have art stem and music go into the home rooms for instruction library is already doing this which would free up three spaces to be used for other purposes is our resource room program has four staff members sharing two classrooms our Behavior program has six staff members sharing one classroom to maintain appropriate distance with all students back in school uh I believe that we would need at least two additional classroom spaces for these programs um anyone who knows anything about the middle school and uh sharing two different schools under the same roof grades 4 through eight and uh five different schedules um we share a lot of spaces throughout the building and uh our success

092of sharing those spaces is highly dependent on our careful crafting of schedules if some of our larger spaces like the library the gym the cafeteria were repurposed as instructional spaces we need to reconsider how programs would be impacted our lunch and recess schedule this year have required that we assign zones for where kids can play when there's overlap between the younger and the older grades to the point where we actually switch days of the week when fourth and fifth graders and older middle school students are allowed to use the playground structures and basketball and four square courts one of our greatest challenges with space will be maintaining six feet when students are eating Sally talked about this Mari and I did a little bit of math together today and to use the cafeteria for lunches

093grades 4 through eight would require just under 5 and 1 half hours a day to maintain distancing and Gathering size limits this is obviously not reasonable um so students would need to continue to eat in their classrooms in terms of Staffing assuming we add the additional almost 20 classrooms um we would need staff to either teach or supervise those students if we reassigned all of our regular eded techs academic Specialists and full-time substitutes we could probably get by with a dozen new staff members this would all but eliminate our Reading Writing and math RTI support however reassigning these staff would have additional implications that are not fully flushed out yet including Duty coverage and filling staff absences which all of these people currently do if we hope to maintain the quality of our programming and

094not reassign these folks we'd be on the higher end of needing about 20 more staff members uh Sally um mentioned it's likely that our nurses um at the middle school we have two um one is full-time one is part-time uh they could probably manage the day-to-day responsibilities uh daily care such as uh Med management um however working from the assumption that having twice as many students in the school will increase the contact tracing workload for our nurses we would anticipate that we would just need some additional support for that particularly outside of the school hours of course it seems to have happened that a lot of our contract tracing happens on the long weekend and over vacations um it's just seems to be the way it's gone um I don't anti anticipate needing additional special

095education staff since they've been doing concurrent learning with students in person and at home since September however we do have two unfilled edte positions in special education that we've been not been able to fill this year um we've been able to make due um but with all the students back full-time we would need to fill those positions to have adequate support in our special education programs uh in terms of our schedule um in order to maintain physical distancing on buses and on the campus I would anticipate our arrival and dismissal procedures would need to be adjusted our current lunch schedule um runs from 11:40 until 1:00 assuming that students will con need to continue to eat in the classroom we would need to extend lunch earlier in the morning and later into the afternoon um

096recess would take some additional scheduling finesse to ensure that all five grade levels have access to our outdoor space we need to coordinate our master schedule um with grade 6 through 8 to account for our shared spaces and make sure that there are not too many students passing through the Halls at one time in a typical year our Allied Arts teachers see all 300 plus students in the course of a week um this year in order to limit exposure um we scheduled their classes on a 7-week rotation reducing the number of classes that they teach at one time and still providing students two rotations with each of our Allied Arts I expect that we'd need to rethink this approach uh to be able to accommodate all the necessary changes that I've talked about so far

097um and candidly um I do do believe that all of these adjustments to our schedules would have an impact on our instructional time so some additional considerations again apologies for a little bit of redundancy here but if we were able to uh secure additional space we would need to quickly get about the business of hiring the additional staff needed for either instruction supervision or support much of our classroom Furniture was moved to storage before school started started to accommodate the distancing requirements desks and chairs would be need to be moved from Storage to additional spaces a number of our classrooms as Sally talked about usually have tables those are also in storage and they don't really lend themselves for um maximizing classroom space in this environment um since those classrooms are using the extra desks

098from their um neighbor neighboring classrooms we' need to purchase I'm estimating about 100 desks um for the additional classroom spaces staff would need to have time to thoughtfully plan for the increased pace of instruction currently we have our essential standards mapped out for most subject areas through the end of the school year teachers would still need dedicated professional time to collaborate on identifying critical skills and planning meaningful instruction and with 100% of our students in the school building at one time and the possibility of current learning happening from different locations within the school building or a remote School building we need to ensure that the network could handle that load um additionally we need to consider an increase in distance learning equipment and time for more training in concurrent learning Sally referred to these is

099just you know the work we need to do and I certainly agree um but from my initial assessment um these felt like important things to consider and then I think the last Point that's really um kind of stuck with me over the last few days thinking about going green is um you know once we are green um merging the cohorts would require some time to build a sense of community similar to what teachers do at the beginning of a school year our current schedule uh would accommodate this without any instructional impact um but if we Implement extended arrival and dismissal times and lunch and recess times um teachers would need to take class time to do this important work um and of note um we really have experienced thankfully very few Behavior incidents this year

100due to the smaller class sizes and the very structured way we go about our day um and some students have actually thrived because of these factors so we just want to be mindful to pay attention to the stressors that might go along with going green um that could be um for students and and staff as well um and then uh I misspoke this is really my last Point um lastly I think one could assume that with 100% of our students in school each day there would be an increase in the number of students and staff that are required to quarantine when there is a positive case and subsequently the potential for reverting to Red days more often than we have had to um so I just you know would be mindful that teachers and families

101will need to be ready for shifting from inperson to remote on a more frequent basis um and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that this shift does take our teachers a considerable amount of time to rethink their lesson objectives and their activities sometimes with very little notice um and so the last thing that I just want to say is um that I am really grateful to our students our parents um families and and our staff um I'm really proud of our school SCH I think we are doing the best that we can with the circumstances that we've been dealt um I know we still have a road ahead um but I I do believe that um everyone is doing the very best with what they have and and I'm really grateful to be part

102of our school Community Mari trouble coock will be here to talk about really Middle School 68 hi everybody um I'm going to try to um sort of glaze over the things that are exactly the same as what you've already heard and focus on the things that are a little more specific to the middle school there are a lot of um redundancies I think so with regard to more space specific to 68 um I'm estimating um a higher need of classroom space um and I and I do want to dig into the details on this just a little bit to explain why we would have a greater need for more classroom space um our regular education and modern language spaces I'm anticipating needing 21 or more full classroom size spaces um we could potentially use cafeteria

103space maybe the gym um maybe the library for some classroom space um that option would depend a bit on whether um we offer lunches in the cafeteria which Carol and I did some math today and we think it's better to keep lunch in the classrooms um because of that extended 5 and 1 half hour time frame that would result um so that might free up some instructional space in the cafeteria um and so those those additional bigger spaces might add six possible classrooms or sort of pseudo classrooms um but we would also need to think about sharing those spaces with four five um at also might be possible to put some classes on a cart in some cases um where the teacher travels to a different location to teach a class um using other grade

104level classes um that approach though doesn't cover all of our space needs and so that's how I resulted with the 21 possibly more for regular red and modern language spaces in special education um our resource room teachers already share classrooms two to a classroom um and so they're they're able to make that work in the in a regular time because we um just don't have that many kids in the room at one time um they're able to make it work this year because as Carol said they're teaching some of those students remotely and some of them are in person um if we bring two full groups back into one classroom um concerned that that will be a little bit too pinched and so I'm anticipating needing um probably two additional special education classroom spaces um

105functional life skills I want to talk a little bit about that space and their needs um this is what they currently have and what they would need to continue having so they need three full-size classrooms plus two small group spaces and an additional space to provide virtual instruction currently that's happening out of the cafeteria it could be moved to an office space or a small group space um the reason for this is because of unique regulations in place for students who are not compliant mask wearers um each student is required to be isolated and the regulations use that term isolation they're not isolated by themselves they have an adult with them um but they have to be in a space away from their their peers um we have several students at the middle school who

106do not consistently wear masks who require their own isolated instructional spaces um and so those are already allocated to functional life skills and will continue to be if we move to Green um so there's a lot of real estate there that um contributes to our need for additional space as well I think we can make do with our small group spaces um there would be a need to be thoughtful about how we're using those spaces during special times specifically around um later in the spring when we have to do that for small group testing and then um I think the Allied art spaces um I did a little bit of last minute math um before coming here tonight and I think we would need about four more classroom Spaces by sort of reassigning some of

107those classes to go to other open rooms while um while those teachers aren't teaching and then the Allied Arts teacher can go but I you know some of these folks would be moving multiple times a day so that's something to be mindful of um okay so for staff um again we need a lot more staff um we need approximately double the number of classroom teachers for modern language Allied Arts and um our typical core classes and and again the reason for this it's either teachers or it's staff um so I'm estimating 29 teachers in staff um and additionally some Allied Arts teachers so I want to again the devil's in the details with this one so it's a function of the need for social distancing um we need to keep our students apart in the

108classroom um so I'm going to use Pete Gillingham who's over here his first period class has 19 students enrolled in it um that is a relatively small class for the Middle School our average class sizes um are 21 is in 7th and e8th grade and 24 in sixth grade um so a class size of 19 is on the smaller side of typical there are eight students in cohort a in that first period class and 11 in cohort B if we open in green the distancing rules are still in place so we'll need two classrooms to accommodate that um those numbers of students and this is true with six feet of social distancing or 3 feet um with students in two separate spaces we'll either need two teachers to teach that class or so it's Pete

109plus one or we need Pete plus somebody in the room to supervise while he's streaming into that classroom or we need a substitute who can take Pete's lesson plan and execute it we need some adult supervision possibly some instruction some range of those things um so it's either it's one of those things um but not all 19 kids can be in the classroom at the same time um Allied Arts currently our students have one of the two Allied Arts that they would normally have on a rotating schedule um by having them meet every other day in trimester three we can keep most classes low in size cohort a meet on the week one schedule which is Monday Tuesday Wednesday week one Tuesday Thursday week two um and cohort B would meet on the opposite schedule

110um we would have supervision and space needs for students whose Allied arts class is not meeting on a given day because those kids have to go somewhere and they have to be supervised doing something um seventh grade PE and eighth grade art are exceptions to that those classes meet daily for a trimester and would continue to do so in this model um but th those are the reasons why space and supervision really remain issues for these classes okay so some schedule changes um I'm G to fly through this one because Carol already highlighted quite a bit of it but we do anticipate needing to Linkin the arrival and dismissal times I don't have a great um handle if I'm honest on on how long it would need to be extended because I don't know how

111long the busing is going to take um how many students would be riding the bus I assume it's double but maybe more folks would be driving their kids to school that's that's got a lot of variables that's hard to um grapple with without a little bit more information um I do anticipate needing to shorten some class periods to accommodate passing time um we might need to change how we're offering our Allied arts classes and um we would um need to activate um our Allied Arts week one week two schedule and maintain enrollment in that one Allied arts class um we also need to be just mindful of keeping the four five and the 68 students as separate as possible as they move throughout the building so again schedule changes and then just for additional consideration

112um it takes some time to merge the cohorts what we've observed with folks who have made the effort to merge their cohorts already for concurrent teaching takes about a week to turn that around um without all of those other variables of identifying spaces and so forth um a really simple logistical thing I don't think 68 probably really needs to buy furniture but we need to take all of the furniture that we pulled out of classrooms and stored in the cafeteria and in a storage container and move that back into some identified classroom space um and we so I think we're good on the furniture but the movement of the furniture would be something that we would need to do um we would need to adjust our curriculum implementation strategy from a hybrid model to a

113full-time daily approach and then of course we want to always be building classroom Community once we're open similar to the start of the school year so that's gly Middle School and I'm going to pass it off to Chris Hoffman for the high school um thank you Mari I attempted to again avoid the redundancies that of what others have already said um many of the things that Mari has articulated about what the model could look like at gy middle school or similar for gy high school um what I'm going to present is not necessarily a specific plan but just some considerations for how it could look at at grey high school and um and this is based on ongoing conversations with our other administrators in the district as well as conversations with other High School administrators

114in our region um who are asking themselves similar questions at this moment in time um and so just to paint a picture many of my assumptions about how this could work at the high school assume uh what Mari suggested about shifting from a cohorted model to you know two day two lessons of instruction in each class each week and relying entirely on concurrent instruction um and and really we're talking about getting our students into the building not necessarily having their teacher teach them in the classroom in front of them every single period but that would still happen at least once per week but that we would be Rel rying on technology to uh present that that um instruction to students virtually even within the building um and so to do that our primary space concern

115is really around uh overflow spaces and so in order for you know Marie used an example of a classroom of of 19 students most of our classrooms right now are limited in the number of students they can hold to 12th and so if there were a class of 19 that we had then in theory we could put 12 students into that room and we would then need overflow space for the additional seven students that could be in an unused classroom uh which would require a supervisor and I'll get to staff in just a second or we could put them in a in a larger space the cafeteria Commons gymnasium or GCA Lobby perhaps um we could explore using our hallways for that overflow regardless that would require wi supervision and and um and I'll get

116to staff in just a second um likely if we were to and and and you know the best the best answer I spent pretty much all weekend thinking about this and the best answer I could think of is like could we house all our students in the building maybe there are so many Logistics to thinking about how this could work um and different possibilities for it that I that I the best I could come up with is that maybe because is um if we if we begin to ask ourselves questions about unused spaces the reality is there aren't very many unused spaces at all because they're already used for other purposes and so in order to to house students for overflow for their regular classrooms we might lose instruction in other areas um and we

117certainly might not be able to provide the same educational experience if I'm a a science lab instructor for example and I really want my students to experience the dissection of that frog to use the age-old example um I've really got a plan to do that with the kids when they're in the room in front of me and so if I've got and our science labs are a little bit larger and might be able to hold a few more kids but the reality remains that not all of my 19th students could be in my science lab with me and I'm going to need to plan to repeat that activity with two groups um and that renders the um sort of live virtual instruction of concurrent learning more less ineffective at that time for for that model

118um the other option and so so likely just to come back to loss of instruction um if we begin to take over spaces for one purpose we might lose it for others and that's not necessarily something that I would prefer to do um we could also look at lengthening our school day or changing the hours of our school day that's truly a a big picture idea that would require a rethink of our transportation model that would require the rethink of our um expectations of staff and contracts potentially and I don't know that I have the authority to make those decisions standing here right now that would require ongoing District collaboration with our staff um speaking of Staff indeed as I mentioned we would need that same additional staff to provide supervision of our overflow spaces

119if we relied exclusively on larger spaces we could in theory get by with potentially six to seven addition staff members alone providing that um that supervision excuse me that supervision um but again if you consider what that means for the students experience that means that they're learning virtually in a large space with peers that are participating in a different class potentially um maybe having a hard time participating themselves and so uh that's an important consideration so we but but that's the staff that we would likely need um we would also need to shift the responsibilities of our current staff um others have mentioned the need for changes to the morning and afternoon routines and I think at our level we have a lot of students who drive themselves and we would need to shift staff

120to provide morning and afternoon supervision to a greater degree to ensure physical distance in our excuse me physical distancing in our parking areas in our entrances and exits and we would also need that to provide hallway supervision um if you came to gy high school during a transition right now even with half of our students in the Bo in the in the hallways it's pretty congested at a few spots at particular moments in time if we're going to do a good job maintaining physical distancing in our hallways with our entire student body uh we would need greater supervision of that to to ensure that students moved in an orderly manner through the hallways and that that would likely mean taking staff away from providing student support the biggest hurdle that others have mentioned is we

121would definitely need to change our schedule to accommodate a change to lunch um right now we have two different lunch blocks in four different spaces around the room given that the the maximum number of students in a space at one time can be 50 we currently have around 40 students usually a little bit less in each of our spaces having lunch at a given time including in the space in the lobby here um we would need to double that in order if we had all our students in the building allowing for um probably four different lunch blocks what that would do would be to create a larger sort of open study hall time for all students in the middle of the day um where um some students could receive support from teachers during that time

122but truly that block of time would be about creating opport additional opportunities for eating lunch um my assistant principal and I don gray spent quite a bit of time on Friday thinking about a way to do lunch opposite our instructional blocks and there's just not really an effective means for doing that without significantly disrupting instruction um it would also possibly mean uh the extension of passing times we currently only have five minutes between our classes which is barely enough to make it from the stem room up to English if that's where you're going um and particularly with more students as I'll show you on the next slide we would likely change our protocols to have students at least from some locations transition between classes outdoors and that would require an extension of those passing times

123as well a longer arrival and dismissal um we would certainly want to uh so just some additional considerations I think we would really want to conduct some additional stress tests of our of our Network um if we move move to double the number of students on their laptops at a particular moment in time um all of them accessing or or excuse me many of them accessing virtual instruction in our building as opposed to at home we would need to make sure that our Network could handle that load um the and this is just one one consideration that I think is important to note um we could do this while maintaining our cohorts or if we wanted to we could maximize the number of students attending a classroom at a particular moment in time but I

124would really I would need and teachers would need time to develop schedules for who gets to be in the classroom versus who has to be in the Overflow group um and that's a pretty complicated consideration some students might thereby be able to attend class in person twice a week um others would still only get it once certain weeks maybe twice others that's a very complicated schedule which we could provide some guidance on but ultimately I think the teachers would need to create those schedules themselves because um with so many sections of classes around the building there's no way that I could effectively make those determinations administratively um as I said we' also need to train staff and students in new routines and the last point which my um that I really want to reiterate is

125I would anticipate if we made this change we would have an increase in the number of students requesting to be fully remote students um in our most recent student survey about 15% of students expressed either uh some or significant concern that they themselves might contract or spread covid by coming to school I anticipate if we had more bodies in the building a lot of those students might request to move to fully remote environments and that's something that we've worked hard with individuals to make a determination about um I can tell you for a lot of those Learners that has not been the right move and and we've ended up working really hard to get them to come back to school and and that's a that's a timec consuming process so we would need to make

126those adjustments as well um I would anticipate quite a few students making that request um there's a lot to think about I again I I do really appreciate this conversation I think it's important that we consider how we get as many students in our buildings as possible uh I think there's a lot that would be required to make that happen and I look forward to the questions when we get to them I'd just like to thank the principles for being um giving that specific and they've only had since Friday to really think this through so it's a very complex issue and for for those um folks that are listening whether at home or here it may seem like well really these are all these things that are getting in the way of of bringing all

127the kids back but I I have to keep reminding myself were involved in a pandemic still and we have to work we're required to work off of what what the department of v and the CDC tells us and right now we are in the thick of it still um and we have to advide by those three- foot distancing requirements and those requirements do not look like in the latest meetings that I've been in um that they will be gone this school year hopefully they'll be gone next school year but at this point there's no indications that that 3-foot distancing which is what the principes base this information on um to provide this information tonight would be uh would be gone so I think that's really a critical piece of information I've been asked um several

128parents have been emailing me recently and I apologize to any parents that I have not been able to respond to it's taking a few days but um one question I keep getting asked is why are there a couple of other school systems in the area that are starting to move in that direction and why can't gy do that first of all I think um I don't speak for other school systems but I know that every district has its own set of conditions that it's working off of and will say that those that have started to move in the green Direction either have some capacity already on their District they have smaller Schools they're working with or they are working to Advocate at the state level in order to make it happen but they haven't actually

129implemented it yet they've just discussed it um and so I think there's a big difference between talking about it and seeing if it's possible and actually implementing it which is a totally different story and I know there's a couple of communities one a few miles from here that have been talking about about it um but it doesn't mean that they've actually done it they're in the spot that we're in trying to figure out what would it look like if we could do it um and what would it mean but um the biggest piece for us is the distancing requirements um Scott Pand who is director of trans director of um operations finance and Human Resources I asked him if he would also just um talk for a couple minutes about um if we went green

130what would it do to Transportation given that we have a 3 foot distancing requirements still in place and also uh perhaps Food Services if you wouldn't mind Scott I don't have a nice slide presentation so bear with me that was wonderful um in Transportation uh currently there's about 17 well there are 1 buses on the road and each one of those buses does two bus runs in the morning and two bus runs in the afternoon so what it would mean in order to social distance on the buses each student it has to be one student per seat so you can basically get about 20 students on a bus what we'd have to do is change from running four bus runs a day to eight bus runs a day and that would significantly change the start

131and the end times of school is what you had heard from the administrators by probably a 2hour faction in the morning and the afternoon depending on how you decided to break that out so that would be one of the issues that we would have to try and figure out the other part is that a lot of our drivers who are currently not driving athletic trips and not driving um at other times of the days where we used to have a lot of those trips available those drivers are also cleaning in the schools during the daytime so if we have a change where they're driving longer on a given day those dri won't be available to clean two hours a day in the facilities so during the daytime in terms of uh Food Service there's Refrigeration

132requirements we also don't have enough Staffing in order to continue with food service if we bring all the students in on a particular day we'd have to hire more staff in order to do that so that's uh that's food service and with um transportation it's pretty pretty limiting on the numbers you can put on a bus you'll also see the buses running around with a window goes down and also that there's about 20 students a bus maximum so we'd have increased Transportation times and starting end times that we'd have to uh take a look at so I just wanted to say there's we have a couple more slides um about the post pandemic moving from pandemic but I thought we'd stop it's okay and just um have the principles answer any questions that board members

133might have sure sure so I'll open it up to the board board for anyone um that has questions first Margot I don't even think I can come up with a question but I just want to thank you for um for getting us inside your buildings virtually um it's been a hard year to be on the school board and not be able to be in the buildings and seeing how it all works and hearing from you um is really really helpful for us to process that so thank you all for the time that you spent to help us see what's going on Kevin thank you um so a few things I I'd like to Echo the appreciation for all the work that you put on that um in in a very short amount of time but

134you know if I'm playing along at home it doesn't feel great because you know have that balance between um here's why we can't and and I I'm scribbling this down as you were speaking here's why we can't and as opposed to here's all the ways that we could and then as I'm reading back through my notes I you did both because it we we can't because of some very specific reasons from the state um here's how we could and and we don't have space resources bodies whatever it would take to to make that POS possible I guess I would ask this question if Educators were prioritized as First Responders and all were getting vaccinated would this make a difference to your current plan anybody who wants to take a stroll um I'll take a stab

135at that and I I can't guarantee that that I'll know the answer and I and your your question reminds me of something that I wanted to say which is that like under normal circumstances um presenting something that like what I just said tonight that has really significant implications for how our teachers go about their day-to-day I would normally want their input and I didn't gather any of their input in preparing tonight's presentation just given the tight timeline and so it's it's similarly why I don't know that I have a full answer to that question certainly think that given what we know about this virus and the risk it poses to People based on their age group I think staff would feel quite a bit better with that vaccine teaching in front of um a larger

136group of students potentially um I still would anticipate that the district would want to adhere to the guidelines in place at the state level and so you know if that move in conjunction with the change to physical distancing requirements or something like that allowed us to reopen that would make an enormous difference um I will still say that especially at the high school and I can't speak for those little ones um you know our kids are basically adults many of them we have 18y olds in our building and and that places them in a category that the CDC is saying they should really be six feet apart um they are not often six feet apart in many circumstances right now and so the last part of what I said in my presentation still holds true

137which is I think I have a lot of students who would be similarly anxious about coming to school in that environment if they knew that double the number of kids students excuse me were going to be here um so I think it would make a big difference for our staff I think we have to keep our students in mind too especially those older ones I appreciate that um if I may before I relinquish Madam chair um you know we we've got warmer weather heading our way which is exciting um and that in in Mr Porter's first slide where you showed the information coming from the Department of Education and the CDC and certainly that of of the governor it's it's this quandry that we're confronted with because we're in green according to the state but

138we're in green with six uh different regulations or rules that we can't meet and I can understand look I'm frustrated everybody here is frustrated we want kids to be back in school but it just doesn't unless I'm missing something it doesn't seem possible that we can do this without being violation of the state's rules and potentially having an impact on our funding if we do something that's outside of those do do I have that correct no that's that's completely correct and you know it's not even um the funding or or in violation of the rules it's also the the sheer um health risk that we keep getting told that we still are going to be facing as well I mean on top of that and with 65 cases for the student population we have that's

139a high number of cases in our district that we have worked through this year and I think one of the ways that we've not closed schools very often and you look at the number of days that schools have been closed in red when I say closed in red to inperson learning and being in red it's very few I mean we just happen to be on one this week with melai Wilson school but um we've been able to do it partly because of the hybrid model in being able to quarantine a group of students at a time without actually closing this the entire school to inperson learning my concern is that if we're in green this school year that we will be closing schools or putting schools in red almost continuously at this point um we

140are not out of this pandemic yet and I wish we were I know my kids are tired of it my own children you know they just want to go to school and and forget this and move on and I think most parents are there they are ready you know and most kids are ready and it's been almost an entire year it was March 13th so just just shy of a year now and I think we're all just tired you know it's there's a CO they talk about covid fatigue and I think there is a CO fatigue that's set in but I also think that if we continue to do the responsible thing that we can get to Green in September which is what we all want um and and start a school year off in

141a in a fresh place and be able to have the state relax those standards if we continue doing what we're supposed to schools have been remarkably successful because we have followed the CDC rules almost to a to the tea and it's not just our district you know it's it's really virtually every district and the state has done what they're supposed to do thank you thank you sure anyone else have any questions I have a question Tyler go ahead um Jeff have we looked at um I know that there's some some thought on taking and putting just one grade back in fulltime or anything like that um you know I think personally for my own kids it would be hard to see you know a different grade go back full-time and then you know they're not

142going and things like that but I'm wondering if we're looking at something outside the box to try to get as much instructional time as possible and if there's any way to do that with the younger kids I know that the older kids I think it's harder because they're more susceptible yeah there we have been talking about that since the very beginning actually um if there's an opportunity for kids that are struggling to come in on a Wednesday or something like that those are things that we've tossed around logistically for months actually and trying to figure out if that if we could do it um but recently um Mrs Laughlin and Mr Muny and myself had a Sation probably a couple weeks ago um about the possibility of bringing back kindergarten in first grade at least

143considering that their class sizes tend to be a little bit smaller than the rest of the school district um there were um we talked it through and there was a lot of you know obstacles that we would have to get through I don't think that's completely off the table if if that was a direction that we wanted to still go in or the board wanted us to there's a lot of things that would need to happen in order to make that work um and I don't I'm not prepared tonight to talk about what that would be um but it is complicated even with two grades looking at but it is certainly a conversation that that we have started um in our district okay thank you I think it's good to just make sure that we're

144constantly looking outside the box which I know everyone is and teachers are as they're trying to teach our kids through this go to Kate and then Mike so something that really hit home for me today is we've received a couple emails from teachers and one thing that really stuck out to me was the amount that you know similar to what Jennifer said if we thought about bringing one grade like a younger grade in what it seems like to me is that teachers are working hard to identify the students that need additional instruction time and additional support and they're prioritizing that on Wednesdays so that was really heartening and and it made me feel um a little bit better because I know there are really students that are struggling whether it's academic or mental healthwise so

145just knowing that those Wednesdays are time that our teachers are prioritizing one-on-one student time I thought was really um exceptional and I just I also think that there there aren't even words to say how difficult this is there there's nothing that could ever sum up what every single person in this roomm is going through through so I I'm not even going to try but thank you to our administrators for being here this evening and you know really working it through and I'm sure that like many other weekends you spent your entire weekend working on this and I I can hear how tired everyone is and I didn't know if it before Mike um asked a question but if one of the administrators or a couple administrators wanted to talk about the opportunities on Wednesdays that

146we do have students who are struggling that are getting support virtually um I didn't know if there was anyone that had a specific thing that they might want to say I mean I can start this some here and then Mar can take over I think um you know we we identify two hours of the day that are reserved for students to connect with staff this is all virtual at this point um currently 8 to 10 we're going to shift that to a little bit later in the day some of our high school students maybe don't make those 8:00 meetings um but um but it's also true that we have staff who are using their entire days on Wednesdays to meet with students um and that depends on the nature of the discipline and the needs

147of students and and and uh the level of support that's needed but um that's how that's happening primarily right now um yeah yeah I was just going to say that some teachers have prioritized having um brief check-ins with their classes of students um it sort of scheduled it times that don't conflict with their planning meetings um our regular rad Tex we have four of them and they're amazing and they schedule time throughout the day on Wednesdays to interact with our students remotely um some of that's um drop in some of it's scheduled by appointment you know certain students have been identified as needing that additional support um and so there's a scheduled time for those kiddos to be working working with the one of our Ed tecs um often it's more social emotional check-in and

148just sort of somebody to talk to while they're doing their work um and and less about the academics um so there are a variety of things that are happening on Wednesdays and then I just want to reiterate that for our special Educators um their their time is spent providing direct instruction to students every day um whether they're remote or in person so that also happens on Wednesdays I think that's another point to reiterate um is that we have students on IEPs um we have roughly uh we have roughly um 400 students on IEPs in our district we have students on 504 plans in our district and those plans or IEPs call for a certain level of service during the week so they have to receive a certain number of hours of service beyond the regular

149classroom so those students are obviously serviced um every day of the week um whether remotely or in person we also have approximately 30 students in our district right now that are receiving four days of instruction in person plus they're receiving a remote day on Wednesday so we have a a lot of different layers of options for kids depending on their need um right now but I'm sorry Mike I jumped in front of you no don't apologize um and this may be better suited for the workshop um but but um and first just to Echo um Kate you said it well uh this is you know this has been brutal for and especially this tonight it's kind of jarring have the mental health presentation and then we have this presentation and it feels like we have

150mental health pitted against public health um I don't even know if it feels it it truly is that way so uh it's terrible uh and it's terrible for working parents it's terrible for kids it's terrible across the board so it it stinks and I feel uh the fr ation and the anger that a lot of folks in the communities Community feels dealing with it personally with two kids at home and grappling with child care and work and so on so forth but um all that aside um you know we're going to thaw out in the next couple months at some point um and outdoor space becomes much more appealing um you know and understanding you know there's always the the the Staffing issue and such but um wondering if there's been thought given to especially

151not closing the door on just being creative with anything later in the year may or so and especially utilizing outdoor space and not necessarily um to be uh or to replace the academic time but potentially even just as an additional care time a time for kids to congregate outside of the learning time on those days they were going to be remote um just giving more opportunity to be social to deal with the social and emotional trauma that they're dealing with and so I wonder if we could just give some thought to using you know our awesome campus and getting kids outside on days they are not weren't going to be here and just seeing what we could do could we work with the re Rec Department uh to expand that to think of something creative

152so again this may be better suited for the workshop but I did want to raise that yeah we often talk about Outdoor Learning too in terms of the fall and spring I think most of us think that way about the Outdoor Learning but kids are also you know outside for various reasons and I still think it's learning um during recess or lunch and um one thing that's been really heartening is that a lot of our class especially the younger levels have been out all winter anytime they're in person uh teachers are taking them to the track the track has never been more utilized it has been this year and during the winter months kids are still out on the track we're not they're not just on the playground at Mabel Wilson or or GMS 45

153um they've made their way into the field hockey field and the track and and all those areas um we've had kids sledding thank thanks to the PTO for buying these really cool sleds for kids to um to use while in person um in our school so I think even during the winter months we really did talk about winter being you know an okay time to go Outdoors um and it may not look like the traditional learning take your book or computer outside um but but there's other things going on outside as well that are part of the learning process so I've been excited to see the number of of teachers just taking their kids out even in the winter um and um it's that is a change and I hope that change is it's not

154a change we have a lot of teachers that do that anyway but I've seen more of it this year and I I hope it continues uh Mike and then an well it's not a particularly High flut comment but yeah one thing that really struck me when watching all your guys' great presentations was uh frankly the bottom line between all the extra staff and the extra space and and whatnot U you know being a money guy you know my the little dollar sign started going off and uh you know I just you know even even even if we could magically make a wave one make this happen I'm not sure where the dollars are going to come from so that that uh that concerns me a lot as well thank you uh Ann um I guess

155I just had two things one was it was also really interesting to see how our covid rates compare to Yarmouth and fouth um I didn't realize that ours were you know so much higher um especially from fouth with their student body being more equal to ours than Yarmouth um and the other thing that I've just been trying to think of other ways that we can bring more kids back into is just to ask people in the community and parents um to consider applying to be a substitute so if it comes up that we have people that we can call and say hey we have a space for you to come in can you come and and help help with the kids thank you um I I mean there's been so much information and I I

156know that this has all happened since Friday so thank you for spending your weekend putting this information together for us this evening I think one thing that came up that I was surprised to hear but I think it's important to reiterate is a lot of the juggling of logistics to get us to to more instructional days would almost reduce some instructional time as well and I that was something I hadn't really thought about and um thank you for doing the work to figure out that that might be a possibility of an outcome from from changing from where we are now um and I also want to um mention or or also say what Ann was just saying I was surprised to see our numbers so much higher um and I think we're kind of seeing

157a theme tonight that we as a community have to figure out solutions to this to all of this this is not um just the responsibility of the school so um so thank you so much for all the information that you shared with us tonight really really appreciate it yeah and if you're okay I'd like to let the administrators go they have to prepare for another B busy day um tomorrow so if you would like to leave what before I go into the post pandemic feel free or you can stay it's up to you um so I'm just going to go and I'm not going to spend a lot of time tonight this will be something we'll talk about a lot in the next um few weeks but I wanted to give I know that actually

158the the the topic tonight was supposed to be originally the post-pandemic planning and I wanted to give a quick overview of that so defining post-pandemic um if you look at the World Health Organization um they Define post-pandemic as a disease um as a disease activity returning to the uh more typical levels experienced uh before the onset of the pandemic which would be in our case in the United States about a year ago and um the other way I've seen it defined is by our district Doctor Who is um very much in communication with the CDC as reaching herd immunity um and her immunity is defined um anywhere from 70 to 85% um of eligible people or um people who are available to be vaccin are vaccinated um is the range that we've been seeing there's

159an assumption in post-pandemic planning that by September of this year Maine will have entered the post pandemic pmic stage of this um disease and compare can prepare for a return to green with some health and safety considerations obviously um that we have to continue with presumably masks and um that would involve the social distancing requirements being um lifted or relaxed connections um we want to make the connections to the pandemic response plan we have a pandemic response plan and we want to make sure that any post-pandemic planning is keeping that plan in certainly in mind as as well as our strategic plan and then opportunities there's been a lot of things that we've learned um as schools across the state nation and right here in our district about different processes for learning different ways of

160doing things um and I consider some of that as claiming value and opportunities um that we did not really consider a year ago and now we're considering and we don't want to let go of some of those good things that have come out of this some Silver Linings the three pillars of post-pandemic planning are really health and safety instructional Focus knowing that we have um and I'm not going to use the word loss but that we've had a an atypical 18 months by the time we get to September of 2021 this year um that instruction um will need to be uh not only back at its typical level but um adjusted to make sure that students are are maximizing their academic focus and our teachers are able to do that in the classroom um with

1615 days back in the classroom and the third one is social emotional health and and wellness how do we support transitioning back to a green a 5ay a week schedule um and then how do we work with kids who are not able to make that transition easily um and how do we help them so really the only the last thing I want to share is that we have a process for getting there for the Post pandemic plan um I've had had a number of emails from parents in the last couple of weeks um asking the you know the word how how do you get to that point where we're ready for September um to be back in a in a more typical fashion and um we are drafting the leadership team is um been drafting

162right now A a plan that will be um going first for staff feedback on the 30th of this month uh we'll be asking the staff to look at a draft plan give us feedback um input um and this will be an ongoing input process for a while on April 1st uh 6:00 um we are asking parents to look at this draft and give us feedback on April 5th our district physician Dr Desai will be here with the board um and it will be in a recorded session U where he'll be talking about where he believes the status of the pandemic will be um by the end of the school year and then by September um Dr Desai is very uh in tune with not just the the state CDC but also the national CDC and

163is very current in all the information and we should be able to provide some very good information on April 5th to the board on April 6th we'll be offering um a second parent feedback session um on the draft or proposed post pandemic plan again six o'cl these are um will be virtual meetings on May 3rd at 6:30 is a regular board meeting uh there'll be a first read of the plan after we've received and implemented as much feedback as we can into the draft plan and then on May 17th um we're hoping that the board um will consider adopting um the second read or the approval of that plan um after we have received feedback from um our stakeholders and I just want to reiterate it says parent feedback we're also asking for student feedback

164and it really should say family feedback and I'll make sure I make that change we want our students to also be part of this process and to come so it's not just parent it's student and and parent feedback um and we'll have a dedicated session just for our staff so the timeline could change but generally speaking I think this is um what we're trying to uh hold to for a timeline so that's it for the uh post pandemic portion a lot shorter Jeff can you just clarify what will like the team or the committee that is going to be responsible for this post-pandemic plan be called just so I can know for my vernacular it's um well it's initially the leadership team okay um and we'll be getting also be talking with the association okay

165um during this process so it's kind of a collaborative effort between um we'll be sharing um you know as we're developing this plan before it goes to the staff uh we'll be getting the association's feedback on okay on the plan itself too Jeff is there going to be coordination with other towns around us on post pandemic planning as well yeah we every week I'm involved in a county um meeting and we have started talking about we shouldn't do this work we've been working together for you know a year on everything so we did start talking about the post-pandemic plan and what are you doing and what are you doing and let's not you know be spinning the wheel on all this stuff um so it's definitely something I've been talking about everyone's doing it a

166little differently and approaching it differently but I think this will probably get get a broader um input at the end of the day from as many people as we possibly can get involved so I just wanted to ask the board real quick because I'm noticing that it is nine o'clock and that there are a lot of people waiting to speak and I'm wondering if if the board agrees to move the public comment up now instead of after committee reports and superintendent reports absolutely yes yeah all right um so um we'll open up public comment for comments related to the presentations that were just given returning to school and pandemic planning uh planning I can't say that for some reason um just as a reminder that you have a three minute um time to speak and

167that when you are done to please um leave so that other people can speak so that we can make room for everyone yep just approach I don't really have a I know that everyone signed a piece of paper that's part of our policy there's no order to it it's really just part of the policy so thank you for doing that I scribbled some notes so hopefully I can figure out what I'm going to say um my name is Emily Garcia I have one child in fourth grade and another child who will be attending kindergarten in the fall we are eagerly awaiting a return to full inperson learning and I want to express my support for the efforts to make this happen I am very concerned about the short and long-term harms of not reopening to

168full inperson learning some might even argue we are already at a point that the harms are greater than the benefits I understand that problems like this are complicated clearly as the presentations tonight explained but while the challenges are great I am not willing to accept that they're insurmountable I'm thinking ahead to the fall what will be different between now and then in six months while I'm very hopeful we will be in a better place in the fall as vaccines roll out there's not a vaccine for children younger than and the vaccine isn't even in the study phase for children under age 12 therefore it is highly likely that come September and for an indeterminate period thereafter the entire student body of at least the elementary school will not be vaccinated as explained a significant barrier

169to fully reopening is that the school cannot accommodate the state's physical distancing requirement for the children and that the only way past this is for the state to relax their physical distancing guidelines is it realistic then to think that the state will be willing to relax this requirement when the students will not be vaccin inated and if they do feel it is safe to relax this requirement despite a la of a lack of vaccination among the student body then what are they waiting for if the requirements aren't relaxed then a solution to this problem is essential I work at a hospital we are not able to remain 6 feet apart from people but I feel incredibly safe at my job because the distancing is one layer of the mitigation all the mitigation strategies it isn't

170perfection of every single layer it's all the layers working together even if they're not perfect that makes me feel safe lastly I would like to make a request for more communication we need more details and more transparency about what the challenges are what the district is doing to address address these challenges how you're working with the state and public health officials if they're helping you and the benchmarks and goals we're aiming for I think parents would be more understanding and some frustrations stress and assumptions could be complet completely avoided if we were given more information than we've received thus far as well as more opportunities to ask questions which it looks like that will be happening soon we are supposed to be a community and yet I feel like an outsider I put my son

171on the bus and send him off to a building I've never been inside of to teachers I've only met through a video conference parents want to know more and to help in any way we can to get our kids back in school full-time I'm sure there's a lot going on behind the scenes that we don't know about share more of that with us help us to have confidence that we are going to get to a better place and better understand when we might get there today's meeting is a start but we need more to feel confident that a full reopening is on the horizon thank you thank you I'm Julie Mcdonald from North Yarmouth um and I just wanted to say I want to um applaud your comment earlier about medication for mental health I'm

172also a nurse and I it's a big deal to me to reduce that stigma of mental health and if anybody out there is having any difficulty at all please reach out to anyone in your circle don't be ashamed or afraid to go on medication um or to go into therapy it's really important and I say that as a nurse and a mom so thank you for that comment um listening tonight it seems to me that things are upside down I get now and jefff we've had had multiple emails but I get it now the space thing is ridiculous I mean you've got people talking about needing to add 20 more classrooms I mean it's just not going to happen right so I get where the school's coming from now in terms of not having the

173space you know to do what they need to do but I wonder if you know this board and the Falmouth board and the armouth board and the superintendents if they got together and instead of sitting in on meetings with the CDC and being told how it's going to be went to those meetings and started raising questions like I'm a nurse what what is three feet I mean honestly what is three feet between two kids in a closed room and maybe some windows are open but if everybody is masked has anybody questioned that has anybody question why do we need three feet between our kids what what talk about the science like where is the science behind that and why do other states have their kids in school full-time when the school's just as big as

174ours they've managed to do it and I understand Jee you're saying you get questions from parents about other schools that are open 5 days a week and they're smaller so they can do it they don't have the same population but with other states and thinking outside the box with other states that have been able to have their kids go back full-time when in school districts as large as ours why can't we look to those States for an example and then we take that to Janet Mills and we take that to the main CDC and we say look here's the data you keep telling us we have to abide by this three-foot separation which is completely impractical why explain you know show us why this is important and explain to us how other states can do

175it but we can't and you start putting the pressure on them to relax those guidelines and and to ask to put pressure on them and question say what is your reasoning behind saying we have to have three feet between our kids in school if they're also masked so it would be great to see every this group and other school boards and other districts come together and flip it around and start putting the pressure on the main CDC and make them answer to you guys and to us as to why they've come up with this rule say when other states don't have it so I think that would be maybe an approach to think about so thank you thank you Sean MCB Cumberland um I'll bet everybody in this room one American dollar that Mr Porter

176and the administrators will drag this out until school budget vote the vote will entail what we've heard tonight not enough space not enough teachers not enough staff just like Democrat Governor Mills bankrupting Maine Democrats always want more so let's put a new $40 million School in into this narrative and maybe at some point we'll have enough space you guys should have worked retail seniors can't pay their taxes now because you want more more is not an option 100 Town employees point of order received no raises this year because you want more this is not related to pandemic plan no actually I'm getting that no it's not related at all Mr McBride AB can you please alter your comments sure you can fly an enclosed plane shoulder-to-shoulder strangers all over the world but you can't figure

177out how to get students in this school 93% of the deaths in main with covid or over 60 years old 53% of the deaths in Maine with covid are over 80 years old no one in Maine under 20 has died with covid that's 0% for you liberal Democrats Maine is 45th in the nation for deaths with covid per 100,000 45th flu deaths have all but disappeared it's a miracle Florida has less than the US average and has been open the entire time didn't you just hear the entire presentation about increased anxiety depression and suicide it's not about science nor the healths of the students in these Democrat run States it's all about control it's because this state and the school board are unfortunately run by democrats like Mike Williams vote for change in June and

178you'll get it you've chosen not to put the kids back in school and like the lady before me said figure it out figure it out the extra no zero zero dollars zero our kids' lives depend on it make an effort good evening my name is Jonna from manini I live in North gouth um I work for a large Health Care system that is now responsible for Mass vaccinations Statewide and today I sat in on a meeting and listened to our coo share about the extreme complexities intricacies last minute changes and unforeseen circumstances that our leadership has been navigating to make to serve the public interests and I couldn't help thinking of our school board and our Administration and all the complexities that I think were well laid out by Administration tonight and I wanted to

179acknowledge that there's a tremendous amount of work done that we the public don't see maybe now tonight we have a better picture of that um and I want to advocate for a spirit of community Civility and respectfulness not just here in this room but online because I've witnessed quite a bit of hostility that seems to be unwarranted to towards the school board and as we all are working to face this completely novel and difficult complicated situation um it has been disheartening for myself as a healthcare worker to see how this challenges this challenge has divided communities rather than unified us with a common purpose everyone wants students in school full-time everyone The Faculty the board student students well not my kids but Administration parents teachers but people also don't want to pay higher taxes they

180don't want sick children or adults they don't want to refrain from sleepovers and unmasked Gatherings which I hear is pretty common in our district um they don't want to volunteer on the school board and there are going to be those who don't bother to get the vaccine so thank you for your hard work and your great efforts to achieve a solution that certainly will not satisfy everyone but I hope that we can do so by Rising above blaming public officials making negative assumptions about their intentions and holding unreasonable expectations if we can adhere to principles of respect community and civility we will both here and online we will better serve students academically as well as their mental health thank you thank you good evening thank you board um I will second many comments that were

181already made this evening um it is very important to in my belief to the children of this community that we get them back to school with more in-person instruction I have kid kids grades ages four grades 4 to 10 and I'm sorry I didn't say I was from Cumberland but I'm Hannah I'm from Cumberland and there are challenges at all three grade levels and there's challenges for every family as you're aware and I think we can think outside the box and plan ahead for the future I was very pleased to see that we're already starting to think about the fall because it's coming and it's going to be here quick and I would love to see that we have a really solid plan for September um based on what I saw tonight it's very clear

182to me there's not a lot of support to to add additional instruction time now which is disheartening but I understand the challenges faced with turning the ship mid mid year um I will say though that as a parent I will be vulnerable here and tell you that I did have to pull one of my children at the start of the school year because his instructional needs were not being met and his school is allowed to do things like touch the box and guess what they've had zeroes and they touch things and they still wear the masks and they the rules but I think in some cases we could see the bigger picture and just try try to add a few things back in for our kids try to let the kindergarteners play with toys try

183to let the high schoolers go outside for lunch um my son school also to eat almost year round and they just wear wear their snow um I think we can be creative as a community and can do what these which is more instruction time appears so thank you for considering appreciate it hi my name is Nikki Williams and I am um a resident of North Yarmouth I have to be honest I came up with quite a speech and um I appreciate that a lot of my questions had been addressed during a lot of the presentations so I'm going to kind of wing it with just my feelings um which are very important I'm sure to all of you um I have a child who will be starting kindergarten in the fall and I just have

184to Echo my concerns about what the plan is I think it's so great that our administrators put so much time into these plans but I'm questioning why they started on Friday and why it didn't entail larger groups of people I really appreciate the fact that we have uh a schedule for adding Community involvement I think that that's huge I mean I I am myself as a nurse I work for the largest hospital in the state and my main focus I'm in administration is patient flow we've been challenged with flowing patients in and out of our hospital as you probably know and it's been ebing and flowing but we've always had plans in place to accommodate for the the next level or the next wave that's coming we have plans in place that go so deep

185it's a little scary and we also have outside parties third parties working with us to determine what those things are that we do need so my questions are who's working with us how do we extend to them and certainly if we need additional voices to try and put pressure on the CDC I feel like you have quite a community that would love to back that thank you thank you hi um Matt Orlando I'm from Cumberland um I actually I've never been to a meeting but I guess I was going to ask if is it possible to ask a couple questions and then do my what I was going to prepare for comments or no so generally we do not um respond to public comment okay all right thank you um so I'll I'll just go

186um with this I I mean I'm conflicted I think that my wife and I um we've adhered to all the mask requirements we social distance we're doing our best um and um I know it's necessary but we've watched our son who's a kindergartener go from loving school like like excited to go we didn't even have to get him dressed his last year in preschool he was that excited to hating School and it's it's not the teachers it's it's the whole pandemic and we're talking six months in six months he went from vibrant loved learning every opportunity we had was a learning opportunity counting sugar at at breakfast all those things and you fast forward now and he won't go out and play with his friends we can't even really get him to leave the house

187he um stopped doing puzzles it's a struggle to get him to do his school workor he won't go upstairs alone without one of us and uh in the daylight with the lights on and so to see his regression kills me and I felt like coming here tonight and there a lot of great information that um we were already at a point where at what point do we feel like the impact on the kids the 3,000 people in our district is outweighing the the health risk frankly if Amanda's dad 70 just got covid so I I fully understand that you can't take numbers and and and I don't want to come off callous but we were at between 359 and 408 cases here in Cumberland North Yarmouth if you extrapolate the deaths and this is where

188it sounds callous but I think we need to have this discussion that would be six people now tyranny of small numbers totally get it maybe it's 12 I was already at a point where it's how how do we weigh what's happening to a whole generation of kids in this 12 now it looks like it's going to be 18 months against the health risk and then we see the numbers and I frankly I was speechless you can tell I'm choked up a little bit uh 40% of our student body is considering or 18 to 24 year olds and then you presumably maybe our student body is is considering suicide and the root of it is not being able to do normal things and so I would implore us as a community as teachers Educators all of

189us to work with the CDC like the people before me have suggested and say look it's at a point where we need to have real tough conversations about a whole generation of kids and I know there's no easy answer but I think we need to really start talking about that because I don't think we can go another call it you know two two months three months into the summer and then all the way to Winter and not expect that that 40% in the mental health study goes up so I realize it's a challenge I thank everybody for the work you're doing and I think we need to figure out a way to do more thank [Applause] you hi my name is Amanda Orlando um from Cumberland as well um and it's obviously a very emotional

190time topic for everybody um I came with a detailed outline um but like one of the women in front of me you answered a lot of my questions as well um I would like to reiterate that you know we have a kindergartener and we've seen a huge regression since the beginning of the year and he's one that he loves school he loves playing he um he just enjoys life and and we've seen where now where he doesn't enjoy any of those things um and it's and it's really difficult to watch um I I was really pleased to hear that you guys as well are hoping for some out of the box thinking um and I was also pleased to hear once the spring comes are we talking about utilizing the outside um potentially kindergarteners in

191first grade can we get them back full-time I think that's huge I know Massachusetts has an April time frame of trying to get their elementary schools back um can we do something like that I know Falmouth Yarmouth and scarbro are implementing a task force to work towards coming back full-time is that something that we can do um I know we talk about the community coming together can parents and Educators create a task force amongst the leaders I know you had mentioned that Mr Porter and the association um to try to come up with a plan to get the kids back to school full-time and we saw it in the presentations we know that a a huge impact is the Staffing and the spacing so it we know it's a huge challenge I think one of

192my biggest concerns is if we can't do it this spring we need to make sure that we're also preparing for this fall because I think as parents we're also worried and concerned that things aren't going to change and then what happens this fall because we can't continue to to have the kids be the ones that sacrifice so much um and then I did want to leave you Mr Porter with one other item that I read in an email that you had recently sent um about the BX now testing and I know as a district we opted out of those um but I didn't know if that's something that we could revisit considering within the last few hours we got an email that mayi is going red because of all of the quarantining and Staffing shortages

193is there the possibility to to to discuss that again to try to mitigate the Staffing shortages and the need for red days um but I I do appreciate your time and I appreciate all of the comments and the presentations tonight it was super helpful to come and watch so thank you thank you hi um I actually hate public speaking um I'm going to come from the other end of the spectrum my name is Kim Stewart and I have an eighth grader at gy middle school and a freshman at gy high school I'm proud to say both of my children are straight A students they have been in this District um their entire School career uh my husband is a product of gy high school and I also went through this system as well we chose

194gley high school and the gy school district um simply because of all the work you do never um excuse me I've been to one school board meeting I do read the minutes I kind of follow along I've always been very confident in the job that you have done in our teachers and our administrators um last year when a bunch of children in my daughter Haley's grade were continuing uh considering private education she thought it was crazy she's like why would you leave gy it's it's the best and I was like I'm with you we're staying and she's changed um um she specifically said tonight that she wanted to know when you would decide if next year was going to be hybrid she has applied and been accepted at Chev high school as has my incoming

195freshman we've taken out paperwork to take out a home equity loan to pay for a better education which says a lot considering the mill rate in this town um basically I have a whole bunch of questions and I I get that you can't answer them I'm frustrated my high schooler was quarantined she was in the science lab which I know is about 60 ft all the way around she has three other students and the student who sat diagonally across from her had covid and he only knows this we only know this because he emailed and said he was sorry to his students or his uh other students I guess um that's not CDC guidelines she was 45 feet away from this child that's not within 6 feet she had a mask on I can't for

196the life of me understand why she had to quarantine why are we not paying better attention to that um on February 21st the CDC guidelines said that close contacts had to be within that six feet and all night I have listened to you tell us that the majority of kids are maintaining at least six feet so I'm very confused and I would love clarification as to why we're still quarantining if teachers have to be six feet away if they're maintaining that distance then we're meeting CDC guidelines and that's not considered a close contact my husband works for the Portland fire department and he's the deputy chief here in Cumberland he transports covid patients on a regular basis he transported three this week at work he's not a close contact he had proper PPE if that's

197the case I will pay for my kids teachers to have that proper PPE because I feel like that's going to get them in school and that's what we need to do um both chevis and Wells High Schools and I'm sorry I only have their numbers are in school full-time one remote learning day on Wednesday both schools are within 50 students of our gy high school and yet we have at least 10,000 more square feet than each of their schools they made it work and we can't under the same main CDC guidelines that's extremely frustrating for my high schooler when she looks at you and says Mom it's math I I don't have an argument for and so that's frustrating um I love that you collab want to say that you have hit three minutes and

198I have to be fair to give everybody the same amount of time so if you just have a couple more sentences um you're welcome to to share them and then we'll have to move on to the next Speak oh okay so I would love to see more curriculars take precedence sports are playing drama is not we have this beautiful building we should be using it um I would love to say that oh wow um so I'm I'm quite frankly saddened that we're at this state um I really feel like we need to be doing more for our students I'm frustrated at the tone of our administrators were asked tell me why this can't work versus what can we do to make it happen we talk a lot about equity and I can totally get behind

199the education of that but I felt that that presentation seemed extremely privileged for what we demand to have because I know that other schools I work at one don't have that and they're still in school more than we are and as a student it it's I mean I don't have an answer for those questions and it's really frustrating thank you hello my name is Julie Susi I have an eighth grader at gy middle school and my son loves his teachers uh he always had a great experience at gr at gy middle school I'm here today to ask you a different question I would like to pose the question what is the definition of safe as it pertains to Children returning to the classroom full-time my concern is how many times the goalposts have been moved

200over the past year we were told everyone needs to stay home for 14 days to flatten the curve we need a vaccine we need to get X number of people vaccinated we need her immunity there's a new mutation there's the South African mutation the English mutation with every step forward there is a new goalpost a new stake in the ground that seems to move out of reach our ability our children's ability to resume in their childhood again my question is how do you define a safe school regarding covid-19 for instance are we willing to accept any risk if we have 10 cases can we resume a normal schedule what about five cases what about one case we have learned a a great deal about covid in one year one interest interesting find is that children

201do do not appear to be super spreaders or experience s severe illness for the most part thankfully our children have suffered tremendously from this pandemic the question is how much longer will they have to put their lives on hold if our definition of a safe school is having eradicated covid-19 100% the child the children could be experiencing this disruption to their education the isolation and any mental issues for for years is this something we are willing to accept or are we willing to accept some level of risk to allow our children to get their childhood back thank you very much thank you I have uh uh preschooler she's four six uh uh kindergarten he's six I come home from work for lunch or I come home from work at 5:00 and they're sitting at the

202table looking at a computer screen or an iPad screen isn't the whole point of raising children especially when they're that young is to get them away from these screens don't we all try to do that don't we yes we do right sure I do the other day I get home from work and my son says to me or he tells me about how at lunch he has to sit at his desk or chair what sit at his table during lunch take off his mask and so that they don't talk to each other and spread the virus they have to watch TV or films everybody in this room Envision that how many kids are in a Kindergarten class staring ahead eating their lunch at a at a television monitor that's not right and that's not what

203we're here for that's not what everybody's here for to raise our children this way so they can't socially interact that was a microcosm of this whole thing it's got to end we have to open these schools I was just in Texas and I was in Florida for work they're wide open all the schools I'm very everybody here is very upset including you all I I know but you have to get mean get up to Augusta talk to these people if you're worried about your teachers and your staff tell them to get tell Augusta to get these people vaccinated ASAP they're shipping in 12,000 vaccines of the J&J the Johnson Johnson one shot this week who up here has gone there to say our teachers deserve it anybody I didn't think so have you I have

204sent letters you have prioritizing teachers yes well I'll go with you you can get in my truck and we can go together cuz something's got to happen here these kids are going to lose it and our the parents are going to lose their minds too and it's easy for I I know you have children but at some point this thing has got to stop because the the cons are far outweighing the pros and I don't know what the pros are but that's all I got to say thank you very much thank you good evening everyone thank you so much for all of your work we really do appreciate it my name is Amber Wagner and I'm from Cumberland I have two children in fourth grade and second grade um my comment tonight is just that

205I totally understand that this spring is going to be really challenging but I'm really looking forward to the fall um our schools are overpopulated already we've had a large number of kids that have been pulled out and put into private school we have more buildings that are coming online and more students that are coming in what I'm hopeful that the 3 feet will be gone with by the time the fall comes but I don't know if that's realistic are we planning for that and how can we make sure we can still get kids back to school 5 days a week in the fall with all those factors that we have within the communities um and the other part is that we have a wonderful Community here that is here to help so if you need

206petitions signed to get teachers vaccinated if you need help moving stuff from stores if you need whatever it is that you need ask the community is here and wants to help thank you thank you Daniel giri North the armouth and I'm also a student at gy high school so I'm going to discuss a little bit about this whole us them you guys trying to get us back into school 5 days a week and well it does seem like a good idea however I'm going to touch on a few topics that no one has ever brought up one of those the most important being the fact that cohort A and B are in fact on a different schedule and this would be hard for us to try and merge back so for instance since today in

207one of my classes I had a test today however the other cohort didn't they were going to take that test when they come back to school and instead we got an assignment that they are instead going to get of course when they come back to school so if we wanted to try and come back it really wouldn't work we would essentially need some sort of Break In order to kind of catch up and be able to fully merge the schedules if we are going to bring everyone back together onto One schedule and a couple other things that of course with the spring of course brings the opportunity of with the snow being gone the chance that we could possibly go outside I'm not entirely sure about that mostly because the fact it's probably going to

208be soaking wet cuz Maine really doesn't dry up until June we could of course ring towels but I don't know how many people want to sit on wet grass while they're trying to go through school and then there's also the issue of a lot of our stuff is done through computers and Wi-Fi and all that stuff I'm not 100% sure it will work but it could consider the fact we've gotten supposedly upgraded internet and if we can't go outside I would hope that the temperatures are going to start warming up so we could inevitably start opening up the windows and allowing for more natural circulation and I think that's about it that's just some I don't know something things for you guys to think about considering the fact that I'm kind of the one that's

209going through a lot of this right now thank you thank you do we know if there's anybody out in the hallway that was hoping to speak um no we're empty we're empty okay is there anyone else okay looks like we do thank you hi everyone I'm Rebecca preny a teacher at gley middle and high schools and also vice president of the msad51 Education Association I want to thank you all for being here tonight and for working tirelessly throughout the summer and fall and winter to make sure that our schools are safely open um I have received a flood of emails in the last 24 hours from staff that I think is also a testament to how dedicated our staff is to ensuring safe and rigorous learning for all of our students and um the following

210is a synthesis of a lot of the teacher messages I've been asked to share directly with you a number of teachers wrote about how they love their jobs and how they want to be back in person interacting in full classrooms every day but that the virus is simply too dangerous for too many people for more in-person learning to be feasible at this time at the same time many messages expressed confidence in the rigorous remote learning that we're giving to our students that covers the same material as we would give in an ordinarily in an ordinary year teachers also expressed frustration and disbelief about the idea that we're not fully utilizing our remote Wednesdays to teach our students including one who wrote quote we have meetings we do planning and we grade work this is in

211addition to working nights and weekends to get all of our work done Wednesday is the day when I meet oneon-one or in small groups with students who need extra help my students seek out virtual help more than they ever sought out in person help in the past I set up my whiteboard at my house and I'll spend 30 to 45 minutes with each student Wednesday time has been invaluable and I cannot imagine what my students would do without access to this time for extra help end quote a lot of teachers have expressed dismay that in a school year during which we've been so flexible and giving up our personal lives for our teaching another change might be thrown at us and this is a change that we I think would further disrupt student learning and

212the sense of normaly that we've worked so hard to cultivate in our classrooms another teacher wrote quote I'm too exhausted to defend myself for giving everything I have in me to keep the children I'm charged with keeping physically safe mentally healthy and academically growing too exhausted to be a voice that may be ignored every last ounce of energy I have will continue to be channeled towards my students needs and the needs of my school team to ask staff and students to adapt to yet another schedule and to erode the preparation and planning time that this would entail would disrupt learning for students and devastate an already frayed morale among our teachers finally one last quote I want to address the parents in the community who are concerned about the effect this year is having is

213going to have for their children's long-term academic development I understand those concerns because I have them about my own children here's what I can tell you your children are learning they are getting good instruction teachers are working harder than they ever have and we always work hard in my classes the students are learning to be better readers and writers they are also learning to be flexible resilient compassionate and independent skills that will carry them even further than the Lessons Learned in a typical school year I'm sure this is because parents like teachers are working harder than ever to help their children learn that extra effort is paying off thank you again for your dedication and service to our students thank you hi I'm Emily kieren uh Cumberland Center I'm also a parent to a fourth

214and fifth grader at GMS and a third grade teacher at miw I can appreciate the desire to have kids back in school 5 days a week I want that as a parent and as an educator I yearn for normaly in my classroom and I see disappointment every Tuesday afternoon when I ask my own kids to put their lunch boxes away as they won't be used again for another week I understand where this national and local push is coming from the current hybrid model is not Equitable and it's not ideal I have never worked longer hours and felt less satisfied it's exhausting work for everyone involved parents staff and students despite this instructionally flawed model I know that it is the safest model that allows for imperson instruction almost a year ago Educators were thrown into

215a novel situation teach students fully remote this was hard as we didn't have the tools we needed time and training 6 months later a new school year begins and teachers are yet again being asked to try something completely unfamiliar teach 4 days a week in person while also creating 3 days worth of lessons for remote instruction this was is also hard we quickly realized we wouldn't have the tools we needed planning time when K3 schedules were created for this year the student day was shortened But the teacher day was actually increased due to the amount of the time arrival and dismissal takes about 45 minutes each teacher lunches were also shortened as we were expected to supervise lunches in our classrooms these and other changes resulted in significant losses of planning time about 3 to

2164 hours a week for K3 teachers remote Wednesdays were proposed as a way of accounting for some of that lost planning time not I'm sorry to help be a tool to make the hybrid model work Wednesdays are not just about planning time though and are certainly not a day off for teachers Wednesdays are also days to look at data to inform instruction 504 in RTI meetings and team meetings which cannot be scheduled at all during our in-person days most Wednesdays I have four plus hours of Google meet needs before I can count on any instructional planning time Wednesdays are full of so many important things they are essential to my practice and the single most powerful tool that makes the hybrid model somewhat manageable even with Wednesdays I am working nights and weekends there are

217days I am barely managing it and there are some days my own children are barely managing I get it I really do but I'm not sure the trade-off of having students go possibly one more day every other week which would add up to a handful of days maybe six or seven for the rest of the school year would truly improve anything and as a teacher I would really be feeling the loss of that tool I'm sharing this information with you so you can better understand what work happens on Wednesdays this year K3 almost 90% of a students in-person school day is spent with their classroom teacher there simply isn't enough teacher planning time during our four inperson days to get everything accomplished for our hybrid model to be successful returning to 5 days will be

218amazing when the fog Liv lifs we just aren't quite there yet in the meantime remote Wednesdays are an essential part to our to our hybrid model and when I hope the board and our parent Community will continue to support I am proud of our district leadership and proud of my students and what we have accomplished so far we are still very much in a pandemic but we are still very much in it together thank you thank you good evening Joan gu from Cumberland and I'm also the um president of the msad51 Education Association um school board members I want to First address that no one wants to be in person more than the Educators the educators of this District dedicate their lives to help students succeed and teachers haven't stopped that dedication to the students

219in learning this year despite the blocks and challenges that this Global Health crisis has dealt us we want the parents here and watching at home to know how deeply committed the educators are to the students and also empathetic to their wanting their students to be back in school um I also want to secondly commend the district's health and safety team um with expertise and guidance the district has adhered to CDC and Main doe requirements for the last month plus months and because of this leadership and decision- making we have avoided widespread outbreaks not because there isn't a real threat of harm but because we work constantly to socially distance to ensure excuse me air filtration and flow and and limit close contacts and large group exposures thank you for continuing to recognize the very real

220risk staff take every day we are in the buildings and thank you for keeping the health and safety of Community um at the Forefront of your decision-making if we could wave a magic wand and make this all go away believe me we would um instead uh we will continue to work in our current situation um we do hope the district will prioritize discussion around post-pandemic planning rather than taking away the protections that we are are working so hard to keep in place um for short-term adjustments I ask you and the parents listening tonight to help us advocate for teachers to be PRI prioritized for vaccination this may enable us to open up sooner and faster and finally I leave you with one more ask on behalf of teachers and staff before you make any decisions

221that impact classrooms or require us to readjust once once again please ask for our input which I understand that that's part of the plan going forward this spring but we ask that um we avoid further dis disruption to what we have already done this year so thank you very much for all of your work thank you all right I'm seeing no other people everybody has left um thanks for staying till the end and um sharing your thoughts with us this is a um big agenda for this evening um so we're we going to move on to superintendent report Jeff you want you want to do it or do you skip it can we skip it you can skip it okay awesome um and we will fly through um some committee reports and then we will

222move into our workshop and I just want to say um Madison after committee reports if you would like to go home that would be totally fine part of my report is the calendar I do have to do it okay I thought that was a little strange I'm not going to do the rest of the report okay the report but we are going to do the first reading of the calendar okay go ahead so um tonight I'm presenting the first read of the um of the calendar um for your consideration and you'll obviously um there's a second read that will be coming up apologize I want to get the calendar um up here on the screen I'm going to just stand all right sorry about that so I want to present um the first read of

223the calendar um and um just kind of talk through this the calendar what we have this calendar is making an assumption that we are in uh green next year um that the district is back in a more typical schedule in September in this calendar will will reflect it um the other piece I just want to mention is that anytime we have a School District calendar a good portion of is decided before the district even looks at it specifically um and that's because we um I work with nine other superintendant who have students who attend the um Portland Arts and Technology High school and we have to have no more than five de similar days amongst us um so this calendar calls for three staff days next year uh prior to the beginning of the school

224year this was Set uh the first day of school was set by the region which will be September 1st um there will be two student days that week and then a um a uh 4-day uh break uh which is actually what we have done um for many many years so that would be we'd be bringing that back um for the holiday weekend uh you will also see um that there are several staff days throughout the year as we typically have there's one in October there's one in March um and um the actual parent teacher conference schedule has been changed um we typically have had parent teacher conferences um and we have allowed for a flex day at the end of the school year um we are doing parent teacher conferences more um typically as we've

225done them this year which is to provide early release time for staff to do that and we've built that into the calendar um so that Flex day has been um removed uh from the calendar which is a change we've been able to also add in a staff day at the beginning of the year we typically only have two uh but because of the change in the conference schedule we were able to add in three days um which I know more time before school starts for staff is is very important the purple days are early release days and you'll see that that looks more like a typical school year schedule um and having early release days pretty much on any week that is not a um or that is a full week and doesn't have any

226sort of interruption in there so pretty much um this schedule will look more typical than not in terms of the beginning and um most of the other features of the of the schedule in there so I don't know if there's any questions I have some other talking points but I don't know if there's any questions about the actual calendar itself I have a question um just because it's late and I'm starting to lose it a little bit will there be snow days good question very good question very good question so there's an indicator at the at the bottom I just saw that uh basically says that you know the first two days um would be a traditional more traditional snow day and then after the first two days um we would be doing a red

227day um for any other days after the two days so first two days we would make up um at the end of the year we' add those to the calendar um and so if you approve the calendar that way or if you want to adjust that language um that's in there but we had tried for that this year and we never end up doing it um and so it's kind of built in built into the calendar here as well um there are 176 student days um which is uh typical for a normal year that we have a more typical year thank you does anyone else have questions or comments I know it's just a first read so when will we be looking at this again Jeff uh at your next meeting okay second read and

228there's some talking um points um that I don't believe I shared with the board um and I can certainly just send it to you at this point you did um I did okay it was in your packet um so it's just something that you know if there's any questions about the talking points in the why in the why around this calendar and why it is um looking more like school year calendar just um please um feel free to ask me or if you want to email me questions or ask me now be happy to answer them thank you all right I'm questions or discussion okay all right so we'll move on to um committee reports and then we can move into our Workshop so first is finance which is Kevin I had what I needed

229up in front of me um so here's where we are we continue to do um quite a bit of work on the budget there's nothing to see back there um there's uh continue to do work on the budget um we have shifted the superintendent budget rather um uh I think that the superintendent and the finance director have done a fine job of making it easy for us to understand their priorities at this point of the um of the process it's uh it's a little bit uh lumpy and um my colleagues on the committee uh Jennifer and Tyler have have been asking all the right questions at the right time uh we will be moving forward with our our next meeting is on the 15 I'm sorry he on the 9th next Tuesday for anybody playing

230along um this is going to be to get ourselves prepared for the presentation to you the week following on the 15th am I missing anything that I should be talking about thank you thank you uh policy Ann uh I have no update we meet again on the 15th okay thank you facilities Peter uh Jeff has sent out a outline of uh uh what's going to be prosed to to happen I think everybody's seen it the key right now for March is that we're be going to be having the meeting uh with the the teachers and then Oak Point is going to be going forward uh during the rest of the month developing their plan thank you Peter uh curriculum Mike uh no update at this time okay thank you student reports Madison um I mean

231we've talked a lot about like mental health and Co concerns I've just noticed a lot of my peers are really stressed about Co right now I've noticed a lot more people have started like double masking and getting really strict about like don't come near me please back away like a lot of at least juniors in high school I've noticed are getting really concerned so it's to hear a lot of the public comment tonight be like no we we want everyone to go back it's concerning for me as someone that also cares a lot you know I social distance with most of everyone except for one person so it's like it's kind of stressful to think that like there's a possibility that we'll all be back and I know that a lot of my peers feel

232the exact same that like they don't want to have that anxiety like there's so many students around me all the time I don't know who has Co who doesn't who has symptoms who doesn't like it's just it's a lot of stress around that which also can damper your mental health but that's all I really have to talk about which we talked about a lot today anyways thank you for sharing and then we we do have the opportunity to give some ad hoc committee reports and I believe Ann was going to give an update on the equity committee um yeah I just wanted to report out that um our subgroup of the equity committee have completed three sessions with the um USM Southern main partnership uh we also have another small subgroup uh Duo who will

233be working on drafting an equity policy for the district with the goal of bringing that to the board before the end of this school year um we are brainstorming ways for parents and community members to engage in self-directed learning on systemic racism and oppression including offering suggested resources available at Prince Memorial Library and then um Jeff since you've been attending the USM meetings I didn't know if there was anything else you wanted to add yeah I think the sessions actually Tyler has been attending yeah I just haven't didn't wasn't able to attend last week yep we started getting into um questions to ask yourself as you're developing a plan for your District awesome um and that was kind of the last session it was that transition into um how do we develop a plan and

234what is what is some of the broad framewor questions that we've got to answer in order to get the community involved in developing and and actually we talked about policy that was very important having a pol actually that was said several times during this session that the Board needs to adopt a policy that um can be um you know agreeable to the community and is the direction forward for your District um that was a really important step that they harped on that's that's great because that's one of our board goals as well for this year so that's great to hear that that's um the conversation that is all for committee reports we do not have any items for Action we've already done our second public comment so we now will move into Workshop which um

235Andy that is your cue for no longer having to record um so I I