ABRSD Committee Meeting 6/18/2020

001does oom webinar where I can you mute all right remotely via zoom webinar with track of how many be school committee members we have here but Jenny is absent and Jonas absolutely joining us later and where I can you mute yourself then yes all right prayer about participation policy ve DJ a with participation is possible via the zoom link or calling phone number our school three means are also live stream on YouTube although public participation is not possible with that option the link phone number and youtube link are found on the posted agenda on the navy school spot or a calendar this meeting is also being recorded and will be posted on actin teepees website at X and T V org for our remote policy all votes will be down by roll call I will

002call each member's name and they will state how they vote thank you for joining us so tonight is our last meeting for two of our longtime members and I want to start with that as part of our welcome Michael Bo also had his bus meeting him already but his term ended this year so think I want to just start by saying and thank you to my and making off Murphy and Marco for serving on the committee between the three of them they represent 17 years of service I know that some members have prepared things to say this evening as we as we move forward but this because my empower here to hear it Michael is not I'm gonna start off by thanking Michael since he already had his last meeting Michael served two years on

003the school committee and came to us after serving on the Boxborough comm he was dedicated to transportation issues as well as transparency of the budget process he served on both the budget subcommittee as well as the policy subcommittee and most recently he was hired the debt service committee michael was passionate about his views and helped provide a different perspective to many committee discussion we thank him for his service and if there's anyone else who would like to share something about Michael now is your opportunity and if you raise your hand I can certainly if Diane Maya is next in alphabetical order so I know you had something prepared to say about Maya Maya is your third or fourth term it's three break to know it turns to turn a six six plus years okay all

004right so you started before me I thought you might hire I had to you at nine so you did six okay no I cannot believe this is your last meeting I really can't but Maya served my haven't served on the superintendent safety task force she did so and I think was like 2015 she was the PTSO liaison she lived her technical expertise as a member of the building committee before it's when it was added at its inception and whose work everyone knows resulted in our new school which we will break ground for in the next few weeks I guess but her passion and our long-standing commitment was to the policy subcommittee which she had been a member of for at least well for all of your time here I guess pretty much so I had

005the pleasure of sitting on policy with my ass couple years ago and I have to say I really admired her consistent commitment to crafting policy that youth plain language and was readable and understandable the fam two families that meetings Maya hasn't uncanny way of being honest kind and empathic well at the same time critical and unflagging and her opinions about what is right and wrong for the students in this district she holds people accountable I saw that time and time again after listening to Maya opine about something she feels very strongly about you leave with an urgent sense of agency to do better for the students we are elected to serve and you also feel heard and respected by her even when you disagree my aunt once literally jumped out of her seat during JD's

006school committee PowerPoint presentation on the Charter Road and the campus redesign this was bad this year back on November 21st you ran up to the screen and she spontaneously redesigned the area near the tennis courts on masta Ave near the junior high why because she insisted that students have to have a shady and inviting place to hang out that was just who she is my idea of the mind and the soul of an artist that tiny extension of Kellis corner in JD's PowerPoint that night was your canvas you did not just see what was there in the slide you saw what was possible and that is how you see the world and that is how you approach school committee work thank you for teaching me to see the world as a canvas rife with possibility

007I am deeply grateful that your tenure coincided with mine and I wish you the best as you not as you move on to different canvases thank you for your service I was beautiful Diane sure know what's up did you want to say something I just a little thing is that my I joined together we went through the whole process just that first year together and one thing she said to me that has always stuck with me and it was that she said as long as we just keep our students as our true north and we make sure that our decisions we keep that in mind then we will we will continue and we will always make the right decision so I there's something I think about what I want to chime in myself because my

008you have made my time on school committee so incredible not only have you become an incredibly supportive friend who I know I can call and meet you too but you know you've shown me what everyone comes to school committee with something different you know some people come because they have a passion about special education and some people come because they have a passion about finance and other kinds of things and I think that you really have shown me that it does take everyone you're not the loudest at meetings but when you decide to speak and have something to share it's incredibly important and incredibly thoughtful and incredibly important to moving the discussion for it and I have the honor to serve with you on policy as well and I have to say that there couldn't

009really be someone better on policy because you would read through those policies and say this isn't going to make sense to somebody who's reading it and like what is the point of a policy if no one can understand what it means and so that's really stuck with me a lot and it will going forward because we won't have you want to see any more but I just want you to know that that was a really important important thing that I think that you've contributed to this committee so thank you so much and I know that this will be the last time we talk but I have really enjoyed my three years for me all right Amy I know you've prepared something to say for Paul so would you like to go dig and it is

010definitely my pleasure to get to say something about Paul and his nine years on the committee when I first joined Paul was the first person to reach out and offer to help to meet with me to help you know navigate this overwhelming process and since then has become a good friend turned on just about every and multiple roles multiple times but I would say that I think the one role that he took that was really important to the district was that he served on alg for many years and the relationships that he built on ALG with the with the other two boards having going out and having drinks you know just really kind of building up friendships may be very difficult negotiating conversations much easier because you felt like you understood the other person so

011I really appreciate that top has the biggest heart and he has spent all the committee all of these years on the committee really thinking about students and you know when he talks he's talking from his heart and that he really cares about students and I guess I'm really going to miss your calming and caring presence I'm still favorite picture ever on we had school committee pictures on the website Paul with his kid I mean the best picture ever thank you baby annum yeah I wanted to say two quick things about Paul that I learned from watching him as a member of the School Committee the first was how to extremely respectfully disagree with somebody else's idea I think Paul is the master at doing that and and then the second one and I will continue

012to think of Paul every time we do this is to always accept to move to accept every donation with gratitude I agree with those sentiments exactly Adam well you have been a source of a source of comfort to me like when I've you're always a good neutral party to to ask questions and to see another we're carrying an empathetic side to something you're a good balance check when it comes to that kind of thing and I absolutely oh you drink and truce because we sat down to have you know a discussion and Nate got stung by bees and I had to like leave mid-conversation and it was horrible it was absolutely awful because we thought were gonna have to give an EpiPen and and probably have not forgotten so now that things have opened up

013hopefully we can go and have that drink and just be friends or anything like that I did finish your drink for you oh well thank you excellent all right well we are so grateful for your service both of you and you know sorry Peter so be brief but I just want to say thank you to both of you you know I think you both have different perspectives and different ways about you but now what I appreciate about both of you is you definitely have students of all of your beliefs so it's been a pleasure to be working with you over the last couple of years since I've been here I get it the participants like hand raising thing was in front of your picture on my screen so okay I didn't I just want to

014note that there has been a change to the annual town meeting scheduled and left rows will now be held the same night we will all get to enjoy our social distance meetings and John is not with us right now because he's at Acton Town Meeting and I will be going over our presentations next Monday and then presenting so 3.2 is public participation anyone that wishes to participate to my an item that is not listed on the agenda is welcome to raise their hand you have up to three minutes to speak I don't see any hands so with that said we can move on I don't think I saw our high school representatives they are now done with school so I imagine that they have checked out yes Angie did you ask me to share no

015I'm sorry it looks like you made your hand up okay so then that will bring us to to Peter for your school closure update so thank you Tessa first you know I just want to say thank you to all of you for all of your support during the closure this has been a long stretch you know I want to just come in our high school administration and staff a little more time for all of the work that they did for putting on our commencement ceremony for the students you know it seems like it should be something easy that I our company put together you know everybody but I know you know particularly literally Genevieve the high school putting just hours hours hours into making sure that and you know our kids were celebrating appropriately so

016I want to recognize that I also want to recognize our elementary principals for all aboard they put in to providing a sixth grade set up that was also memorable for those students reading elementary school really trying to capture the of their community and have send-offs that we're going to you know we are continuing to look forward into next year I do not have any updates in terms of planning for next year we continue to await guidance from the state around you know what school might look like we did understand from our last Commissioner meeting that I had that we would receive guidance mid to late so the good news is we scoped out the possibility but that could occur we are hoping to have that I do think once we receive the guidance from the

017state it will likely take our planning teams two to three weeks to be able to digest that dissect in a bit and put together kind of an initial framework of our plan because we just don't know what we're going to see and I need to make sure our teams come in time to be able to look at that we are working on the transition website and what we do is as soon as we have a framework of what we can release to the community so we will also release that website simultaneously with one consistent place that all of our families can continue to go throughout the summer to get up-to-date you know I do recognize that it's frustrating for everyone involved we don't but you know I think we're in a waiting game when we

018do get guidance a anticipate we'll see initial guidance out of the state that will then be updated later in the summer the reason that that's the case is I think even the state understands the state understatements the course of the virus you know really can't be determined like this Massachusetts has been trending much to the cosmic to the point that I knew in my heart believe we will be welcoming back our kids to the campus in some form but I think the state wants to make sure that they don't put anything down that says final guidance until we get really close to opening it just in the event that something show the message for all the communities is consistent and if we just don't know what we don't know right now so more to come

019in terms of planning for that well you know a couple of weeks ago you know we sent out a letter from our leadership team to send our support for all the recent protests at the school system and some of the feedback we received we really talked to heart as the leadership team was you know we appreciate the words but we need to now see some actions and we need to know what the schools are really going to do to combat racism in our community we know every year but that everywhere includes us and so our leadership has thought about this quite a bit and you know through Don and my conversations about this you know with some of our principals and other leadership team we really thought about a lot of the language in our

020strategy had been focused on building inclusive schools and one of the things that we came to is a really important conclusion is that I think we need to pivot from this idea of just building inclusive schools to really becoming explicitly anti-racist in our approach to how we want to build the culture of our schools in our community so you know we'll we'll talk to you more as we go through but the premise of being anti-racist is essentially that you can't choose to be honest you can't say I'm not a racist or we don't have you know where we choosing to be gone races there's no such thing it's either you're going to continue to support the systems that have led to the issues we're seeing in society and you know where we have people who

021are continually impressed over time or you can choose to start to dismantle those systems and really think deeply about the processes that you're going to put into place our leadership team had these discussions when you chose to pivot our strategy of it to be much more actively we also know we're in the middle of a pandemic and we are planning for something that really is a compressive it took in terms of need to plan for next year very significant depending on the circumstances so you know we would love to charge really head on into all of the work to become truly a fair race but we also in really too short - so what we wanted to do would put together some really clear actions where we can commit to our community about what they

022should expect to see from us between now and the time our students are turning the fall we've seen it we can work with our committee over the summer long term solutions and strategies that we have in place finally we can a long term plan knowing that committee was in a state of transition to be able to develop that plan so things were bidding to file and a lot of this was based on community feedback student feedback that we've received over the course of the last few months so number one we're going to implement an anonymous reporting system that will allow us to better collect information about incidents - including microaggressions discrimination bullying and harassment important first step in creating a student staff and community around issues that you know our stakeholders experience in their schools

023we know that we investigating claims of harassment and bullying but we don't have a great system of understanding all of the things that are taking place the idea of implementing an anonymous reporting system is really to make sure that we have the right data and we're being transparent about what we have to solve for issues second we are going to reconvene our family advisory for diversity equity and inclusion if you recall this was halted during our closure which is really unfortunate particularly in light of the recent events I feel very very badly that we didn't continue with that but as you know we stopped just about every major initiative yeah we do commit to meeting with that group over the summer and working with that group to develop a longer-term plan to review not only

024our policies but to be able to use that group help review some of our curriculum through both anti-racist and anti-bias lenses the third commitment we're making god is that prior to prior to our transition back to school we're going to provide our educators with professional learning that will support them to first recognize respond and stop consonants of bias racism and second implement age-appropriate curriculum learning activities and classroom discussions around racism bias and social justice for all West students pre-k through 12 that obviously looks very very different you do not talk to a preschooler about racism the same way you would talk to a student in grade 12 but we will be implementing activities and appropriate curriculum at all of our grade levels as we return to school we also commit to continue to develop affinity

025groups for both our students and educators of color provide them with opportunities to engage in dialogue on issues that are important to them as well as to be able to share their unique perspectives of experiences this is something we've heard ask from their students and it's something we've heard acts from a faculty finally our fifth bit right now is that our seed traders the seeking educational equity and diversity trainers have developed a new professional learning opportunity for 80 educators that they're going to undertake this summer and that is to help our educators that isn't just not just between the major step to understand your own in the quest of biases but this is now focused on helping our educators people and anti-racist curricula and have those brave dialogues and classes because we know those have

026to be done sensitively and consistently across our schools so you know I think the last piece that I want to highlight is we did choose to do staff why look read and we're hoping that we can involve you with our school committee members in that as well we chose the Walcott to be in the anti-racist by Ibrahim X candy and you know he is one of the modern thinkers on racism right now this book is widely acclaimed and it's flying off the bookshelves particularly right now and so this is something we want to help all of our staff have a common experience over the summer but we know that book clubs don't cut it the work that we have to do and so what we're also committed to do is as we've returned to school

027some of those first three days of professional learning time that we've allocated will be specific to be packing the issues that the book raises with our staff but also helping them to plan forward into the types of activities so I wanted to provide a brief update and on which may not seem so brief right now but I wanted to provide that overview of the commitments we have but before you know I take any questions or comments done I don't know if there's anything that you want to add to that my a mute button is down no I think I think you really covered it well and I think that summed up all that we sent up all of our family press is really where we are and what we're going for for the future so

028I know thank you Peter I know at least Angie reached out to me and asked me to say I just want to know to everybody and we do have a proposed resolution from the mas e so that we can take our own steps of as a statement at least as a school committee that's further on in the meeting but if anybody has a question or statement here Jack and Leah go first I kind of had people go first I don't think anyone else is raising their hands at the moment scope okay go go right ahead okay so yeah thank you feed Peter that though I'm so happy to see we're taking the initiative and all this and I kind of with so many things going on like this is my topics probably not hundred present

029on your topic but I kind of see that the 25 is its own is half wait while we're fighting it was what we're fighting with an invisible Liars and I see the society is also calling for changes now I'm looking at all this chaos with all this chaos I'm looking at it but the other perspective is envy this is a great opportunity for education so what perspective do we want our students to learn from this what critical thinking processes our students are learning or experience from this so what that is do we want our students to build so beside our core value of equity inclusiveness or / anti-racism wellness how do we also continue to build empathy kindness gentleness patience and love we we we also earlier this year we discussed the fixed mindset and

030growth mindset I'm just watching the media recently so how do we help our students and families to build a growth mindset build communication deep within the families and with that have may have different perspectives and so we can focus not what's different but folks about trying to find a common ground and to build so we can build together so I'm just the other thing I want to be obvious with all this kind of non-stop event this year for many students especially the more vulnerable students it really needs space stability in this kind of uncertainties so I just want to look I know that we're doing it but I just still want to focus that our students wellness and set and safety are still our priorities thank you and you thank you Andy thank you for

031centering what will most likely be our work throughout the summer and as we start next year thank you community all right I just wanted to publicly express my gratitude to Don and Peter for the work that they are already engaged in around race for this summer and next year it just really sets us sent a strong message and sets a steady course forward and I really appreciate that I really really do what our affinity groups that was my question how do you want to jump in affinity group is usually a group so for instance we might have an affinity group for staff members who deaf members of color for example staff members who are black staff members who are LGBTQ is there basically support groups for individuals from historically marginalized identities or communities especially within

032a district where the majority of our education force and our leadership team is predominately white Tamlyn thanks Sofia and you leadership team for everything you're doing need to create a community where everyone belongs and everybody singing and I know it's gonna be a heavy mix but I think we're trending in the right direction as a community and we were finally doing the right things as a district to ensure that every kid that goes to baby things in this received world is welcomed and it's included I think one thing that I may have listed while your school but I think that we also have to look at recruitment process and see how we can move good staff of color I know you know it's not gonna be easy for us to get people of color to

033come in this district and and teach and I know I've had fun you know folks that I've spoken to why they don't want to come because they don't have the security mean of the world and all that but I think that you know as we do in health care when you really want a physician you go out and you recruit them you caught them it's a baby it's a fact you do it and you bring them in and so I want to see us do some of that and I know we're not gonna get up to half of this I'm not asking for half we need a counselor helper for instance which must add all kinds of color we should at least make an effort to get a counsel of coloring in I think you

034know we've seen in the last few days so what has happened more and hits of color to feel that there's somebody within the district or the school system that you can go to either need to speak to me that can resonate with your feelings and and understand them the other thing that I would like to suggest is that you know I know the kids of color have brought up that way ever get congregate the police is always there and currently looking at them and I don't know why but I think that we want to make them feel like they belong in the school in the school and they're part of the school and even if the police is just showing up yes it's in an already congregating during breaks have a conversation with them let

035don't let them feel like you watch them and then you know they're probably doing something bad and you're trying to catch them doing something bad so I think some of what some of the stuff that you mentioned is there great things that we're doing as a district but and we can only do one thing at a time but I'm hopeful that over the next several years we'll get where we want to get to thank you I think that's fantastic and I think you know we're hoping to come back again next fall and share more about the work you know when it's something you know Murray and I started talking from an HR perspective where we're now collecting data and we're allowing cannons so identifying as educators of color or you know from other marginalized groups

036and what we're looking at right now is collecting the data about who's getting interviews I know HR reaches out to principals to make sure that principals are aware so the they can move forward in the interview process but then we're also trying to collect data about every step along the interview process so that if we don't the number of candidates a color that we want to making it into our finalists interviews and getting positions we can identify exactly where along the way that's breaking down and then have really targeted solutions so for example I'm not getting a lot of negative reply then we have a recruitment if we're having a lot of candidates apply but they're not getting interviews that's a difference but we want to be really targeted in our approach to make sure

037we understand you know thank you for that comprehensive update which was not quick or short but it was important identify four point why not our agenda as a presentation from our special education Parent Advisory Council Amanda Bailey and Kerry Weaver or the seat back co-chairs is here tonight but per policy bdfv our CPAC presents to the school committee in the fall in the spring to share their annual goals and other topics they are working on the School Committee has we had three leave zones this year to those to the Diane Paul and myself it looks like Amanda's here I Amanda and so I mean do you want me to allow you to show your screen so you can control the presentation would you want me to prevent um I can just blame Advanta that would

038be great you can just say that pull it up and then share my screen and I did promote that Lee Dixon to pay analyst in case anyone has questions at the end and I have background noise apologize event thank you madam chair members of the committee my name is Amanda Bailey Kerry Weaver and I are the 2019 2020 co-chairs of the acton-boxborough special education Parent Advisory Council with a CPAC I'm here this evening to update the School Committee on our organizations goals and priorities from the past school year and dance please easier said than done there we go okay for those who may be unfamiliar the CPAC is a state mandated volunteer run organization to advise the district on matters pertaining to the education of students disabilities from national law the seatback also participates in

039the planning development and evaluation of the district's special education programs advancing the cpap works on two levels individually and collectively in addition to advising and providing resources for families we use information gleaned from these conversations our business meetings forums is surveys minute advisory capacity to effect district level change we're a fortunate in acton-boxborough to have one of the more successful working relationships in the state among the CPAC the School Committee and the administration to accomplish this before addressing our goals there were many things that took place our broader community this year to positively impact students with disabilities among them the district professional learning day in the fall emphasized inclusion practices Universal Design for Learning the town's approval the school building project will result in a fully accessible modern facility for students from the early childhood

040program as well as replacing two outdated and accessible elementary school buildings extra communication boards were installed at the early childhood program acting site Conant and Blanchard to help facilitate interactions on the playground we celebrate these as well as the unanticipated and Herculean effort it took to move to the remote education of students with greatly varying levels of need advanced please permitting our actions for the year we continue to improve outreach and engagement building relationships we participated in the search process for a new special education director we pursued required use of percentiles and evaluation reports and our big achievement for the air was to monitor early reading assessments interventions to develop guidelines for those buttocks plans to explore some of these in a little more detail with turnover leadership at the district and building levels let's

041the access to burn energy to forging connections with new administrator these efforts go both directions enter a special education director wtx and met with us under our meetings and events for the superintendent met with the officers to discuss Dei and literacy initiatives and in our community forum we were working with the Blanchard administrators in the gates PTO to provide presentations on basic rights with special education and the continuum of interventions when the pandemic hit here we hope those kinds of efforts will pick up at them in the coming year the CF was also pleased to recognize a dozen staff members has put forward by parents and guardians for their efforts during the closure then you may recall we presented in the fall the CPS request the district adopt views of percentiles in addition to standard

042and scaled scores in all evaluation reports simply using scaled scores and descriptions and mask gaps within student learning profiles may indicate the need for individualized intervention or support in a special education director Debbie Dix moved very quickly on this and we celebrate the universal adoption of this practice will help facilitate interpretation of reports by families in fact lake regarding education outreach the seatback had planned a series of basic rights workshops with surrounding districts including an IEP for my child then transition age ie peace for students ages 14 or not the CPAP greatly values his partnership with parent leaders from surrounding towns unfortunately the series was interrupted after the first presentation during the pandemic the Federation for children with special needs does have these workshops available as webinars translated into a number of languages at the

043end work the intelligent live screening the fall was attended by families and staff alike continuing conversations around inclusion the seatback also hosts our first family social in years which was well received the Ceefax major focus this year was around dyslexia screening and intervention through numerous conversations the CPAC developed a set of recommendations as seen in your packet these encompass screening reading support identification general education reading instruction intervention service provision imposed your mediation advanced please please note these build on the district's ongoing efforts we bring these recommendations to you and hope that they will inform the school committee's decisions regarding the AVR SD budget for curriculum materials professional learning and staff trained interventions like orton-gillingham and Wilson reading literacy is a social justice issue thanks to all those who participated in this process this achievement reflects

044how see packs should operate and work with their districts and then there was a pandemic the chairs met was superintendent light and the interim director early on to address concerns about how remote instruction would be developed and delivered the CPAC urged the inclusion of the special educators on all grade level curriculum teams their participation made an immediate impact on the accessibility of materials provided students such as audio recordings of the expungement in Google applies as we suspended business meetings from March through May the CPAC published a parent Guardian feedback form to gather concerns to H the administration on April 22nd we presented the community on the then most recent developments regarding special education during the closure Debbie made herself available for Q&A with parents and guardians we continue to track weekly times daily guidance from

045the state special education directors and that come in from disability advocacy what about the fall we're doing a lot of batting down rumors while documenting parents concerning next by please we've listed here three ways for parents to provide feedback feedback the district in the state by participating the superintendent surveys we're going to have a feedback form posted on our site that we'll share with our networking West and people may also email the state return to school working group I thought email address we've also provided here places to go for up-to-date information one of the seatback schools for the coming years to monitor state guidance so families experiences regarding reopening schools and that will include resuming evaluations and compensatory services a lot of the ongoing our appreciation to outgoing secretary Melissa brown for her service the

046CPAC welcomes abrahamic achiara's as a coach a next year we currently have open positions on an executive board and will continue to solicit volunteers our meeting schedule is pending slide please we'd like to take this opportunity to publicly thank outgoing board member bill Guth line they'll serve the students of acton-boxborough for over a decade in various capacities with an organization of its own volition is passion for data-driven measures of student growth continue to rejoin you in the fall to first open the Ceefax objectives for the coming school year among these we recognize we have not done an offer to address and remove barriers to participation and leadership for black indigenous and persons of color who have parents and guardians of children with disabilities the November should voted on concrete steps to begin to do so

047our annual meeting last week the seat back further thanks superintendent light interim director Dixon and the school committee for your ongoing collaboration and support also in like his are their roles on the school committee Paul Murphy was our liaison for many years he will be missed and we're happy to take any questions you may have we put my thing so I can see if there's hands raised Thank You Amanda that was a great presentation very thorough as always Paul thank you man I wanted to just express my appreciation for Bill booth lines contribution it was a lot of his work the last seat back meeting but I like the voice in here a lot of the work that he did was instrumental in helping to create the Joint Commission that the Massachusetts legislature undertook so

048kudos to Bill for that a question I have for Amanda is that I noticed your your so you're keeping up with the deci website so as they are adjusting curriculum plans for the fall they're also updating the special education piece of that there's a weekly guidance going into special education records and Debbie can speak much more comprehensively to that profession I'm also involved with an emergency response group my number number as disability advocacy organizations so we're really on top of it but it's changing weekly I think they're really almost trying to play catch up a bit extended school year Dinah's came out round very late in the process kids who were turning 3 from early intervention and those who were turning 22 and heading into adult services were left in a gap for a number

049of months before we had clear guidance on that so it's coming but it's evolving very rapidly don't see anybody else having any investments which means that you did a wonderful job of answering all of them so we didn't even have them to ask thank you for the letter regarding the dyslexia recommendations I think that they were incredibly thorough with much appreciated as we move into another school year so thank you for all that working for organizing the discussion among parents I think that that was highly successful and a great place I know that many pear it's worth really really appreciative of the opportunity to speak thank you thank you it's been wonderful working with your goodness here thanks work all right thank you so the next we have several items that under new business to

050vote tonight so I'm gonna remind members that suggested motions are found on the agenda item cover sheets in the packet that that's so helpfully included this time so the very first thing we have is a proposed acton-boxborough Regional School Committee resolution regarding Hogan 19 state funding and this was put out by the MAS see and has already over 40 member districts I believe that have signed on to it I had an email earlier someone in the trading Regional School District asking if we would take it up and I assured her that it was being taken up tonight we just had a really late meeting compared to everyone else who had already taken that but it's been wanted to join the meeting so I can I guess I should read it so whereas if schools are

051to reopen this fall in the midst of the köppen 19 pandemic it is the responsibility of each school district to do so safely and responsibly and whereas it is the responsibility of the state to ensure that each school district is able to pay for the enormous additional staffing transportation and material expenses required to do this and whereas the state cannot expect mandatory copa90 and safety guidelines to be followed without also ensuring that each school district has the funds required to implement these guidelines therefore let it be resolved that the state must guarantee every school district full reimbursement for whatever koban 19 expenses are required to follow state mandates we must ensure a statewide school reopening that is safe responsible and equitable there can be no unfunded mandates for koban 19 I will entertain a motion

052I hope that we adopt the resolution as read with the deletion of the word in the worldís in the second paragraph I can't okay is there any discussion while were you raising your hand to discuss I was just gonna make the motion sorry that's okay well I will let you make the next movement to make sure that you have an opportunity okay we'll do a roll call if there's no other discussion Angie you muted yes Amy yes all yes Adam yes Sam yes Laura yes I am yes dawn yes everyone yeah great that is the way myself yes all right so ii nasc proposed resolution is is with regards to the response to social economic and racial justice in our communities so whereas schools have the responsibility to equip students with their civil right of

053obtaining a free and appropriate public education it is the responsibility of each school to ensure we create a welcoming community for all students and whereas it is the responsibility that every district provides to all district staff including school committee members annual professional development on diversity equity and inclusion and whereas every district will commit to recruiting and retaining a diverse and culturally responsive teaching workforce and whereas every district will examine their policies for institutional and systemic racialized practices and influence change with sustainable policies that are evidence-based and whereas every district Google Alert break into their curriculum the history of racial oppression and works by black authors and works from diverse perspectives and whereas we as school district leaders can no longer remain silent to the issues of racism and hate to continue to plague our public

054and private institutions resolved that Acton Boxborough Regional School District and all the school districts in the Commonwealth must guarantee that racist practices are educated and diversity equity and inclusion is embedded at practice for our students families faculty and staff I know that Angie at least had one thing that she wanted as a suggestion so I would just like us all to consider that before we get into the piece of making motions and there's a piece on the step next page that is also included sorry we must ensure our own school culture and that of every dish that of every district in the Commonwealth is the anti-racist that acknowledges that all lives cannot matter until black lives matter sorry Thank You Adam for 20 minute Angie what was the suggestion that you wanted to put very

055so on is the whereas every district will incorporate into their curriculum the history of racial oppression and works by black authority and the works and that nurse perspective so I added a line and continuing including those bad reflect the racial and ethnic diversity of our towns so Paul did you want to make a motion yeah I'll move to approve as amended by Angie second all right is there any further discussion Angie yes Amy yes oh yes Adam yes Diane Nora yes I am yes John yes Evelyn yes and myself yeah so that also passes unanimously thank you thank you for being additions and deletions next we have item 5.2 which is we believe as the acton-boxborough Education Association side letter we believe that our students will be better served if staff has provided additional time

056it's or to prepare for school to be open this fall approval of this request would move the professional day currently scheduled for November 3rd which is election day to Friday August 28th the voting calendar has teachers returning to work on August 26th and school begins her students on August 31st the November election day is a no school day for students aside letter is for those of us who are new was a document added to a formal contract already in effect so Marie did you want to speak to that thank you to all you wanna make an on motion I would love to I mean so I moved to proof I move that the Acton Boxborough Regional School Committee approved the a ve a side letter to change the November 3rd 2020 professional day to August

05728 2012 Angie you know Amy yes oh yes Adam yes man huh yes yes yes mm yes myself yes that also passes unanimously nice work people all right we're only 20 minutes behind that's not so bad okay so item 6.1 is Peter summative review so this is the part where I get to keep talking what we have why 20 school committee members everyone pleaded evaluations except for except for Evelyn who concerned that she had to get one and they said that she got a pass this year for just joining and I have compiled them into a single document to some of the review so I'm going to note that the public was invited to provide feedback and we did not hear anything so I'm going to read this someone who's you've given and then we

058can have discussion Peter Lane has accomplished a lot in his second year despite the shorter school year due to Cova 19 this is the overwhelming sentiment of the Acton Boxborough Regional School District School Committee it's 20/20 evaluation more specifically members noted Peters ability to skillfully navigate our district through the Sterling's he's always willing to listen and he consistently creates channels for better communications and opportunities his work is rooted in a sincere deep caring for the students and families of the district pairing his concern for the social-emotional needs of students alongside their learning and other individual needs is a resounding priority most notable has been Peters performance since the school closure in March you know Lee every member expressed appreciation for his swift reaction to changing circumstances and his honesty forthrightness and empathy in communicating with

059community members regarding changes Peter has had to lead us through a global pandemic economic downturn and wholesale change in the way education has needed to be delivered to our students Peter service to the district has remained steadfast and he has encouraged the team around him motivated them and gained their trust work with our teachers unions put together a robust program of learning during closure was commendable a focus on the importance of connection allowed our students to maintain synchronous relationships with their teachers while there was a wide interpretation of the completion of goals that Peter set out to accomplish they this year there was agreement that goals that were not met were largely due to thickness trains put on the staff because of closure nearly two-thirds of the committee felt that Peters professional practice goal had

060been met or exceeded the community copies were widely lauded and Peters timely and thoughtful newsletters were appreciated there was concern among some members that the continuation of a district-wide family advisory group had been lost to the closure with increasing racial tensions nationally members hope to see this group continue when school reconvene said to have a greater influence on proposing changes to curriculum policy similarly similarly there was wide agreement that Peters district improvement goals had been met or exceeded the evaluation of our SEL program was completed and members were satisfied that the district was now prepared to take appropriate steps to meet the suggestions provided a fair amount of work was completed with regards to the goals surrounding educator evaluation as well as suggestion for continued work was in ensuring that's to the learning and teacher

061impact are at the center of the evaluation process without consistent measures of assessment of students it seems unclear how accountability for student learning can be consistent across buildings the student learning goal seems to have suffered the most under closure for members felt that this goal had been met or exceeded they noted the significant work that had been done around including dyslexia questions in the kindergarten screener as well as partnering with dyslexia experts to provide professional learning for some of our teachers others felt that while these were important initial steps they failed to address the entire scope of literacy challenges faced by our district these members noted the lack of a comprehensive evaluation of existing curriculum and teacher knowledge regarding the science of reading these members felt that important first steps have been taken but there

062is still a significant amount of work to do they will require strong leadership in the area of instructional leadership peer received mostly proficient parents members acknowledge the work that had been done to date on identifying specific learning disabilities like dyslexia as well as adopting and implementing a lobster's of mathematics K through 8 at all six elementary schools as well as the junior high theatres performance during closure was also highlighted in this area one member noted the superintendent's response to the Cova crisis has been exceptional with attention to the complex and varied needs of the students in the school community during this turbulent time I particularly appreciated the superintendent's ready creation of curriculum teams for each grade level the ability of the district to quickly create plans for synchronous and asynchronous distance learning and the much-needed

063flexibility offered to students and families instructional leadership is the area in which mr. leg received the most areas for improvement it was noted that there is a continued lack of consistency between elementary buildings the lack of consistent accountability measures for student progress was noted as well one member wanted to see more focus on different grading practices across buildings while others noted that there aren't common assessments to measure student progress except MCATs some members noted that despite the work that has occurred to better inform literacy practices at the k2 level there is still a lot of work to be done if these changes will be impactful it was noted that while the internet can obstruct your literacy practices in the early break was welcomed it is at odds with the wider literacy curriculum it is still

064in place across the district Peter received several exemplary ratings on the standard of management and operations members noted his ability to respond in a calm and collected fashion even in times of crisis his handling of long term projects such as setting the budget focusing on capital improvements and building projects was commendable his decisions along too alongside facilities management and seek insights experts staff students and families when necessary mr. Lyte has found a fiscally creative and responsible way to continue to fund projects even in the face of tightening budgets the work with district management group to evaluate our continuum of services for SEL was also lauded utilizing the range of programming available to our district through a spent Bali collaborative has provided much-needed wraparound services for vulnerable families in our district it was noted that pursuing

065a stronger relationship with advocate psychiatric emergency services are similar noted that / similar would provide a level of support to students in crisis without the need to call in police support Peters dedication to passing the school building project in both towns cannot be understated his enthusiasm for the project was contagious and it was noted repeatedly that we owe the successful passing at both town meetings due in large part to the enormous effort he dedicated to the project it was noted that an area for improvement has continued work at hiring and recruiting and more diverse staff while there has been a concerted effort in my own success in this area one member noted that we should increase the transparency around these efforts in light of national events there has been an increasingly louder call for hiring

066educators of color it would be helpful if the community knew more about the efforts that are already in process it received several exemplary ratings on family and community engagement again this year Peter was extraordinarily visible to the community through copies and webinars post closure and emergency forum dedicated to discussing race in our community and also through his regular communications through email a particular note was Peters letter to the community regarding distance learning he allowed himself to be vulnerable and chaired his own challenges as a parent during a difficult time for all we've received many emails as a committee thanking Peter for his quick response to any number of issues this area has been particularly highlighted by his performance during closure every school committee meeting has had an update on closure and it has been clear

067that feedback was taken seriously as the quality of the learning boards and distance learning expectations were raised each week abies commitment to providing accommodations and its learning plans for struggling learners was also applauded although some frustration was expressed with regards to the lack of new material and two inconsistent service delivery for students on my ep's peer commitment Peter's commitment to the well-being of our students was front and center in the decisions that an area that was noted for improvement was the continuing work on equity while Peter himself has made great efforts to understand the experience of families in our district it is not clear that other members of the Central Admin team have been as successful in their efforts Peter was very visible at events such as the CPAC sponsored conversation about dyslexia and the

068community forum on race while other members of the central administration team were less visible this is of note because of the renewed effort to institute an aligned system of support across the elementary schools and the widespread acknowledgement that our schools are not always both main places for underrepresented groups at the race for and many community members spoke passionately about their experience of racism both in school and in town and there was a clear call for reform likewise many family spoke passionately about the failed system of identification of learning disabilities and it was important for other administrative leaders to hear this testimony as we also pursue a district-wide literacy vision while Peter approaches hard conversations with understanding and empathy and is clear and his desire for systemic change it will be important for these to be

069shared values across the administrative team he had received mostly proficient and exemplary scores in the area of professional culture one member summed it up best by saying mr. light is an exemplary leader who has gained wide respect in this community he is supportive of his staff while challenging them to seek sober improvement he has infused the staff with a culture of growth he propels staff to be more reflective around the current practices and is calling for alignment in many areas he is extremely committed to high standards and has not taken on too much in his efforts so that he can stay focused on the team who holds the tone he sets for leap his leadership team and staff translate to collaboration and great productivity he has said about realizing clearer standards and better results in

070sound teaching learning and student well-being another member noted that Peter continues to consistently demonstrate exemplary communication skills and has made a strong commitment to maintaining a culture of reflective practice and continuous learning and a sensitive - and transparent regarding the disparate and culturally entrench views in our communities that challenge our ability to commit to a share an educational vision members unanimously felt that Peter sets a positive tone for professional culture at our district and they look forward to the continued work in this area Peter is extremely committed intelligent and hardworking and members were Union their enthusiasm to continue this book together for these reasons the Acton Boxborough Regional School Committee hereby gives the rating of proficient to Peter like superintendent of the Acton Boxborough Regional School District on the indicators of instructional leadership management and

071operations Family and Community Engagement and professional so if I don't have to talk for the rest of the evening that's okay so thank you Peter that was most members were unanimous in in their in their phrase of you and it's clear that that you are an excellent leader and that everyone enjoys working with you and is comfortable and encouraging of the direction in which you're taking us so thank you so if anyone else wants to ask a question or comment Paul well I'm I'm ready to make a motion unless you want Adams ready for you to make a motion to and I don't see any other hands or I think I I think that Diana do doesn't mean you want to say yeah can I just just say it's been a hell of a year

072and at your tests above a believer to bring us through the way that that you have and I really I mean I I just cannot imagine what it has been like for you and but from this side we are so grateful that you know you have you you accepted our invitation to come here and and have led us in the manner that you have it so I wanted to comment on on two things you know one which I think it's touched in in a summary review but which is just critically important is Peters a willingness to be personally vulnerable a lot of the discussion that you know I hear going on in various topics relates to the problem of people not being able to examine themselves be candid about things you know except you know

073where there are problems that have honest discussions around those if no problem can be solved if it can't be discussed in Peter is willing you need to be very straight up about them and I think you know he got a lot of positive feedback from his letter about Jesus there's some feeling as a dad and he was very candid with us as a committee about the fact that his son maybe didn't spend all of his free time studying math so and that's important people need to see that you know our administration you know is just as human as everybody else you know sitting at this table and then the one thing you know that you know I did reflect on as being about the review is the on the weighted challenge in education of trying

074to understand what have we really taught students anyway it is a deep deep problem there are some points in the review that touch on this but you know I would encourage you know Peter and you know everyone in the administration never to walk away from that question you know it's easy to say you know we started illustrative man so we trained everybody but in the end what we really care about is how to bet impact students and until we can get to the point where we do something and we know how we've helped students it's always going to feel a little bit short and so I fully understand why that's if Peter is superintendent for the next 20 years it will come near to 20 years and there will still be limitations about our ability

075to answer that question but we need to try I also just want to thank Peter for taking all of us and together the filming through this this year it's just it's a really and I see that you are not afraid of any challenges and disagreement and you just head out and and word was on this different party and communicate with all the communities staff and school community and be able to make decisions I really thank you for that oh yeah and I just want to echo what Jon and Angie I'm very pleased with the leadership in this so I'll move that the Acton Boxborough Regional School can be accept the annual summit of review for a superintendent Peter light dated June 17th 18th 2020 presented as presented Angie yes Amy yes well yes Adam yes

076I am yes yes Maria yes yes with gratitude for all testa's hard work yes thank you for him Evelyn I said thank the BFI don't be this chip in my stuff yes so that passes unanimously so the second part of this is that we need to set Peter salary for the FY 21 and to record that graduating salary comparables book editor wants to say something into it that's not you don't want to say something I see empty my agenda there's so many things I just want to say you know I think the one thing that you know Mike I said this last year you know often the superintendent is the person I'm looking from but it's really you know I always you know it always needs to be a back of it you know it's

077embarrassing to hear all these back believes things like that in evaluation otherwise because bottom line superintendent you know this comes from being the principal person but I feel like I don't do anything other than just me but it's really everyone else on the team from central office staff to all of our principals and assistant principals curriculum leaders coaches and educators to really you all for if I will forward you know I just I can't make the team enough you know this is a you know now get emotional here that's I think the last three months in particular have probably been if not the emos tonality certain filmography most challenging three months in any one of our leaders lines professionals the the amount contains a volume of work the you know ever shifting landscape has required

078so much time and effort leaders and that coupled with everything else that's going on it's just it's been astounding such a credible team for all of the work you say thank you it's a wonderful group they're fantastic you know none of this would be done all of the hard work discography sorry I didn't mean to not acknowledge that you wanted to you know it's all I'll do that and then you know the other thing I'll say is you know I want to just thank the committee for all the feedback whether it's the provided you know this is great I know that the form is awfully cumbersome evaluated 15 years I can definitely tell you the best informants you know the probably the best descriptors but it's designed to provide standard us also for attendance in

079so this as your full-time job and really appreciate the time we as well as thank you and thank you all to putting in the work to get the to get your evaluations to me on time and everything else it was a lot of going through to read all the commentary and to kind of put everybody's Watson to some sort of coherent piece to really get it the things that are great in our district and also the things where we want to head in that direction so yeah so the second part of what we need to do is is to agree on Pier salary for next year I want to note that as part of the budget process that Peter did request that we not give him an increase this year and so that is what

080member in our budget reflects so the binnacle wants to speak to that there's not a lot of guidance on either my agenda or what I'm supposed to say at this point so you know his contract requires that we agree on a salary and throw that out there just as as information as to what if we if we decide not to increase the salary it certainly is no reflection on obviously the incredible job that he's done because this is review in stellar and so if we make that decision that would be not it would not be reflected Amy yeah I was just going to say I think the fact that we just settled our three contracts at one and a half percent I think that it makes perfect sense to do the same with Peter I

081think that's the minimum that we should do um so we did you know as part of looking at the budget process you know have a discussion about compensation and what did various things and you know in my understanding is that you know in consultation with Peter one of the decisions that was made by Asgrow is that we would not increase the superintendent's salary not at all as you have said as a reflection of performance but precisely as a reflection of leadership you know we don't have a particularly bloated salary structure we don't have and a whole group of executives that we can say oh you can all take a 25% Erica and you can do that but I think there is you know important symbolism associated with saying you think that we're in you know

082reasonable shape for up by 21 we're really very unclear about my depth by 22 looks like and I think you know the discussion with Peter about different things that we could do you know both in terms of absolute dollars you can't make much of an argument that this is critical but in terms of just telling everybody in our community that we realized that their challenges again and our superintendent will be leading that charge I think that's what the recommendation not to be salary is about oh yes my dad actually I was I was just torn with that I mean I think it's a generous offer for Peter to to make and and I think that's kind of set it sets a tone that others pay attention to on the other hand I'm with Amy about

083you know everyone else was was given a 1:1 and a half so you know I'm kind of torn between the two particularly you've tied that you've tied it up so would anyone else like to you know throw their hat in the ring and give feedback what they think we should do all right Maya I think that we should accept Peters offer with gratitude no understanding that it does not reflect it's not in the Flex on his performance it's really a reflection of the times the instability that is now in the weaved into the fabric of our lives in multiple ways and looking at an insecure future I think that this is this is a generous and thoughtful offer on Peters behalf and we should humbly accept it knowing leave of course would not want to

084repeat it next year and really use it as a look just a mini statement for his commitment to the betterment of this district and uncertain times so thank you for everything Peter Evelyn no I I want to echo Paul sentiments I feel torn as well because I think that here has done a wonderful job at districts and I do recognize that it rang difficult times and we should probably accept the gesture but I want to eat this opportunity when all this is over and the next time they were able in him and approving accelerated could we recognize that there was a time that he gave up his race and and do something about it I don't know I may be the newest member on the team a little how the mechanics of that work but

085I think that you know there there is is a recognition of the work that you've done and it will be nice to be able to give him that recognition you got that but I understand what others are saying as well I think the the brief answer to that is that his salary is always determined as part well not always determined in part as a reflection of of his summative evaluation for the year and and with knowing what you know what our general financial situation is I think that you know this year ended up being kind of a funny here because of people under like the way things happened and so duly noted Evelyn I guess Diane the one and a half percent the reason is really just I'm all for symbolism and I appreciate the

086gesture I looking ahead I think FY 22 is gonna probably be the harder year financially then this n FY 21 um so just from a pragmatic perspective if we we had to if we were faced with a situation I'll just say for FY 22 I would hate for us to be in the position where two years in a row we would have to you know consider not not giving him a raise he deserves a raise his performance merits one I think we to kind of be cautious about the amount is is a smart thing to do we don't know what's gonna happen budgetarily with the revenue and the cost of opening next year depend on state guidelines and I'm just trying to be a pragmatist here um so I just I'm gonna throw my hat

087in the ring with a knee and and suggest that we did give him a raise this year yeah I'm in the Hall Campa I'm really struggling with this right now you know and I think it's it's it's really important for us to recognize that that if there's if there's nobody's given its of course no reflection of the amazing work that fears done this year in this dedication of the district and and it's really hard to sort of put a number on that and I I struggle because I'm looking at one and a half percent it's about three thousand dollars and three thousand dollars in trivial when we're talking about having to duplicate supplies because kids can't share pencils and more and so I really I struggle with the fact that that's three thousand dollars that

088could go somewhere else and I also start with the fact and just putting a number on it so what's half of that if it's a quarter of reporters percent that's about a thousand dollars increase that like at what point does it become to sort of not making you know so trivial it doesn't make sense to put that on there so at this point I'm really leaning towards keeping the salary where it is but in the motion really recognizing that it has no reflection on Peters dedication to the district I just wanted to provide the history that when we went through the 2009 recession we did actually have no raise for the superintendent as well as you know in rincón correct me if I'm wrong I believe the administrators the timing of that was different in

089terms of the way it played out in the budget but that's what we did and of course what that happens over time is when we come back in an environment where we can look at equity we'll look at the internal equity and see that there are issues and we will in the future have an opportunity to address those so I think to the point that was made by Evelyn we will be able you know in the future to revisit this question and to be perfectly honest because the superintendent's contract is a special case suppose you know everything you know it turns out completely different than we expect and next year is flush there is no bar from the Supriya for the School Committee coming back you know in the spring next here and saying guess

090what you know we can fix this right now that's something that could be done if the financial circumstance you know it has been including this red on our part hearing it sorry i I'm taking Adams point about kind of opportunity lost if we don't take advantage of the offer you know that that's money to the district that could be used towards you know some things that could be fairly important so you know it's only because Peter offered that I think I'm willing to take the offer and then if we feel if the committee at the time later feels like we are in a position to give him better recognition maybe we can take advantage of that later I was also wondering John since you're the the wordsmith and so particular about the things if you

091actually wanted to make a motion because it might be easier no one else no one else is raising their hand so I think that people that wanted to to discuss have discussed but okay so I'll make a motion and then we can we can see what happens so I move that we make no change to the superintendent's salary for FY 21 as a reflection of the challenging financial times and the gracious offer of the superintendent to accept no raise for this next year I would like to make a friendly amendment that includes that the recognition that this has no reflection on computers or his strong dedication to the district I accept your friendly amendment second good job Paul okay so Andy you're muted can you unmute yourself yes Amy yes oh yes Adam yes Diane

092yes Laura yes Maya yes John yes Evelyn yes and myself yes so that passed unanimously with gratitude to Peter and his service this past year thank you thank thank you so much and all of us unanimously we're looking forward to continuing to I appreciate everything that you've done and everything that you put forward and putting all of your updates to me you made Rachel so the next item on our agenda is approval of meeting minutes from June 4th 2020 I'm going to approve the minutes of June 4 25 seconds no hands raised Andy yes me yes oh yes oh yes mm-hmm yes I am yes Ron yes Evelyn yes myself yes okay those passed unanimously which brings us to Dave in his budget update thank you first off can you hear me yes okay great

093thank you last meeting in June last meeting of the fiscal year so just a brief update about where we stand globally with our finances FY 2005 I've given you a projection for that I still expect us to be about $500,000 net turn back as was previously projected we have several remaining issues May and June utilities and voices are yet to be received we need to finalize contractual payments to employees for things such as the contractual vacation pay and the biggest one that's still out there is settling the issue of payments to private schools for special ed tuitions putting in residential placements will probably have some favorable variances there Debbie Dickson and I are working to get that resolved I want to just briefly update about revolving funds and an offer a quick update on major

094funds that we're tracking and that were previously reported to you school lunch we previously projected a loss of four hundred and eighty six thousand dollars which was primarily the result of revenue loss during the school shutdown about six hundred thousand dollars or so on revenue loss the current projection is improved to a loss of four hundred and nine so from 486 to 409 some reasons for that there was a waiver granted that allows reimbursement for all free meals that were distributed during the shutdown period Kirsten Nelson applied for and received a small grant that helped and she took a retail type approach to her operation and sold off inventory and then continued that due to demand and so some pro who sub food frozen foods like meat dish pizzas fresh vegetables and the like and

095so she was able to reduce the reduce the projected deficit one other issue of note Karstens industry crafted a letter which she sent off to legislators it was received by congresswoman tre hands office and it advocated for a waiver to allow all meals this fall to be given free to students I'm hoping that that will be acted upon favorably in perhaps the next iteration of the cares Act second community ad which consists of the regular community ed programs facilities usage driver ed and extend a day there isn't much change from the previously projected combined loss which was four hundred seventy nine thousand we're now looking at four hundred seventy-one thousand reflecting about over a billion dollars of revenue loss for the year they've had some success with offering driver ed that was actually more demand

096than usual due to the circumstances and Aaron is planning to conduct a limited summer program that won't have a great financial impact but it's hopefully hopefully getting her toe back in the water to begin offering programs again all-day kindergarten we initially projected a loss of four hundred and forty-one thousand again due to the loss of revenue due to the shutdown the current projection is a loss of well less than three hundred thousand dollars as we reported we charge the tuition cost of special ed students to the operating budget and put some of those funds back and restored some of the fund balance for all bake in the garden lastly other programs like pre-k ODP and athletics all of these programs are projected about the same as the last report all of them slightly improving because

097we had some small variances between what we had encumbered and the actual costs so now I'm going to talk about the grants there are three federal sources that we've been discussing FEMA reimbursement for Kovac related health and safety measures we prepared a grant application with the help from the district's designated NEMA that's Massachusetts B marette we filed today for reimbursement of one hundred and three thousand dollars consisting of contract contracted services and materials to support building cleaning signage equipment etc that we bought as a result of the shutdown FEMA will make a determination of eligibility of those of those costs and reimburse up to seven Reavers 75% of what it deems eligible I don't expect the funds to be to come be coming into the district in the near future so we'll likely buccal receivable

098as of June 30th that will appear in our financial statements and won't impact evey in effort so that was our FY 20 female submit all for FY 21 we expect to be applying again with a much larger request focused on PPE type expenditures and the like for returning to school s er the SF Grant was a hundred and fourteen thousand dollars allocated to acton-boxborough through deci we're in the process of preparing the required application to receive this in my 21 the district as you may know has reduced its budget request by this amount so that the financial impact of the grant has already captured in our presentations we're tending to charge technology hardware that had already been included in the budget so for example grade 9 Chromebooks to the SF grant the other sources do

099not allow you to supplant budgeted money and in addition you're required to use SR funds before you tap other sources for example which is next the cares act and the cares act allocated to cities and towns not districts and I've been saying this for a while but there was 2.7 billion with a be allocated to Massachusetts based on national population 2 million 93,000 to allocate to active 560 3000 allocated to Foxborough so far the towns that provide fundings to regions do so by designating districts as sub grantees so there's a grant process for reporting purposes we're working on a cost estimate to review with town officials act from acton-boxborough and they are aware of the fact that these funds were allocated to cities and towns only and any eligible costs of schools whether municipal or

100regional would be provided for in that funding my understanding is that funds that the state allocated so far represented 25% of the total they received from the federal government under the cares act another 20% making 45% in total is supposed to be made available to cities and towns at a future time that would be doing the math additional 1.7 million to active and 450,000 additional to Foxborough that's a quick wrap-up of FY 20 and grants as they as they exist now and looking forward for FY 21 town meetings are scheduled in June so I don't expect there to be the need for the 112 budget administration that we have talked about there's been no word on FY 21 state budgets is not expected until July I know I've been saying that for a while and

101FEMA and cares Act funds should help there is hope that in the future they might be able to be used to replace lost revenue which would be very helpful for us if we're able to attach ourselves to some such funding to replenish lost fund balances in programs such as school lunch and community ed so you likely will be as up on this as I am the the information doesn't come out doesn't come out and all of a sudden there it is but we'll be continuing to monitor thanks Dave all right thank you Dave thank you subcommittee member reports are next Peter is there a school building committee update yeah so the project continues to move ahead we had a meeting last night for two health and we had the first piece of our septic system

102approved for installation and part is for the building project could be able to install the in-ground holding tanks for the subject that is a very early part of the first big package that was that did not meet the entire septic system as a that's something we're watching very closely because so we're going to continue to have that's being monitored carefully it does continue to progress we're still on schedule the early packages are and we will continue to see more activity but one thing we did start discussing was the idea of a groundbreaking those of you that worked on previous building projects know it's a great community event to be able to get people excited about the project so you know I think in the current environment with covent now is not the time to play

103the groundbreaking ceremony because I just thought I'm excited a virtual groundbreaking would be but I think actually you know at least some type of a group socially distant to stand out we're gonna excuse me hip waders and go do socially distant yeah I think one thing to note that we should at least bring to the awareness of the committee is that it's some point we're going to have to discuss naming the building and the process with which we're gonna go through soliciting that information and proposals and whatnot this came up a couple meetings ago in our building committee meeting mostly around what we put on the sign which we then found out we could we could basically put anything we needed on the side for now and make a new sign when we name the

104building but it does remind us that we've got to start thinking about the names of the new building I guess okay budget Dan we really to report that you haven't already heard this evening we mostly discussed the budget in connective of koban so to be continued whence we hear from the state ami policy yeah so we policy has not met with couple people I think it was that or Jamie brought this up so the the procedures are again in your packet because state law says that the that the superintendent is the person who oversees the nomination and voting for the chair and then the new chairperson does this follows the same process or that we implemented earlier and to elect the vice chair both towns so that's a change because originally we thought that the

105chair for that the chair person would run that portion of the meeting and that's not allowed so do you want us to revote this Tessa I don't I don't really think it's it's necessary to John do you have thoughts you kind of winced spoke if you feel differently John then that we can revote it I think the reason I say now is because it's just a procedure and we didn't have to vote a procedure in the first place but if if if just adding that I mean that will be added to it obviously so I think that we can change the procedure on the fly for exactly the reason that you said procedure is not voted it's simply something established for the convenience of the committee okay thanks update me and I'll just note that

106that organizational meeting is the July 1st meeting there was some confusion around the communication around that and the planning is is currently to have that that meeting in person on July 1st a combination of in-person and zoom so that members can not attend yep do we have to have a forum add in person quorum to our can we have does it not matter how many people get three people together in the rest - I would have to get some guidance on that I'm not sure offhand the remote participation policy does that you have to have a forum in the room but I don't know if any of the new guidance around or no judical bid would change that so we could look into it okay well I was still waiting to get responses from everybody

107I hadn't heard from everybody yet so to be determined but that will be a public meeting that the community can attend via zoo they won't be attending in person it would be Jigga's committee members but to be John did you have an H I T update yeah I do the ekend health insurance trust met this morning expenses through 11 months where 16 million dollars against income 15 million dollars 1 million dollars not including expectedly insurance recoveries of zero point two billion dollars may show the favorable variance of $200,000 related to continuing reduction in services for members including elective procedures this favorability is is expected to continue in June with the revised expectation that the trust will lose between zero point six million and zero point eight billion dollars by twenty trustees voted to accept Blue

108Cross Blue Shield reinsurance vessel stop-loss proposal $125,000 the trustee is discussed at draft investment policy with the intent of adopting the policy in the fall in the annual election current officers when we elected John Peterson will continue this chair let's be fair the secretary thank you John Angie did you have a question or an update oh I have question and FYI section okay let's do there's no other updates let's do the recommendation to accept donations thanks Adam second all right all those all has to do this because it's his last time to make the whole motion phone move to approve the donation from Conan with gratitude second with gratitude Andy okay ready view baby yes attitude oh yes with gratitude Adam yes with gratitude did yes with gratitude and with deep gratitude for Paul service

109yes yes me yes with gratitude so thank you Paul for meeting us all down the path I promise that we will always accept yes with gratitude excellent okay in your packets is the statement of warrants usually a meetings are provided in hard copy format but I will read them so payroll warrant six sorry they were all warrant Pete to zero to five dated six to twenty and I'm out of two million six hundred sixteen thousand one hundred fourteen dollars and eighty six cents vendor warrant number 20 - zero to five P are dated six for to 2020 in the amount of 521 1530 $3.62 vendor were in number twenty - zero to five dated six eleven twenty twenty in the amount of four hundred twenty nine thousand seven hundred sixty dollars and twenty cents and

110Student Activity Fund reimbursements warrant number 20 - dear - five SH preceding your high in the amount of twenty thousand five hundred seventy nine dollars and twenty three sets second yes Amy yes oh yes Adam yes yes yes you got a question about the FYI yes I have question about one of the two of them which is one the first one is the Peter mentioned about the mother which is the expending the educators of color yeah can I just give a quick overview of some of those and I'm happy to take any questions on film there's a number of items in your fYI packet and some of these are just simply because there wasn't enough time during our closure to do some updates in person obviously there's the town meeting information but we also we're

111not able to schedule all of our schools to present to school committee regarding school improvement updates you recall we had a couple of them right before closure but then when we closed we had to postpone those we did ask the principal's to put together a few paragraphs just to wrap up the school year so that you kind of sense in the community schools there's also an MSB a letter regarding air program we did not get accepted to get not particularly surprised maybe some local decisions bring your attention to that [Music] actually let me back up to the school improvement plan updates one thing normally we're bringing the school improvement plans forward and if you recall a process for school is that principals have to submit school improvement plans to the superintendent of schools and then

112I make copies for your comment and then we incorporate those as appropriate through school improvement plans and then they come back to me for approval we are going to approach it's not a change in policy or Chrome TV's a little bit differently this year knowing that there is a tremendous amount of work that will be done next year simply to recover from Kovan and bring our students back in we're taking a little bit different approach to the school improvement plans we're actually running one district-wide improvement plan that will be done through a lot of all of the schools and with you know schools having an opportunity to maybe add one goal to that they see is specific but what I foresee happening is goals you'll see some kind of a goal and the learning you

113see someone had to go around the social emotional recovery for students unethical around kind of the academic important structural recovery subject the goal around physical recovery making sure these are safe environments and then some around becoming any anti-racist district and then at schools when I add something to that they're welcome to but we feel we're really the approach to returning it's so consistent from our buildings and this is really going to be the work of at least the next six months if not the next year it made a lot of sense just to combine these into one district wide effort and have a level of consistency across how we're approaching the market next year so there's wanted to give you a heads up that that's a different process that we usually follow but that was

114intentional with that kind of reasoning and if I just can quickly leave their shop the other one that I wanted to draw your attention to was there was an informational packet and they're hiring in tourism colors that was actually a school committee presentation from November 2019 which believe it or not actually if this school year and that was the update of what we had done over the previous year in terms of hiring so we just wanted to bring that because it was something that was of interest right now and then the final one death convert teen were kind enough to put together kind of a final update on team activities over the course of the year so that you had a sense of what was going on with that and then the last part was

115just making sure that you were aware of what was happening on the road because and we wanted to make sure that you in the community sorry for the long winded explanation I think we're just trying to wrap up a school year and it use some kind of information in the format presentation they're much appreciated for just the FYI and it's certainly a significant change in the way principals are gonna approach there thank you for that update thank you I had to ask about the school improvement plans if the process of engaging the school councils is still intact you know they they the principal's may do that for the one goal that they want to set outside of the district-wide plan but at all honesty where the focus is kovat this is this is really the

116intent this year you know that we talked about that with our faculty - that we typically form very large maze broad representation aid stakeholders quite a bit along the way and you know I think the normal decision-making processes are still intact across the district but temporarily we're in crisis decision which yet with respect to the Town Meeting fYI element so I attended the active pre Town Meeting one element of that is that the slides will be posted online the slides that I prepared for action Town Meeting are identical it actually they're all prepared by F but but I added just one more slide that has a history so they're not quite the same as box Berlin so what I was wondering about is do we want to post those anywhere on the website and then

117my second question related to that is if there's going to be a presentation up on the website in advance of town meeting but we want to a slide which answers questions and put the shell or something else there so that there is an explicit you know if you're looking for more more prepared - yeah my only immediate concern and sharing it in that way is that I would want to make sure that whatever we share as a school committee sorry reflects the the numbers for both acting in Foxborough and I know we made but I feel like they're in separate slides for each time in that way so I just want to make sure whatever we decide to share is an amalgamation of all tablets just so that it looks you know is clear that

118everyone is represented Diane arena do did you out did you have comments on that I see you both have your hands up I just don't want to miss you know I didn't have my head for this except today so does that make sense to do that though because you really want to have the you know the discrete presentations for the members of town meeting who come to act in versus borrow so maybe I don't know John what do you think well they're really not discrete I mean me because what we have is the total and then we have an act in line and we have a Boxborough line so if you're in Foxborough time beating you skip over the active I need to talk about box Brenner your napkin you know you just say the

119act of money so the slides they're identical and I I think it's another reflection of the fact that we are really functioning you know much better as a coherent unit I mean we don't need to have different things it's the same thing historical slide would that go that would just go in there and even though I see no harm in it I mean that would be fine I think that you know that was an additional thing because because they were doing a reported presentation and it makes sense to add that I mean this was one of those years where where the message to both towns is remarkably similar you know with the exception just being the actual number so you know I think that that's okay I just want to make sure that the numbers

120for both towns are reflective and whatever we share okay I'm Andy did you have another question about something else yeah so back to the the slide of the educators of cars so Mike so Peter do some question so the question that I sent an email to so the question is is that mean does that mean that we're gonna have a certain quota who is certainly ethnic background I don't think we were looking at quotas I think what we're trying to do you know we need our workforce look like our students to the degree that that's possible and you know I think the effort right now is trying to find other times clerical might more diverse workforce we're not trying to set you know numbers I think you know are good in terms of goals I

121think we had a long trade purple piece in our educated workforce but diversity by about 20% was something that we had worked on the first year here but you know getting photos as a tough yeah okay yeah that's a clarification so um can I ask another question on different topic well you can but everyone else wants everyone looking forward to being a jerk so go right ahead okay so for the best thing goes and we gonna have some kind of evaluation how I look at how how this goes on that so Angie I'm gonna just I don't know what the feeder has and the answer to that but because this was just included as an FYI it's gonna be something that we obviously take up again in the fall when we're looking at the different

122programming that we're doing and I don't know that the end of anything is the best time if you want to email me we can work on something for you okay thank you second Angie yes Amy yes oh yes Adam yes yes ma'am yes time with gratitude yes yes and thank you to my aunt Paul We will miss you deeply thank you thank you everyone night good night thank you for making my ass