001hi andy hi scott hello there andy how are you good mr scott how are you i am uh brilliant like the rising sun taking it day by day scott you've been drumming lately uh i have not um tomorrow i have a music gig with mrs jacobson's class at 11 15. oh good it's a student birthday and we're singing some songs but the drums have uh been on hold for just a bit andy can i ask you a technical question so heather and i are gonna share uh it's like a five slide powerpoint presentation if i present that tab and when i'm i'm done talking she can just jump in without having to open it up welcome to the january 19th 2021 board of directors meeting for msad51 because this is virtual i do have to
002start off with a roll call so please say present or hear when i read your name peter bingham here president here and maximovic here ellen mcginley is present kate clarin here mike simmons here jennifer stewart here mike williams here elias leggett barr i do know that madison is not joining us so hopefully elias will be able to join us in a little bit so before we move on to our first item which is recognition there are some meetings where it feels like it's okay to just roll right into the agenda and then there are some nights where feels like tonight it's important to kind of acknowledge where we all are as a community and as a nation i don't know the right things to say to all of these things i have struggled with it
003not just today but thinking about this evening and the responsibilities we have as leaders and elected officials and i just wanted to acknowledge what i'm guessing a lot of us are feeling is kind of a collective grief and something that um is found in the lives that we've lost as a nation but also here in our own community and maybe in the times where we're trying to explain to our kids and even to ourselves what happened last week at our nation's capital and then also in addition to all of those things the reality that we are fully remote once again almost back to a year ago where we were in march and then there's all the other things that we're struggling with in our personal lives that none of us may know about and so
004i just wanted to acknowledge where we are because i think um even though i don't have the perfect words i think one thing i do know is that if we keep talking to each other because there's a lot to talk about right now that it will be helpful and i know that the last time we were together as a board we had a workshop which gives us the opportunity to speak a little bit more openly and off agenda and we've spent a good amount of time talking about mental health and with everything i just mentioned mental health is a part of it and so i know that this will not be the last time we talk about mental health um but i do think it's important to recognize that we need to continue to reach
005out to each other as residents and as community members as elected officials to find new ways to do what we're doing because what we are doing right now is not i don't know if normal ever existed but it's not normal so um i just felt disingenuous if i didn't say something and so i wanted to say something and i'm happy to pass off recognition in a different way um i wish we were together but um students and staff at greeley high school put together a reenactment video um for dr king's montgomery bus boycott speech and so i'd like to pass over i'm guessing andy to um to cue that up actually we have heather yeah we have heather perkinson and we have peter scott oh wonderful have some students from the high school who are
006i believe here to say a few words first yeah so i'm going to jump in first we've created a five slide mini powerpoint presentation which should be very brief the students will have a part in that in just a minute um just to tell you a little bit about the civil rights team and to set up the speech that you'll see in just a moment so i'm going to present if you'll bear with me a second here okay now of course um i can't see you anymore but that's okay i think you can see me please let me know if you can't so on behalf of the civil rights team thank you very much we do have a good handful of students here from our team to speak with you in just a moment a
007brief overview of the civil rights team project in our school district it's a statewide program of the maine attorney general's office it goes from grades 3 to 12. it's currently in more than 175 main schools public private rural and urban and it's in all 16 counties and the program was founded in 1996 and this year our civil rights team is celebrating its 10th year which we're very excited about here in our school system this is um called a focus sign this is used statewide and our civil rights teams you'll see it on the left of your screen and we use it to kind of keep our conversations gauged around the main civil rights law and what we do to support that law in our own schools i'm just going to read from you for you
008this excerpt that was from the attorney general's website that explains what we do the civil rights team project works to prevent bias-based behaviors including violations of the maine civil rights act we believe it is important to engage our school communities in thinking and talking about issues related to race and skin color national origin and ancestry religion disabilities gender including gender identity and expression and sexual orientation youth are central to this process real change in our schools must respect and include student voices and at the bottom we often talk about this we believe all our students have a right to feel safe welcome and respected at their schools this next slide belongs to mrs perkinson and our students hi good evening i'm heather perkinson i'm the librarian at the high school and um i'm joined tonight
009by riley and adele and penelope um would each of you adele would you like to start by saying hello and sharing a little something about a favorite moment or why the team is important to you sure um i'm adele i am captain of the civil rights team i um i joined because i think that civil rights is crucial to um history and the present and the future and so i think one of my favorite memories is open house day and we had like our own little booth set up and we passed around stickers and people for the parents and people like to see that we are welcoming of every student that comes to greeley high school and our expert videographer penelope uh hi i'm penelope um i started civil rights team in middle school and
010i think it's really important to talk about issues just to make sure that everyone knows that it's they're always there and to make progress with some civil rights issues um my favorite memory from civil rights team uh is either the open house or the rainbow dance we put on um it was a really fun thing to organize and we had a lot of fun doing it thank you and riley um i i'm riley um i am a freshman so i don't have a lot of memories with the high school civil rights team but i joined in middle school and one of my favorite memories from the middle school civil rights team was when we um went to a statewide conference um and i i think civil rights team is really important because i think it's
011really important to have all the students at grilli in every school to feel accepted and feel important thank you thanks for coming tonight guys um so uh over the years we've done a lot of things the workshops and conferences are with kids from all over the state and really give our students a chance to expand their world view and interact with lots of different types of students from all around maine one of our highlights from past years was winning a grant to bring a visiting artist to school if he helped students create a mural which still hangs outside the gym and over the years we've organized various responses to incidents of hate including writing letters of sympathy to synagogues and letters of support to communities and schools that were touched by such incidents um one
012year we were lucky enough to host a holocaust survivor and um she spoke to the entire school and um that was really very powerful and that stands out in our memory and we every year we have certain things that we do that are tradition for the civil rights team our days of welcome these pictures are from last year's day of welcome and that's who followed cheatham who came to speak to the whole school hugging adele and then some students signing the ranger pledge um we also always have our spread the word with the special olympics and um we have this tradition of reenacting speeches for martin luther king jr's birthday thank you heather so on that note this is the last slide before the video this has been our annual tradition uh we find it
013very special it brings us together in a way and the video is i think you'll find is is powerful in and of itself and you'll see the spirit and energy that runs between people who participate and that happens very much live the the event has grown from an in library event to one that fills up the gymnasium it's been great so um we haven't done the i have a dream speech we think most people are familiar with that and we have delved into other parts of dr king's broad body of work so it was december 5th in 1955 when martin luther king spoke to a crowd of nearly 5 000 people at the halt street baptist church in montgomery alabama and the following is a reenactment of his speech we captured it on video it
014features greeley high school students staff and administrators thanks so much for your support andy if you want to queue up the video thank you greeley high school's civil rights team would like to honor martin luther king on his birthday by bringing one of his most important speeches i don't have any audio i don't know about that please keep in mind that this is a re-enactment of a speech originally yeah already delivered over 50 years ago one of the words has been changed because it is considered offensive if used by people writing or speaking in although that is not the word that was originally spoken by dr king because our intent is not to offend but to educate we felt it was important to change memory bus boycott speech one of his most important speeches to
015life please keep in mind that this is a reenactment of a speech that was originally written and delivered over 50 years ago one of the words has been changed because still no audio and offensive all right uh can you present it sorry about that oh sure i could do that give me just a sec to find it because i don't have it queued up i need to turn my mic off if i do this though is that right yes okay i just got ready really i'm not getting audio from that put your microphone back on greely high school's civil rights team would like to honor martin luther king on his birthday by bringing one of his most important speeches to life please keep in mind that this is a reenactment of a speech that was
016originally written and delivered over 50 years ago one of the words has been changed because it is considered offensive if used by people writing or speaking in although that is not the word that was originally spoken by dr king because our intent is not to offend but to educate we felt it was important to change it memory bus boycott speech is one of dr king's first major addresses dr king spoke to nearly 5 000 people at the hold street baptist church in montgomery on december 5th 1955 just four days after mrs rosa parks was arrested for refusing to relinquish her seat on a montgomery city bus that arrest led to the first major civil rights campaign in the deep south in half a century in this speech king urges the audience which has just voted
017to boycott the buses to continue that campaign until they achieve their goal of ending the humiliation and intimation of black citizens there and elsewhere in montgomery or to use his words to gain justice on the buses in the city my friends we are certainly very happy to see each of you out this evening we are here this evening for serious business we are here in a general sense because first and foremost we are american citizens and we are determined to apply our citizenship to the fullness of its meaning we are here also because of our love for democracy because of our deep-seated belief that democracy transformed from thin paper to thick action is the greatest form of government on earth but we are here in a specific sense because of the bus situation in montgomery
018we are here because we are determined to get the situation corrected this situation is not an all-new the problem has existed over endless years for many years now blacks in montgomery and so many other areas have been inflicted with the paralysis of crippling fears on buses in our community on so many occasions blacks have been intimidated and humiliated and oppressed because of the sheer fact that they were black i don't have time this evening to go into the history of these numerous cases many of them now are lost in a thick fog of oblivion but at least one stands before us now with glaring dimensions just the other day just last thursday to be exact one of the finest citizens in montgomery not one of the finest black citizens but one of the finest citizens
019of montgomery was taken from a bus and carried to jail because she refused to give up her seat to a white person now the press would have us believe that she refused to leave a reserve section for black people but i want you to know this evening that there is no reserve section the law has never been clarified on that point now i think i speak with legal authority not that i have any legal authority but i think i speak with legal authority behind me but the law the city ordinance has never been totally clear mrs rosa parks is a fine person and since it had to happen i'm happy that it happened to a person like mrs parks for nobody can doubt the boundless outrage of her integrity nobody can doubt the height of
020her character nobody can doubt the depth of her christian commitment and devotion to the teachings of jesus and i'm happy since it had to happen it happened to a person that nobody can call a disturbing factor in the community mrs parks is a fine christian person unassuming and yet there is integrity and character there and just because she refused to get up she was arrested and you know my friends there comes a time when people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression it comes to time my friends when people get tired of being plunged across the abyss of humiliation where they experience the bleakness of nagging despair there comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life's july and left standing amid
021the piercing chill of an alpine november there comes a time we are here we are here this evening because we are tired now and i want to say that we are not here advocating violence we have never done that i want it to be known throughout montgomery and throughout this nation that we are christian people we believe in the christian religion we believe in the teachings of jesus the only weapon that we have here tonight is the weapon of protest that's all and certainly certainly this is the glory of america with all its faults this is the glory of our democracy if we were incarcerated behind the iron curtains of a communistic nation we couldn't do this if we were dropped in the dungeon of a totalitarian regime we couldn't do this but the great
022glory of american democracy is the right to protest for right my friends don't let anybody compare us in our actions with the ku klux klan or the white citizens council there will be no crosses burnt at bus stops in montgomery there will be no white persons taken from their home and pulled out on some distant revenge for not cooperating there will be nobody among us who will stand up and defy the constitution of this nation we only assemble here because of our desire to see right exist my friends we want that we are going to work with grim and bold determination gain justice on the buses in this city and we are not wrong we are not wrong in what we are doing if we are wrong the supreme court of this nation is wrong
023if we are wrong the constitution of the united states is wrong if we are wrong god almighty is wrong if we are wrong jesus of nazareth was merely a utopian dreamer that never came down to earth wrong justice is a lie love has no meaning and we are determined to work and fight until justice runs down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream i want to say that in all of our actions we must stick together unity is a great universe and if we are united many of the things we not only desire but what we just deserve and don't let anybody frighten you we are not afraid of what we are doing because we are doing it within the law it's never a time in our american democracy that we must ever think
024we're wrong when we protest we reserve that right when they were all over this nation came to see that it would be trampled over by capitalistic power it was nothing wrong with labor getting together and heritage of this land we who have been oppressed for so long are tired of going through the long night of captivity and now we are reaching out for the daybreak of freedom and justice and equality may i say to you my friends as i come to a close and just giving some idea of why we are assembled here that we must keep and i want to stress this in all of our doings and all of our deliberations here this evening in all of the week and wild whatever we do we must keep god in the front let us
025be christian in all of our actions this evening that it is not enough for us to talk about love love is one of the pivotal points of the christian face faith there's another side called justice and justice is really love and calculation justice is love correcting that which revolts against love the almighty god himself is not the only not the god just standing out saying through hosea i love you israel he is also the god that stands up before the nations and said be still and know that i am god and if you do not obey me i will break the backbone of your power and slap you out of the orbits of your international and national relationships standing beside love is always justice and we are only using the tools of justice not only
026are we using the tools of persuasion but we've come to see that we've got to use the tools of coercion not only is this thing a process of education but it is also a process of legislation as we stand and stick here this evening and as we prepare ourselves for what lies ahead let us go out with a grim and bold determination that we are going to stick together we are going to work together right here in montgomery when the history books are written in the future somebody will have to say there lived a race of people black people fleecy logs and black complexion a people who had the moral courage to stand up for their rights and thereby they injected a new meaning into the veins of history and civilization and we're gonna do
027that god grant that we will do it before it's too late as we proceed with our program let us think of these things but before leaving i want to say this i want to urge you you have voted for this boycott and you've done it with a great deal of enthusiasm and i want to express my appreciation to you on behalf of everybody here now let us go out to stick together and stay with this thing until the end now it means sacrificing yes it means sacrificing at points but there are some things that we've got to learn to sacrifice for and we've got to come to the point that we are determined not to accept a lot of things that we have been accepting in the past so i'm urging you now we have
028the faculties for you to get to your jobs and we are putting we have the cabs there at your service automobiles will be at your service and don't be afraid to use up any of the gas if you have it you are fortunate enough to have a little money use it for a good cause now my automobile is going to be in it it has to be in it i'm not concerned about how much gas i'm going to use i want to see this thing work and we will not be content until oppression is wiped out of montgomery and really out of america we won't be content until that is done we are merely insisting on the dignity and worth of every human personality and i don't stand here i'm not arguing for any selfish
029person i've never been on a bus in montgomery but i would be less than a christian if i stood back and said because i don't ride the bus because i don't have to ride the bus that it doesn't concern me i will not be content i can hear a voice saying if you do it unto the least of these my brother you do it to me and i won't rest i will face intimidation of everything else along with these other stalwart fighters for democracy and for citizenship we don't mind it so long as justice comes out of it and i've come to see now that as we struggle for our rights maybe some of them will have to die but somebody said if a man doesn't have something that he'll die for he isn't fit
030to live i think we can clap on our microphones right um thank you all so very much it's so nice to see from see so many students we don't get to see that many students normally in our meeting so um thank you and by any means if anybody else from the board wants to say anything please please speak up okay i just wanted to thank everyone for taking the time to engage with the civil rights team and for bringing this um [Music] just really powerful speech to us today and it's it just uh i feel overwhelmed that we're in the year 2021 and still addressing the same things that he was in a lot of ways but thank you for your all commitment to the civil rights team and that work in our district i
031really appreciate it and i think also i it's just so impressive in a year as um unprecedented is this where usually um throughout my four years of high school it's been in the auditorium as mr scott related to how amazingly it was transferred to a virtual format and it didn't lose any of its power um and i think just congratulations on providing such a powerful video and i think it's almost great in the sense that this can be sent out everywhere now so it's captured on an online format um so that provides a benefit in itself good point elias um all right seeing no other comments um we will move on to our next item which is approval of minutes um i'll do a motion in a second ask for any discussion and then we'll
032do a roll call for the vote so do i have a motion for approval of december 14 20 20 minutes so moved thank you in a second second okay i need a second okay i heard mike williams um uh is there any discussion okay um seeing none um all right so roll call for the vote uh peter bingham yes kevin desmond yes marco harrington yes and massimovich yes tyler mcginley yes kate perrin yes mike simmons yes jennifer stewart yes mike williams yeah and elias leggett bar yeah okay and then moving on to the second approval drive emotion for the january 4th 20 21 minutes so moved and a second oh second all right i heard ann thank you uh any discussion okay seeing none we'll go back through peter bingham yes kevin desmond yes margo
033harrington yes and maximovich yes tyler mcginley yes kate perrin yes mike simmons look stain i wasn't present thank you jennifer stewart yes mike williams yes and elias legit bar yeah okay thank you so we will now move into public comment um i know that there are some people that have emailed and i will let andy moderate um just it's the same rules i'll start the timer for three minutes um andy you can go ahead all right uh sean mcgregory of cumberland [Music] thanks can you hear me yep all right sean mcbridey cumberland uh and current maximowicz parents supporter of socialism anarchism and marxism who on 10-5 did not stand for the pledge of allegiance to honor the american flag or the troops fighting for her freedoms who was on the msc 51 equity inclusion committee
034and school board recently decided to turn her attacks rage and hatred toward a member of the cumberland town council and what they posted on social media almost two years ago out of context of course you see progressive leftists wants to lash out at anyone they can and their hatred is real but generally their facts are weak it's called selective outrage culture they support critical race theory in our schools with your tax dollars shaming your children because they were born grading division sam approached superintendent jeff porter to down 6-2 when he sent out his letter to the community effectively stating any community any student in grilli should be ashamed because of the color of their skin or their hard-working parents as a reminder to all he's done nothing to heal the talents in this letter in
035the six months since he's also skipped out on two requests to meet to talk about these issues and devise a real plan to move forward with the town of cumberland frankly no one cares about your race gender identification or skin color just the context of your content of your character martin luther king taught us that selective outrage culture is also what folks have experienced from comments placed on a facebook group called anti-racist organizing for cumberland north yarmouth you see it's a private facebook group which means they can selectively let members in and ban others from entry or simply kick members out this page run by is run by none other than and maximum alex and elizabeth doesn't seem very educational inclusive or accepting does it don't worry though anne there are plenty of members who
036send me your rants as screenshots also you have people all around you that are horrified by your behavior just like chair tyler mcginley people are reaching out to me unsolicited free speeches you've learned works both ways and you see ann you don't recognize what you're doing by advancing your own personal agenda as an elected official is illegal but the concept of facts due process and the law seems difficult for progressive leftists to understand many times they'll just instantly trigger what's one of the opening questions to join this facebook group what example of white privilege do you see in cumberland in north yarmouth you see anne stockpiling a list of white privilege issues to come after you next most likely they'll be faults but hey let's not let vaccine that we have counterculture i'd like to
037leave you a couple quotes one from candace owens we need to stop calling them liberals and begin referring to them exactly as they are american communists from martin luther king i believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final world word in reality that's why wright temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant martin luther king would be ashamed of what you've done to divide the towns of cumberland and earth yarmouth with your equity platforms his goal was unity and your goal appears to be division we'll make some changes in june have a nice night thanks andy do you have anyone else to speak this evening yep next up is kim vine of cumberland thank you hi everyone am i on yes okay um i would like to be the opposite voice of what
038you just heard i have had children in the school since fall of 2001 and my youngest won't graduate until 2026 so 25 years of being an msad51 parent with no gap at all there have certainly been times that i have wished that a teacher or an administrator would handle something different um because we're all humans however the response this summer to the racial unrest is not one of those times that was a time when i was extremely proud of our town um i wish that mr mcbridey had not just left this meeting because i would like to find a way for people who do not understand systemic racism to to learn that it does exist um one quick example is i went to get a band-aid today at rite aid this band-aid i don't know
039if you can see it is the darkest shade that is offered uh sorry walgreens and if that is such a simple way of realizing that our society does not put people of other colors to the same level of equity that we are and that is not a guilt that is not something that is being accused at anyone in particular it's just shining a light on an area of our country where we as martin luther king has often or often pointed out we are failing to do that so i wanted to make sure that there was a voice tonight uh that was opposite of what you just heard please continue the good work that you're doing thank you jennifer mancini of north yarmouth hi uh good evening i wanted a second uh the support for the
040equity work i think it's a big hill to go up um but it's something that we have to keep climbing so thank you so much to the board and the administration for putting that um forward but i also wanted to um talk a little bit about the pandemic and what's going to happen afterwards so i want to look forward to life after this this particular pandemic and i want to thank the school board and the administration for the hard work that they've been putting into meeting the varying needs of students at this time and i want to say that i coming out of this is is a hope but also it's a daunting task too and i want to support a robust mental health support system for the students and the families who need it
041in fact um as i look to the future where more pandemics are inevitable i want to advocate for encouraging students in the fields of mental health social services social sciences psychology neurosciences and behavioral health because i do have to interrupt you you have hit your three minutes i have to be consistent i apologize i do encourage anyone that does exceed the three minutes you're welcome to send what you've prepared to the board and we can review it that way as well okay and that's it thank you so we'll move on to presentations now and um equity has been a topic already this evening and we will continue with that topic um we wanted to start with reading publicly um a joint statement that was delivered uh or um made on december 11th of 2020 not
042that long ago and myself and ann are going to split up this statement as it is a bit lengthy and don't need to hear just for me the whole time um and i just wanted to kind of preface all of this this as well as the present myself and we are as a board doing all we can to be as transparent as possible and to continue to make equity work a priority we do have pushback from a small group of community members here but we will continue to show what we are doing we'll continue to share we will continue to ask questions and continue to learn on what's best for our district so all of this is part of that conversation the department of education maine school boards association maine school superintendents association maine administrators
043of services for children with disabilities maine education association main principals association and maine curriculum leaders association and physically enthusiastically affirm the right of every student to an equitable education we profoundly instead fastly support the educators and districts in maine who are taking on the work of understanding and dismantling racism and inequity in our schools and communities we urge all maine schools and educators to accept their role and responsibilities in examining and addressing the inequities that have long existed in our society and institutions we define educational equity as providing a student is excuse me as providing each student a legitimate opportunity to learn grow and thrive in school and beyond equity depends on a deliberate and systemic abolition of inequities that have been sewn into the fabric of american society these persistent inequities have long disadvantaged
044students on the basis of race sex gender gender expression language physical and intellectual ability socioeconomic status sexual orientation indigenous origin religion and all aspects of human identity that have been subjugated within our society we recognize that education is one of many systems that have had a role in perpetuating racial inequities and that through close examination of our system we can and must strive to attain diversity equity and inclusion of all voices and experiences we believe this work is central to living up to our promises of providing an outstanding education for every maine learner and continuing to be a public education system of excellence we recognize and commit to our role and duty as maine public education leaders to actively partner with all schools in constructing a new educational paradigm founded on the certainty that every
045student can and will be successful when schools are schools is a welcoming safe place for all school community members to bring their whole identities with them social and emotional behavior supports are understood as a critical prerequisite to academic learning students primary and home languages are recognized as assets cultivated and leveraged every educator in every role shares the responsibility for ensuring equity for every student and participates in equity education both in teacher and administrator preparation programs and ongoing throughout their careers families are meaningfully engaged as partners in their children's education and welcomed into our schools all academic and non-academic programming is culturally responsive and co-constructed with its community members examining racism and inequity is difficult work as each student of maine is a future citizen of our global society we believe this work that needs to
046be engaged and respectfully and civilly by all schools and communities in our state understanding and addressing racism and inequity will take many different forms all of which are valid and needed already many educators school districts and organizations are exploring this work in some of the following ways defining with school and community members what makes a safe and welcoming place for all and committing to the vision reviewing your sau's controversial issues policy and best practices for engaging in discussions responsibly and and response responsively and responsibly engaging community members and discussions and actions to ensure that schools are a safe and welcoming place for all students engaging in equity audits to examine a variety of practices and programs expecting all students personnel to all school personnel to engage in professional learning about anti-racism and culturally responsive practices
047reviewing and revising curricula and materials to ensure they are well-rounded decolonized and representing all experiences adopting anti-racism instructional practices programs and policies establishing establishing diversity equity and inclusion committees of stakeholders stakeholders establishing expectations that every student will achieve and is challenged with rigorous curricula creating supporting or amplifying student civil rights teams within each school we believe in the power and responsibilities that are bestowed on our educational institutions to provide a safe and equitable place in which all students can thrive and where students are encouraged to examine their world their beliefs and their role in society through multiple perspectives we believe all students all families and all human beings deserve to be celebrated included and heard and we are committed to supporting our students and educators and taking on the challenge of examining and changing our
048practices we stand united in our commitment to this work and our support of the educators who are courageously stepping up and stepping into the learning growing and changing that is needed our organizations will continue to provide resources support and technical assistance as we all expand our own knowledge and capacity to engage in this critically important work on behalf of our students and our collective future thank you man so we'll continue to build on this with the next presentation but i think it's important to recognize that our school our district is not unique in this work that this is clearly a supported work um by the numerous associations that put out this joint statement so i think it's just a great framework to remind us that we are doing the right work and that we are
049i think the other part that i really appreciated about this statement is that it really gave us some good action steps as a state and gave some tangible things that we can plan and look forward to and just as a quick side note that on january 8th i think that's maybe last week or a little bit past that they uh the doe also really released an anti-racist education for all of maine which is a series of free workshops for maine educators and i do believe that jeff superintendent porter has shared that with our staff in hopes that we have some participation from our district during those workshops so thank you ann for helping me read that um and then i'd like to introduce um director of southern maine partnership at usm uh angela atkinson duina
050and she is going to give us a presentation about the usm partnership that a small portion of our equity committee will be participating in with i believe nine other districts maybe that number has grown um but that our first session will be this friday so we're really grateful angela to have you with us and just for the board we are going to angela is going to be open to questions and answers after so jot down questions and we'll figure out how that works after hello everyone good evening um i've been relegated to the basement in my house since my family's up there having dinner um i don't know if penelope is still on but i do want to give her props for having the best background i think um so i wish my background were
051that that colorful and interesting um i i do have a little slide presentation just to share with you uh and i also have some handouts that i can share in the um link here let's see if i can i'm a little more skilled with zoom so i've just shared a it's just a shared folder that has the informa it has our presentation and also has a couple handouts that include some more details so let's see i'm going to yep i think i'm there is that good all right great um so i'm just going to give you know a brief overview i have about i think six or seven slides here uh and then we will have plenty of time for questions or um discussion if you have any more questions and i'm just going to
052start really at the kind of simplest level like what is the community of practice because there is um there is kind of some general characteristics that they they have in common it's a you know some kind of group focused on collective learning uh it kind of it has a characteristic of commitment and competence and a shared domain so it kind of assumes that the mem the members are committed and have some competence to to share as a part of the group it's not just you know a grand group of people that's around and have lunch uh and then they also kind of commit to developing um a shared set of resources and practices for addressing recurring problems and that's kind of the model that we've used whenever we started to create this group in our
053region right now we are we do have nine districts who have signed down signed on plus the southern maine partnership at usm and also the mid-atlantic equity consortium we consider us all partners that includes one designated equity assistance center which is supported by the u.s department of education that's uh mac i'll tell you a little bit about that role you know we are a regional university partner um at the at the southern maine partnership i'll tell you a little bit more about um that organization too and um what our what that entails and then plus we have nine districts uh from around our kind of local southern maine region and in total those have those districts have 31 450 students and they represent what i think of as maine's kind of diverse communities we have
054a rural district we have three small cities we have one town and we have three suburban suburban districts they together that's 18 of the k through 12 students in maine it's 16 of the students from low-income families in maine it also encompasses 56 percent of the english learners in the state of maine and 65 percent of the students who identify as black or african american in maine so um that's that's who has joined the group i'll also tell you a little bit of the back story about how we started to how we started to form um i would this was i mean it's about a year and a half ago when we started having conversations with some representatives at the maine department of education and also with some other local districts around an idea of
055coming together focused on the topic of equity we were also inspired by some groups uh that are run out of the university of pennsylvania and their groups they call them equity and excellence consortiums and they've actually been around for over 20 years of districts coming together to to focus on um you know equity in their community and that may and it's so for example districts have come together to focus on uh recruitment of diverse um educators or they've focused on achievement of low economic students or they focused on addressing the racial disparities that we see in our outcomes for students so we were kind of inspired by some of that work and we talked by the people that have been leading that work for a while and then the pandemic hit and i honestly thought
056i was like oh we're we're never going to this is never going to get off the ground schools have a lot of um already have way more than uh on their plate than really they have the capacity uh to address um and so we just kind of put it on pause for a while that was in march when we were starting to get ready to kind of launch it and introduce and kind of ask invite districts to join um but then um later in the year around june i think we started to see the some of the differences in impact as a result of the pandemic on students low economic students some of our our rural students that didn't have access to um study internet or to the racial disparities that we were seeing um
057in some of our urban communities around how this pandemic was impacting people differently and so i reached out to a couple of district superintendents i said you know we have this project that we had been working on with mac is this something that is worth kind of continuing to develop and bring forward or is it really should we just forget about it at this point and uh those those superintendents said yes you know i you know they they didn't know for sure if they would join but they thought it was worth the effort to continue developing so that's what i committed to doing um as part of the director for southern maine partnership to continue developing the potential for us to have this to start this group and it i think it's everything it seems
058to happen a little slower in the pandemic than in normal years and so this right now is kind of when we're just getting started it's taken kind of this this fall part to get everything launched um our schedule we have mapped out about i think it's eight sessions total uh our first two sessions are coming up uh next week and then or this friday and then wednesday those two sessions will kind of be time for us to form the foundation of the group together set our norms and then start to lay out the plan for the rest of our work together um and we hope although as things look now it's looking less and less likely that we might have the possibility of meeting having the group meet together live in june and we have
059about 47 almost 50 people that we will be participating uh in this in these sessions from the different districts um topics that we might discuss uh in general the process will allow district teams to be able to analyze their practice around equity to develop plans to address equity related issues and implement best practices to address any gaps the topics that we've listed here are really based on the expertise of um mec and mac by the mid-atlantic equity consortium and this other main partnership so these are topics that um that they've that they've dealt with they were also topics that were kind of um suggested to us from um different kind of thought partners who um who were working with us as we develop this project i'm not going to read through all of them but
060um they're there and then a little bit just so you have some background on the partners who are engaged in this project i'm here as a representative of the southern maine partnership which is an initiative of the usm ed leadership program i'm also an assistant professor in that in that program i just joined at the beginning of last year but the southern maine partnership has been around for 25 over 25 years and linking schools and districts and the university in support of students we have approximately 25 districts in the southern and central maine region that join us each year and we focus on professional learning networking and topic based forums the mid-atlantic equity consortium we reached out to them they are the equity assistance center that's assigned to our region those are centers that they
061receive funding from the u.s department of education to do their work focused on on equity and the mid-atlantic equity consortium it's the kind of second third or fourth i think the third year that they've been the equity assistance center for our region but they had served as the equity assistance center uh for 22 years already so they really bring a rich history of providing technical assistance and training focused on increasing access to educational opportunities increasing academic achievement for ethnically economically and culturally and linguistically diverse students um you know i also wear the hat actually of a parent i have a daughter in the middle school and i have a son in the high school uh we have been in the district since they entered kindergarten all but uh two years when we went to abroad
062to canada for a few years um and whenever we told them you know if we go to canada would you like to you know if and if we come back um how important is it for you to keep going to school and msa d 51 and they were hands down they did not want to try any other place they if we were going to come back they wanted to make sure to come back to their schools here and to me that was kind of that's the best selling point is what my kids say about their day and their work but when i look at as a parent and i think about the work that our district is doing i just wanted to also connect it to some of where i see some of these connections
063to this our group the community of practice and your and the goals of course it doesn't matter so much what i think but more what the board does but i see you know our commitment to collective responsibility um as being um part of that connection i also the board has named uh you know a specific focus on equity and diversity and you know has noted the nes the necessity of supporting the work of the equity leadership um steering committee uh and then also i think you know we all do aspire to have our students ready for global citizenship i know i certainly expect that of of my own children who have grandparents in other countries and you know having that broader outlook is really important to us personally so i think i'm gonna see if
064i can stop sharing stop there we go and i'll just open it up if you have so i i would uh welcome this is a great time to ask questions from the board i've been part of this conversation from the beginning so i'm going to open it up to the board so please unmute yourself and ask any questions you may have i'm happy to ask one um angela i thank you for being here tonight and just kind of giving us an overview of the plan i'm excited to hear that uh the first meeting is coming up in january i just as a board member and in my former role as chair have had so many parents and community members reach out to me just really supporting this work supporting it happening in our school supporting
065these conversations and so to see this plan to see it happening to see it happening with other districts to see different types of districts represented i'm just really happy to support this and to see it moving forward and i'm looking forward to some periodic updates from the equity committee hopefully at our board meetings minutes etc thank you kate i mean i think even uh you know this is has been my profession for a long time and i think you know if you're going to focus on equity it really is important to have a have kind of a group working with you um so uh anyway i i think that that's kind of one of the benefits of coming together on this mike williams yeah thanks tyler um angela this is fantastic i'm quite excited about
066this work uh just a quick question of um so i haven't been in part of the discussions uh but just interested in what you think the type of support us as a board should provide to ensure that this is as successful as possible i'm gonna i'm gonna leave that up to them to tell you what they need because my guess is that your steering committee would be able to communicate with you about what kind of resources they feel they need and what kind of support that they need one of the kind of underlying principles that we've used as we've been thinking about this project is just valuing the importance of district self-determination so we understand that the um you know the equity challenges that each district might face will be really um unique to them
067and so i think um you know that's just important to acknowledge us at work even if we're coming together we you know understand that districts will take their own path forward tyler i have a question about um uh i don't exactly know how to say it it seems like these are big ideas that have been worked on and different districts are at different um you know throughout the journey they're in there in different areas and i'm just wondering um how quickly we can make um changes that are felt by students i mean i think that that really depends on the plan that you decide and the focus area that your plan specifies um i think you know i i have a little bit of a historical view on this um topic too and i think
068it's important to recognize that you know equity isn't new right it's been around since the federal i mean at least since the federal age legislation in title one um from 1965. so um i think to me where this this latest wave is a little bit different is that instead of saying like special groups are now in charge of equity like your title one people are in charge of equity for econ you know our low-income families or our english language teachers are in charge of equity for our english learners that this is this is about communities committing to you know being responsible for the education of all their um youth you know i think you have julie who's you know carries the torch for your our special ed community and you know those of those those
069people have always existed i think like i said what's changing is it's more about everybody taking ownership of their collective responsibility for all the kids in our communities thank you does anyone else have anything that they'd like to ask angela directly while she's here um i believe our next steps at least as it relates to the board of course we will give updates but um our our hope is that we would be able to bring a work plan of sorts um to the board to have it approved and margot i would assume that that would be an opportunity for us to discuss what those um action steps are and and how they relate and how they affect students directly so i'm seeing that as an opportunity to talk about um the answers to your questions
070directly to margot uh jeff did you want to say something yeah i would say thank you to angela uh angela extended the invitation for us to um to look into this and really appreciate it um this is a tremendous opportunity um and southern maine partnership is a great organization usm i think we're going to in mec we're going to learn a lot and we have a team of i think it's six people or five or six depends on the meeting who are involved from our district and will be attending those um workshops i think the first one's friday yeah so we're really excited about it um and and to move forward with this work this is really um tremendous and just very positive and it's it feels like a good fit for for our district
071thank you you know i can i just going to add one more thing um that that kind of spurred this topic that i think school boards have to be interested in because of their responsibility to kind of oversee the fiscal resources in a district and um so we started seeing mec was doing work in many districts in maine and they were doing kind of the same work in each district and um so this kind of collaborative approach does allow us to have technical support that is shared among districts at a much more reasonable cost uh also working with mec they're able to um you know as part of their contract with us is underwritten by their funds from the federal government so that was another important factor i mean we did kind of talk with
072uh two other groups that had um had provided technical assistance to school districts around this this kind of work and neither one and and because of they didn't have kind of the access to the to the federal funds their prices were much higher and so i just want to point that out because i know that boards do have to keep that in mind thank you angela it's a super important point uh especially to this group so um so thank you again for your time i look forward to seeing you again on friday um and maybe another update in the future so yeah so thank you again all right thank you for having me have a great night okay um moving on to our next presentation shifting gears a little bit to live streaming um dirk
073van curran are you ready yup good evening everyone um yes definitely a shift uh to what's happening actually at the schools right now i'm gonna go ahead and start presenting my screen uh on what is happening with not only the equipment but the things that are available to our teachers and the work that they've been doing so what i've taken you to is the staff resources page and you should be able to see distance learning for teachers here so the rollout of the equipment has been happening i'm going to take you to the equipment shortly but this is basically the work of a group of people that run k-12 with administrators teachers jeff and myself and donna green to basically figure out what distance learning looks like and how do we make this happen not
074only is the equipment necessary but if we look at this grid here you can see that we go from the what is learning down to what's concurrent learning and this is kind of where we ended up following down into the lighter yellow where what is video conferencing what is live streaming to keep this asynchronous learning so this kind of gave us a framework to then move into there's four areas of this website we have what is the teaching and learning which that page is hold on this was done by a partial group of the work group of this video and then the slideshows explaining this to teachers and what all the definitions are then we went ahead and because we are google for education school we wanted to make sure that they had all the
075tools they needed to be able to see and use meets to its fullest extent part of the funds were used to purchase google enterprise which gives us all the bells and whistles for google meet plus some other things that aren't relevant to distance learning or live streaming there's also the fourth page which is two areas that will actually be used by administrators and teachers for what are the expectations of students and expectations of families uh when they are doing live streaming from home so how does this all happen we're going to go to what is the video conferencing equipment which we'll start with the cameron sound bar this is the polystudio usb video bar it's a basically a uh what we'd call you see in your home television set of a sound bar on steroids
076it has the ability to focus in the camera on the speaker intuitively into the camera so it'll follow the teacher if they move around the room giving them more capabilities than just staying stagnant in front of a camera we have combined that with a what they call a hot foot that will allow it to be on the tripod so it gives the mobility for the teacher to put this where they choose to in the classroom um some are putting in the back of the classrooms others in the front some are focusing on the whiteboard some are turning it around and showing the entire class so that the kids at home have a better connection of feeling that they are at actual school and they're there for learning we also combine this with a monitor the
077monitor expands what they normally would see on their laptop so that they can actually put the google meet up on this monitor and see all the kids that are at home in a tiled view um i think most of you you have figured out how to use tiled me the tiled mode within google meet so you they can see all the kids at the same time and also see the kids when they raise their hands moving on down all teachers so this equipment just to reiterate is 6 or 4 12. the elementary level has a different approach to how they're going to handle the live at-home learning but all teachers will be receiving the ipad air including the of which the ipad air will also come with the ability to mount it on this kind
078of holder to turn it into a document camera if they choose or a third screen the tablet also using a product or a software called jamboard will allow them to actually write on it like a whiteboard it'll be broadcast to all the students through the projector in the classroom but also on to the presentation like i'm presenting now and the kids would be able to see it right from the jamboard versus having the camera focus on the the whiteboard which sometimes can be problematic if there's glare so that's um that all these three items so the the ipad air which has just been released plus the pencil and the holder should really enhance um the creativity side of uh teaching as well this is the highest pixel rated camera so from a standpoint of imagery
079if it's say a lab and they're showing a lab project it'll be very clear then we're going to move on down all our six eight classrooms got a new projector ultra short throw they've been pushed off for a couple years of getting the ultra short throw projectors so um those have all been installed and been getting great reviews from teachers on how clear these are the laser is definitely a step up from a bulb projector we also have installed these and in the process of installing them in miw this um because there was additional funds available in the first round of care funds and we're halfway through the installation of that mabel i wilson for the most part also requested these um portable pas that are wireless so that when they're speaking through masks they're
080well heard within the classroom you don't get that muffledness um it was very important at the younger age to have that amplification capabilities we also have a few eight of these interactive new line displays which um basically work as a large laptop or an ipad for that matter you you uh can have it as a basically a flat screen tv in projecting what you want we also have the stands that will rotate these to be horizontal to the floor and make it a table because there are 20 touch points on these and there's certain programs that will make for more interactive learning um at the elementary level of kids can actually stand at more of a table and use it than it being uh projected on the board so when kovid leaves our norm and
081we're able to all be around one of these they're they're pretty uh dynamic um so that pretty much sums up all the equipment that has been um put into place for the live streaming there was of course a lot of work that was done in the uh i'm going to stop presenting here on the network which i don't think you wanted to see a bunch of cables uh and switches wouldn't wouldn't excite me either so and then there was also some things that were done for our video class at the high school we've upgraded you've seen the camera in the the equipment that we've done at the gca for your live board meetings we've got an enhanced um unit for the gca we also got another unit that will allow the athletics to do a
082better live streaming of athletics not only for this time when we can't be in the stadium and watching athletics but it will be able to be used afterwards and we're really pushing on the video classroom uh participants to become those videographers and produce things not only sporting events but also um like a today show type thing or news or weekly news events or even going out and broadcasting things like open night or open mic at the middle school and those types of things so really boosted that up and then also some of the equipment in the gca that wasn't purchased uh when they built the gca so um quick down dirty lots of things moving uh we've been straight out since i would say march with everybody out but also with these funds you've probably
083seen pallets of things moving around schools but i also will open it up for questions that you might have and i know that the other administrators are here on the call so they might be able to add some light on what's happening at the different levels as well so thank you and dirk before you um jump into questions from the board we should also just add that we've had a group and dirk referenced it of teachers and administrators have been working on for several months now working on launching live streaming um and we've had two subgroups that have actually worked on instructional practice using the equipment we've had a group of 15 teachers who have been using kind of not this equipment but basically whatever they can do to make this work before the equipment
084was ordered and brought in so we have some kind of in-house residents resident experts on live streaming we also had a subgroup working on procedures for live streaming and making sure we're up to date on that and we begin kind of more the formal training on friday although we're also bumping it out to um next wednesday as well for six through 12. to to get more training on this so we've got a good group working on this and helping to steer the ship i just want to thank dirk and the tech team for all their work on getting all this equipment in the hands of teachers um along with everything else has just been a tremendous feat yeah jeff i can't reiterate the group not only that work group but also all those first teachers
085that have stepped up in our alpha group and now people in the beta group they're really looking at peer-to-peer help within the buildings because the number of pieces of equipment and also the uniqueness of every single setup everybody teaches a little different but they all have the same equipment so they're all working together what works best for them so the having all these mavens within the buildings helping each other to come up with what the you know figure out what they're trying to do and then try to get the equipment to match and have them teach at the at the highest level using this equipment has been really fun to watch and the amount of work that they're putting in above and beyond is phenomenal so that's great uh i see what mike williams you
086have a question or is your hand still up from before kevin desmond's got a hand up i think my hand was up from before sorry about that so mine actually is uh is up dirk um i had a couple questions thanks for your for your work and that of your staff um a couple things um and and i'm gonna ask you about resistance from uh from anybody uh in a minute but we could defer that over to administrators but you know it would be really helpful uh it's great to talk about this and and look at the imagery but um if if there's a way that we can put together a board demo that would be more like where the board goes to school so that we can see in real time as people are
087elevating uh onto the system what it is like to be using this what the what the experience is for the teacher and for the student perhaps you could consider that um i i think that uh well i'll throw that out to you do you think that's something that could be put together yeah i think if we weren't remote tonight i was gonna have something more uh hands-on touchy-feely at the gca for you to see the camera working and projecting and and what that rule a mock room would look like so um but i think what we also have an opportunity as these mavens the work that they're doing is maybe capturing some of that um those setups and have them actually explain how they're using it would be beneficial but but seeing in real time
088and of what people are experiencing i think that that can be much more informative to the board than it would be looking at it in the demo mode within the gca i know that i would find that helpful um i i like the stuff that you just showed mere moments ago with the the expectations of of students um and families and that piece of of helping having people elevate each other's use of the system i think is fantastic could we ask the administrators thoughts questions or um any place where there are challenges in the implementation resonance think we're still trying to not only figure out the equipment because a lot of it is what is this that's been dropped on me um and getting it hooked up and making sure that all things work like
089i know that we've had some issues with just a monitor is not working here or there but i think for the most part once people get the camera the poly cameras and they hook them up they find they're pretty easy to use especially just from a camera standpoint then they start expanding out and and figuring out okay now i've got to match it to my my teaching so from a hurdle of the equipment i don't think we're seeing as much as maybe we thought we would have because it is so intuitive once it's hooked up and it ties right into google meet they're already been using google meet since march uh for all the red learning there so um there there will be some um i would say resistant uh groups but i think because
090the number of people that are working together within the departments and you're going to see the peers helping these other people over the the line to get to where they need to be is the staff development day on friday focusing on streaming part of it is just explaining to the people that just received or receiving the equipment the explanation kind of what i just gave you of this is what's coming this is what's going to show up at your door and basically we were going to do let them get it on tomorrow but it now will be a week from tomorrow that they'll be getting the rest of their equipment okay 6 12. thank you chris did you want to add well yeah kevin i don't know if you were looking for an answer from
091the building specifically or from the um but i'm happy to just um add a little bit more i think i'm happy to speak because i think our teachers at the high school have had um the most opportunity at this point we have about 50 of our teachers now have the equipment in hand um about eight staff members got it in mid late december an additional uh 21 staff got it just when we came back from vacation and then the remainder we're scheduled to to get it this week um and um yeah i i think dirk is correct that the most challenging component of this is um you know merging the capabilities of the technology with the instructional planning and design that a teacher is used to and that's what we've been stressing um with our
092with our teachers i think for for the for the non-tech savvy individual there are some things to figure out here and that will take time um i can't give enough credit to the group of teachers that did take this on right away we've had a small core who have been incredibly helpful to many of our staff in getting set up and it is that peer-to-peer learning that's going to make this successful um yeah and i think um um yeah i just um in my conversations with the parents who've been reaching out to me about this and what it will mean for their child's education i've been um you know while expressing my hope for our ability to better connect with students um in our instructional leadership team meeting last last friday we we talked about
093this as a as a through line to students at home um in terms of maintaining a connection maintaining a relationship building upon the learning to them um so while i have been expressing that hope i think some patients will also be important because for some people this will merge immediately with how they roll in their classrooms and for others it will take more time and um and on that point i just want to just make a quick note about language uh dirk used the term concurrent learning early on in his presentation and that's what we've been stressing with our with our staff only because um i think when we say live streaming we um the implication is that you're just turning a camera on and watching what's happening and and our focus is on integrating
094the students who are at home as a part of the learning experience to the greatest extent possible and thereby including them in what we're doing so that's there's just a quick quick attempt to summarize a whole lot of things for you from from the high school perspective it's very helpful thank you see margo you have your hand up thank you um chris can i ask you a question about what you were just talking about does that mean that teachers will be mixing their cohorts by virtue of having this technology or are they how does it how does it really work with two groups of people learning the same thing at different times and crossing over i'm so glad that you asked that question um how does it really work that's a question that i think
095we've all been grappling with because i think um it's one that yeah i think it works more easily than others dependent on depending on the goals that you have and the way you're going to approach teaching and learning i think um and so with with our teachers uh in the meeting we had last week i um you know we talked about we've been sort of talking about different modes different instructional modes that the teacher might take and how this might fold into those modes so for example if if i'm the teacher more or less leading direct instruction where i am you know providing a mini lecture or really guiding the lesson pretty essentially myself then um you know perhaps it is just the camera on me and i'm randomly calling on students in the classroom
096and i might randomly call on a student at home and so that's just sort of a picture of how a normal classroom might work but for example if i were interested in and then yeah another sort of fairly simple modality might be if students are doing independent work where they're doing a independent research project guided by the by the teacher you know i might get get all provide students all with the same initial overview and then and then you know provide support to student a and then student b in the classroom jump on the computer to see how students c and d are doing some of those students if they don't need that assistance maybe they maybe they leave the class meeting online for a portion of time these are all things that are sort
097of like close to the teacher's relationship with their students and how they run their classes but these are all things that i think some of our teachers are already doing you know i'm thinking of a teacher already who's more or less provides a mini lecture to start class as an example and then break students out to do some individual practice problems and is constantly circulating the room but also then checking the computer to see if students at home need help or assistance that's a second mode and then you know we could go on from there perhaps if i am holding a seminar discussion where the focus is really on the students and their ideas i may integrate the students at home in one of several ways that you know those students at home might merely
098be listening in on the seminar that students are holding and then have the opportunity to respond um i might hold a facilitated discussion where intentionally a student in the classroom participates followed by a student at home followed by a student in the classroom etc i think the the key to any of these strategies is intentionality and and the sort of intentional design for participatory engagement of of all students and you know i'd be lying if i said that that was easy because it's not natural in the way that it is for a teacher who's been doing it in a classroom only for so long but i think there's great potential for us to again extend our teaching and learning but but also maintain and deepen our connections with students on the days that they're at
099home which um you know to be honest even though i do think there's potential for us to teach more my focus with our staff has really been on deepening our connections to students and supporting them in their learning more than anything else i appreciate that thank you uh first of all i would really like to thank you scott and your team because you've had to in in a six month period come up with a plan purchase the equipment begin installation under a deadline of december 31st and i think it's an amazing accomplishment and the public ought to thank all of you folks for that really herculean effort and and my question is uh while we're doing all this have we been able to upgrade the video facilities and the performing arts center so that when
100we're up and going with concerts and [Music] things like that that we can uh provide some good performances for the public to view yes we purchased a top-end live streaming setup from data video studios which allows i think up to i think it's 12 cameras and multiple sounds and tie it into our sound production system so that we can actually produce television quality productions out of the gca thank you very much that's all i have just have to learn how to use it elias did you have something i guess this is more of a comment but um i haven't had the pleasure of taking part in a concurrent class yet so far this year um but i think i'm more just really excited at the fact um of it hopefully providing a more um immersive
101learning experience and um just taking that another step towards uh having it be more normal than obviously um it has been so far and i think it's it will be what i love about the concurrent aspect rather than the live stream aspect is it will almost feel like you're a part of like i think it's as simple as just hearing your classmates voice um in the back of the class ask a question and you think wow i haven't seen that person in like eight months eight to ten months it's just like almost um it's it's just not the level of seeing them in person but i'm just excited for that element of not only furthering the learning um within the class but just providing as mr hoffman alluded to a more um connected learning experience
102to the kids with cohort a interview thank you elias i have um just two i have a one question and then just a side comment is um how far along are we if you were to say we're on a timeline sounds like there's still some equipment that's being delivered um this friday to staff at the high school how far along are we with this whole investment have we received all of our equipment are we expecting a lot more um to come no it would yeah okay i would say we're 90 there with receiving if everything getting it into place i think where the time now is is actually getting it uh not only in their teacher's hand they're basically the live streaming equipment short of a few things going to maybe wilson and 4 5
103will all be in place by monday tuesday of next week and literally that's 25 setups at the high school and probably about 20 or so at the middle school 6 eight other things that we i also didn't mention that we also refreshed all fourth fifth and sixth grade laptops they all got new chromebooks we're in the process of just making sure that those all got to the new kids and only a few of those remote kids have not traded theirs in because their other ones are working fine so there hasn't been a push to say oh i got to switch it out so i would say we're like 90 there okay cool i'm just i know this was a big lift so i'm just curious i remember january in my head when we first initially
104started talking about this and um 90 is pretty awesome to be in january um yeah and then i just want to we'll go ahead half of the middle miw's projectors are scheduled for the 27th 28th that wednesday thursday uh of next week to finish the projectors in those classrooms so awesome um mike says his fifth graders updated chromeback is a significant improvement um i just wanted to say chris i appreciate it and i i'm i'm guessing that this might be the intention as from the district that the intention is to deepen the connection and support to students and i'm really glad that that's the focus and and not necessarily just the teaching or the academics behind it um i really think that that is a huge need right now so i just wanted to say
105thank you for mentioning that i think it's really really important to to prioritize um scott did you want to jump in yeah i just uh just want to let people know that the inventory is on hand what what hasn't happened is there's a little of a few pieces that still have to be hung projection units things like that but the inventory we have on hand because we had to have it on hand and purchased by december 31st so so it's just a matter of just finishing up some minor installation pieces okay thank you scott does anyone else have any questions either for administrators or for dark okay i'm seeing none well hopefully next time we have an update we can see some of this in real time i had mentioned to jeff knowing that we
106don't have the opportunity to really do a typical board goes back to school i thought that maybe the board could participate in some classes somehow and so it sounds like um there's some opportunity there for the future to utilize some of this equipment at the same time so thank you dirk appreciate all your work and all your teams work at the same time um so next we have a superintendent's report jeff i will let you take it from here yes i'll be brief i know the meeting is going on for a bit so um so just want to congratulate um anna penza clive whose work was selected to be exhibited in the umass dartmouth emerging young artists for 2021 jury x exhibition so it's quite an honor for anna and that's um great that we
107can recognize her sophomore miranda cohen who recently took place in her division at the musical theater singing competition uh sponsored by the main chapter of the national association of teachers of singing and um sebastian alfreds and matthew gilbert who are students at the high school as well for participating in a virtual all national uh honors chorus and they'll be interacting uh with internationally noun conductors and actually this already occurred i believe and best singers from every state in the nation maple wilson school um for the friday staff development day is teaming up with bates college in lewiston um they'll be participating in a training around how to utilize utilize best practices with diverse books and text and so we're excited to be welcoming them at mabel wilson school it's a virtual training the 6-8 chorus
108at the middle school presented a um basically a kind of a musical on life during a pandemic it's actually really really neat i'll have this link in my blog just beautiful and it's it's amazing what kids can do even during virtual you know with virtual tools to to make music uh sound great i don't know how they do it because i can't make music sound great in person so how they do it um in person and then virtually is amazing um and then the last thing um tonight is just a very brief um strategic plan um update at the mid-year this is more for the public i've shared this with the board we do have a strategic plan it's largely been on hold this year we have three priorities that we've continued with doesn't mean
109we've dropped all the work in the plan just means that we're really hyper focused on three areas right now first one being the pandemic response plan which really was a was a novelty to the strategic plan of course in this unique year really been focused on health and safety i want to thank the health team for all of their support and guidance and work and give a special thanks to the nurses for contact raising contact tracing and more contact racing and i will tell you there hasn't been a vacation there hasn't been a holiday there hasn't been a weekend that has gone by it feels like at least in the last three months where the nurses have not been contact tracing or following up on cases so my thanks to the health team for all
110that they do obviously focused um on the yellow zone this week we're not in the yellow zone we have been virtually uh the whole time school has been open and i hope to get right back to that but in person learning obviously is a priority or virtual learning days and how to support students on those days and then our remote school um the case response for covid we've certainly learned how to respond to the myriad of cases that have come forward in getting ready for red we're testing that out more than we have um at least collectively as a district this week um and as you obviously have made the investment in live streaming which will support this communication around covet making sure that we have cases that they are out there that our website
111is transparent and has resources and that we have been providing and will continue to provide opportunities for stakeholders to weigh in which will be coming up again and finally mental health and you know recently this focus on mental health is obviously becoming very important as we're in the kind of the throes of winter and the throes of the pandemic having uh resurged um after going through a period of um you know basically a lull in the summer in the fall we knew this was coming back and here it is and how do we you know navigate mental health issues that come up the mental health team um which we have some members of our social workers group and our school counselor group will be with us at the next board meeting to talk about mental
112health perspectives what they're seeing concerns and answer questions from the board at the next meeting and then finally um is the k through five facilities i'm also at the next meeting which will be a hybrid meeting regular and workshop the workshop portion will be a presentation of a rough concept design by oak point associates they have largely completed that concept design it now goes to the facilities committee at the end of january and then we'll go to the board in workshop on february 1st so that is moving right along obviously we have the property that abuts the district is under contract we've done some consulting with the town we'll continue doing more the design is almost finished at least in the rough design that you'll be seeing facilities committee is looking at it and obviously
113it's going to the board after that the board will have some decisions um to make around a new building committee or taking the existing building committee and deciding how that will be revamped and then the communication and outreach that needs to occur as next steps in going forward so that is the very quick view of the strategic plan major priorities for the year or mid-year i should say thank you jeff so we'll move into committee reports first is finance kevin thank you uh we have a meeting tomorrow morning uh virtually uh to go through have a presentation by the superintendent on the budget and then ask some uh some questions following that that's uh that's our big update right now great thank you uh ann from policy hi we just um met before our full
114board meeting this evening and made some final revisions to a new policy for the boosters that we'll be bringing for first read to the board um next month awesome thank you uh peter facilities uh jeff did all my work for me we have a facilities committee meeting uh next tuesday at 12 30. oak point has been hard at work and doing some additional tweaking and as jeff has said uh barring anything that comes out of facilities we should be able to make a report to the board on the first of february and that's all i have great thank you peter uh curriculum mike simmons uh nothing new to report but we do have a meeting next thursday the 28th at 4 30 p.m virtually awesome thank you and elias do you have anything to report
115from student land i mean i guess the most relevant thing as of this week is just the switch to red um we're at the high school uh we were gonna have 30-minute club we were gonna just given the instance of martin luther king day and then a teacher day on friday um we're gonna have all the block scheduling would be um combining the two days in two 30-minute classes for all class but now obviously that will be virtual and i think overall the gauge of the student body i think it is always a bit tough when you have not only things planned out like particularly for me and um being in full ib we have we were we had um buy a planned lab planned out um lab time on wednesday to work on our
116bio ias which um just given the unpredictability of this year obviously can just go up and smoke just like that um and it's no one's fault i think it's just tough that uh when those things come around they can kind of take some wind out of the students sales um just in the age of almost you want school more than you obviously don't want school which is kind of a new uh mindset on this year um but i think we've all learned come to see how much we really cherish in person learning but aside from that um i'm looking forward to getting back into the uh and i think all students are looking forward to get back hoping to get back in the yellow format um along with looking optimistically to the future with live
117streaming and concurrent learning so i think overall it's just as as unprecedented this year as mental health can fluctuate in um more than it would in a regular year but i feel like from my perspective it's almost good keeping in mind that this year could have been midterms week like usually martin luther king is midterms week and we don't have that to worry about so there's always a silver lining i appreciate your positivity elias um all right so moving on to communications we have two um just updates that came across just talking with other board members um first um during our workshop last time together um we had shared or i had shared the prince memorial library book club and i know that mike williams and jennifer stewart had volunteered to participate and mike wrote
118to me asking if you could give a quick update so mike do you want to give us a update maybe just a little bit of background on the club if you can yeah sure uh thanks tyler so it's uh folks at the prince memorial library uh kelly librarian there and uh jacqueline young uh the high school librarian uh at grille high um put this effort together where they they uh it's effectively created a book club for both teens and adults uh to discuss issues of race and equity through literature um in over four months one meeting per month january february march april um and taking it in different styles of books um different authors um and we had our first uh discussion uh last week and it was fantastic it was the book pet um
119and i will absolutely butcher uh the auth the brilliant author's name uh their name is um and it's an extraordinary story um i i it's hard to even summarize it's effectively a a a teen uh who is dealing with monsters in her in their community that's and it's that notion of what a monster is uh a a monster a a person who is hurting others and it's not necessarily what you think it it sort of pushes their bounds of how of your your your accepted notions of monsters uh and how they're dealt with of what they look like what they how they're perceived it's just really interesting and the discussion was so rich it was so engaging it was wonderful just to be a different people in the community i hadn't talked with before and
120to just really get uh get into some really hard issues but just in a really wonderful comfortable way so i encourage folks if you're interested uh just check out prince memorial library website it's right right up there at the front uh next book's coming up in february i think it's i am alfonso jones which is a graphic novel um so yeah it's really good i don't know if jennifer if you wanted to add anything too mike i think you did a good overview i hadn't had a chance to read the book so um getting in but it was definitely a great discussion to sit in on and it would be nice if we could encourage um some of our young adult readers to join up in the club we had a strong representation from from
121the older crowd but it'd be nice to get kind of a mix of people in there so um it may be a good opportunity to do something with your child and have those discussions at home along with having it out in this forum so thanks mike thanks tyler awesome thank you guys for participating um and then kate perrin i know you had mentioned something you wanted to share or at least bring um to the board yeah so i had i've emailed jeff uh thank you for being so responsive um i've reached out to some other community partners and leaders i just am going to keep beating this drum of monitoring and creating an action plan for mental health of our students our staff and our community members as much as we can i have never
122seen so much collective grief in my community i have never seen such hard times for so many people and so when we hear from the school social workers i would really like to see the entire district team represented each school what they're seeing and the action plan um i need some clear i need a clear outline from them so that as a board member i can support them through the budget process and through my board membership because we absolutely have to get on this and i think we're doing a pretty good job but i think this is one of those things that we need to be exceptional at thank you kate um okay so we're going to move into um uh executive session so do i have a vote for that or a motion sorry
123so moved thank you in a second second thank you all right so we'll move into executive session thank you to everyone that is here i appreciate your time conversation i'm sorry we have to vote well no there's one item for action that i i think uh yep you're right sorry i've made too many notes on my paper okay so before we do that um we need to do an important vote which is vote to authorize authorize the superintendent to execute an extension of employment contracts for administrators um so i'll take a motion in a second and then i think jeff's going to give a little bit of background so do i have a motion still moved and maximovich thank you and a second becca peter bingham thank you uh jeff do you mind giving us
124a little bit of background on why this is here with us um typically this is um an action item on the board's agenda in the second meeting in june um and for years and years uh predating me um the administrator contracts were approved after the budget was approved however in the administrator's contracts it says that there should be approval of the contracts prior to the first meeting in february i think is how the wording is so for years we've not really been adhering to those the contractual language they will say coming from another district where it was always on schedule every year before the first meeting in february that is something that i had said several months ago after the june vote that we wanted to get this back on the right schedule we've been
125trying to get all of our contracts on the right schedule for approval whether it's continuing contract teachers uh probationary teachers and making sure that um when i first came here there kind of there was a holdover to carry contracts until after the budget was approved we slowly got the teachers off of that cycle started getting them approved when they should be which is in april and may depending on whether it's continuing contract or probationary and so doing doing the same with the administrators and getting them on the right schedule so i just i'm making a note of that because for those of you who have been on the board for a while you probably remember approving this item in in june after the budget's been approved okay does anyone have any questions before we take
126a vote okay so peter bingham yes kevin desmond yes margot harrington yes and maximovich yes tyler mcginley yes kate perrin yes mike simmons yes jennifer stewart yes mike williams yeah and elias leggett bar yeah okay thank you all right so um now we will move into an exact executive session already been moved inside and seconds i didn't know if those still count because we had to back up so i think you need to state the reasons for going into executive session okay so we are going to enter an executive station session to discuss negotiations with msid 51 education association msad 51 school lunch workers and msad 51 bus drivers pursuant to state statute one mrs 6d so if the motion in the second still stands i will ask for a vote peter bingham yes kevin
127desmond yes marco harrington yes and maximovich yes tyler mcginley yes kate perrin yes mike simmons yes jennifer stewart yes mike williams yes and elias legobar yeah okay all right so thank you to those that are with us tonight nice to see you in the screen uh elias you are free to go as well thank you for being here thank you it's been an honor okay so lastly we need a motion to adjourn so moved in the second okay and last roll call roll call peter bigham certainly kevin desmond yes margot harrington yes and maximovich certainly i like that certainly mcginley certainly uh kate perrin yes mike simmons yes jennifer stewart yes michael williams mike williams uh and elias isn't with us so thank you all for being here tonight talk with you all soon have
128a great night