 So good evening, this open meeting of the Arlington School Committee is being conducted remotely consistent with Governor Baker's executive order of March 12, 2020, due to the current state of emergency in the Commonwealth, due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus. In order to mitigate the transmission of the COVID-19 virus, we have been advised and directed by the Commonwealth to suspend public gatherings. And as such, the governor's order suspends the requirement of the open meeting law to have all meetings in a publicly accessible physical location. Further, all members of public bodies are allowed and encouraged to participate remotely. The order which you can find posted with agenda materials for this meeting allows public bodies to meet entirely remotely so long as reasonable public access is afforded so that the public can follow along with the deliberations of the meeting. Ensuring public access does not ensure public participation unless such participation is required by law. This meeting will feature public comment. For this meeting, the Arlington School Committee is convening by Zoom as posted on the town's website identifying how the public may join. Please note that this meeting is being recorded and that some attendees are participating by video conference. Accordingly, please be aware that others may be able to see you and take care not to screen share your computer. Anything that you broadcast may be captured by the recording. All of the materials for this meeting except any executive session materials are available on the Agenda dashboard and we recommend the members of the public follow the agenda as posted on Novus unless I note otherwise. Before we turn to the first item on the agenda, which will be public comment, permit me to cover some ground rules for effective and clear conduct of our business and to ensure accurate meeting minutes. I will introduce each speaker after they conclude their remarks. I will invite I will go down the list of members inviting each to provide any comment questions or motions please hold until your name is called. Please remember to mute your phone or computer when you are not speaking. Please remember to clearly to speak clearly and in a way that helps generate accurate minutes. For any response, please wait until the chair yields before to you and state your name before speaking if members wish to engage in close with other members please do so through the chair taking care to identify yourself. After members have spoken. Right, so we don't have any items with public comments. Sorry. Finally, every vote taken this meeting will be conducted by a will call vote. So as a preliminary matter, let's confirm that everybody who we expect to be here are present and can hear me. I'm so school committee members when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Ms. Extin. Yes, Mr. Carden. Yes, Dr. Allison Ampe. Yes, and I'll have to leave and I'll be listening by phone for part of the meeting. Mr. Thielman. Yes, I'm here and unfortunately I'll be here the whole time Jane. Great. Mr. Schlickman. In the affirmative. Mr. Heiner. Yes. All right, and I am also here. So members of our staff, Dr. Bodie. Present. Dr. McNeil. Present. Ms. Elmer. Mr. Spiegel. I don't see Mr. Spiegel yet. He isn't going to be here this evening. Okay, great. Now I see, and Ms. Keys. Hi, I'm here. And then I see a number of our principals. Let's see. Oh, I see Mr. Feeney. Here. Thank you. And from our, I guess we're going to start with our elementary team because they're at the top of the grid. Ms. Parrots. Here. Mr. Hannah. Dr. Hannah. Yes, here. Mr. Dingman. I'm here. Mr. Amadi. Present. Ms. Erichkov. Here. Thank you. I see Ms. Schlinger from the monotony preschool. Here. Thank you. I'm working my way down. I see Mr. Merringer. Here. And who else is here? Oh, and Madame Pira Maxwell. Present. I see Mr. Mason. Present. Jane, can I just insert Mark McEnany from Bishop and Karen Donato are both in the, in as attendees. So they're, um, yeah, they're, they're going to need to have their invite changed, but they're planning to attend. They're here. Um, Mr. McEnany and Mr. Donato, can you raise your hand in the attendee list so that you, you'll bump all the way to the top? Uh, there we go. Also, um, Ms. Brzeze, Carla Brzeze, who is the. I'm ELL. Here. Thank you, Dr. Bodie. Thank you, Dr. Bodie. There are a lot of boxes. Um, thank you for being here. Um, all right. Are we good? Mr. Dingman. That's who we were missing, right? So, um, Mr. McEnany, who's the principal at Bishop and Ms. Donato are on screen too. Um, great. So we're going to start with public comment. Um, so just a couple of notes about, um, public comment in order to, to provide public comment in our zoom meetings, you do need to sign up in advance and we have two people who, um, have done so and, um, uh, we're going to start with public comment. And then I will be reading a number of comments that were submitted to be read. Um, as a matter of policy, the school committee does not respond to questions. Um, or comments that are made as part of public comment, but, um, you know, some, some questions could be answered tonight as part of our teams presentation. Others could be included in a plan FHU for families. Um, so we're going to start with, um, we're going to start with public comment. Um, so we're going to start with public comment in person public comment. So the first is Ms. Sarah jet. Sarah Marie. Jettie. Jettie. Sorry. Thank you. So Ms. Jettie. Thank you. All right. My name is Sarah Marie Jettie. I teach fourth grade at the Thompson school. This will be my 13th year in the district. I love my job as my students and their families know my classroom is my happy place. However, I have to say, I'm very proud of my parents. I'm very proud of my parents. I'm very proud of my parents. I'm very proud of my parents. I'm very proud of my parents. I'm very proud of my parents. My parents said. Six and a half years ago, my mother moved down from Maine because my father's early onset frontal temporal dementia was getting worse. The move was a great decision. I helped care for my father as his dementia advanced. And in the years since his death, my mother has immersed herself with her three grandchildren. My five year old sleeps with my mother. My mom helps my seven year old with her reading. My mother helps me to be vigilant about social distancing because we have to. We are living in a global pandemic and it is not under control. As September approaches, I am consumed with fear. I don't want to be exposed to COVID. I don't want to expose my mother to COVID. I don't want to be the reason my mother dies. My children will be learning remotely. My 10 year old needs more social emotional learning than academic, but he's in the age range, which transmits COVID more than adults. My 10 year old has been counting down the days until she starts kindergarten. However, she will not set foot in the kindergarten classroom until there is a vaccine. We cannot risk her being in a classroom where masks are optional. Like my student to be third grader, we cannot risk asymptomatic transmission. And honestly, I feel like my children will be more, will have more social connections remotely than in gutted classrooms where their teachers are hidden behind masks and face shields six feet away afraid for their health. My teachers will create thoughtful lessons which push them academically and nurture them emotionally during this uncertain time, because that's what teachers do. And that's what we can do when we are given time to prepare. We work our butts off to make sure our students do their best, even when faced with insurmountable challenges. And though my seven year old immense that she won't be able to step inside her beloved art room, she knows that she'll be safe. Her family will be safe. And that is our priority. I watched my father die. I watched my father die. I watched my father die. For years, I watched his illness progress to the point where he no longer recognized me when he spoke in garbled gibberish and could no longer form words. And he needed help to do the most basic tasks until those final days when his body shut down. If you have watched a parent die, you will understand what I fear returning to my classroom. Every act, every motion, every interaction will be touched with fear. As I stand six feet away from your child, you will be able to reach out to me. You will be able to reach out to me at my level to pick up a dropped pencil to conference with your child or comfort them one on one. My mother turned 74 next month. I hope to celebrate many more birthdays with her. Thank you. Um, Miss, uh, Miss Christiana. Hi, thank you so much. Good evening. And thank you so much for the opportunity to speak. I'm going to be talking about our school day. We are currently organizing a group of over 60 Arlington public school parents, Mora Vats and all Hamsa dot, about outdoor options for in person school time, the health and safety of students and teachers must be a priority in any back to school plan. And we must take every step to reduce the spread of COVID-19. We are organizing a group of over 60 Arlington public school parents who believe that if we choose an in-person model for this fall, as possible during the school day. Converging lines of evidence indicate that COVID-19 can pass from person to person in aerosols that walk through the air and accumulate over time in indoor spaces. Given these data, we now know that outdoors is safer than indoors. In fact, many of our kids have not been inside any buildings other than our own homes since the beginning of the pandemic. We also know that New England weather is unpredictable, so the building must be available to safely house all students in case of extreme weather and other events. Therefore, we are not suggesting that the use of outdoor space, that we use outdoor space to increase the number of students who can attend in person. Rather, we are asking the district to create accessible outdoor spaces that will be usable on most days this fall and beyond. As a starting point, we hope that lunch, snack, mask breaks, recess and physical education could take place outdoors whenever possible. Any outdoor plan must be equitable and accessible to all students, and we are intentionally seeking input from experts on these matters. While we have not yet formally met with APS teachers or administrators, we are looking closely at best practices that are being established in other schools in Massachusetts and across the country as they create outdoor spaces to incorporate outdoor time into each day. Our intention is to supplement the plans that the district has already worked so hard to create in order to provide a healthier, safer environment. We do not intend to increase the burden put on teachers and administrators during these challenging times. There are many parents in our community who are willing to volunteer their expertise and time to make outdoor spaces possible, and we are considering fundraising options as well. We invite school committee members, administration, teachers and parents to contribute to this conversation. We will be in touch. Thank you. Thank you. So I have a number of comments that were submitted via email throughout the day yesterday and today, so I am going to read those doing my best to attribute them appropriately. So Kelly Harrington writes that the administration of Arlington Public Schools wants us to believe that a return to school is safe for our children and the teachers of APS. If it is safe for hundreds of students and staff members to be in the same building for six hours a day, why is your meeting to discuss this on Zoom and not in person? The school committee members and the APS administration team cannot meet face-to-face to discuss an in-person return to school, then tonight's discussion should focus on a return to school via remote learning. The safety of our children and staff should be our top priority. Carolyn Schneier is the parent of a rising Otteson seventh grader and a former co-treasurer of the Thompson PTO. She writes to us that you please give serious consideration to mandating a fully remote start to the school year for grade six or seven through twelve, and that you do so quickly to allow teachers and administrators to give their full attention to this scenario and plan it as robustly as possible. We are all aching for our children's lives to return to normal. However, in math, distance school day is not going to feel normal to anyone. This piece, there was a link that was shared by a private school teacher. We are pouring so much effort into striving for something that is unachievable. Moreover, we are doing so at great risk to teachers, students, and families until there is an adequate rapid testing available for all congregating in school buildings will be a danger to our community regardless of distancing walls. And give us who have been around even the most mature kids these last few months know how near impossible full compliance is and the larger the group, the more difficult it is to maintain. And even with safety measures spending several hours at a time endorsing groups is so much more dangerous than learning from home and is not worth the risk. Many times, much time and effort has already gone into bending over backwards to try to develop in person and hybrid models as required by the state. The attention of administrators has necessarily been divided trying to make all these models viable, safe, equitable and educationally effective or formidable and exhausting tasks. It is inevitable, however, that regardless of what model is chosen, some if not all students will have to be fully remote for at least portion of the year, either due to parent request or periodic outbreak. If it moves us now to focus on the remote model and prioritize making it as smooth and educationally effective as possible for all students who can use it. This would also allow adequate planning time and physical space to make sure those IEP students who require some in person assistance can get their needs met. It would also allow for some creativity and meeting the in person needs of elementary students perhaps allocating space that gives an odyssey to younger learners. I am not advocating that upper grade students should never set foot inside their school buildings this fall. On the contrary, if we are proceeding with remote learning, I think it would be crucial to plan opportunities for students to at least meet with their new teachers in person and for those in grade six, seven and nine who will be in new buildings get a sense of the layout of their schools. But this can be done in very small groups as short optional events. If we focus now on what remote learning will look like and eliminate the stress of having to keep under the people physically safe all day every day, we can plan such opportunities. Thank you for your tireless work on behalf of our students and our community. You have a truly unenviable task this year, but we appreciate the care and thoroughness with which you are doing it. The next is a message from Alice and by Shna. In you of this evening's meeting, I felt I should send you a copy of the email I sent to the Department of Health yesterday. It was in part looking for information on COVID levels testing and contact tracing. It is very difficult to assess the current school restart plans without relevant public health information. As a resident of Arlington, APS staff member and MD PhD, I am engaged and informed and yet I do not feel that I have the information to make a determination as to the community and personal implications of in person school in September. I received a staff survey yesterday and it is very difficult to answer without information on the part of the planning and implementation processes. I have relevant training to not make a judgment. I do not know how others can feel comfortable doing so. I did receive an acknowledgement from the Department of Health given the timing of the meeting, I can only offer the questions and do not have any of the answers. The following was submitted by Rachel Katzman and Alexis Williams Torrey. While a hybrid option may make sense in terms of spacing and staffing, giving safety restrictions, it exasperates other key issues of equity and public health. The reality is that if students, particularly students in K-5 are going to be only in school two days a week, this poses a childcare crisis. We recognize that teachers are not babysitters, yet we also know that due to the anticipated nature of the hybrid model, many parents are choosing to hire nannies and tutors, form pods and teach their students alternative curriculums. This is happening now because there is a void which parents need to fill. Some are contemplating leaving the school system, which will impact our enrollment. We know this individualized approach is going to perpetuate inequities between those who can and those who can't and the reality is that most at-risk students will be further marginalized. Schools are asking parents to be partners in their students education in a way that we've never asked before, but they are not giving them the support to do so. If we choose any program that requires in-home remote learning, Arlington Parents need principals, PTOs, diversity and inclusion groups, after school programs, community organizations and the school committee to ensure that equitable care and support is offered to all students, not just those with resources in capital. As much as our plans need to focus on high level decisions, they can't do so without offering parents a vision of support for those many days, we will be responsible for our children's education. Parents need Arlington to develop a meaningful system for connecting families together in a public visible and fair manner. An Arlington Parents Facebook group has circulated a survey regarding more inclusive care for the fall and received over 150 responses from families in every school in Arlington. Key findings included that not only was there a strong need for care, support to families, key findings included that not only was there a strong need for care, support to families that are equitable and inclusive, over 60% of those surveyed indicated they would be interested and able to help organize such programming. Parents want to be partners but need help in return. There is a groundswell of energy among the talented people in our community to offer skills, services, financial assistance and care for and among each other. All parents need help, some are getting more than others, some are getting none. Furthermore, hybrid models aggregate the public health crisis. This morning, Dr. William Henning, an epidemiologist at Harvard's Chan School of Public Health, forcefully argued on an interview with WVUR that the hybrid model is the worst option from a health perspective, particularly for families with elementary age children. Because families of elementary students will need to seek some kind of care, this will provide further avenues of spread than if they were in fixed school groups five days a week. This doesn't even speak to the health, social, emotional and educational risk to children and families who are working or receiving no care support at all. We would like to see the school committee as we finalize our decisions for the fall, forcefully argue for as much in-school learning time for our youngest and most vulnerable students. While there are staffing and physical constraints, other communities and towns are finding solutions to these. We most strongly support a model that prioritizes in-person learning for students who need it most. K-5, those with special needs, students with free and ready slides, students with housing and security, ELL students, and I know this is an incomplete list. If Arlington does not adopt such a model, then we need to present solutions for childcare that our champion shared and supported within our communities through intentional collaborations. Elena Schmerling writes that she teaches kindergarten at Thompson and feels fortunate to work and teach with supportive, creative and dedicated individuals. It breaks her heart that she keeps worrying night and day that this year will not be normal no matter the decision or outcome. I find, so I'm now reading in her voice, I find I am most myself in the classroom silly, adventurous, confident and nurturing. Returning back to school when the pandemic is not under control inevitably take all of those away from me and in turn my students. Everything will be touched with fear and anxiety. Everything will change. Kindergarten in school in general will be robbed of its core. While I don't love the idea of remote learning for all the obvious reasons, I passionately feel that that is the best option for everyone's safety. I am truly terrified to be back in a building with hundreds of people who have their own family, neighborhood, social and work circles. I cannot fathom being able to comfort a child in need or even show my excitement for those aha moments with a hug or high five. I cannot fathom putting all my energy into mask wearing cleanliness and social distancing instead of the important life lessons that I teach in my classroom of our youngest learners. I have no idea how quality learning can take place in a distant covered and PE and limited classroom. We are having these meetings online for a reason hospitals are overwhelmed and inundated for a reason. Big companies around the country are still working from home for a reason. People are scared for a reason. I ask that my health, my life not be put at risk. I plead that we spend our time and energy on robust online learning until returning to school is safe. It won't be easy, but teachers really are best at overcoming the possible. Jim Connerney asked since the school years ended can we describe or can it be described what additional funding resources have been obtained and applied toward the many challenges of appropriately advancing all Arlington students education? Can we provide detailed examples of some strategies being developed with these resources to improve both remote education or hybrid learning? Have there been any requests for resources that have been unheeded? Deanna Cook is wondering if the older students in middle and high school are not looking at going one week on, one week off. Two days on, three days off seems like a lot of curriculum will be lost with the lack of time kids are having for in-person teacher contact. Andrew Jones asked how have the deep expertise and experience of the engineers, health professionals, educators and other professionals who are also APS parents been brought to bear on the dilemma of school reopening. Eric and Zoe Cronin shared that as parents of a bracket second graders they would like to express their support of continued exploration of a return to school this fall by a hybrid in-person online. Their hope is that the school committee chooses an approach that would allow parents to send children to school by a hybrid schedule if that is the preferred approach. Obviously circumstances regarding local transmission rates can change and the personal safety of teachers, staff and students is an important consideration for any return to school. Based on their experience this spring a full type of online learning program did not work for their first grade family. An online program cannot provide the important educational, social and emotional development that a seven-year-old child receives from an in-person learning program. Ian Roth is wondering what work has been done to inspect the conditions of HVAC system and evaluate air distribution and odyssin. What work has or will be done to correct efficiencies prior to reopening. A bracket parent shared that they are wondering if they that they need to understand the extent to which the following safety measures would be put in place daily online screening. A detailed understanding of classroom rules while seated in the classroom at lunch, hand washing, mask wearing, mask breaks, bathroom breaks, a detailed understanding of how children will be separated. Policy and handling with respect to symptoms, upper respiratory, these symptoms could be related to lots of things. They need a protocol for rapid contact tracing. If it exceeds 24 to 48 hours it becomes less effective. Protocols for entering and leaving the building and arrival and dismissal. Impact on after school if enrolled that do not want to attend. They do not want to lose their spot that has taken years to secure, need to define protocol if there are positive cases. How does the school open or close, need to define threshold at which islands will close all schools with increased cases in Massachusetts. Ideally to reduce exposure family grouping such as a household with a first grader and third grader, a group with other families with a first grader and a third grader, this reduces exposure. For the remote option need an understanding of how this would be structured. Unconsideration would be small group learning, hybrid approach similar to school as larger groups are unwieldy especially with younger grades. Elizabeth Rocco is a parent of middle and elementary school students, a clinician in a COVID hotspot. She is very aware of how COVID is transmitted. She has concerns about any indoor school classroom setup that doesn't follow the strictest pandemic proven precautions in her experience. The settings where people enforced stricter than standard guidelines were more successful at reducing transmission. She is a proponent of a compelling engaged remote learning program for most students in school learning for students with highest needs, IP, ELL, young and essential worker parents using pandemic proven precautions, daily screening, community COVID testing, contact tracing, PPE, hand washing, sanitizing, six foot distances, well ventilated indoor spaces, the use of outdoor spaces for play meals, hands-on experiential learning, gym music, art and project-based learning. As an adjunct to remote learning she suggests an innovative pilot of once a week outdoor experiential learning where students have the opportunity to meet in small groups. The outdoor pilot could be facilitated by a voluntary team of teachers across disciplines who could create innovative and compelling curriculum. The outdoor classroom would reduce risk of COVID transmission and I believe more staff students and teachers would feel comfortable meeting outside when weather allows even if it was for only a half day once a week. I would, she would like us to invest in models that would meet pandemic proven public health standards. We cannot create our, recreate our prior educational model. We need to let go of the past, not be a denial of the present medical reality and embrace the imperfect reality of this moment and be as creative and innovative as possible. And there's one more. From Ms. Heidi Rosenberg, in the draft elementary plans there's reference to the use of outside space for mass breaks. There will be limited freedom of movement. She would like to know what that dedicated personal space movement limitation entails. What would they have during outdoor recess or break given that child's overall movements will be restricted during any in-person model and worried about their ability to focus concentrate, avoid becoming restless and fidgety? For kindergarten in particular what would a remote learning day look like for this aid group? Would they be expected to attend synchronous or asynchronous online activities? Would the activities be required or optional? Has the district considered a separate in-person model for kindergarten that would allow them to have more consistent access to in-person learning? This could entail a split schedule which could provide kindergarten children with a daily access to in-person learning while lessening the distancing and masking fatigue that might result from being at school in person for six hours. Given this group in particular can have access or participate in remote learning on their own because they cannot yet read or navigate remote learning activities independently it could be extremely beneficial for them to have a different school model that allows them more in-person time at school than children in upper elementary grade. Okay, so turning to the first item on our agenda is a message from the Arlington Education Association. Ms. Key. Hi, thank you. Follow all that. So hi everybody, thank you so much for giving me the chance to speak tonight. Our teachers have been following along. There's a lot of them in this meeting tonight. We are so appreciative that everybody is spending so much time thinking about work during their summer vacation. All right, so after the most stressful school year of our careers, this has not been the restful summer for our educators. Waiting for other people to make decisions with such impact on our lives is nerve-wracking. Instead of vacation, this has been a summer of fear, frustration, and mourning, the loss of so much about what we love about our jobs. We've been working hard studying virtual classroom pedagogy, redesigning curriculum, becoming amateur architects, engineers, epidemiologists, reading every article that's being published that might help us understand what fall could look like. As the AEA, we surveyed and met with our members, and the following became clear to our board of directors. We, as a union, reject the all-in-building plan to reopen schools. While we recognize that the WHO and the American Association of Pediatrics has stated that students may sit three feet of part in class, we don't believe that reaching the bare minimum safety standards is acceptable. Would any of you buy a car that just barely passed safety inspection? I wouldn't. Would you put your child in a car seat with terrible safety ratings just because it's legally good enough to be sold? I doubt it if you had any other options and we have other options. The idea that we should take the lowest bar for safety is unacceptable for the children of this town and for the staff who work with them. Every other piece of guidance defies this plan. Eight people per a thousand square feet indoors. 50% occupancy for buildings. Indoor gatherings being limited to 25 people, six feet of social distance. We care too much about our community to accept the risk of a three-feet apart full return. The safest option for our schools is to continue remotely and for many that is a hard pill to swallow. We are grieving the loss of contact with our students and we are so worried about those who did not engage this past spring. We see the strain it puts on families because it's putting the same strain on our families. Many teachers are sick of living at work because it feels more like that than working at home. We recognize that this might not be the ideal educational situation but it can be really good when it's done right and with adequate training for teachers we believe virtual school this fall could be a robust learning experience for Arlington students. My mother always told me better safe than sorry. If teachers and students are to be back in the buildings with a hybrid model it is the responsibility of this committee to make that environment as safe as possible. We have been incredibly impressed with the work that Arlington has been doing. I cannot praise our facilities department enough but we need more. More hand washing stations in particular. The district needs to commit that they will not use rooms that don't have proper ventilation. In the past few years Arlington teachers have taught in jackets when the heating broke in the winter or in classrooms that sweltered near a hundred degrees because the windows wouldn't open in September and June. We need better response time to breakdowns and assurances that repairs will be made. Every teacher who has gone through the process of entering a third, a fourth, a fifth help desk ticket for the same issue is wondering why now when the stakes are so much higher they should suddenly trust that repairs are going to be made quickly. Every teacher who has been told that money has run out and we can't order any more supplies worries about sanitizer and soap after school opens. Every time our code of conduct has been sidestepped well intentionally in the name of social emotional well-being whether it's something minor like using a cell phone or a larger issue like causing a class disruption. Teachers are now wondering what will happen when a student refuses to properly wear a mask. There is going to need to be a level of strictness in our school that we've never had before. But no matter how safe the buildings become reopening them during a pandemic is going to require a social contract between families and staff. It means frequent testing for everyone in the buildings. It means if a child wakes up and is not feeling well families must promise not to just dose them up with Tylenol and send them to school. It means following the state quarantine rules. No secret weekend trips to Disney World or to see grandma in another state because flights are just so cheap right now. It means children will be taught social distancing and wearing masks is not an option even when they're just hanging out with their friends at Dunkin Donuts or down in the center. When we drive around town and we do and we see groups of teens hanging out not following these best practices it makes every teacher worried for what's going to happen once school starts. It is the unknown of what happens once the students walk out of our classrooms that worries the teachers the most. Every new day will bring new risks if community members are not acting safely. There's no good answer. I think we all recognize that and we're all just trying to do the best that we can. So because of that we ask you please in all of these debates and discussions put safety first. Our lives are literally depending on it. Thank you. Thank you Ms. Keyes for sharing your important message from our our teachers union. Thank you so much. So the next the next piece is the fall reopening update and draft plans and just before I turn this over to Dr. Bodie so that all of us watching at home and everybody here so we sort of know where we're at a little bit with all of this. So we're meeting here tonight. It's Thursday all day. We're going to get a facilities report which is also published in document form in Novus for those of you who are at home who would like to read that. And there's going to be an opportunity for the committee and for for us to ask some questions about where we're at with our planning at this point. And and and then we'll go from there. All right Dr. Bodie you're on mute. Thank you. You think after all these times. So thank you and I appreciate all the comments that have been made this evening. This is a very important meeting because it's an opportunity to continue this discussion with the school committee with administration as we move forward to a time when we're going to have to make a decision as to what we're going to do for the upcoming year. As you are aware the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has put that date at August 10th and I think that that is very appropriate. It's given us the time to really assess where we are with this crisis to develop some draft plans in turn for the three possibilities which are we would have a full we full return to school. We would have a hybrid model or remote. And in Novus and as they were last week and they are this evening the draft plans for each level there's before of them are there for people to take a look at. There's been a lot of discussion over the last week. There's discussion tonight and I expect that next week will continue that. Since we gave these drafts to you last week for again for people to look at them we've continued to do more planning particularly around what a remote option would look like. I'm going to get to that a little bit further down in the agenda here. We want to get very much more specific about what this might look like with our most vulnerable high need students. We're going to talk a little bit more about that tonight. Last week you heard what the guidelines are from the Department of Education. And there are a number of other things that we want to address tonight. So this is an opportunity for the school committee to get more information, ask some questions. All of our principals are here this evening to answer to help you with this decision. We will come with the recommendation to you. Tomorrow these draft plans that you have have been condensed into well I try to get them into 400 words for each one but they're a bit over. But it really just is a summary of what you have. We will get some feedback from the Department of Education sometime next week and ultimately we will have a recommendation but ultimately the decision is the school committees in terms of what our plan will be for the fall. So one thing that has come up repeatedly in the comments this evening is the safety of our buildings and what we are doing to prepare for the fall if we are back in school and not entirely remote. And as you will hear tonight some of our students may be in the buildings unless we have school closure statewide or perhaps even in this region it's hard to say as we move forward. But regardless we have students in our building now we have teachers in our building administrators and there's been an ongoing effort over the summer to make our building safer and to prepare for the fall. And so this evening we have Mr. Feeney Jim Feeney who is the director of facilities. He is the director for town and schools and his team has been working very hard this summer to prepare for the fall. And I wanted an opportunity for Mr. Feeney to give you some overviews. The memo that outlines the latest updates is in Novus and anybody who is listening tonight can go into Novus and get that memo. So Mr. Feeney thank you for being here this evening and I'm just going to turn this over to you and perhaps also to Mr. Mason who has been partnering with him all summer on a lot of this. Thank you Superintendent Vody and members of the school committee. I understand you were provided previously with a memo outlining some high level points that we've been doing in preparation for a potential return to school in the fall. So the memo as penned by myself and Mike Mason dives into a few high level topics that we believe are of you know concerned and most folks interested in this topic. So ultimately these are risk reduction strategies that we're intending on layering inside the buildings to reduce the risk. So there's no zero risk scenario but there are certain steps we can take to help diminish risk. So the first and of course the one we heard mentioned quite readily in those comments that were read previously is the general condition of indoor air quality. So you know the one thing that I'm pleased to report that we'll be implementing district wide is the upgrade of our air filters on each and every one of our HVAC systems in the district. So just as wearing a mask for a person is sort of the number one personal protective strategy you can take you know increasing the level of filtration on your your buildings is sort of like placing a mask on your building. So it helps capture particles as they're redistributed through the air and basically traps them before they get into the breathing zone. So we're upgrading to what is known as a MERV 13 filter. Previously we've typically operated with a MERV 8 so this is a pretty substantial upgrade and is in line with the prevailing guidance for a COVID response mechanism. And beyond that and I think importantly to some of the questions noted before is we're using this opportunity is an exercise to tactically recommission each and every one of the systems in our buildings that moves air. So whether that be an air handler or a rooftop unit or a unit ventilator in a classroom or the myriad exhaust fans in our buildings. So we're taking this opportunity to check each and every one for proper operation. You know, visually observe dampers as they open and close, watch fans rotate, inspect belts, check air flows. This is a monumental task especially on some of our older buildings but of course a very important step that we can take as facilities professionals to help diminish risk. So I think beyond that the the next concern that we hear a lot about and we hear directly from teachers, staff, parents is and this is something we had experience with in March of this year when COVID came to Arlington was what additional measures could we take related to the custodial care of our building. You know beyond general cleanliness, sanitization is now obviously of paramount importance and we found that in order for us to be able to effectively respond and maintain a high level of sanitization in our buildings that we needed to vastly increase our fleet of electrostatic sprayers so that we can more efficiently and effectively move through our buildings and sanitize the surfaces they're in. So we I'm proud to announce that we have done that. We now have equipment in each and every building so that we no longer forced to shuffle this equipment from building to building in response to concerns so we can perform this sort of gold standard of sanitization on a regular and ongoing basis in each and every building so beyond that you know we are looking at just as many folks are being encouraged to do in their own spaces is the increased sanitization frequency of high touch surfaces in schools that would there would be a focus on door knobs and poles hand rails railings sink faucets flushometers which is the toilet flushing mechanism elevator buttons and things of that nature so you know prevailing guidance from desi currently states that these surfaces should be addressed three to four times daily so we're preparing for how we would fit that into our workflow obviously there's needs to be a greater attention paid to our bathroom facilities given the possibility for spread inside those rooms and we also need to look at the regular sanitization of hard surfaces such as desks tables and countertops which frankly will need to occur daily so in you know some of these things are obviously things that were not previously part of our daily workload so it's we've been going through quite a few simulations and exercises to model how long these various activities will take because of course with the increased workload will come an increased need for additional resources you know through both more personnel but also increased overtime for existing staff and I think it's important to note that you know them our mindset with as we evaluate some of these things is that you know historically a lot of our cleaning activities performed post occupancy so it's easiest and most efficient to clean a building after everyone leaves so we we do a lot of night shift work however to provide the greatest level of protection during the day while our buildings are occupied i.e. you know sanitizing high-touch surfaces regularly we need to be performing a lot more activities during the daytime and that will obviously you know as we perform those tasks it displaces other daytime work to evening work so you know there are you know depending on the potential schedule that was chosen we would then sort of calculate some workload indicators and see how in best we would fill these additional needs and we also recognize that waste management as it relates to sanitization is going to be another important topic to consider as we expect you know hand washing to increase greatly the use of various types of wipes to increase greatly we recognize that our waste baskets going to be filling up more frequently than ever as our our exterior dumpsters so that's something we're also considering how we will need to manage and then we'll say on a school by school basis we're working directly with principles to start modeling classroom layout and flow throughout the building and one of the tools we're able to provide our counterparts across the district is signage and decals so we're having durable vinyl decals made that we can use to apply to doors windows floors and walls to inform folks about face covering policy practices related to social distancing the need to use hand sanitizer and ways for controlling areas where there may be lines forming I you know through the use of please stand here decals we're going to be supplying each and every school in the district with a stock of multiple colors of painters tape as well as pre-made arrows for traffic control and reminders the next thing that I would want to touch upon is that we've successfully sourced a large number of freestanding plexiglass barriers to protect high-risk staff in buildings who have a number of interactions with public as they come into the building think about you know front office staff or even nursing staff or those folks who will perform testing with children so we're awaiting a shipment of those supplies to be distributed across the district we're working with the school nurse in each of our buildings to help them designate and set up an isolation room where we are cutting in tempered glass observation windows and we'll be installing powered portable air purifiers in the nursing suites we've been exploring various options that we may be able to deploy should there be special high-risk use cases or perhaps in response to changing conditions one of the options that we're considering and we're going to pilot a few units of would be bipolar ionization units which are recommended to improve indoor air quality they are costly and it would be likely infeasible to put them in every single piece of HVAC equipment across the district but we do want to have a tool in our toolbox to allow us to be responsive to concerns complaints or issues as they arise further in accordance with the desi guidance that has been issued we're doing our best to increase the fleet of touch free bottle filling stations in the common areas of schools throughout the district we're also going around to all of the existing units that provide for both manual direct consumption as well as bottle filling and we're retrofitting valves into those units so that we can leave the bottle filling station operational while precluding manual use for direct consumption and for those common area fountains that will provide only manual direct consumption and will not be retrofitted will simply be valved off so they cannot be used by students further we are in accordance with prevailing guidance powering down the hand dryers in the bathrooms we do have across the district due to concerns that by chance it would redistribute aerosolized particles generated during the flushing of toilets so we are increasing our fleet of paper towel dispensers and soap dispensers and we've been working diligently to increase our stock piles of hand soap sanitizers paper towels and frankly any items including wipes that we think are going to be in high demand should we see increased occupancy of our buildings in the fall so that touches upon the various points in the memo distributed previously by Mike Mason Morgan do you want to see if there's any questions at this stage before we move on now as you can say on that memo also is the amount of PPE that we have bought so people can also see that I don't know if Mr. Mason wants to just quickly talk to that he's been working with our director of nursing to make sure that we are are well supplied for the first 12 12 weeks of school which will continue to you know stay ahead of that too Mr. Mason yeah so good evening school committee members yeah the in the memo there is the personal protective equipment that we procured up to date with there variety of different sizes of face masks face shields gloves protective clothing protection whether it's gowns or lab coats contactless thermometers desk shields which were the barriers that Mr. Feeney just spoke about some specific items for the nursing department and also clear face masks that would be used for teachers for instructions for students can see when a that need to see when a teacher is speaking or kind of if they have a hearing loss situation or whatnot and so the chart is showing you know what we've ordered up to this point there will still be some more ordering so we'll try to keep you up to date as we do more ordering as well as what we've received based on what's been updated I think there's some shipments that have been received that just hasn't been actually put into our tracking database but there's still a good amount that's pending that we anticipate will be shipped in the coming weeks and I think that this explains that thank you the next in sorry the mute button is hit thank you I just have to what I think are quick questions the first is there's a lot of talk in terms of the ventilation about the number of air exchanges per hour is do you know how many air exchanges per hour the classrooms will get or how that will work so that's a bit of a challenging question to answer globally because each school building was designed to a different standard in the prevailing code at that time so what you know what I could say globally for each and every building what we would consider doing is though certainly at odds with our energy management principles we would consider running any of our systems that either introduce fresh air and exhaust stale air from our buildings nearly around the clock to get the most air changes possible of course our building occupants love natural ventilation and I think that now more than ever if folks are going to be occupying classrooms we can expect most likely each and every window to be opened but we do also have the ability at each of the buildings to increase mechanical ventilation to the extent possible per the design of the system to be frank that's something we can do a lot of in the fall or shoulder seasons he introduced more outdoor air our ability to do that based on the design of our systems is limited in the cold weather months obviously you'd start to have runaway issues with thermal comfort and humidity if you just simply pumped in fresh air or outdoor air as we know it because you wouldn't have your system wouldn't necessarily have the capacity to reheat that air quickly enough to maintain comfort in the classroom so that folks remain attentive so I would say that we're going to be able to deliver as many air changes as our buildings and equipment will allow that is somewhat different in different locations you know surprisingly it's the older buildings in the district that actually oftentimes deliver more fresh air ventilation than newer buildings based on the design code at that time but not surprisingly the newer buildings allow us more direct control via building automation systems to be able to really dial in our fresh air ventilation based on outdoor conditions so while each system has its advantages and disadvantages there are strategies we can employ to increase fresh air ventilation in all of our buildings mechanically but I do believe that given the conversations I've had with staff and teachers that they will be flooding their classrooms with fresh air via all of the operable exterior windows and we have been trying to provide each and every principal a list of those classrooms that are not well served by mechanical ventilation and that's though if it's a space that's was designed for student activities by code it has to have mechanical fresh air ventilation but as I understand that the district has grown over a number of years and oftentimes we find ourselves occupying spaces for new activities that they may not have originally been designed for so it's identifying those classrooms for principals and letting them know that we would not recommend them for student activities or programming because they don't have the ability to we don't have the ability to control how much fresh air is introduced into those spaces I hear that you can't sort of quantify it but I think it's going to be important for teachers and families to feel safe about the ventilation to have some some level of confidence that this full air exchange is happening I think three times an hour is what sort of people are asking so I could use an example I just for a seventh grade autism teacher who had reached out and was interested in doing the calculation you know for in I think they would consider that or I would know it in looking at my building plans as building C so it's a seventh grade English classroom I believe so it's volume of air would be 7000 cubic feet and the unit ventilator serving that classroom is designed to move a thousand cubic feet per minute so that would deliver in excess of eight air changes per hour based on the amount of air that's being moved but the caveat is that HVAC systems don't only move 100% fresh outdoor air it's a combination of filtered return air and outdoor air so in that that combination is it differs based on the position of a damper inside that unit which adjusts in you know basically corresponding to a combination of the indoor and outdoor conditions thanks and then one really quick I just noticed that there were N95s on the supply list that I'm wondering who those are intended for that's specifically for the nursing the nurses and the nursing suites RIM we can still hear you we can come back Mr. Cardin hi thank you so as one of the speakers mentioned there's interest in using outdoor space and that would presumably require some tending so I'm wondering where we are with with doing an RFP if needed or talking to vendors about getting tents set up at some of our schools if we're doing so I can report that we I can report that we have reached out to local vendors to determine their availability size and cost of tents and they are still available I know some principals have mapped out potential locations I personally have been in touch with inspectional services here in Arlington because these are they would essentially amount to 70 permanent structures that will require building permits fire extinguishers calculations on flame spread ratings they have to still be 50% outdoor air we have to establish significant lateral stability because these aren't you know just tents that are going to go up in down each day as would festival or fair so these are things that you know we would rent monthly if that was the avenue we would go so in facilities we've been thinking about those issues but I imagine the the principals have been thinking about how they would be used and how they would be laid out okay thank you Dr. Allison Ampe okay alright can you hear me we can okay great I'm going to ask my two questions and then I'm going to start driving again so I won't be able to well actually I'll I'll try listening first the first question is at our facilities meeting you had Mr. Feeney you had discussed having a lot of parts for ventilation systems I just thought if you could review that a little bit that that was a comforting thing to know given the importance of ventilation and then the second question is when will we know which rooms will not be available because we do not feel to have adequate ventilation in specific you had mentioned that there were some like potentially some of the larger rooms like some of the gyms that you weren't sure you were going to be able to fit into the sequence before the start of school thank you alright so at the close out of fiscal year 20 we chose to stock up on frequently used parts so it's often case that we need damper actuators and fan motors for cabinet unit ventilators which are the sort of the freestanding vertical units in all of our classrooms so in order to be more responsive to concerns or to reduce downtime we did make a great effort and investment in attic stock so that we would have a number of parts on hand number of frequently used parts on hand for each of the schools you know that was sort of our first major effort was tackling the classroom systems themselves we're now going through building by building unit by unit and fan by fan all of our rooftop equipment so we don't we did order backup belts for each and every fan and we ordered two filter changes which was the maximum our distributor was willing to give us at the time so that we would have those parts on hand and we started by going through what we know to be our oldest buildings first as we go through and try to recommission the equipment knowing that that's where we would find the most pre-existing issues such that we could then start sourcing replacement parts Mr. Thielman thank you and thank you Jim for the presentation and I echo what Julianne Keith said at the beginning of the meeting I think you guys have been doing great work getting ready getting ready for whatever might happen in September my question is to what extent are you consulting with outside experts to get guidance on how to proceed both in terms of the equipment we need and also if there have been any discussions with architects engineers experts of some sort about layout building or you know classroom hallway layout like to what extent are you consulting with outside experts so I wouldn't necessarily be able to speak to classroom layout but in terms of how we would manage and control our HVAC systems obviously we're you know we're a very small in-house staff so we've been bringing in a number of our professional building control vendors as we look at more global strategies and as we look more specifically at Arlington High School we've been consulting with BALA which is the mechanical consulting engineering group that is designing the new Arlington High School because obviously there's a discussion to be had for what considerations need to be made for the new buildings in light of a pandemic like this but also what strategies are available to us for existing buildings with certain ways to not only control your system but what you might be able to do to retrofit it to perform as well as it possibly can you know as I alluded to previously there are are some instances we're limited by equipment that's 30 you know 40 years old so the best we can do is make sure it's operating as originally intended and I guess I don't I don't if it's off topic and Jane can just stop but in terms of like general school layout so some organizations companies which probably have more resources than we do are using architectural and engineering firms to give guidance on layout and I'm wondering if we're Michael or Kathy if we're doing anything like that for the classrooms we haven't hired an outside firm to do that I will say the department of education has given us numerous possible layouts and how you can organize a room we didn't have our own in-house math math experts on this in terms of what that could look like and how many desks can be in a classroom both at three feet seat to seat distancing and six foot as far as the layouts there's also a calculator that the department of education has provided all school districts which we have the principals all have access to it as well as facilities to just take a look at what that would look like so we have done a very thorough feasibility study and in the draft reports we summarize it in a very condensed way rather than going through every single room every single gym lunch room in terms of how many desks you can get in at three foot and six foot but that kind of study has been done in every school that it gives us information in terms of what the schedule would look like how many lunches we might possibly have to have and of course lunches affect the schedule those that are you know in education understand the effect of that so that has been done and what we know from that feasibility study is that in or if if we had students in school at that three foot distance in a classroom which would be the everyone returning to school we still have to provide space where students could have lunch or snacks or have mass breaks at a three foot now we've been talking about tents we are definitely looking into that possibility an attempt would help and inclement weather but what we also know is why we might need that is that in order to have any kind of reasonable number sometimes it can vary quite a bit in terms of number of lunches we would have to have deaths in our cafeteria and our gyms in order to be able to manage having lunches in our elementary and middle for that matter our high school as well so that has been done and as I said it's sort of very summarized in those reports okay all right thanks very much thank you Mr. Schliffman thank you very much here's where I'm struggling because as I'm listening to the talk of the facilities I'm sort of collecting in my mind what I think we can and cannot do one of the reasons for having this meeting tonight was to figure out what we were going to be telling desi how much of this discussion in terms of what our facilities are like is desi asking for in this submission tomorrow and in that relationship what are we telling them in 300 words we are going to talk about what our feasibility study was actually writing it it's from the reports that we have it's taking a little bit more time but I've actually gone through talking about how many whether we could accommodate in schools and I said this last week to everybody we know that our elementary schools for example that we would be able to accommodate the number of students in each of the schools in our classrooms if if if desi were were placed three feet apart seat to seat we did that we know that we can do that at oddison Gibbs is a little bit more challenging though if we increase the number of learning communities by 1.5 you know we can manage that too but in the high school as well in all of these cases however even though we can get all of our students into existing classrooms by increasing number of staff and using exploratory rooms such as facts or art music what is still something that is a technical issue that we had to also look at is how could we have students have lunch because at three feet in a classroom you cannot have lunch because you have to take your mask off and we to take masks off for mass breaks or lunch or eating snacks students must be six feet apart so we I talked about this a little bit last week too we looked at the capacity of our lunchrooms both the tables in it and also what the capacity would be with respect to putting desks in instead and we would go the desk group because they would be it would be get us a little bit more capacity but if it means that in a if everybody is back that they will be in the classroom pretty much staying in classroom with that kind of limited movement and every space in the school will need to be utilized for the six foot we can have an outdoor space we're really look we're really trying to figure out where to put those and we've done that in different schools but that's what the school would look like is that the gym would not be really that usable from the the majority of the day because even between each lunch we still need time for our custodians to clean and now we've got a cafeteria and a gym at the middle school we've got two gyms at the high school two gyms sites so it's a it's a it's a time issue between our lunches so there are a lot of constraints and you know be very difficult in our buildings to manage this completely we can do it but is that that is the issue of we can do it but this is what it looks like to do it I don't know we can do it I remember sitting here listening to Madam Pierre Maxwell talk about porta potties and the challenges in the Gibbs building our elementary schools were built not for the large number of children we have right now and we talk about the Thompson cafeteria being built for about what was it 120 fewer students and we've got in it right now I I hope that in this document we're sending off we're not conveying a message to desi that yeah we could bring everybody back because I don't know that we really can information going to desi is just very factual in terms of what this feasibility study is ultimately the decision I mean you'll have a recommendation from the administration team but ultimately the decision is the school committees as to which of these plans that you're going to support and that's what's so important about tonight and the thing I also want to emphasize is that there are still layers and layers of things that we need to do which we've been starting to work on and I'll talk a little bit more about the remote option than remote for all but um this requires a lot of detailed planning and and as one one of our principles mentioned last week every time you you ask a question there are more questions you have to answer not only in the everybody coming back but in a hybrid plan and a remote plan as well each of them have challenges to them and I think that what the community wants I think I know all of our administrators would like to have is a decision and but but I also think that everybody wants to have a decision that's very thoughtful is gather the facts having you know learning what people have been doing to make this possible and hearing from the community and I think that's what's going on these couple of weeks you know we will make a decision this will be to you to make a decision with a recommendation but even after that there is still a lot more that we have to do desi has been pretty good through this whole thing I've got to say that they've been fairly pragmatic but my concern right now is that because we are a dependent unit to state government they can tell us what we need to do and what we have to do I always have the worry that the state's going to come down and limit our options and tell us what we can and cannot do based on what is in the submission which is why I'm pretty anxious about what we're saying right now because of this committee we're to go and decide two weeks from now that it's not safe to open at the present time that we should start remotely I don't want the state coming back at us and saying hey wait a minute what you guys submitted two weeks ago seemed to look like you could pull off a full implementation or a hybrid model with a lot of kids coming back so you can understand why in terms of dealing with a more powerful regulator that I am anxious and cautious and want to know what kind of position we're being put in with the submission tomorrow because I don't want it to restrict our options going forward basically you have all of that we have at this point we've done more work but that's not necessarily included in any of the plans from last week ultimately it is a local decision and I agree Dusty I think some people wish things would happen faster but we're talking about something that is extremely complex and they have been trying to be as responsive as they can with the level of detail that's going to help but ultimately this is a local decision you know I think you're you know you're hearing from teachers you've heard the constraints of everybody coming back one of the things that I think the committee wants to hear a little bit about more tonight is about what a a hybrid would look like and what we're doing about planning for a potential remote because there we'll talk about our preliminary it's amazing our preliminary survey to parents the response rate we have already you know the the interest in a room in a remote option as well so there's still a bit more of the one to talk about tonight to have the community and you to be fully informed as much as we can and I know everybody's as Ms. Key said everybody's becoming an amateur epidemiologist and facilities person everybody's trying to learn as much as they possibly can so the one thing that I'm very confident about is that with the level of input that we've been getting the kind of work and trying to planning that the decision we make locally is going to be the the best we can do with what where we are and it's a process and I know people want to answer right away but you know I think and I suspect that whatever we decide not everybody's going to be happy with because I get a range I'm sure you do too arrange your comments as do our principles so we are seeing lots of comments from we need to fully open to how can we possibly open and we have to wrestle with this and seeing that the decision down the road is going to be with the committees it is a heavy heavy weight that is on the shoulders of myself and the six colleagues here we're dealing with a pandemic in which you could go two weeks with a huge spread before any symptoms or any indication appears it's a huge responsibility because we're not just making educational decisions we're potentially making life and death decisions and we are going to be an anxious governing board until this pandemic is over as well I will tell you that administrators and our teachers feel the same burden of trying to get this as right as we possibly can so I'm going to move Mr. Hayner and myself have not had a chance to ask any questions about the logistics of the facilities so I'd like to make sure that we have a chance to do that I know I have questions I think Mr. Hayner does as well and then we can move on to talk more about the the sort of ed plan and and what those things look like so Mr. Hayner Thank you first off before we go into the specifics of the ed plan I'd like the opportunity to make a statement afterwards Mr. Feeney thank you very much for all the work and all the work your staff has done and continues to do quick question the MIRV 13 filter that you mentioned beginning of your presentation is that available going to be in all the buildings and all the rooms? That is correct and the when the heat is on I'm very uninformed about this when I turn the heat on in my classroom or the heat is turned on does that have an effect on the amount of air that's recirculated and filtered? So if it were to be plugged up it would certainly you would see what's called a pressure drop across the filter and it wouldn't limit the air I'm sorry I'm not I just I apologize I'm just meaning when I when the heat is turned on for the winter does that reduce the amount of cleaner air going through just the heat itself am I recirculating old airs that's just been heated up? You're in heating season i.e. during winter months you are introducing less outdoor air because you have less opportunity to reheat it to 72 degrees in such a short period of time you still have to maintain a minimum outdoor air for code but you you can't go to you know 100% outdoor air because you'd be pumping really cold air into a classroom How often do the filters need to be changed? So historically we would change them seasonally it was a a filter that didn't catch as much particulate matter this will be our first experience with a MERV 13 filter and what we've been hearing from other folks in the industry and we've already started launching these in our town buildings is that especially the first time we put one of these in there that we need to get it out within a month because it's likely going to trap all of those smaller finer particles that you hadn't captured before but then the second filter you put in you might get a little bit more life out of it so we're planning to inspect the filters one month to the day after we put them in because it'll be our first experience with them And the turn around time and changing is that just something you just go into the classroom open it up pop it in and take the other one out real short time and you throw the other one out yeah Oh, it's a throwaway it's not a it's not one that you clean No, we wouldn't re-clean wouldn't reuse or re-clean these Thank you I had two questions one was why I haven't heard anything about independent hand washing stations I know that we're interested in hand sanitizer but you know hand washing does seem to be really important and doing it expeditiously seems like something we want to make sure we can do so I'm curious why that's not something that or at least that I haven't heard that we're looking at so I will say obviously our initial push was to get our hands on touch free stanchion mount hand sanitizer dispensers which we were able to source a large number of to put at our entrances exits and outside the calf our next push was to increase soap and paper towel dispenser availability in our bathrooms but also repair each and every faulty classroom faucet that we could find so that we we made a big effort to sort of service our existing inventory to make sure everything was functional obviously we do have a lot of bathrooms and a lot of sinks think the challenge presented by hand wash like temporary hand washing stations is that you have to get a water supply to them but the even larger challenge is the drain so you may see a lot of portable freestanding units that really have jugs with only a couple gallons of capacity in them before the station is essentially rendered useless until someone could go service it and that would be you know the though and I think it would be an effective item in areas where really you have no access to running water beyond that you know it it may only have the opportunity to serve a couple of students before your wastewater tank reservoir was filled and needed to be taken out you know like we put on a two-wheel car given its weight take into a custodial closet and dump down a floor drain and then reinstalled in that unit so though it increases our capacity I think that the maintenance and operation of them would prove challenging but that's not to say if there were some zones in certain schools where principles that identified a real lack of infrastructure that it might be a good tool there but as a sort of global strategy it it really has some limitations okay thank you but that is something that you're in communication with principles about should the need arise and we could acquire those as needed theoretically if they're available and the ability to install additional hand sanitization stations you know to have some extras to go beyond just those high traffic areas to potentially put it in a zone where a principal thinks that there needs to be access to hand hygiene right no it seems really important and then the other thing I was wondering if you could so and then have we just as you've gone through and evaluated our sinks and running water have we also done an evaluation of our like our windows and our screens et cetera so that we know that our windows are going to open that they have screens you know we have killer mosquitoes now obviously so it how are we doing with that so I think we're doing really well in terms of windows that open and close I'll admit we haven't done a full scale inventory in that respect we do rely a lot on the the building custodian in that building or the principal to report issues just because of the sort of Herculean task it would be to go through each and every building and manually test them we have been able as I understand that though I've only been around for a short time each summer we do go through and replace a large number of broken screens but there are still some buildings out there with windows that don't have screens either because of the way it operates the challenge of getting to the window you know where you would actually install a screen that there's a lot of feasibility issues that may not necessarily present the right reward for the investment okay but the windows are something we're going to keep working away at throughout August to make sure that we're I mean we've got to be able to open every window we have right so right that seems super important so is there what's the mechanism for for principals or custodians to notify your team that windows need attention so they would put what we call a work order they would call a ticket they would put it in through our uh sort of web based system so you know our initial inventory for summer work as it always is to is to go around and replace any broken glass so we've done that so this would be more so for you know hinge mechanisms or you know lubrication of hinges if someone found a window to be tight or not opening its full swing okay all right I I I definitely want to know a lot more about windows so uh yeah so and I think that's that's something we could have our custodial staff participate more in so they're all mostly wrapped up with floor treatment and finishing and waxing they're they're doing quite a bit of furniture moving as well for the principals as they do the permutations of the classrooms but that's certainly a task that we could have our senior building custodians go through and verify understood and it's not our responsibility as a committee to sort of obviously micromanage your processes or high things I just you know if if if you're coming and telling us that you need support to make sure that we have windows that open and close and screens and that we have enough people to evaluate whether or not they open or close then that seems to me you know that would be something that I would obviously want to support and make sure that we're making you know happen because it seems like a huge priority I'm less concerned about the condition of the William but I really want the windows to be able to open so so certainly keep in touch with us if if you have needs in that area because it's certainly something I'm very interested in so Ms. Keys Hi I just want to say in the past we've had very I think the tech department made them way back when like temperate like separate screens that you could just sort of put up in front of the window and some people have even made their own just from like window screening and magnets anything that gets us so we can leave the windows open particularly overnight because normally we can't because birds come in but anything that would just enable us to be able to leave those windows open as much as possible it doesn't have to be an official fancy screen you know like I said some mesh and some magnets will do it thank you okay Jane may I say something yes so Mr. Mason and then Mr. Haynor I just want to just follow up and to add on that we have committed dollars from capital funds for the screen projects this has been happening over the last few years so these gaps have been closed even when Mr. Phoenix jumped on board he had his staff go back and re-evaluate this before the pandemic even happened and so this will continue to happen as long as we have those capital dollars and I believe we were close to getting most of the screen projects done but I just wanted to make sure that gets put on record and noted for for everybody tonight thank you Mr. Mason Mr. Haynor I have a quick question Dr. Bode and then a statement when do we as a school committee have to take a vote and make a decision of what we're going to do is that August 10th that's correct thank you um I'm a little concerned I'm constantly asking for material with sufficient time to digest it prior to the meeting um you've talked about sharing with us an expanded hybrid bread and remote we need to work on this as soon as possible we should do I was under the impression we were going to be doing this tonight I don't mean this to be reflective to the staff to the administration or everything we we are all under the pressure of getting this done I appreciate it but I find it very difficult to sit here and listen to oral presentations and to digest it the materials that we need we should have them ahead of time if at all possible we are all here for the safety of our children and our staff and I going along with Mr. Schlichman I'm very very reluctant to look at anything right now beyond remote and as a teacher that offends me the idea of remote because as Ms. Key said earlier being able to be with the children being able to respond to the children can't be done remotely but safety is the primary concern thank you so Dr. Bode did you want to did you have an update with more information about the planning how does it makes like how do you how do you want to share that with us all right or do you want or do you want questions I mean I know we have lots of questions but it may make sense what you have we can do for we have done more work this week looking at the issue of hybrids as well as what a remote schedule would look like and this actually one of the reasons why the principals are here tonight actually I was going to do special ed in EL but I hope Selmer because as he doesn't mind meeting waiting a few minutes as we delve into this topic we have been looking at schedules there's been working groups to look at this if we were to talk because there's two issues here one is what if we were back in full I think everybody knows what basically what a school schedule would look like so our focus has been on you know what would be a hybrid schedule what that would what would that look like and it is going to be different as you have a different levels now I'm going to let Mr. McNeil talk a little bit about this and principals can also join in and talking about it but we so with the hybrid issue there's been a lot of discussion as to in two areas and this is areas where we need you know we're going to have to be part of a recommendation on hybrid is whether the model would be where students were in what they call it an AABB model where you would have you would be in as a cohort A two days a week contiguous days and then another cohort the B group would be in two days contiguous so it would be like a Monday Tuesday Wednesday we'll talk about a minute and then a Thursday Friday that's one model of a hybrid and in fact if you that was put into the survey that we sent out to to parents as well as staff for that matter or another model would be where you'd have they would be non-consecutive days so you'd have it it's called an AAB AAB model so you would have a cohort in on Monday a different cohort on Tuesday we have a different schedule for Wednesday and then we have first cohort A and then second cohort B so those are two models and there are pros and cons to both of them and this is something we're trying to get a little bit of a pulse on in terms of where both parents and staff would be but in the hybrid model there would be two days where students are in and the other days of the week would be in remote and that remote would be a combination of synchronous and asynchronous work and that is exactly where we have to do a lot more planning over the next couple of weeks what that would what that would how that would work this the so why don't we just stay with the hybrid for the moment and and talk about that we haven't we don't really have the complete survey results yet but there are there's also a discussion about what Wednesday would look like would that be fully remote in the morning or would we have some groups of students come in now having said that you're going to hear more of this evening about the plan for our high needs students in terms of their participation in school in the fall but I'm just saying in terms of for most students what Wednesday would look like is something that we are working on right now and we realize that parents in deciding which if they're going to do a remote option or not need more detail and we talked about that last week and that's exactly what we're trying to work on now they need more detail in terms of what the remote option would look like and they need more detail in terms of which we're going to recommend in a in a hybrid option to all of you Dr. Mendele do you want to add anything to this and I would invite our principals also if they wanted to say something then we'll talk about the remote planning thank you Dr. Bodie so since the early spring let's say after you know three or four weeks after we went into school closure I convene two study groups to study distance learning and remote programming and those groups have been meeting every Wednesday one group is for elementary staff and one group is for secondary staff the composition of the elementary and both groups include teachers coaches at the elementary level we have teachers coaches specials teachers from each grade level and in each content area and just recently this past Wednesday the elementary principals also joined that discussion and we had you know it was very rich discussion and we met in small groups and we divided up the groups into different grade levels so you had one group for kindergarten which also included a preschool teacher and then we had another group for first grade and then we had a group that studied what remote learning would look like second to fifth grade and leading up to these discussions then at the secondary level we also convened a group just today we actually had two meetings this week Wednesday and Thursday for the secondary group and so during these discussions and leading up to this the meetings that happened this week teachers have been using things that resources research attending webinars and we also have a significant number of teachers who are also taking a Harvard course that I explained or introduced to the school committee a couple of weeks ago that is studying distance learning and so I'm going to ask the principals to talk about that experience that took place this Wednesday because we're using all the research and the discussion and you know presentations that we also have about online tools and how we can integrate those in online tools into our daily instruction and I'm going to ask the principals who chaired some of those working groups this past Wednesday to talk about the experience and the things that they discussed so let's start off with Ms. Peretz who chaired our kindergarten group Thank you and Karen Donato was with me in that group too so it was preschool and kindergarten teachers and then other people who work with a variety of grade levels were able to go between the different groups in the zoom breakout sessions so specialists special educators and the like and the conversation really needs to start with always with what are our values and in that creation of these kinds of schedules and so that's a lot of what Dr. McNeil has been doing with this group all along so that was pretty easy but especially in kindergarten and preschool we're talking about our youngest learners and the fact that their needs are very different and they don't always really align with a lot of time on screens and so we learned quite a lot through the time of school closure of what works and what doesn't work for you know five-year-olds and so really thinking about their schedule and how in all of our grade levels we need to start with that social emotional piece but especially with the kindergarteners that they're really coming into school for the first time and that they need that connection with their teacher so what we worked on with the kindergarten teachers was thinking about and with the preschool teacher was thinking about how to really connect with the children in really one-on-one first and then being able to build over time into working with pairs and then working in a small group and then working in a slightly larger small group and really thinking about a lot of repetitive using song using art using movement and really keeping a schedule that builds over time so that it is first of all like small little pieces of connecting with the teacher practicing things away from the screen being able to come back and connect and build that over time so we had talked about there's that schedule for right away there's the schedule that is two weeks into school being open there's the schedule that's four weeks into school being open and then of course hopefully what we're building towards in the first six weeks of school so it's a very slow role in what I was really impressed with was the enthusiasm that the teachers brought to this work and really the passion for it I mean they really are tackling this problem head on and our preschool teacher one of them said who is working in summer school right now in ESY you know said I really wasn't sure what preschool summer school was going to look like on a computer but that doing some of these things she found that she really was able to have a certain level of success that even she was concerned she wasn't going to be able to reach and so that was really nice to see and to hear so we certainly do not have a schedule that's set in stone right now but we're going to keep working on it and everyone wanted to in fact to have a a working session next week that was longer because they didn't want to stop they were really into the conversations which was great and I think that that was something in processing that we felt across the board as a group so we'll keep on going with that thank you Ms. Peretz and then I'm going to ask Mr. Damon to talk about the first grade group because he was the chairperson for that for that discussion sure just to add on what Kate said I think I'll share a few other technical pieces first of all it's wonderful to work with teachers in the summer in the way that we're being offered that Dr. McNeil has offered and you know these should should note that these teachers have been working continuously since the end of the school year so they've they've not stopped since the students school year has stopped they've continued on and we're looking at creating a schedule that falls within the typical school day so you know beginning around eight o'clock to 8.15 which I think is when our elementary schedule starts and concludes at the end of the day 230 so our intention is to in the remote learning portion should we find ourselves there the kids would have a structured school day similar to the times that they're used to doing in-person learning schedules are looking to include our core subject areas our intention is to be able to teach the curriculum to the extent possible that we can so we're we're looking at how do we cover the required hours and how do we do that in a development developmentally appropriate way so teachers are looking at blocks of time thinking about in for first grade six-year-olds and what the interaction will look like they're discussing different tools that they have learned about for engagement because engagement needs to be a key priority particularly for our young learners and durations that are manageable so conversations are including high-tech opportunities low-tech opportunities acknowledgement that at a young age there will be if students are at home there will be a need for some type of adult guidance and how can we how can teachers still structure that and we do want kids to be taking screen breaks and for us all to be monitoring screen time so I guess I can I'll stop there I mean many of the same components that Kate mentioned thinking about our values and thinking about what we want to accomplish and trying our best to walk walk through a day in the life of six-year-old in a remote learning environment thank you very much Mr. Dingman and then next I would like Mr. McEnany who chaired the second through fifth grade group sure good evening thank you Dr. McNeil yeah a lot of the components that Ms. Parrots and and Dingman Mr. Dingman explain our team as the grades two through five as instruction and that model look a lot different than the early childhood we even want to think about breaking it up in future meetings to grades two and three and grades four and five as you know different things are able to happen at each of those each of those grade levels so this team had started to really start looking at best practice and how to deliver instruction through again best practice and educational virtual tools for example and you know looking at their values and to continue this conversation so now the administration is beginning to sit in and facilitate these meetings and so we've started you know just outlining the typical kind of mandated amount of minutes per content as a base for example in 90 minutes of ELA or 70 minutes of math although this is a good goal we realized very quickly that this is a lot of instructional time especially for our younger children so you know based on the remote engagement the stamina in the spring we predict to be very low in the fall as well so with this said we're going to be mindful of starting at a slower pace designing content delivery accordingly again like Mr. Damon said we're planning for what a day could look like at each of each of the different grades considerations will include screen mask and lunch breaks which are going to be very important and even hand washing breaks as well that's going to take some time so that's going to have to be structured into the schedule we're also exploring the opportunities to break up the day with possible whole group instruction in the morning where independent work could be done at the end of the day and what that allows to free teachers up for their contractual preparation and team planning time also for our specials as well art, gym, music, physical education and library we're putting a heavy emphasis on service delivery options for students who require specialized instruction along with our English language learners and our struggling readers our our half day Wednesday proposal is getting attention as well and that needs to be fleshed out and finally before any academic content can be delivered the first few weeks of school we'll be focusing on developing some really solid social emotional learning making connections building relationships and creating guidelines and protocol that we're all going to be faced with as a community if we do in fact come back or I'm sorry in a remote in a remote model and these considerations too as you can hear is looking at what a hybrid could look like as well all the work this is all a work in progress team is very competent and it's a motivated group of professionals and it's it's been a pleasure to start that work with them looking forward to the the upcoming weeks thank you Mr. McEnany and so I just want to add we've talked about our values and I just want to share that what those values are and you know at the top of the list is the physical of mental health of all adults and students in the district equity and learning highly engaged teaching and learning teacher collaboration and then we're using the guiding documents that we have created to reflect those values like our vision of student as a learner and global citizen looking at the transferable skills that that need to be prevalent in each content area and then also looking at the district goals that we've set for ourselves and so another value is two-way communication with students and family so we know that we're going to have to provide a large amount of support to our parent population in a hybrid model or a remote model as it relates to using the online tools and giving tips for helping to support their students with the content that they're tasked to learn and then finally not finally and this is not a this is a living list this is a living document but we're also focused on community building as Mr. Mack and any indicated and building relationships with students so we're really focusing on and using the research that we've learned about remote learning and distance learning and saying we're saying like how how are we going to approach the first six weeks of school when we know we have to teach our students how to use the online tools we have to build those connections with them and then we also have to assess where they are and their learning in order to move forward in the curriculum and I just want to emphasize this that we're not trying to recover everything that was lost in the spring but we're going to focus on essential standards that are needed that the students need to learn in order to move forward in the curriculum so I just want to give that overview and I thank each one of the principals for also presenting the work that they've done and I also want to applaud our teachers that even though they had a tough year as Ms. Keys indicated in her statement they are still motivated and you know their passion for being able to meet the needs of our students has motivated them continue on throughout the summer and many of them are also taking a course a four-week course at Harvard so I want to thank our AEF for supporting that the registration fee that it took to support that learning and so we're working together as a community to make sure that we can service the needs of our students Thank you Dr. Muneal and everyone for your the work that they're doing is going to be important whether we're in hybrid or or all remote and we have I want to make some distinction here and I also have our middle school principals who might want to say something they they've been also working on in both areas as well but we know that we need to get a schedule what it's going to look like if parents choose a remote option then we have the situation where we might be all remote the entire district or or hybrid and even in the hybrid mode the model model plan we still need to have the work done about remote because our students are going to be remote probably three days a week and as we mentioned this Wednesday in the hybrid one thing that we know we need to put in at the elementary school is our early release day we have an early release day right now what we're what we're going to be proposing in the hybrid model is shifting it just simply to Wednesday so nothing for the elementary changes at the secondary level the Wednesday afternoon is still needed as an early release normally we would have one per month for the middle school but we clearly in this situation we need a lot more planning and and collaboration so what is going to be true at the secondary level is that students will have more independent work to do on Wednesday afternoon because we are still going to be held to the the the time and learning standards so every program that we put together whether it's hybrid or all remote and also the remote option program learning program are all going to meet time and learning standards and that's important for everybody to understand now exactly how the schedule is and whether what happens from nine to nine and thirty and and that time the level of detail is something that is going to be evolving so with respect to hybrid we have to make a fundamental decision this week for a recommendation whether it's going to be an AA or an AB model we also need to continue our work on what the Wednesday morning is going to look like at each level and I just want to invite if they had just a second or two to Madame Pierre Maxwell if you wanted to say something about Gibbs and I know Mr. Merringer is here and I can I don't know Dr. Janger is but I the I can talk about the high school so can I just enter can I just say that we've done the same work at the secondary level and Madame Pierre Maxwell and Mr. Merringer were also worked with teachers this past Wednesday so I would like them to also talk about that experience and what's mirrored exactly what we were doing at the elementary level as well good evening everyone thank you for giving me a chance to catch up to what we've done since the last time we've been with this body so um speaking of our values definitely in our conversation since the last time we've seen you we've focused a lot on the issue of equity in looking at the schedule and I do know that the last time we were in front of the school committee the concern was about where would our students with high needs where would they live into that schedule whether it's hybrid or fully remote so we've held several conversations since then with the elementary school principals and Mr. Marenger and I and just to really see where could we be in alignment in whichever hybrid or full remote schedule what can we do that could bring some consistency to the work to what we're doing and really having deeper conversation as someone mentioned earlier every time you come with one challenge and you find a solution that solution may itself present a few other things to look into so I find that that work was very useful to collaborate with colleagues across the different grid level just to see is it any different at Gibbs than it would be in the other buildings since then I've also had a chance to have a forum with the teachers where we held the conversation to get the teachers input on what was written on that first draft of the plan and so we had a chance to really get their perspective and hear some of their concern and many of those concern were things us ourselves are still struggling with and trying to defining what would that look like to present the safest environment for everyone and also creating that climate we want teachers to be calm and at ease to be able to come to work and children to be able to connect to feel belonging in that building so we did get the teachers feedback and some of their suggestion of what they're looking for us to do gives also held a parent conversation last Tuesday evening and we had about 79 parents who participated another similar forum will be held next Tuesday for those parents who were not able to attend so again the parents have the copy of the plan that you have even though it's a first draft but that also give them a sense of what's going on so we had a meeting with a few of our department heads and classroom teachers and special ed coordinators I believe Miss Elmer was part of that conversation just to really look at the Gibbs students with high needs the schedule itself and we did came out with quite a few excellent proposal on how to create the schedule in such a way that our high needs students would not only be able to to part take in all the classes but also find a place in the schedule where they would be able to be serviced regularly whether we are in a hybrid in the AA or AB rotation with the Wednesday with a half a day home but with a synchronous learning that our high needs students whether they identify as English language learners or special education children who needed reading intervention or math intervention we have identified how that would look in a hybrid in an all synchronous teaching and learning and we've had at least two different way of looking at it because again we're missing crucial data to be able to say how many students we're going to have with parents to say they can return to the building how many teachers who is going to be able to service those students so there are some key elements until we have those we cannot create a final product that said as Dr. Magnin suggested today when I met with the group that was focusing on the synchronous learning they've been looking at different practices on how to create a schedule where you can maximize time on learning but minimize the time on screen that you have the students sitting in front of the computer so we have some excellent conversation and have written some drafts and we started looking at the nitty gritty where the robber meets the roads the thing that our parents going to want to know once we know what the schedule is going to look like so what arrival is going to look like when dismissal is going to look like the signage so we've been pretty busy and I have to say that since the last time we were in front of this committee I feel pretty confident with a lot of information that I didn't think the last time we had time to hear from our constituency get feedback from different support staff and we're definitely halfway there with a lot of information we'll be able to put into action once we have a definite plan we're going to be operating in whether it's an AA or AB schedule etc so we're looking forward to the next step we're going to keep on working on what we know and waiting for what we still need thank you Mr. Merringer yeah so I um Mr. McNeil can you hear me okay here I'm a little remote myself no I got yes we can hear you loud and clear okay great so I wanted to thank the teachers also who I worked with today on some of the remote learning and one of the things we've often talked about is the lessons that we learned in the spring and what we can do in the fall and I think one of the things that we learned definitely at the middle school level was we were really trying to keep kids engaged during the spring and I think the teachers worked extremely hard to make sure that they were continuing to learn but I think remote learning will look different in the fall I think one of the biggest learnings that we had was we were asking kids to juggle so many classes at so many times that we really stretch their executive functioning skills we almost asked a lot of our middle school kids who are 13 or 14 years old to turn into executives and do email management and make sure they got everything done at the right time and I think we really have to simplify our approach and our schedule and I think one of the things we've been able to do over the last few months is to talk about how to be better with our students and so I look you know I really appreciate the teachers who are looking at different models and looking at with a different perspective and knowing what we did well in the spring and what we didn't do well you know I I think if you had asked me at the beginning of when we went out I would have said you know I like asynchronous because it gives you a chance to work when you want to work but I think I was looking at it through too much of an adult lens because I have those skills where I can organize times and do things when I want and I think we're looking now in the fall of how to organize keep things simplified and making sure that we're meeting our goals as Dr. McNeil said we're really identifying the curriculum that we need to emphasize and we need to make sure that kids are able to be engaged and understand it so we can keep the education process moving forward so I don't think you know overall you know I don't think any of us really want to be remote but I think the remote will look a lot different and I'm confident in the staff who have so far this summer donated a lot of time to really investigate what works better for kids and I am assured that the remote experience if that's the way we want want to go that will be better than what we had in the spring I also wanted to bring up a little bit with the hybrid and the you know it is evolving one of the things that happened this week was we got more guidance from the Department of Education one of the things that came out is they said you know you can't have chorus or band in school if you have if you have PE the kids have to have masks they need to be separated by 10 feet that's going to change how we're going to give those certain programs I'm not sure that we can have them even in a hybrid they might have to be remote when other parts are being hybrids so we're really trying to look at what's best for kids how we keep equity in the front of our mind and how that we can hopefully give the best experience possible to our kids and it is a process that is frustrating for myself for staff for parents I'm sure there's students who I've heard from who want their schedules now too but overall it is evolving process I think right now you know I could assure you that if we had a hybrid situation we could have 400 kids 450 kids in the autism spread out six feet apart that's a possibility however there's a lot of questions to be answered but I feel like over the next week we'll be able to get that and I understand school committee wants those more detailed plans because I understand the burden of their decision is pretty great and so we will get there but I I feel like we made good steps this week so hi I just came in and I heard my name as Dr. Bode asked a question so I wasn't sure if I was supposed to respond or exactly what the question was well your your plan is very detailed and what they have we're just talking about the hybrid plan and also the remote and we've been looking at both of those and even the hybrid has significant amount of remote aspects to it that would both be synchronous and asynchronous but I you know you've actually have in your plan that's up there what the four by four which is the direction the high school is going I don't know if you'd want to add any comment to that we have a and I'm sure the school committee probably has some questions too yeah so thank you all I apologize for not being here I scheduled my parent sort of processing group so I've actually just come from a meeting with diverse group of 20 parents which was very informative so I'm got all kinds of new details and this afternoon I met with a group of about 80 students who also had some really great ideas it's really nice because the kids at the high school level they know these things in detail and so they pull out little pieces of it so the simple version I mean is that at high school we're trying we tried to set up a situation where remote instruction and hybrid instruction parallel one another so if there's movement in one direction or the other it doesn't require a whole retooling and I think that Brian was talking about the difference between what remote would look like in the fall as compared to what we had in the spring and so remember in the spring the expectations about contact hours like synchronous availability for teachers were relatively low teachers would be having sort of one or two hours of contact time during the whole week and the high school those were overlapping and sometimes those contact hours wouldn't even involve Zoom calls because the teachers weren't set up for that we weren't set up for that not all the kids were set up for that so people did that at different levels in the fall the expectations were trying to really maximize the value of teacher contact right so we know that whether it's on a Zoom screen like this or whether it's in person that opportunity to check in and actually connect individually with kids and in a group of kids is going to be really centrally important to them engaging with instruction and being able to kind of keep their course when they're doing their independent work and then the independent work we expect to be much more structured in terms of tools because one of the things we realized pretty quickly about independent work is you need to grade everything because I can have a class and give a lecture and I don't have to grade the lecture because I know they're in my class I just have to make sure that they're looking at me and go stand next to them and tap them on the shoulder to wake them up and they are in my lecture if you do a lecture that it's on a video and you want the kids to watch it you got to embed a video a quiz in it you got to have some sort of response to make sure they got that content you have to sit there and watch it which of course defeats the purpose so it's a ton more grading it's a ton more prep that's a good thing for the kids it's going to be a real challenge for the teachers so we have to support them in that and then I think there was one piece just relevant to the general hybrid for remote version which was what we were doing with Wednesdays and Wednesdays we were really looking at as a flex time because there's a lot of other functions that we were as we're working through we were kind of keeping open to make sure they were supported and it looks like we're moving in the direction that the primary use and we noted that last week but we the primary use is trying to figure out how to support students with the content that they're not currently engaged in so one of the concerns is you know I I take math in the first semester I'm not taking math in the second semester how do I stay fresh and engage with that so using having some short all remote time on that is one of the things we're looking at how do you support that math or language have particular concerns about that the AP teachers have concerns about that and then the question is structuring in time for MCAS prep depending on when and how the MCAS gets structured so that'll be a use I think mostly the morning and we're looking at essentially having the advisory be a video block because those groups are groups that know each other so with kids are going to give your ninth grader you're coming at tenth grade the one group of kids that's consistent in tenth grade is your advisory from last year and you know there are some good relationships there and so those are people who know the kids we've had X block in the past which was basically an office hours flex block for people to have all kinds of meetings and so we're looking to keep that and then the 830 the 256 schedule that we envisioned for next year was shifted forward half an hour which remember by contract required that we start our staff meetings by 245 so that's a not really different than what we actually did last year we put that schedule in place last year in order to support coaching so we're going to do that so I'd like before we go into just hearing a synopsis from what we're going to do in special education ELL maybe it's a good time to stop but I think I hope you understand from these discussions tonight how much work is going on to really do be this be thoughtful and Dr. Janger made a very important point which we've talked about is that we want between the hybrid and the remote we want to have a lot of parallelism so that we can if we we go with the hybrid or we whatever we choose to do we have that flexibility to go between the two of them so let me just see Miss Morgan if you want to see if there's any questions and then we'll go on to special education and ELL good yeah so let's focus our questions in this round around the scheduling and the general planning that was reported and hold questions about special education and ELL to after we hear from them if that works for people so Miss Exton for so I appreciated hearing about the the working groups across the grade levels in terms of working on the remote learning one of the things that I heard a little bit but would have liked to have heard more about I think a big difference from the spring to the fall is that the kids knew their teacher and had relationships with their teacher and this is starting brand new and so I when I think about you know what this is going to look like and how students are going to feel successful um I would just like to hear more not necessarily right now but more about how teachers are going to form relationships with a brand new class I know we heard some of the comments like could public comment at the beginning could there be opportunity even in a fully remote model to meet teachers outside in small groups because I for this remote to work it's it's going to be really really important for there to be a relationship with with the teachers and with and with the other students that they may not get to see so it's not necessarily a question but just a comment and then my question is is in trying to make this difficult decision I just want to make sure that I understand that even if we were to start in a fully remote program we could switch to hybrid at some point is there are we going to have like a a timeline or a deadline like when do we revisit what we've started or how are we monitoring its success or I'm not sure I entirely understand your question you asking how are we going to monitor the success of our remote program or the hybrid or are you asking how are we going to move between the two and what kind of time frame we would need yeah how are we going to move between the two and like what's going to guide decisions and I don't I don't really mean in terms of COVID I guess like say we decide next week or whatever that we feel that we need to start in fully remote because that was what seems the safest that's not that's not our goal for all of the school year right no but I do think that what the situation is with COVID is going to have a huge impact on on that issue it's possible if we start hybrid that we would have to move into remote at some point if we see an uptick in cases and there's there's guidance that are coming out from different sources there was a study in Harvard in terms of what are the parameters that the state would have to look at I mean those are yeah no that I understand I guess I'm more wondering what are the ram if we choose remote to start with because we don't feel like our buildings are ready we don't feel like you know there isn't enough safety equipment whatever it is that makes us feel that on august 10th remote is the best decision how are we deciding should is there a time to go hybrid or or are we just committing to remote for 10 months like that's where I'm um I think again it's it's if the decision is to go to remote there would have to be some changes in terms of the COVID situation in order that would propel us to say that it's now safe to go back I think it's easier to understand if you start hybrid how you might choose to go remote so um I don't think I can entire I don't think any of us really can answer that question right now because it's so related to the context in which we live okay um that that's all thanks Mr. Cardin so since I always go first in the second in the batting order I'm gonna pass for now if you if you can come back to me later if there's time that'd be great absolutely Dr. Alice Nanti that was sneaky so I was wondering I appreciate hearing everything that is underway um I'm hoping that we'll soon get some synopsis of what the plans are both for hybrid and for remote that captures what's being discussed but one question I had is Dr. Buddy you said that the time and learning standards are going to be the same for all the the options but I guess I'm questioning it seems like what we really want is to do the optimal number and I'm questioning whether time I agree that we need to be covering the same amount of material but I'm questioning about the time aspect for online versus in person especially if they're not going to count things like the time kids are spending just talking doings you know which is important to their social emotional health but isn't technically isn't learning as assessed by Desi I'm I'm concerned that a fully remote day that is pretty much the same length as a regular school day just feels it doesn't feel good and I'm concerned whether kids can do that and also whether it's actually going to be counterproductive because by trying to force them into these days which are really longer than perhaps what is optimal for online learning we're actually having them more or less because they're like you know after a point they're just doing out and overwhelmed so well I think you've given a good rationale for why we're doing the work we're doing and involving as many people because we would share the same concern and we want to make sure that when we have a program that first of all it meets time and learning and which is has many components to it it's not just you know direct synchronous time so yes it's a it takes a lot and I'm hoping you understand that everybody's understanding how complex this is in order to be able to do all of what we're expected to do in terms of time on learning I guess what I'm suggesting is I understand Desi is saying that we have to have them all have the same but I personally would prefer to go for optimal especially for remote and hybrid as opposed to whatever number Desi is telling us for time and learning Mr. Siamen thanks very much you know first I want to thank all the folks that are working so hard on this this is this is incredibly complicated and challenging and difficult and people have been working non-stop and really haven't had much of a summer so thank you for your work I understand you know that we're right now just hearing about all of the we're hearing about your thinking at this point in time and though the one thing I would love to see before we vote on august 10th is some sort of data if it's possible about what percentage of the curriculum we can cover under each of these models like a kind of a a clinical almost analytical not not not trying to advocate for one position or other but simply to say let's just say for the sake of argument all of you who are experts in curriculum your experts in you know covering the standards in each of our subjects you determine that obviously under the all-in model we can cover 100% of the curriculum that's that but let's just say grade by grade in a hybrid model we can cover X percent in a remote model we can cover X percent I don't know I know that's very difficult to determine I know every single class particularly in a high school is different but I that kind of information I think is good for the public to know and I think it's going to be transparent with the public and parents are and I by the way ultimately safety is going to inform the decision but still we need to know as a as a community what percentage of the curriculum at each grade level more or less can be covered and I I don't I just wonder if that's if that's something that can be ascertained within reason and I guess I throw that question out to all of the presenters maybe start I guess probably should start with Dr. McNeil and Dr. Vody but is that possible is that something you guys could possibly at least answer in some way for the public so I can take a stab at that so right now the curriculum leaders are meeting with teachers over the summer to do just that they're they're coming up with adjusted pacing guides but I I want to make sure that I'm emphasizing this point and this is a big like so what I said we've been doing a lot of professional development around distance learning remote learning and then how we're going to address learning as we move into the new year and you know a lot of the practitioners and researchers are actually warning us not to dive right into the curriculum because kids are coming back after being out of school for six months and to the point that has been made before about building connections and you know really reconnecting kids getting them you know back we acclimated back to the structure of school even in a remote model that's going to be more structured than it was in the spring we have to train kids to come back to this structure so you know we are looking at the curriculum we are looking at essential standards but I also want to make sure that we we are letting the public know that research has dictated that you're not going to overwhelm kids with curriculum that you're going to you know do some scaffolding get them back into you know the learning stance if you will and then we will move forward in the curriculum that's as best we can and then we're also making sure that we're doing the type of assessment so we can understand what what we what type of review that we need to to make but I would think that maybe after another couple of weeks we could have like more of you know understanding of what those scope and sequence looks like for each of the content area areas because we've been working at the elementary level and then right now we're doing a lot of that work with the secondary so I could have that for you I don't think I could have it for you by next week but you know in the next couple of weeks I could probably have that information for you is it is it possible to have anything by the time we vote on august 10th yeah I I will speak with the curriculum leaders and see where we are right now on that yes I could I could work on that okay and then another thing that would be helpful to know in the kind of I'm envisioning in my mind a matrix that evaluates the different options and I mean I don't know what the document's going to look like that you're going to present to us but I would I would like to know any additional costs with the different models and now the costs may be the same you know in the aggregate but are there any individual in any any different costs in the models that would be that would be helpful to know and the other thing is for me I would I personally would like to ask if it's possible for us to get the packet with the recommendations of the district on like friday august 7th because if we're going to vote on monday august 10th I think when I personally am at any time to digest it think about it ask questions ask some clarifying questions it's hard to make a decision on the fly in a meeting so I'm just kind of asking I mean like we can work yeah yeah we will um we will get that to you before the weekend okay and some clarification about the vote itself we're going to get on prior to august 10th a recommendation from Dr. Bode on you're going to put a saying this is this is the model we believe the Arlington public schools should work with this is how we're going to start the school year this is how we're going to I mean how like what are we looking at in terms of the the document we're going to vote on and how is how prescriptive and specific and detailed is that model going to be for us to consider I'm not quite sure how I can answer that question accurately I or at least what you're looking for that the model is going to have as best we can to give you the information and where we are what I will say is this and we've talked about this among ourselves that we are we've been we've been working sort of on on parallel on different tracks and each of them has dimensions to it that require a lot of thought and we've been working in multiple ways for many weeks now what we need to do is to really focus in on one plan and devote a good next couple of weeks beyond that to really get it fully shaped also another part of this is let's say we do we decide on I'm just this is hypothetical we recommend a hybrid model that means that parents who might still want remote are going to want to also know exactly what that's going to look like in a remote schedule and we know that we also they also need to know what the hybrid would look like so that they have a basis of comparing because there's going to come a point and it's going to it's going to be no sooner no later than two weeks if not three weeks before the start of the school that we are going to ask parents to commit if we go into a hybrid as the primary primary model obviously if we go remote all for the start of the year then the remote option doesn't need to exist because we're all remote and less and less as Ms. Exon said we've come back into a hybrid then we have a different situation so so it helps narrow all the work that we're doing too and and we're we'll try to give you as much information as we can for next Friday so you could know this so that's why these discussions tonight were important and I know it's probably longer meeting than you wanted but this is a very important decision and I think it's important for everybody to understand all of the what we're doing the complexities of it because it is an important decision that we're gonna that you're gonna be asked to make okay thanks thanks very much Ms. Keith I just wanted to address one comment that Mr. Thielman made which was that 100% of the curriculum would be covered if we were at a full return that's really not going to be the case this is not school like normal if the kids are back in chairs three feet apart they are sitting at a desk facing forward for the entire day there's no science labs there's no group work there's no turn and talk to the kid next to you there's no think pair share you're sitting there watching the teacher who gets six feet at the front of the room in some cases that's not even enough room to set up a science lab demonstration we can actually almost do more with remote systems where we can use zoom breakout rooms and we can like have video demonstrations of things then we could do with a full return model at this time in addition because they need mask breaks and because those can't happen in the classroom if we go full return we're going to be losing minutes during the day where kids transition from one space to another and everybody can't go at once because it has to be staggered you can't put all those kids in the hallway at the same time we can't put them all in the staircases at the same time so we're going to be losing a good chunk of time during the day moving in and out of mask breaks too so just so you know that like it's not like we're going to go back to school it's going to be just like last year and all the years before that like we're not going to be able to do as much as we've done in the past if you want to put all these kids back in the building yeah I mean thank you thank you Juliana and I think that it would be good to have all that data and a document that we receive part of the meet so if that's what you say is accurate and I'm not questioning it that should be in the document that this is the limitation on 100% this is the you know this is the reality of each of the models and I also think you have to take into account the different any challenges that might take place among students who might not be successful on accessing curriculum and instruction remotely who just might not be good at it so I mean there's I think there's a there's a nuanced report that the district needs to give us on the impact on teaching and learning on all three models a realistic clinical honest assessment keeping in mind that when all of this is over when we get through COVID researchers will do research on the impact of all of this on teaching and learning so you don't have to be right today but you might want to use the skills and the and the framework that a researcher is going to use two, three, four years from now to assess where we stand in our planning at least and I think it would be good actually a great research project to compare what we said would happen to what actually happens and at some point someone's going to research it it's going to have so I mean I think I think it's a good time that I think kind of doing our best estimates of what we think will happen in terms of curriculum coverage is a good way to approach this it will be it will be evaluated we're all going to there's going to be a deep dive on all of this and we're going to learn whether we were right or wrong but right now we can make some we can make some projections we can do some forecasting Mr. Shipman okay so I want to wander off to an implementation question in the context of the fact that we have excellent educators whatever we ask I have full confidence that our leaders and our teaching staff and our support people are going to faithfully execute this and strive to do wonderful things for their kids I can see if we start at hybrid because we'd be scheduling and making sure that we have the nuts and bolts in place to make the hybrid work if we were forced to go back to full remote and then we'd be able to go back into the hybrid if conditions permitted my question is how do we set things up if we start full remote to have the easiest transition back into hybrid if people don't experience it at the start of the school year and I don't expect that one to be answered now because that's sort of a difficult question but I'd like to see that discussion put out because that's going to be very important in terms of our making the decisions going hybrid or full remote Mr. Hayner thank you if we look at in any way the idea of high need students going back spread out into multiple classrooms 10 to 12 kids in it primary grades as well and the rest going remote we looked at that at all a perfect segue maybe for Ms. Elmer to talk about this because yes we have thought about it a lot and also Ms. Pizzei who's here as well Dr. Bode I'd like for myself and Mr. Cardin still haven't had a chance to ask anything general plan so if we can Mr. Hayner until we I just want to make make it clear I'm not talking just special education in preschool I'm talking across the board at the beginning thank you I can I can respond very quickly Ms. Morgan if I can it'd be very quick you too the answer is yes absolutely Mr. Mr. Hayner so I just want to distinguish like when we talk about remote learning but there's there's a couple of scenarios you have the remote learning plan if the governor shuts down the state and everybody goes remote then all kids are remote right okay then you have the remote plan where school committee makes a decision that we're going to start remote locally in that particular scenario yes we have talked about how we can bring back kids who need intervention and not just special education students not just students who are who are receiving EL support but we're also talking about students who receive interventions that may not be on an IEP or 504 plan real quick is this type of an option going to be presented to us on the 10th so when I'm suggesting is a small population into the schools with the rest of the population not high needs not special needs not IEPs all remote will that be an option often to us you're saying everything every student be remote I think that even in the remote plan that we would be envisioning that our high needs students would be in every day certainly that what we would be doing with our preschool so I'm just concerned that this is clear to us and to the public when we when we decide to vote on it thank you it will be it will be it well it is tonight I'm we're telling you that in a remote plan that we would choose to do yes that doesn't mean that all students are remote in a hybrid plan it doesn't mean that all students are in an AB or AA it could be that they're in every day so that's something that we can get to tonight Mr. Cardin thank you so just quickly following up on that point I mean that I mean that would that would need to be in the revised plan that we see next week so just focusing on what we need for next week because we do need more additional detail than what's in those three plans that have that have that were presented to us last week some of that detail needs to be who in each of these models are going to be coming in every day or four days a week or whatever the plan is more detail on that so we can evaluate that maybe it's the same across all three plans or maybe it's different I don't know but that's that's an important piece of information the other information is we do we do need a little bit of information about how the remote option is going to work and how the hybrid option is going to work we don't need a detailed schedule but I but lots of other districts have put out draft schedules sample schedules maybe just for a third grade and not for every grade at the elementary level you know some some bare bones look at at what that's going to look like so that we can evaluate the plans otherwise it's hard for us to know what we're sacrificing by going fully remote so that's the information that I need in addition you know to to the extent it's available what Mr. Fieldman asked for again so we can figure out what are we sacrificing by going from hybrid to full remote and and you know we can look at the newspaper today from from the the director of the mass academy of pediatricians it's very clear that we're sacrificing by not having many of our students come back I appreciate that we have a plan to have our high need students back I need more detail on that so I can be confident that that what we're doing there is sufficient but clearly we are sacrificing by moving from hybrid to fully remote and by moving from fully in person to hybrid and that's the information we need my other question is the remote guidance from the state actually had five options that districts were were given to choose from it sounds like we are sort of going on our own is that correct Dr. Bodie is that the option we're choosing again this would be for this would be the remote learning whether it's a full remote or just a remote option in a hybrid or in person model well in any kind of in person program we have parents can't have the option of whether they want to be fully remote so let me just this is a good time to mention this so from parents point of view obviously if we went all remote then that takes care of that situation parents could choose to apply for homeschooling they could choose to go to a private school but what has to be true because of state regulations is that you have to be your children have to have the evidence that they're receiving in education so if we were to have full in person or we were to have hybrid their parents could choose to be of a remote option and we're going to ask for a commitment on that later in August they would need to know exactly what they're choosing between that's for sure if on the other hand we are choosing as a district to start remote then we would not probably have a remote option because it would be no need for one so those are the possibilities the parents yeah so but in the guidance for example option one is operate a fully district design and district run remote program and then there are four other options that that were given are we choosing to design our own program and run our own program well all right I can I can start talking about that so there's the state right now is in the process of working getting RFP for two vendors who could offer a virtual program I don't know exactly what that would look like districts once that is known to districts that can be an option that we might look at and the district pays a fee for parents that want to have a fully remote option we have been for the last few weeks thinking about how we could create our own program that would be there also we would have potentially teachers who might have underlying medical conditions could be teaching remotely we would set up a process for how that would be determined the issue for us is also something that has to enter the calculus of all this and that is the cost of that so if we were to offer our own program and we might want to look at this as secondary versus elementary I mean these are the kinds of things we have to look at if we were to have for example let's use third grade if we were only having a few students out of every school in third grade the number of third grade classrooms would remain the same and yet we would be incurring the cost of having a teacher so there's going to be some thought about this and that's why this survey right now is so important because we need to be able to take a look at really where parents are on this in order to know which option we might offer and it may even be different by level so that is not determined yet and the thing about if we were to offer our own in in district remote option and we were not able to have some kind of corresponding change in number of classrooms that we had in the district it is probably not an option that we can fully afford because there are other costs that we're going to incur that are in terms of extra personnel both teachers building subs extra TAs they're going to be working with arrival and dismissal and lunch program so they're custodians that we're going to need to hire so there are a lot of costs that we have and we're just going to have to take a look at all of that and measure it against what we can offer great thank you so I'm following on what Len shared I'm trying to be specific about what I need to see so that I understand and what we're looking at I'm concerned about expectations for teachers in a hybrid model because I don't know where they're supposed to be when or I'm also I don't understand if they have nine or seven or eight students in their classroom we're saying that the hybrid is a mix of synchronous and asynchronous I don't understand how they're providing synchronous if there are students in the building I can see how it could happen on a Wednesday but I don't see how it could happen when there are other kids there and so I need a lot to really understand that maybe a schedule would help I would need I guess a teacher schedule and a student schedule maybe like I would need to see both and again it doesn't need to be every grade but I think at you know an elementary middle and high school so that I could understand what these days look like for folks that seems really important because I'm just having a hard time visualizing it right now I really get what happens when the kids go to school like I get that right like half of them or some number of them go and they're there so I kind of understand that experience for my kid when he goes there and I kind of get what it looks like for his teacher when he's there I think because his teacher needs to be with him probably because he's seven but then I don't really understand what his teacher needs to do for the other kids that aren't physically there and then what happens to him when he's not physically there so I just I don't understand I don't understand how that works I think that it's also confusing for us and I think when we talk next week or on the 10th we there's a lot of confusion about remote right we have like a lot of things that we call remote so we've got fully remote nobody goes back or only high needs or only some sub separate population goes back so we've got full remote we've got a remote option which is a choice that families would have and to some extent there would be some potential piece of that for teachers if we ran our own remote program that we would we would provide that option to some number of our teachers so I understand the remote option which is different from all remote and then we have like remote days that are part of hybrid right and those days look different I think then all remote or the remote option but we kind of call them all remote so it's really confusing to follow through with what all that looks like so I just I need more hand holding in that so I need more learning for me and I need to know what that looks like for teachers and I need to know what it looks like for kids so yeah that's what I need so can I just can I ask something because it worked very well before is it possible that you could the same thing we did with the discipline data is it possible that we can get the questions and the things that you need as a school committee sent to me ahead of time and then I could just check them off because when we did that with the discipline data it worked very very well it did it forces us to be good students which we need to yeah so could you could you you need that for Dr. McNeil well when as soon as possible it's always tomorrow no so but Tuesday that's fine Monday Monday would be better right Monday would be Monday would be better and Friday would be better so let's try Monday like I yeah I like early I like to get my homework done early so I'm going to do it tomorrow but other right I mean as soon as possible but can we make like the maybe the end of the day Monday you know like the deadline because we do have these working groups that are working throughout the week and so it would be great to have these questions so I could present them to to the different teams excellent and I think we might need to learn and I I might I'm kind of a visual person um so I need to like see I need to read and see and then be talked to I don't know it's I need a lot of inputs we can provide we can probably provide visuals absolutely but it would be very helpful for us just to have the questions and I think that you're looking for okay Mr. Heiner for us providing you the questions putting it together and you put us a package together for us by next Friday prior to the meeting and stuff so I'm thinking that the meeting itself where we would come in prepared to discuss specific things that we're not we're not clear on and then take a vote I don't think we should be having a two three hour presentation that's my opinion I mean right now I don't know about the rescue I'm 74 years old I'm doping out right now trying to comprehend and listen we have all this preparation we share with you you share with us we need clarification on Monday night then we vote that's my suggestion yes I think that we would just give you the written document and then be available for questions I do not expect to have a presentation other than I think that you would want me for the community to talk about what what the recommendation is and why we're choosing it and you know let's go from there but the team is very willing to come and and be available for any questions and I'm glad they're here tonight because I think they understand they help it's good to hear first hand the kinds of things that you're looking for but it's also good for you to understand the kind of level and you know when you talk about confusing I think you really convey very clearly how complex this all is it is very complex and you know we we spent a lot of time even getting our arms around the all of it and I think we're getting there each each week is a lot clear to us in terms of of what we need to do great thank you so should we move to special ed and ELL pardon class 10 yeah I want to move the 10 o'clock rule before we do that but that's what we're doing next right okay so very quickly just give the highlights of it I know that it's so patient waiting we really appreciate your patience so I'd like to move the 10 o'clock rule first because because I don't want you guys move the 10 o'clock rule to what do you think Jane I'm 30 10 30 I can Ms. Exton yes Mr. Cardin yes Dr. Allison Ampe yes Ms. Eilman yes Ms. Min reluctantly yes Mr. Hayner yes I'm also a yes Ms. Elmer you're up sure so I mean I can be relatively quick with this obviously in a full in person model you have your full regular schedule in any of these models as I mentioned last week all special ed students receive their full services what it would look like in a hybrid model since each level we've discussed a slightly different starting with the preschool if we are able to come in at three feet we don't need a hybrid model because the class size is already 15 because the size of the rooms and because what we know about transmission rates and young children if we are at three feet we can have them in so really we have an in-person full in-person model for the preschool and a remote model should you know health and safety conditions you know demand that both general ed and special ed students in that integrated preschool come in daily five days a week at the elementary level where they are exploring the four-day two-day you know cohorts the I mentioned the high need students as designated on the pl3 page of their IEP being one group of kids that the state has really pushed but as I mentioned last week we are looking to expand that to that moderate needs group principals have already been given who that caseload is in their building and those numbers look manageable to really prioritize bringing those students in four days a week so that while the cohort peers may you know come in AABB or ABAB whatever the final decision is those identified students come in all four days and leaves Wednesday for the option of additional services if required through their IEP that model continues through the middle and high school with that flexibility of Wednesday being an additional day but in those models you have the moderate and high needs students for special ed coming in all four days while their cohorts switch on and on Ms. Pazazi do you want to talk a little bit about ELL planning? Yes so thank you everyone kind of similar to special education if there's an in-person model then you know we'll have all our students in within the five days and then the hybrid we're looking what we're deciding to do right now in the district is to look at our high needs students that are ELLs that have been designated by DESI we get a report in August based on their access scores of these high needs students that we need to develop English language success plans so we're looking to bring in our newcomers like our level ones and twos are entering and emerging learners as well as our developing level three learners with the possibility of the hybrid four days a week and then the one day a remote on the Wednesday and then if everybody goes all remote everyone's remote the challenges and remote were the inconsistency of all our ELLs this past spring having access to technology we did a great job as a district getting everything out to our families but it was a really a lot of hand holding from our ELL teachers with all of what they had to do with their learners just getting access to the different resources online so we're hoping that we'll be able to get our high needs ELLs in person through the hybrid model the four day plan or in the in person and the only thing I would add to that because Carla and I've had similar conversations is even if you were to elect remote not due to health and safety we still have the option of bringing students in for in person services as well and so that's something that we would like to consider but I mean that's if as a district there's a decision made to go remote not due to health and safety obviously if Governor Baker says you know schools are closed because of COVID numbers you know then we would we wouldn't do that all right all right so is there any questions on that we'll have that completely in the report as well there's just a few other quick things I wanted unless you yeah I see Mr. Cardin so why don't you start Mr. Cardin yeah so I just confused by that by that last bit a little bit with from Mr. Pruzezzi and Ms. Elmer so we would be opting a remote option not one ordered by the governor that closes school buildings but we would be opting for remote option largely due to health concerns right I mean there's no other reason why we would switch to remote over hybrid so just to clarify our remote choice should still have in person built in unless the school buildings are closed by state order is that not correct or is that would that be a detail decided later but I I believe that's what we're saying that unless it's closed for health and safety and you cannot have input like we were in the spring then we would be fully remote for special ed students and ELs and other high needs am I missing a distinction that you're making you would be fully remote or fully in person Mr. Cardin are you asking like if the governor came out and said no no no in the other situation like it's a local decision and you decide as a school committee that we go remote yes that's exactly what we're saying we're looking at our IEP students students on an IEP students who have ELL support and then other students receive intervention a certain cohort of students will come in on a full day schedule four days all of this though is contingent and I can see Ms. Key over in the corner obviously part of the collective bargaining so you know right right Madam Pierre Maxwell spoke about this earlier there's a lot of unknowns a the number of students who are families who are going to say whatever your model is I'm not sending my child into school and teachers saying you know I'm I'm not correct I'm just trying to get I'm just trying to get clarification on the plan but I believe you said four days a week in the hybrid model also four days a week in the remote model not ordered by the state correct yes I could I'm going to say yes that's exactly what we're considering but okay great I mean I'm going to clear that thank you it'll be in the documents I just have a question Jane if I don't know what order I just want to preface of what emphasize what Ms. Elmer said of that the the negotiation with the union okay but these are things that that that that that okay thank you my question is I don't know what order in Jane I'm sorry if are you making your own order now I'm going to call it oh no no no I thought when talked in okay you can go now all right sorry about that it's getting late so I just for the for next week's present for next weeks or what we get on August 7th Friday August 7th it will it will define the option that that the super that the district is recommending and it will also have specifics about high needs students and their and whether they need to be whether they're going to be on site or not is that is that right yes but I also want to be clear because after last week when we started talking about the designation on that pl3 page being the objective measure of need I already received several emails of families who were wanted to ask about their specific child who was you know several hours from the cutoff and so we are not at the level where we are making individual decisions about individual students obviously nor would I ever be able to talk about that publicly but that yeah we are looking broadly at what beyond that high needs I mean we're using high needs broadly I'm using it very specifically in special ed to indicate the moderate and high needs students as designated on their IEP there's a larger group that the state has included that is ELS based on as Mr. they said based on their ELD level there is our students who are homeless and in foster care or 24 hour substitute care there are students who use often special ed students but use AAC devices that they have a broader category I'm tonight I'm speaking specifically for the special ed students who would fall into moderate so the report's going to say that you know these students broadly speaking are going to have this accommodation under each of the models parents will be notified about their student their specific student as as as we approach to start the school year something like that right and we're working closely with that our principals on that who have all been really supportive of this and are eager to try and you know make these plans work from the preschool up to the high school so they've all been on board with this okay thanks I was my only question to tag them on the lens so I jumped in sorry okay and I'm going to I see Dr. Allison Ampey's hand I just want to follow up on Mr. Thielman's question and my earlier confusion I in the same way that I need to understand what remote and remote hybrid and remote option and all remote looks like for students and teachers I also need to understand what it looks like for our whatever designation we provide to students that don't are not part of the the you know probably the majority group right so so if you know I'm assuming there's not going to be a scenario in which a parent elects to keep their child home but then we brought them in for speech but maybe there is I don't know right so I would I'm curious you know I I I I don't understand that yet which is fine because we're just not there yet but that would be helpful for me too is to understand what a students day what a what one of you know what a special education students day looks like in all remote elected remote whatever we're going to call it and then the remote part of hybrid that's not in person right like I've got that like whether we're we're saying is Morgan that there would be very few students special ed students because if that moderate and high needs group is students who receive 25% and greater of their services in special ed I know that chart was very specific last week that would be coming in person so they wouldn't be remote they would be coming in person so they wouldn't have that remote part of the hybrid equation I was a student that would be part of the remote in a hybrid and if they receive special ed would receive less than 25% of their special ed services so they would still we would still try to then schedule those special ed services because in that case it's likely a related service like you mentioned they're coming in in that a b cohort and you schedule their speech service on the day that they're in for a you know if they're in group a then you schedule their speech that day because they're only getting that service you know we're talking about kids who get multiple services and they would be in every day so we don't have that we're not delivering services remotely okay so and then I guess I'm also curious about conversations around if a student is only receiving speech or OT or whatever and they're only coming to school if we have the option to actually do exactly the opposite of what you said which is not schedule them for their speech on the a day when they're there because that's their only in class time and if we're pulling them out then maybe that's not what we'd like are we going to be able to offer the option for families that can accommodate it for them to receive those services on a b day when we're not pulling them out of their jet ed class I mean that's a level of specificity entering in the schedules that we will not have for you next Monday night or next Friday because that's going to be individual students that you're talking about but it's not going to be an election that it's not going to be like nope I prefer that service on that day because that's something I prefer the state has been very clear that services delivered in person are preferable so if you're going to be in school that day the schedule also allows I mean think about when they're in the school year anyway they they receive their services so those days have times built for students to receive services so they aren't missing core instruction that's something we have to do under any circumstance okay so and then so I guess what I want to understand then is what services would look like in the event that a family because a a special education family could still elect our remote option yep and it'll look a lot like what our current ESY program looks like you're receiving your services through remote instruction again this is contingent on we we need I'm looking my camera Ms. Key up in my left corner right next to me I don't know if she is than everyone else but you know that's going to depend a lot on where our teachers fall on you know I think this is a question that hasn't been flushed out it was something I know that's raised a lot of concerns that you know will you be assigned somebody who's not necessarily in your school I don't think we have that you know we're not at that level of specificity because we don't know which staff are coming back and we don't know which families are opting for you know remote got it okay no I mean that makes sense right and we're we're now distilling down to like very much smaller numbers like we we don't have the aggregate big numbers and then when we start talking about your numbers they become very very small so I just you know I worry a lot about those ones so I you know to the extent that you have information for us I'm grateful for it so um Dr. Allison Nappy thank you I'm taking the liberty to going back to the topic before special education because I forgot to ask one of my questions and I think it's important I don't think I expect an answer today but I would like information next week whether it's part of the plan or not so far we haven't heard anything about how APS is going to support people who can't be home with their kids under either the hybrid model or the remote options when I say kids I'm talking about people who don't fall into high needs or those and I know that there's a lot of people who are concerned about this and we need to know what we're thinking about well the state is actually thinking about it too and there are proposals out there I don't know where this is going to go and I don't think we'll necessarily even know next week that teachers children and they live in a certain town their children can go to school every day so that the teachers can go to work so I don't know whether that's been something that's been talked about I don't know whether that is absolutely possible even because we would also have another group of students that would be in school and the the issue is what if a particular community in the state decides to begin remote how does that work so there's layers of complexity there the other things that we potentially are talking about is if we were in a remote situation and this would be if we were in a remote situation would teachers be in the building and maybe that possibility that might be children that could come to school these again are ideas that will be discussed some of this is will be discussed in negotiations but it's not that we're not thinking about it I don't know if we can solve every single issue right I'm like I said I certainly don't expect an answer tonight just to clarify I do see teachers as part of the concern but I was also thinking about parents in general just people who have essential jobs who have to go into work and and don't have a parent you know don't have single parents or or who for whatever reason don't have someone who can be home with their child and what's what's going to happen right right those are big those are big concerns for sure I know it's getting late um can you hear me yeah I think I think there's better hand there's an extra better hand we need to end pretty soon my whole screen is going is shaking here so can we just finish with Ms. Exxon's questions sorry and my connection's not very good earlier Dr. McNeil had talked about there being a group of students who who need intervention that might also be included in this four-day a week model that's students receiving tiered intervention so people who receive reading support math intervention outside of special education students who might you know get social work or counseling as part of our our tiered interventions so will that be students that were identified before last March I think the principals will need to speak to that these aren't special ed students well we we did some we identified the students who are in our extended like a title one extended programs this summer so we do have an idea of who those students are who receive reading support math intervention we have math interventionist we have reading specialists we have the principals and we also have the classroom teachers so yes we already have identified those students many of those students are participating in our extended learning program over the summer so we definitely have an idea and then we also have an idea of those students that did not engage fully in the remote learning model so those are the type of students that we will consider for you know again I want to preface everything like this is things that we're considering but we know we have to do some negotiation with the union about this but these are the type of students that we were thinking about bringing back along with the other groups of students that Mr. Elmer identified I don't know did that did that answer your question yes thank you very much and I just want to everybody know that we're thinking very deeply about equity and I and I know that's a concern and we're trying to make sure that we consider all populations of students so I just want everyone to rest assured that these are that these are we prior prioritize equity whenever we have a discussion about creating this various different models anybody on this I have a few quick things I can I should let the committee be aware of some of you may already know this and is that an agreement has been reached done with the major teacher unions in the state with the with the department of education to have 10 days of planning PD curriculum work before students return to school some districts start before labor day so the you know they may be starting a little bit sooner than that but one of the caveats in it is that students would we need to return to school by September 16th unless the district would have would apply for a waiver which is possible Arlington students start on September 8th if we looked at the number of days available for planning with both operation you have 10 days of planning and you have to have students back the 16th the most that we would have under the current proposal without a waiver would be to have six days of professional learning and planning and training so we would have to have so this is going to but this is an important thing for parents to know that the earliest we would be having students return to school would be September 16th and bring it up tonight because this is going to require a vote of the committee on calendar changes and but it's some of that has been in the newspaper as well so it's it's something that I I agree with I think that we need a lot more planning time as much as we're doing right now we still don't have the entire staff together to do this work so that is just one thing you need to be aware of the other is the question has come up about testing and I can tell you that the Board of Health is definitely looking into the possibility of testing and also looking into sites where this could occur so there's more information to follow but yes this is definitely something that our Board of Health is looking at and I probably will have more information maybe by the 10th I don't I can't promise but is something that everyone is aware of the other thing is fall sports we will have more information probably in another two weeks when the MIA decides whether there's going to be a well I don't know if it's even whether it's it's probably going to be more like the same kind of regulations that have guided summer sports so we'll have more information about that as well I think those are the two the other major things that haven't come up earlier in discussions earlier so that's all I have for right now with respect to this report it went a little bit longer than there was on the agenda and thank thank you very much to our principals and our staff and this team for for hanging in here with us and our questions and concerns and you know we're we're really we're we're trying to I I think we're really making an effort to we're trying to hang with you and and and follow this and so we're grateful for your patients and efforts so thank you so much for for being here I know you were here last week so we really we really appreciate it so thank you very much Miss Morgan well everybody's still here can I just also I want to acknowledge last night I don't know how many members of the committee or that are people are still listening tuned into our second community conversation last night we had a conversation for our families of color to share their experiences in our school we had two actually three people from the district that were part of the panel and Dr. McNeil I want to acknowledge and thank him he was one of the major organizers and Margaret Thomas who's not here tonight was our director of Metco and Michael Mason our CFO were were there we also I also want to publicly thank Jillian Harvey who is the town diversity and equity inclusion coordinator she moderated when we had also we also had as panelists who have been part of the community conversations on the town site to Alenza Michelle and also Kathy Lopes who has worked with Valen over the last year so anyway I want to thank all of them what happened what the format was we had families given yet and the panel responded to those and it was a very powerful evening thought provoking reflected and I just I can't say enough of a thank you to everybody who participated in that the families who gave us the feedback and the response of our panelists thank you great so we have two more things the citizens and school committee talks Mr. Hainer make this quick as I can I shared with you last week and in your packages I'd like to start up citizens and school committee talk follow up on the school committee coffees that Jennifer Sue started and there were several people have asked to bring them back I think we get more engagement with zoom I'm suggesting twice a month Wednesday first Wednesday of the month at 10 o'clock in the morning for an hour and the third Wednesday of the month at seven o'clock at night I would if we agree it to this I will set out a calendar and I would invite I don't think more than no more than three school committee members should participate that would be a standing and make it voluntary I would be it's my intent to be involved every week unless there are three other members that wanted to be involved and I'll be happy to bow on so at this time I'll make a motion to establish citizens and school committee talk two days a month and at the times I suggested before I second it discussion is that then help me through the formalities of this but I'd like to propose that we change the word citizens to residents I think it sounds more inclusive right so do I so I make them definitely consider friendly agenda I'd be happy to accept that thank you when do you intend them to start Mr. Haener or will we know that when we we see the I will I will I would get a schedule out tomorrow with the dates and times and ask different members to sign up for them I'd like to get it going right away because the people that get this going in my head ask for it as soon as possible and would your intention be that it would continue over zoom even moving forward or not I think so I think the we can take a look back at it and take a see how much participation the school committee coffees were very successful at the beginning and they waned to the point that it ended up members just sitting there having coffee on Saturday mornings Dr. Allison Ampe I'd like the idea of having more communication with the public but I'm also concerned about the workload that this is potentially adding to our already pretty full plate and I appreciate that Mr. Inner is suggesting that he could attend but I don't know I'm just I'm worried about the time the amount of time that's being discussed because we used to have a hard time getting people to do one coffee a month over the whole time and that was with two people per per session so it what let me if it's all right with the group I'll set out a schedule if I'm the only one that's there and the committee decides whether that we we continue with one person or not and it may die death early it may not Mr. Carden yeah I I share Dr. Allison Ampe's concern I'd rather ramp up than ramp down but also rather delay the start until September I mean obviously there's a lot going on with this back to school plan and we should consider if we want holding a school committee forum on it but I think starting these these chats in the middle of all this is it may not be the most productive thing so my two recommendations that would be to start with once a month and wait until at some point we're back in school in September the I have no problem going till September the reason I suggested twice a month was once in the morning and once in the evening to afford availability of more people we can look at that again in September when we started so if the chair doesn't mind I will I will withdraw the motion and bring it forward again in September I don't know I mean we can we can vote on it now and then people may have different just because I made a suggestion doesn't mean we have to go with it but we should hear from other members Ms. Chair Madam Chair Yep, anybody else Dr. Allison Ampe I agree that it'd be better to start in September Yeah, I agree I agree September's good Yeah, Mr. Schlickman Yeah, I mean the focus groups for the school committee superintendent search have been very successful we've gotten a lot of good dialogue and I think that's a starting point and we can move from that context I do think that we're going to be very busy going September, October, November with the superintendent search a month would probably be a good starting point Perhaps we can alternate every other month one in the morning one in the evening So do you want to amend your motion, Mr. Heiner? Move to start a motion to start a resident school committee Zoom meeting once a month alternating from morning one one month to an evening one second month and starting no earlier than September 2020 second Any more discussion? All right, Ms. Eksten? Yes? Mr. Cardin? Yes Alison Ampey? Yes The woman? Yes Mr. Schlickman? Yes Mr. Heiner? Yes The woman also yes Great And then the last item that we have is Arlington Public Schools School Building Banner Policy And we've received some questions from the community around signage on our buildings and we need to make sure that we have some policy that addresses this so that we can be consistent across our schools So my recommendation would be to send this question about about banner use to the policy subcommittee for review and recommended action So move Second Can't make the motion so that would be my so that would be sorry tone that would be my recommendation He moved it already Yeah, Mr. Sillman moved it and I seconded it Okay, great Any more discussion? If I may, Madam Chair? Yes, sir I had a conversation with the town council this afternoon on the topic I have done a little research I haven't seen any policies for any school district in the state that would mirror this nor have I found an entry point in the filing guidelines for this sort of a policy So we'd be doing something new There were several considerations that banners would probably be something associated with the school Town council reminded us that there is a doctrine of government speech and that we as a committee do have a right to government speech There are more details I don't want to get into but we are not creating an open community forum on our property for banners for anyone from outside the school community to put up on our property and we have not done that and we probably shouldn't That said, there are a couple of other things that we need to be looking at We have items that we need to look at pertaining to policy work There's a new title nine regulations and MASC is drawn up a draft policy AC to comply with title nine policy BED agent Can we just move give ourselves five minutes somebody Let's move to 1040 to be safe So I move the 1030 We're now let's move the meaning to 1040 Mm-hmm Second Ms. Eckston Yes Mr. Cardin Yes Charles Nampy Yes Mr. Gilman Yes Mr. Schlickman Yes Senator Yes I'm also yeah Sorry, carry on Mr. Schlickman Yeah, we have policies BEDH and BEDH-E public comment and school committee meetings that Mr. Hyam was set to review prior to the pandemic closures and we should have that available MASC is presented a new emergency policy EBC supplemental a general interim policy on COVID related issues Uh, so there are four policies we need to talk about in subcommittee so that I remember the policy subcommittee should be prepared not only to take a look at the banner and signage issue but the other three topics that I just mentioned Dr. Allison Ampe I'm on policy happy to talk about them but let's go home Okay May I just say before we leave I've got a problem on that All our administrators they were out last night listening to our second conversation they I really, I just want to acknowledge them for being here tonight and helping with this discussion so thank you all and thank you for being there last night Thank you Did we get a vote on the movement the movement to subcommittee? We did not, right? No No All right, Ms. Ekston Yes Mr. Cardin Yes Mr. Tillman Yes Mr. Schlickman Yes Mr. Hayner Yes Also yes Yes Yeah, right Dr. Allison Ampe And she's a yes Okay I Motion to adjourn somebody No, no, no, no, Jane just a point of order Do we have Do we have to take us We need to take a vote to move our meeting from next week Correct So are we Do we do that? Yeah I move that we have the meeting on August 10th Can we do it at seven? I talked to you about I don't know if it's Yeah, that's that works for me But can you can in your motion Can you also cancel the meeting next Thursday? All right, I'm gonna do it I move that we cancel the meeting scheduled for April 6th and August August 6th August 6th I move that we I move that we get out of here I move that we Cancel the meeting scheduled for August 6th and meet again on August 10th at at 7 p.m Second So and just for the discussion so that everybody understands why we're doing this the rationale is that Dr. Bodie is submitting our submitting her information to Desi tonight tomorrow at some point they have said that they will return with feedback no later than August 7th August 7th but if we met on the 6th we would be moving forward without having received that feedback and so instead we are going to receive the feedback on the 7th we are going to get what we need and then we are going to meet on the 10th at 7 p.m Dr. Bodie and I are going to need to submit I believe for a waiver for that so that we can submit our plan to Desi on Tuesday August 11th but we will take care of that so just so that everybody's clear why we're doing this are we good? August 10th 7 p.m. see you then be there let's vote just want to make sure that the information on that we get on the 7th is also reflects the statements coming back from Desi I believe that's Dr. Bodie's intention that's why great great thank you so for moving the meeting Ms. Eksten do I have to make the motion or I can just we're pot of motion in a second now promoting promoting yes Mr. Cardin yes Dr. Hausen-Ampie yes Mr. Thielman yes Mr. Schuchman yes Mr. Hainer yes I'm also yes okay now the big one guys I'm really German before we embarrass ourselves in German second then we're out of here yes Mr. Hainer Mr. Cardin yes Dr. Allison Mr. Thielman yes good night yes yes and I'm also yes I thank you team