 meeting started. The reason I'm starting the meeting is that the first order of business is called to order and reorganize. So I'm calling the meeting order at 6.34 and this about half an hour ago the Pelham School Committee reorganized which was the last step we needed to then bring reorganization to the regional level and so my only role will be to facilitate vote for chair of the region and then the chair of the region will then facilitate the votes for vice chair and secretary of the region and then we can get to the order of business on the agenda. So unless there's questions about it, if there are any nominations for chair of the region school committee. Is there a second? Second. Would that be nomination be agreeable? Sure. Thank you. Are there other nominations that people would like to make? Seeing none. All those in favor say aye. Aye. I pass unanimously I think. I'm going to abstain. Okay. A post and abstentions. So 4-0-1 for that vote and I pass the mythical gavel to you. Thanks. Thank you and thank you to the committee. I look forward to a good year. We have a busy evening so I'm going to dispense with formalities of that and move on to the role of vice chair. Are there any nominations for vice chair? I recognize myself. I nominate Alison McDonald. Dan seconded. Is that amenable? I suppose so. It doesn't have to be. I mean I realize it's a lot to put on you at the moment. Great. Any further nominations? Seeing none. We'll move to a vote. All those in favor of Alison McDonald as vice chair. Raise your hand. Any nays? Any abstentions? It's 4-0-1. You are the vice chair. Thank you. So I'm busy. I'll see you later. And then the third nomination is for secretary. Traditionally this is a role that's been played by Deb Westmoreland. We still need a nominator. We do. Anyone nominate Deb? I nominate Deb Westmoreland for secretary. Is there a second? It's been moved in second. Is that amenable? All those in favor, please signify. There's a man. Deb's got it. This one's unanimous by the way. Wonderful. So with the reorganization finished, we'll move forward with our agenda. The next item in the agenda is approval of the minutes of May 20th, 2019. Hopefully people have a chance to take a look at them. Yes. I note one edit in the public comment section. Lisa Kane is noted as speaking about La Crosse. I believe she was speaking about field hockey. Okay. Hampton Amendment. I'm just going to wait to make sure I don't ask it. Good. Take that as a yes. Anything else? Move to accept. It's been moved to approve the minutes of May 28th. Is there a second? Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion, edits, debates? Seeing none. All those in favor approve the minutes of May 28th. See the fibers in your hand? Any nays? Any abstentions? It is now 5-0-1 and are approved. Thank you very much. The next item in the agenda is announcements in public comment. So any announcements from the school committee? Mr. Dunlop. So I was able to attend the Board of Education meeting this morning at which the board voted to support the commissioner's decision not to approve the expansion request for PVCICS Charter School. So I just want to say a quick thank you to Chair Sarah Hall from Pelham School Committee who spoke very well at public comment this morning as did Molly Burnham from Northampton School Committee. I also want to thank all of the members of the public and our public representatives who worked on this over the last number of months. There was a number of emails. There was a rally. So Senator Comerford, Representative Dome, Representative Sabadosa, and all the members of the public who wrote an email, shared, got other people activated not only to notify the commissioner but to notify the board after the appeal. It's a long process. This is our third year in a row. So we've had six calls for action and I think it matters. I think you know without getting into the mind of the board I think when they know that people are paying attention in an informed sustained way it makes it a lot harder for them to make irresponsible decisions. It's not impossible but I think it makes it a lot harder. So I would you know going forward who knows what the cards may bring but I would just echo Ms. Ardoniz's advice to the class of 2019 from graduation a couple weeks ago which is stay loud and your reward for being loud is to be louder and I'm sure there will be opportunity in the future. Yes. Thank you very much. What's the meaning of it? The letter written in support was coach and compelling and wonderful. Period. That is true. Okay any further announcements from the school committee? Seeing none. I will move to public comments. I'm also just going to say sort of at the outset that I know later during the athletic fields updates I know this is a matter of great concern for many people in the public. Dr. Morris is going to talk about since this is our last meeting of the year he's going to talk about what the follow-up will be during the summer in terms of public engagement and I'm saying that because since we're going to have the public comment at the beginning and then the update about where we are and then move forward our agenda because as you can see we have a lot of things on it. In no way does that end the public engagement around this. In fact I'm hopeful that there will be significant public engagement including opportunities both to keep the town and the school districts feet to the fire around the quality of the athletic fields but also literally to participate in that process and so I'm saying that now at the outset because when you look at the agenda I could understand why people would say look at public comment at the beginning you have the agenda item then you move forward when do we have a chance to engage and I'm hopeful that the superintendent and if by the way if he doesn't I'm going to press him to and we'll describe in detail how you can be engaged further afterwards this meeting because it's not the end it's a continuous process and I'm going one but we know there's a great deal of interest in that topic as well as I'm sure others we have the timer up simply because it may recall the request is to come forward you have three minutes identify yourself you have three minutes to speak and we will get going the public comment so please just come forward and come to the microphone if you have any comments hi my name is my name is Heather Sheldon and I'm just one second is it working Amherst media wanted to read this statement on behalf of Catherine Lodge who couldn't be here tonight she says my daughter Caitlyn O'Connor's graduation has me thinking about how much I appreciate dr. Brady miss Smith in the entire special education staff as you know Caitlyn is severely disabled both physically and intellectually Caitlyn has been enrolled in the Amherst school system since she turned two years nine months old the special education department especially as Caitlyn has grown older has been exceptionally supportive in striving to meet Caitlyn's needs as a parent I appreciate the special education department's collaborative and cooperative efforts I've heard stories from parents of special education students in other districts and their struggles in dealing with their school systems I am thankful that has not been my experience here in Amherst when issues have arisen dr. Brady is always immediately responded to my concerns often late at night or on the weekends the past few years I have been involved in the special education parent advisory council I have seen dr. Brady's commitment to increasing the school district accessibility to all dr. Brady works with CPAC to educate parents and guardians on topics such as basic rights and special education assistive technology workshops creating autism awareness events supporting mental health workshops and is open to any suggestion CPAC has with regards to workshops CPAC members are invited to help interview potential teaching and support staff also annually CPAC members meet with Sean Mangano to discuss a special education budget and give feedback about spending plans in closing I would like to again thank the entire special education staff for everything they do sincerely Catherine Lodge and I you know Catherine's it's sort of the other end of her experience with working with a special education I have a rising third grader who also has significant special needs and I want to say my experience has also been very similar to Catherine's and I wanted to thank the school committee and the superintendent for supporting our special education staff as a support for children thank you thank you further public comments are we not having comments yes yes not during the item so really if you have comments the comments should come now and we're welcoming them and that's why I said at the beginning the point that the superintendent is going to discuss how to engage after the meeting with what's presented my name is Chrissy Horn junior I'm the head football coach for Amherst Regional High School I came here I'm a strong supporter in us building an athletic stadium that is for all sports who use stadiums I think it's important because it one shows a little pride in our school it's a place for the town to go to whether it's Friday nights for football games or any other time for any other sport the town I come from Friday nights are a big deal going to the stadium is a big deal to support the school that they love and I think it's important that we have something like that in regards to the fields considering maybe the old school thought of I love muddy fields for football it just fun that way at the same time I understand there's a need for it to be usable for everybody I see comments of or what we'll discuss is what's the protocol to determine how many groups use the field that are in poor condition how can this be improved I don't think the answer is cutting sports using fields I don't think it's the answer is limiting the use of fields it's important that they're on the fields using them like where would we rather have them be right if we're on a field together that means we're growing a bond we're learning responsibility we're practicing hard work and if we're either it's if we're cutting it I think that's a big problem I think the issue is we're not maintaining the fields has nothing to do with who's using them they haven't been maintained the track hasn't been maintained so I don't want to negatively affect any sport and not have them practice or play games because we cannot maintain these fields it's not the kids fault they shouldn't be punished for us and our inaction over decades those are my comments thank you thank you welcome for the public comments at this time hi everybody hi my name is Michelle rish I am the varsity field hockey coach and varsity softball coach here at Amherst high school and I am a teacher at the Amherst Montessori school in South Amherst I have been involved in coaching at the school since 2006 and over that period of time I've seen the ebb and flow of interest from the kids interest from the administration as the administration has ebbed and flowed and interest in sports in general in the town of Amherst what has remained constant is that kids come out to play sports every year as a way to better themselves have a safe place to be engage in community learn the skills of not only being an athlete but of growing into the best human that they can be so with that said I think it's incumbent upon those of us that are in charge of responsible for them and the sports that that we coach and and the sports that we support and that should be all of them to make strong strong efforts to finally resolve what has been a long-term ongoing issue with the fields in general the middle school fields and the high school field excuse me they're linked we have enough sporting programs during each season the spring and the fall seasons when we're outside that we need all of the fields that we use even as the population as ebb and flowed it doesn't matter if you have a team you have a team you need the field so if the field the team is small that year or if the team is big that year it doesn't matter you need the fields so first and foremost I want to be understood as somebody standing up here in favor of the children and the fields then I'm gonna take one step further and say as the field hockey coach I'm well aware of the kind of surface that is necessary to play field hockey on to be safe to be competitive to continue to grow our program that was oh and 17 four years ago and has made the playoffs two years in a row now the surface needs to be smooth and the grass needs to be short and I understand that there are a lot of field options out there I am looking for an immediate solution so that we're on a good playable safe field in September and I in no way shape or form would want that to overrule or push aside the longer-term solution so I I intend on staying engaged in the conversation and I've been following the conversation and so I just speaking to this important body want you to know that I'm going to be speaking to two sides of the issue one is finding a safe solid field for September and two finding a long-term solution and I look forward to hearing what's coming from you in your report later any further public comments my name is Carol Samuels I'm the former field hockey coach and the current varsity lacrosse coach I've worked just completed my 15th year here at Amherst and I just want to sort of paint a big picture to be sure that we're all on the same page that athletics at a school are co-curricular they're not extracurricular and therefore they need to be treated that way prioritize that way and funded that way and so with that big picture in mind the details need to be sorted out I haven't always felt that the town prioritizes athletics in a way that respects their kid their own kids or other people's children and so I'm hoping to that that this the group that's going to be charged with solving this can help change the sport culture in Amherst and you have great pockets of excellent sport culture but but as a town I'm not sure we've done a good job selling the importance to youngsters of what sport the value that sport brings and teaches this is my 40th year coaching so I've been in a couple of different schools and and I have you know just spent that time really building culture within a team but also outside of the team so I feel comfortable with my parental support but overall the support needs to be keep in mind that this is a co-curricular and it would be like you know not having your math book and that would not be acceptable to anybody in this town and yet when our lacrosse program come you know we don't day-to-day didn't know where we were going to be able to practice let alone play you know that that's just it's rough and it was exhausting and and just to you know reading what's in there there you know would have liked a few more details about that we we played on the middle school field that we had four varsity competitions on an 80-yard field not even a legal field and it's it's not fair to those girls that come out and work every day to be the best that they can be and it's not fair to our opponents who do the same thing and come and play on a on a sub par field and so that that's the canvas that we paint our educational picture on and I'm hoping we can change the culture and and get the support behind it thank you for the comments documents Stuart Coleman probably remember me from last time I'm not gonna ask for extra time today page three talks it's a it's on a hundred thousand websites field and area safety it's really the thing that lights my fuse here right field and area safety because if you don't take care of the field it's not just that the game doesn't play right is that people can get hurt badly right which is why I made a public document request about injuries and other things today to the town among a series of other things but if you look at page four this is the rock that came out of the middle school field this week this week when you played those four games there this rock was on that field right and I dug it out it's not my job to dig out rocks in your fields this could have killed a student all right you've followed the wrong angle you hit your head on this rock and you're dead I also didn't expect to speak but I guess I'll speak I'm Michael Rudd we met last time on the soccer coach over at the high school I just wanted to say that that rock that he took out is a field from a field that I'm going to be coaching on next week we're not just talking about high school or middle school people I'm working with five year olds six year old seven year olds again a matter of safety why do I as a coach have to have to go through that field step by step to figure out if this thing is going to be safe enough to risk the health and sometimes the life of these little kids let alone my high schoolers are playing summer soccer there you know I've already I was it happened to be at that game when Stu sent that photo later on my players must have run over it 15 20 times not to mention the other team as well a couple more concrete things every season now for who knows how many number of years there's been a time before during or after a game where we have found a sinkhole created by a sprinkler system the holes have been as deep as a foot foot and a half sometimes the pipes are sticking up you know obviously a safety hazard I also want to speak next about the football program football has been nothing but gracious to soccer allowing us to practice side by side being helpful whenever they can but when we pulled off our field because it was unplayable and unsafe we essentially made football unsafe we muddied that field we made it we made it unplayable and so this is what happens it one thing feeds off to the off the next and I'll say the last thing is that if I had a player a son who I thought would go on to college and possibly earn some money because of his soccer and his his academic prowess I would think twice before sending him out to play on this team there's one over there who has a chance to play in college there are several others in our team who have a chance to play and some of them need some money or would they would be it less of a burden on their families so the ramifications of this is clear it's not just soccer or field hockey or football wanting a better space we're also thinking about the future of our kids from the five and six year olds that I have to deal with next week to the 18 year olds that are sitting around here something to think about thank you thank you very much so if we have any further public comments we'll take them otherwise we'll close public comments and please hello Jack Nagy I'm a student athlete here at Emerson Regional High School I'll be a senior next year I play football as well as a cross and I do indoor track as well so I'm competing constantly throughout the year and you know I just wanted to say that while while we're figuring out a solution for this issue which is clear we need to consider both the long term in the short term we need to make sure that the fields are able to be played on during this fall as well as this spring and then you know five years ten years 20 years in the future thank you very much with that with that we're going to close public comment thank you very much for everyone's comments the next item on our agenda is subcommittee updates this is a self-reporting system so if you're on a subcommittee but they report raise your hand and you can make it cool we'll move on we do need to appoint a summer warrant signing committee remind me how many people that needs to have on three okay three from Amherst that's particularly helpful because it resolves another groups spitzer happy to volunteer okay you're happy to volunteer I am happy to volunteer okay are you happy to volunteer as needed can we have forward it doesn't give us that goes and we'll have four because that was somebody a liberty to leave which is a nice thing that okay then so that is done we'll move forward with superintendent update is there a special sheet of papers on it so I'll be very brief it very successful end of the school year many of you are able to make it to the high school graduation which is a wonderful event we live streamed it it was neat to see that you do give you a link of where people are watching it there are 28 states and five or six countries around the world where family members and friends were able to see their CR students walk across the stage and the entire ceremony was the live streaming then they make a high-quality high-def YouTube clip so there's a very long hyperlink but if you also just Google Amherst Regional High School graduation 2019 come up at your first hit also on June 10th we had a very one of my favorite events the year which was to recognize our district's employees who reached milestone years of service so that and retiring so those are 15 20 25 30 35 we had a 40-year employee that we recognized we had over a hundred people there including family members and friends and we don't do that enough to thank our staff every day and it's a really nice opportunity the middle school grade span advisory board so thank you to miss McDonald and miss Cunningham for their update on that and certainly that'll be a topic we get to FY 20 planning that will want to have an agenda and the last set of documents was just under there was some questions that I received and Dr. Brady created a memorandum just about out of district special education at a district placements and other folks who come in to support us in that way so I'm not going to go through that but if there's any questions any committee members can certainly follow up with me directly okay so you'll welcome feedback efforts are there any questions for the superintendent regarding his update I have a quick one yes I'm just curious how we're doing with our summer lunch breakfast and lunch program so in a last year we'll do 11 sites I'm just curious with the transition we're going through if we're still able to do more than just the middle school we are we're maintaining the same level of sites that we did last year and miss Palmer her last week is this week but she we and mr. Mangana has been critically helpful in organizing kind of who will assist in that and that's up and running right now and so we're made we didn't add which was one of our ideas but we were maintaining the same number of sites that we had last year thank you any further seeing none we'll move forward there's no chairs report although one thing I'll bring up is that I talked about months ago is that after this meeting so we don't have any meetings for a while and over the summer I'm gonna work with the superintendent mr. Mangana to dig back to sort of regional assessment thing and anticipation next year because a little bit like the issue mr. Delman talked about during announcements this is a topic that never seems to resolve itself no matter how hard we try so I just thought people should know because also if you're interested in learning about or engaging just sitting down with myself and Sean and Mike over the summer just drop us a line and it's not a secret they're not secret meetings we're happy to have you join us involved in that process so moving at the new and considering business athletic fields update is the first item on the agenda and I guess I just say I mean this is something that understandably there's deep and and passionate concern about but also extraordinarily practical concern right I mean we want fields that are playable and are safe and I think that given the discussion from the last meeting and just a lot of the communication we've had I think there's a heightened sense of need to understand what the path forward is how also to build trust around what kind of preparations are going to be taken between now and the fall there's also been an offer multiple times of people to want to engage to help in some way and so I'm just sort of saying at the outset I'm both the superintendent as a guest to Mr. Moring is in back and others that what I'm hoping I'm just saying it now because I can say it later but I'm going to say it now that when I'm hoping in whatever presentation we get that would that one of the things that occurs apart from any sort of sense of what the direction is is there's a clear sense for the members of the audience in the public who are watching about how they can if they want to be engaged how they can be engaged in following up both in terms of learning about the efficacy of this new approach to managing and maintaining the fields what it actually gets done this summer and then also if they can help how they can build that relationship to help and I figured I mean you probably all of that is going to be in your presentation but I'm just saying it now that if it isn't that's the literally the first question I'm going to ask I'll recognize myself and I'll ask that question and I'm sure everyone I'm the other member of the committee I'm sure I was the same question and concern so I just wanted to lay that out in advance and hand it over to you and any other guests that you may be having in this conversation. Sure so before I do that an introduction and guess I just want to acknowledge and appreciate people for coming out tonight is an issue that's certainly critical for many of our student athletes and families and coaches that certainly I think as I shared the last time something that's near and dear to my heart in terms of how my life was influenced by being both a high school and collegiate athlete and student athlete and so I want to recognize the urgency of the situation and also just appreciate people's advocacy on the issue. So one thing to know there's kind of multiple things to start just as a framing so in the packet tonight there's an update that's about six or seven pages long that was completed by Mr. Farrow and the reason I want to start that place is Mr. Farrow has opted to return to his prior position which was a science teacher at Amherst Regional Middle School and not return to his athletic director role for next year so he worked on this document I want to publicly acknowledge his work on this topic this spring also to note that we would be posting this week for the role of athletic director and so I will do my best to be able to represent the not his he has a higher level of knowledge of field than I do he happens to be away this week otherwise he would be here even though his he's transitioning to a different role. I also want to acknowledge Dave Zomek who was right here oh there you are Dave so on our website and it's been up since Friday was about 50 some odd page report with about 20 page of appendices which is the athletic facility strategic plan report provided by Westman Samson so I want to thank Mr. Zomek for shepherding that process and pushing the consultants to get us a report at the end that I think has really meaning and for people don't want to read the 50 some odd pages the executive summary which starts on page three is really helpful and that's on our website right now. Mr. Moreing, Gopher Moreing is our superintendent public works in the back of the room I'm going to invite him up in a little bit to talk about some of the work that's happened in the last month as well as what's being planned for fall he can describe it in much more detail than I can and I really want to thank Gene Jones who hasn't even started his principal yet but is joining us tonight so thank you principal the high school for coming we talked a little earlier today it was an interest he he showed an interest in coming and interest in hearing from the community and what the plan was for the field so thank you Mr. Jones for being here. All that being said so I think I'm going to go through what's in the packet but I do want to start with some of the executive summary from the longer consultant report we'll come back to this this is most of the work and the Weston and Samson report is long-range planning I think the student at the end nailed it which is we have to have a plan for the fall and spring and then we also have to have a long-term plan and most of the Weston and Samson looks at the long-term plan but they did do a very thorough analysis of use of our fields and condition of our fields and I think it's sometimes useful to have an external person come in and say you know what is the condition not for people who take care of it every day but someone who looks at fields as their vocation and one of a couple points I want to reference that they they I'm just going to read from their executive summary usage levels of the fields were recorded at 150 recommended percent the recommended levels for maintaining facilities in a good state of repair and they have a lot more data in there over 3,000 participants use the fields they did some survey tracking of LSEC youth organizations high school athletics everyone he uses the athletic fields and that's the formal use that's not the informal peak use of kids who want to play a game of soccer on their own and they happen to go to the field after school which we want we want students being our athletes using our fields we want them being physically active they also said and again I'll just read direct quote there are not enough playing venues to meet current use demands so one of the challenges we're having is we're over using the fields and it's coming from a place of we don't have enough fields to meet the demands of the community who's using it and that's not only the schools that's that's they one of the appendices they describe all the different use or many of the different users of our fields and they also spoke about a lack of a clear concise and evenly enforced field use policy so in summary of some of their their analysis we have structural issues with the fields which they detail and rich detailed a bit in this report we have an overuse issue which is common which is complicated by a lack of clear management planning of how to control the use we have funding issues in terms of the maintenance and so what we tried to do and by we I'm really referring to the town staff as well as school staff is really to get at what can we do for fall we improve the playing conditions both for safety and for competition to reduce the overuse of the field as well as maintain them better and then the future conversation is what is the long-term vision and what are the towns willingness to frankly pay for increasing field use one of the things I thought was interesting that I heard feedback from a couple other towns is that it's sort of in the Westman Samson report but I'll put a finer point on it is expectations for fields have also changed in the last 30 years so even if the field weren't deteriorating which they are the expectations of what high quality field was in 1980 something is different than it is in 2019 and that's a good thing the challenges that our fields have not maintained or risen let alone risen to the challenge they have not maintained their current condition given the chronic overuse as well as poor planning and poor quality of the field and I'm not only referring to and this study didn't just look at the athletic fields at the high school looked at Plum Brook it looked all over town so it's it's looking holistically of where are other places that we could play because we know our high school athletes and athletes do utilize fields from time to time that are not on the high school proper so for instance the one in Stanley Street which I'm gonna blank on the name of yeah park that gets used by ultimate and that gets used by other sports and so we do have a very complicated and challenging situation which is no less complicated by some feedback we've already received received from member towns and their willingness to engage on the funding of repairing replacing fields we're one of a minority of communities in our local area that are similarly sized that have not do not have a turf field right now so most communities last 15-20 years have invested in the turf field which overuse becomes much less of a problem field rotation becomes much less of a problem but the reality is we don't have a turf field we're not gonna have a fall we're not gonna have it for next spring and so we need to plan for that both short-term and long-term so to do all these introductory comments but I want to help set the context of what we learned from an external source who's expert who are experts on this to guide what are we gonna do now so I'll go through the update which is in the packet I'll try to summarize that I try not to read from it but what the team tried to do is take a look at what were the questions we heard either from public comment or from the committee members from committee members last time that we can respond to and what do we learn from the Wesson and Samson report that's relevant as we look to the short-term so the first question that we had again we reworded but what was that what's the mechanism protocol to determine field use for the many groups who use them based on the overuse of the fields that are currently in poor condition how can this be improved and so I described the overuse of the fields and right now the honest truth is we we have not historically had very clear method of someone who's responsible for managing and making decisions on field use there are many many users they're not all our high school and that's a major problem it's actually the first recommendation from the Wesson and Samson study is Amherst should adopt the field use policy to govern the fields this will be essential to allow for improved playing conditions to be achieved and protect any new investments that are made and so the next steps as we've established them are that the town of Amherst will create a simple central public calendar that can easily be updated and accessed by by our athletic department and facilities office TPW and LSSC for all fields there are some fields as we've talked about that are owned by the region some are owned of the town we want to have one system we don't want to have multiple systems for fields that are adjacent to one another just doesn't make any sense and this is modeling off other towns that have similar public mechanisms so everyone knows which field being used by whom and when and there's true transparency in the process the second piece is that to develop a protocol by which a Department of Public Works administrator makes a decision about field usage for all fields and this is this is going to be where the rubber meets the road I think for many either teams or community groups these decisions are based on the recommendations of a staff member with background and expertise in natural turf management school staff we help out we do not have anyone with a degree in natural turf management and the DPW does we feel like we should be relying on the expert round management about field usage and then the draft of the DPW has developed as on the back page that determines when fields can be used and when they can and one of the challenges we've had we talked about this the last meeting is that we've had very wet falls and we've had very dry falls we had a fall where we had water cannon shooting water from War Memorial pool onto the field to make it playable because there was a water restriction we couldn't water the fields and that was a very creative solution to that problem we've also had the flip side where we've had so much rain the fields are next to unplayable because the drainage doesn't work in the water table in the area and so I appreciate Mr. Mooring for developing a draft policy to help his staff guide decision-making on field usage and then looking at alternative fields that may be available I do want to caution us that the report from us and Samson clearly cites that there is not there are not enough fields currently in the town for the number of people who want to use the fields so it's not as easy as well there's other fields going to be available and playable that's a complex decision-making tree that we want to again rely on the professionals from the Department of Public Works to manage because the more more cooks in that kitchen the less efficient and effective our management of that will be so why don't I pause because the next one talks about kind of field maintenance spending and then I'll ask Mr. Mooring to come up and talk about the work that's happened last month and the work that's planned for the next two months but I think maybe pausing here because I've talked for a while to see if any members have questions to be advisable. So who finalizes approval of the draft field closure of policy who's going to be reviewing it who actually is it going to the town council or something or what happens so and I don't know maybe maybe Mr. Zomek or something knows the answer to that question instead but I'm just Mr. Mooring but I'm just I'm just curious because you called it a draft and so that raises the question of how does it move from being a draft to a actual policy. Yeah I think I'll refer to Mr. Mooring on this one. Good evening. We're hoping that the regional schools however they wish to do it through the committee or through the superintendent and the town manager comes together and decides this is what we're going to do. So that's how we're hoping this become goes from a draft to a final policy. I think leisure services has also been asked to chime in as well. So is it I mean is it is it like an administrative policy that the departments themselves can approve and execute or is it something that has to be voted by voting bodies. I do not believe we're shooting for a voting bodies to vote it. We want to keep it at the administrative level. OK. I just curious. OK. Thank you. And I would just say if anyone has feedback anyone in the audience or anyone in the community because it's all online please share it with me. I'll definitely bring it to Mr. Mooring's attention and for his staff to review. So we are doing this in a public meeting because authentically if there is feedback that the community members have we want to hear it. We did model and I know Mr. Mooring looked in the Westman Samson report actually there's a couple model policies from other communities and Mr. Mooring modeled it off. That was sort of the next that was sort of the underlying point too is that when you can figure out how approvals happen then you know how to weigh in to influence things if you want to read your after something. Mr. Domenic. I just don't mind a point of feedback if you're looking for feedback about the policy. So just when you have the DPW administrator making decisions about field usage for all fields I just and this is not my area of expertise but just having heard some of the feedback some of the complex decision making that has to go on. It seems to be hardly ever just a matter of is the field playable or not. Just a simple analysis you have to balance OK well if we allow this field to be playable on this day then it might not be available for XYZ team on this day and maybe that's only you know the loss of one competition but maybe that's the most important competition and so that gets into the necessity to have more knowledge about things than maybe just the DPW administrator is required to have and so you know some sort of consultation. But that it almost makes you feel like think of the no one situation you have with calling the school when you're up at three in the morning listening with your superintendents and weather people and getting the conditions on the ground and trying to make a qualitative decision in the best interest of everything. It's hardly ever a clear thing so just my own piece of feedback. So I think two thoughts on that one is later on the document describes how the athletic director position does come frequently in touch with not just Mr. Moring but actually more in touch with Mr. Moring staff members who are the experts in field conditions to play out that matrix that you describe. I think the other hard thing is that we want to you know Mr. Froh said it better than me in a meeting a week or two ago. We don't want to be in the at the whim of public pressure because if the field need to be rested the field need to be rested and it's a slippery slope to go down. Well this game is really important. But who's to say that the team that has a better record is more important than the game two days later from a team that struck right. And so we want to actually let the fields dictate the decision making instead of prioritizing certain games or teams. And I think you're right. It's not a black or white or there has to be a matrix of decision making. But I think we've we've paid suffered the consequences sometimes of having that public pressure that this tournament has to be played or this game has to be played and the impact on the field to go well beyond a day a week. And really we've seen it affect fields for the whole season. And so that's I think the thinking behind it. Thank you. I'm not sure these questions are appropriate at this time or when you've completed everything but let me toss them out there just to get them out there. Number one I remain concerned about the specific and explicit relationship between the town and the district on this particularly if the town is going to call a field safe to be used. And we go ahead and play the game and a youngster was injured because of the field who's liable. Secondly things such as this have a tendency to evaporate over time. And I'm wondering if the cost of this endeavor is going to be included in a capital plan section of the budget. And would it be included with other capital expenditures so that we can have a sense of OK we're spending this money this year. What do we anticipate we're going to spend next year on the fields. So how do we how do we prevent budget wise the fields from falling back into poor condition. And is there some way we can assure the community which obviously is very concerned about this. Is there some way we can ensure the community and the coaches and the players the kids that we have their back on this. And to be honest about it I need some convincing. Thank you. You can answer whatever you want. Some of those that you answer now there's some I want to. Also I'm just mindful of the fact that we that because of when you pause the public and even the committee itself hasn't heard really what's happened yet and what's going on. And that's probably the most salient thing people want to know is have you been doing work on the fields. What have you been doing. What are you going to do. So if the region is going to be tasked with creating this policy and improving it even if it's in partnership with the town I think it's really important to understand how to make these choices and how to be very transparent about how we're doing it. So in the current practice we say that the priority of use is for P classes and the high school and middle school athletic programs which makes sense. But it doesn't really say anything about youth soccer LSE summer camps. All of the other organizations and interests that have a use of these fields and I'm wondering and you know haven't come to the report as thoroughly as I have but if we're going to be it sounds like DPW is going to be making a call about whether or not the fields are safe. But if there aren't enough fields for the current demand who's going to be making that call about who gets to use this limited resource. And I think we need to be very transparent about it and have an understanding very basically of what the current use is and what would a potential higher and we're going to have to create some sort of hierarchy that goes beyond just P and the middle school and high school. So if this is going to be covered in this conversation now I'm happy to hold often and listen but if it's not I think we really need more information on what's currently happening and reach out to those interests because this is where it's really going to get messy and people are going to be disappointed. So I'm going to I think that's a really honest question. I'm going to give you as honest answer as I can give. So I think a couple things. One is I think you're right and that's why one of the advantages of DPW taking on this role is not just their expertise but that actually going through one public calendar that's managed by one organization as compared to now which is a hodgepodge of a myriad of things. It doesn't work. Our current model doesn't work. Right. So our athletic department facility department. We work very closely with LSE. Their partners are in the middle school building with amateur soccer all these other organizations. The region can't manage all those organizations and it's it's putting you know frankly an undue burden on the region to be able to do that. We do it in concert with with DPW but it's actually trying to streamline the process around it. I think in terms of current use the Western and Samson report does a pretty good thorough study and I know you know you got that on Friday and it's a long report but it actually did a snapshot of exactly who's using the fields which different community organizations are used using them. I think you're right to highlight if these experts are saying we have essentially we're over using the fields and we don't have fields for the current demand. That's a townwide problem and this gets really complicated because we're a regional school district that's responsible for towns and we're part of this whole constellation of town fields. I think maybe towards the end of the conversation we could take about advocacy and what not just the regional school committee but actually across the town. People feel urgency about this topic and so I want to be cautious that this is bleeding naturally and it's not your questions. It bleeds into larger issues. So if you look at the Western and Samson for instance talks about Plum Brook which is not fields that are owned by the region they're owned by the town of Amherst and yet they have huge implications for Amherst use soccer which example you use in other soccer organizations and so then I think the report does a good job of laying out kind of the urgency of do we have enough fields are they playable are they in good condition with the design for their current usage. The answer all those questions is no. I want to be really honest about it so we're going to do the best we can to manage with the fields and especially in this role in terms of our student athletes at our middle school and high school level. There are some things we can't control and I think it will take lots of advocacy across multiple towns as well as a town of Amherst to be able to work on this and sort of I was going to say this later but perhaps we're saying now that I've not heard broad support from all four towns not that we've asked the question but I've gotten actually information from at least one select board and finance committee of one of the member towns suggesting they do not want to participate in any work on the field so I think the political complications of this are really deep so I'm sorry to be that blunt in response but I think I also want to contextualize that the crossover between town of Amherst regional concerns are complex and we're trying to actually as best we can streamline how we're approaching it how the fields are used how they're maintained and what the choices are and make it transparent. We have a lot more to go through but I just want to give any other members of the committee a chance if they have questions they don't comment they want to make at the moment. One of the things I think superintendent that as you're going through the remainder of the presentation to be helpful is to try to divide out those things that we're dealing with immediately particularly around safety which I think the closure policy discusses things that I'm not sure you're going to have an answer for now or even should like how do we actually manage scheduling and utilization of the fields more globally regardless of closure because I'm going to editorialize and through I think if you had an answer right now you'd make a lot of people really angry if you simply announced it and said here's the solution without lots of stakeholder engagement including by other folks outside of the school district itself and then there's obviously the third bucket is what how do we move forward in the long term including some of the capital expenditure issues that raised but I mean I'm just saying this because I think the conversation could get really muddy if we start talking about all these different things simultaneously and I won't help people get clarity about what what are we actually doing right now and how do they get involved going forward to continue to make progress. So I'll go to question two but resources come from the district for field maintenance does need to be increased so what do we need to spend additional funds are so you see a table that Mr. Farrell put together of spending an FY 18 spending an FY 19 this was level funded in the budget that was passed by all four towns as well as the school committee this spring and in consultation with Mr. Moreing Mr. Farrell we've increased well over 200 percent that line from the spending last year was about 15,000 to 34,000 for the next school year that means we're going to enter next year unless something different happens at the state level in a deficit and so be it budget is an estimate and the needs are urgent so we're just going to do it and I'm going to let Mr. Moreing talk about both what's happened in the last month which is in the current fiscal year but also how those funds would be used to improve the field conditions for the next year both in the fall and the spring. So I think Mr. Moreing will take it from here. I have some pictures for you to start off so which is a before picture and after picture so the before picture is after the frisbee the old excuse me ultimate sorry and the after picture is today they took the picture today so just so you see there is some change going on and it's actually you can tell we're doing some good things they aerated the field you can aerate again make sure you hit the microphone there so big since you're back to the audience also want to make sure they can hear you so we did some air we did aerating we did two types of aerating but we don't have what we call a deep tong aerating we did small little plug aerating takes out little plugs on the ground like you do in your lawn at home and we also just did some vibratory aerating which goes down shakes the soil a little bit and comes up we've been overseeding we fertilized we did some rolling and when we've been doing we've been mowing again just making sure we keep it at the right elevation so all that's been done in the last weeks since it's stopped raining and we can get on the fields and mow if you notice from the past our mowers are much smaller now we used to have a 20 foot mower we're down to a 12 foot mower because we can't put the big mowers on the fields anymore that's how bad the fields are they get wet and they stay wet and they won't support big equipment anymore you have to use smaller equipment and we've actually shifted down a little bit which use a smaller mower it takes longer to mow so but this is what we've been doing so far and we want to take the extra money that we're going to put forward and we're going to do some deep tom aerating which your a 12 inch spike goes into the ground several of them shakes the ground up and then you top dress it with sand to fill in those voids and make sort of a drainage layer and a layer that's not compacted give more oxygen into the soil and so forth that's the one thing we want to try to do the most of with this money we're getting and then we'll continue this overseed and fertilize them slice we want to come in and slice seed it before the fall get some seeds in get something going before the spring both the people who work in our division who had this division Alan Snow and Adam Feldman are graduates of Stockbridge they came from UMass they've been through that program over there one's that one is a turf guy Adam's the turf guy Alan's the overall overall person he's more trees and horticulture than he is turf so we do have two people on staff they talk extensively to UMass when they need to they do all sorts of research and outreach to them to ask questions so we're using all the all the little tools in our toolbox we have in the area and we're trying to use all our tools to to make things better the unfortunate part is is that budget hasn't increased much the one there's been two increases and those increases were to take on the pools mostly and take on garbage pickup the town manages the pools including the middle school pool the town picks up trash including trash at the regional fields where events go on it's not the custodians who come out and do it it's the five guys in the park and rec division so the five guys in the park and rec division maintain these fields they maintain the commons they maintain the town athletic fields they do trash pickup they maintain pools and a couple other things there's two other guys who do trees but there's five employees which isn't included in your account of expenses there's five other employees who manage who do all that work all the equipment that's used comes from the town budget not from the region budget every once in a while the region will help pay for a specific thing we needed we need some new tines for our aerator at one point the region paid for that the region does pay for seating and fertilizer like you see they pay for turfus for drying the fields and so forth but all the other stuff comes from the town general fund budget I think I answered that's covered everything with that I hope if you have questions I'm happy to answer them Mr. Roch? On page two of the summary it says that the DPW will prioritize the most effective use of these funds to improve the field conditions since the final decision is in your hands what assurances do what we have as a committee and the community have that gender equity would be considered in the decision the way we're approaching is that we're going to do all the fields the same we're not going to just do this one field this way and do this field this way when we take our approach all the regional fields will be done the same way and including community field which is the town field that's how we're going to approach it but it does says prioritize you've kind of been prioritized those are the fields that get it first and then other fields outside of the region and the community field to get looked at next okay questions yes I have one see you mentioned that the town of Amherst supplies your basic operating budget and that there's some money supplemental from the regional school district for the kinds of things that are mentioned on the table this is going to sound like a stupid question because every answer is we could always use more money and more staff but I guess I'm just wondering if you do you need more staff in this area and if so what would they be doing that would add value be I mean beyond in other words whole new fields whole reconstruction I'm saying in terms of in terms of ordinary maintenance what's then is there a next order of business that needs to be done you've already hit my first one so I won't repeat it the second one is is seasonal employees it used to be all the high school students and the graduating seniors and some of the students who graduated went to college and came back for the summer they'd want jobs in the summer and they come to the town and look for jobs do you know how many people do that now zero zero none of the students are encouraged to come back help work for the town come back and do something that's what we really really need in the summer is to have the ability to tap into students and to young people who are coming back for just a small summer job we pay $15 an hour you know but we actually pay less than McDonald's and Birking's gone we pay less than McDonald's but there's no who's young people to draw for them to help supplement and you know we don't need them to like go out and be experts we need them to do little things like let them pick the trash up versus having the guys we have trained pick up the trash the guys who we employ who are who are specialists and what they do let them do their specialties and not be burdened with this trash thing are burdened with other things that are insignificant but there is no there is no program to channel those people in and when you talk to the counselors at the schools they're trying to send us people who really shouldn't be operating any equipment at all I hate to say that but yeah we kind of miss out on this pool of people anymore and there's nobody around to bring in for the summer I was only able to hire three seasonal employees for the whole department and we used to hire close to 12 or 15 every year and they were spread out in the water and the highway and the parks and recs and in the engineering division I actually put them in with my engineering technicians and send them out in construction jobs so we have one person working in parks this year we have one person working for engineering and we have one highway guy that's it but we can't get that that that would be the one thing sorry no I appreciate it I mean that that sounds like something that could receive some attention and we could try to have an organized effort to help fill that gap yeah I was just going to share that that we can do some outreach as well I'm sorry I'm looking at you only to say proceed yeah so I think the other other thing to note here and and and I don't want to get too off topic but I think people talked about the finances and so one of our challenges is that our athletic department over time we've struggled to maintain the needs from a funding perspective that increasingly that we're finding ways to cover the rest of the program that's not to say it's not valued we do it because we value athletics we value this high school in particular has a wider array of sports than any other high school I think in Hampshire or Franklin County which are the two counties that our member towns are are in but it is a financial challenge that we've had and I don't need to tell all of you about the financial challenges of getting budget past the last few years and and the uncomfortable conversation perhaps on page 53 of the the full strategic plan is 53 and 54 they come up with a number of ways to fund operational maintenance but there are things that in general our district has tried to shy away from including you know increasing user fees concession fees parking fees basically tournament fees they're fee centric types of things so I think when we talk about increasing funding long term to Mr. Fontes point earlier I think there's one which is the operational budget which is what funds the support we're able to offer for the DPW's work the capital piece I think is a separate conversation about the long term implications capital we don't think of as ongoing yearly expenses that's a more short you know one-time expense to improve the condition but it is something that we're going to have to talk about next year as a committee and as a community is if we want to maintain the number of sports teams we have improve the field conditions at some point we're going to have to pay for it and in a situation that we have a lot of fiscal constraints at the moment between our four-member towns and so I don't want to belabor that point but I do I did feel like I'd be remiss not mentioning that the the funding is an issue that will continue to be an issue these issues won't be resolved I think the plan we have is to improve the playing conditions they're not permanent fixes that Mr. Moreing and his staff are working on for the fields there they are fixes to improve the quality to make sure that the fields are safe and playable for our student athletes none of this funding and this work is going to resolve some of the issues cited both in this report as well as the the Wesson and Samson Report about the condition of the fields Chairman? Just real quick on the so you talked about the cost of the athletic program increasing or running a deficit approximately 40,000 this year the first thing noted is uncollected participation fees how big of the $40,000 chunk is that and what are the factors related to not being able to collect that I mean we're never going to be able to collect 100.0 percent but how bad is it getting and how much tension we get so I don't have those numbers at the top of my head but what I can have is Mr. Mangano does have them and I can email them to the committee but it's a significant chunk of that 40,000 we try not to take cumulative measures when student athletes we don't we don't allow cost to be a factor in participation so if student whether they're received subsidized lunch or not we try to make payment plans try to work with families but we've not been successful in collecting all the dues that have been assigned regardless of lunch status that's another one we can certainly come back to in the fall but Mr. Mangano can get the specific numbers and the historical numbers as well so you can see the trends over time thank you I think it'd be also by the way useful since we have a new approach now to reaching out to parents and guardians around uncollected school lunch it'd be interesting to know if we use the same approach for athletic participation we'd be transitioning to that approach okay so I don't think I'm going to belabor number three I think we've already talked a bit about how the town and school department coordinate field maintenance that'll continue I think the only thing that's probably not on here as explicitly as I'd like is that our facility staff and the district level does support the fields in some ways they do they do some cleanup some of the hills that we have on our fields some of our equipment is a little more attuned to do that as opposed to the big fields which the dbw's equipment is more attuned to so there is coordination and communication between the dbw and our facilities group as well but the the line share of the work is done by dbw staff so why the field conditions so poor are the equity concerns about better field conditions so this report by mr ferro which he pulled some from the wesson and samson tries to describe each of the fields that we have what the challenges are and you could see it varies by field some of the fields struggle with turf coverage some of them struggle with drainage and at different times of the year different fields are more playable than others and that that really significantly contributes to some of the challenges that we have that there doesn't seem to be a time of year where all the fields are in wonderful shape some are much better on the fall and some after the winter end up much more playable so perhaps the most relevant piece is on the last page of that handout where mr ferro describes his plan for 2019 field space allocation and the goal that mr ferro is working on and we're working on collectively is how do we reduce the load on any given field to improve the condition avoid the overuse challenges and make sure every team as best we can has a home field I want to note that the coaches have been consulted particularly coach as it relates the field hockey has been consulted because that one is a significant shift in location so this should not come as a surprise to some of the people the coaches in the room but the community field utilized by the football program practice in games and it describes some of the painting and it's the same as we've had the last couple of seasons jb soccer and girls across used by the jb teams for practice in games and that's consistent so one of the changes that mr ferro and the coaches have been working on is the middle school multi-use field to transition field hockey for practice in games to that field there's upsides and there's downside the upside is that it's a much smoother overall surface and a flatter surface which as we know is for field hockey in particular is critically important there's room to paint additional arc as is written work has already started to repair the patchy areas and create a playable surface it would not be shared with other varsity teams this actually happens to be one of the better viewing sites because of the natural like you think of wild wood coming down it's actually I've watched a growth across game there this spring it's really nice location to watch a game it is a little removed from the high school and that is the downside and we actually chatted about that before the meeting and for us as a short-term fix we feel like that's the best the best potential site for field hockey given again the lack of slope and the lack of other use on that field that it'll be preserved and that the student athletes who will be participating will have the best surface possible and the safest surface possible as compared to other surfaces trying to rest you know what was the field hockey field an ultimate Frisbee field and it can be a backup field but what we know is that that field has been tremendously overused and is really showing the signs of that overuse and when we think about fall sports the feeling of you know both Mr. Farrow and the coach is that that we don't want to we don't have confidence that that field will be in as playable condition as the multi-use field behind the middle school particular to the needs of field hockey you know other sports would be less important to have that smooth surface but given the nature of the sport that was a decision that was made track field to be used by the varsity boys and girls soccer teams and if if it needs rest during the fall looking at the former field hockey field as a backup and the boys across football practice field be rested as much as possible so that it has really it really needs to recover that's another one that's been just brutalized by then overuse and we want to try to see if we can rest it in the fall and get it back to better playing condition in the spring and you know the last thing on this report was how the family's volunteer their time to improve the field under the supervision direction and you know you heard Mr. Moring say that he in my opinion is not opposed to help not as opposed to support and you know he listed some of the things that families or students or anyone in the community can do that would truly make an impact and allow his staff to be more focused on some of the more technical side of things and they can reach out to him directly and some already have to support that we'll do some work on the terms of summer work and the positions that are unfilled right now at the DPW that are paid positions but I think the way our fields are and what I've heard from Mr. Moring is the more help the better that there's no opposition actually they'd be open arms to support the DPW and its tasks and that's it for that report I think in terms of the rest of the Wesson and Sampson there's a lot of reports there and I think we need to come back to that early in the fall around some of the long-range planning but I think we've had we have enough to focus on tonight for getting ready for the next academic year that I know Mr. Stamak we talked a little earlier and we felt like he's shortly going to come back and walk the committee and the community through some of the longer term work that Wesson and Sampson proposed just a just a summary comment do you believe the playing fields will be safe for the fall so the indication I've received that Mr. Moreing can jump in is that there's feelings that they will be in better condition than they've been in the past few years I think the only reason I can't say confidently is we don't know if it's going to rain for the next month and a half or if it's not going to rain the next month and a half so I think the weather is a variable but I do think the time attention and care and planning that's going into this fall and spring season is at a much higher level than it's been the last few years I don't know if Mr. Moreing is anything you'd like to that No, that's pretty much it so I began by asking the question of I forgot Oh, I'm sorry too many documents You know what I'm going to ask Yeah, never they've already had a spot on how can the what's going to happen next what's going to happen over the summer Yeah I obviously this is going to be on the agenda in the fall right for first thing first thing but also how do how do people A get involved B how do they I don't mean this in a funny way but I just mean it given the salience how do they check up on your work right over the summer what's next Sure. So Mr. Moreing you know describe some of the work that will be occurring over the summer these are public fields anyone you know a certain volunteer look but we talked about having a meeting in late July athletic calendar starts a little before the school year calendar so you know looking at the regional school committee calendar for next year you don't want to wait that long to get back in the room because that actually is too late not only from planning purposes but literally next time we're in that room together that we practice Yeah, I'm not talking about us I'm talking about you Oh yeah We talked about a late July date where we could have a public meeting and Mr. Moreing and his staff could update the community about where we are where the work is what the weather conditions have been and how they've adjusted their plan based on the conditions they've seen so I don't know if you have anything else you'd like to add Mr. Moreing We've talked a little bit about kind of doing what some other communities are doing is actually having a on the website the ability to go to each each field and each recreation area and see what's going on and we can post yes this is the field this is what you could use here and then we can actually post what is being done we've talked about setting something like that up so people can just go and see we've also talked about using that as our mechanism for announcing when we close a field if we're closing a field it would pop up closed and then people could also if we use that methodology we could they could sign up on the web page to get notifications of field use and they would actually get that texted to them or email to them as well so we're kind of looking at how how to give more people input and insight into what we're doing we're leaning more towards the web page and those type of things as being ways to get things out there and if you ask we'll tell you as well so that's what we're trying to hope to do okay so what's your um directly related to that I think it's important to have and then two other comments and important to have a a two-way street so I think making it I guess one of my questions would be it seems like there should be a really clear way for folks to let you know I've seen this problem at the field and it seems like the DPWs the one to notify rather than the district and just but correct me if I'm wrong about that and we should make it really clear on the website how they can provide you with that feedback the other two things I wanted to raise is kind of like this question of how can families volunteer their time to improve the fields it seems like another piece and we talked about this earlier but it should be advocate you know not only to us but to the town and to your you know probably people in this room are outside of not just Amherst but all of all of the towns that the district represents and potentially I think we should talk about this at a future date but the potential for fundraising public-private partnerships around these fields I mean the big issue seems to be money and I don't think there's going to be more coming in in the near future unless something I don't know maybe marijuana attacks can be used for this I don't know but I'm just thinking like we there seem to be an interest in that in the last meeting we were at at the potential for and either we need it seems like we should have a clear response on whether or not that's something the district would be open to and it seems like we if we do do that kind of thing we need to think about this equity question and I'd advocate for you know maybe not having to go to a specific sport or a specific field but have a general way of making sure that all those funds lift all of the programs instead of just you know the ones that get the most attention Do you have any direct response for a good on-skelter? They don't see what it's smelling It's just great No, it's okay it's smelling Yeah, I just wanted to wholeheartedly agree with this Spitzer's comment and it's more of like a you know to the public comment so you heard the superintendent allude to you know the political challenges with getting this funded so at like a big high level if the school committee is totally on board and so when I'm talking about the long-term solution here for say like a three four five million dollar expenditure for a stadium build the stadium that's all great that we approve it then all four towns need to approve it so that's how the process works right school committee approves it but then it has to get approved by the Amherstown council Pelham town meeting Leverett town meeting Schuetsbury town meeting the town meetings are informed by their finance board and select boards so this requires not just one meeting or one email of advocacy this requires multiple meetings multiple emails of advocacy and in terms of when you start that I would start that right now I would if you're so motivated go home depending what town you live in and send an email and say this is important to me because I'll tell you there are other really important capital needs in Amherst and Pelham Leverett Schuetsbury that aren't getting funded and you know you're going to be at a capital meeting and there will be some irrational people there but at least some other rational people there too and they'll talk about things that you know they need they need another fire truck or whatever it is so this is something that is going to be a sustained thing and it's I've been really encouraged by the tone of the public comments it's very collaborative and you know okay this is a problem you're telling me you see the urgency how do we work together and that's great because we're all going to have to work on this together as we advocate to our towns to get to a final solution further so I do I do think that Mr. Spitzer's comment that I assume you're open to this that there ought to be a clear way of reporting to you concerns about individual fields like if somebody goes to a field and they're practicing soccer with their kid and they say holy moly I can see this problem there's just got to be some easy way to to be able to report that so hopefully that'll be done we have there's so much we're going to need to follow up on if there I think that what I'd hope you do is you know inform the committee but also let us know when I'd like some sort of mid-summer report to the committee even if we don't meet just share the report with us on updating is where we're at and then also let us know when this public meeting is going to be in July so that we can attend if it's too much of us then we can't talk just sit and listen but as we often know that's not always a bad thing that's kind of a good thing yeah I think the other update for both the committee and the community was as we hire a new athletic director making sure that you're informed of that because that person will play a pretty critical role in working with DPW the community the committee and myself on this so I just want to that is something that he have a high degree urgency about and we'll be working on the next couple weeks right so this is only the beginning as we say there's a lot of work to be done a lot of points of engagement okay anything else from the committee Mr. Sponge yeah I'd just like to ask if in terms of hiring a new athletic director and I would just like to see particularly strong effort to look at qualifications of a woman and a person of color going forward respond to that sure the short answer is we are consistently looking for underrepresented groups particularly in the administrative ranks but certainly in teaching ranks and my answer to that wouldn't be any different for the athletic director than any other position so the answer is yes and it doesn't have to be a special treatment this is the way we approach our work we should follow up also in this question to help the DPW hire people hire young people in the summertime yeah it's got to be some way of doing that yep and if they have the funds to hire 12 people instead of three yeah then let's help them hire absolutely all people instead of three yep um okay would it be okay for me to ask a procedural question procedural question sure um so can you go to the microphone I'm sorry yeah sure absolutely so just in terms of moving forward who would be the best person to direct our questions concerns ideas to so that so that it's not you know in the in the stratosphere somewhere but it's actually directed to a person who will be able to disseminate get the answers is it this committee is it directly the superintendent I would assume it would be to the superintendent and the the head of the DPW and I might send it to both of them depending on the nature of the question if it's a question I think you can really answer but I'm saying if it's essentially like a of a school teams related question then obviously the superintendent is going to be engaged on it the more it's leaning towards how are the fields doing and what are you doing maybe even neither of those things maybe more about about conceptually like you know brainstorming like who's the body that is moving this whole thing forward and if it's you guys it's you guys I'm not I'm asking sincerely yeah yeah yeah not you know no point and I think that's an awesome question and I think that the I think I think and I'd love to hear your thoughts both of your thoughts on this I think like a lot of things we have and I guess say in this town because this is more of an Amherst thing than it is necessarily just a region thing there has been it's sort of divided or scattered authority around how we manage some of these things and you can see where the cracks start coming up in something like this this isn't the only area that's true of I'm not going to bother nabbing them but there are other areas that might come to mind where you think to yourself who's really in charge of that building and there's not a great answer to the question about who's really responsible and so you know I think that I think right now the answer is going to be I would send the emails to the superintendent and to Mr. Moreing because that's the only way you can know that the two I always look to say well who's actually in charge of something and ultimately if it's in the school districts the superintendent's in charge underneath the supervision of the school committee but day to day that's the person who's in charge and then ultimately outside of the time manager or the assistant sound manager who's hiding right behind you Mr. Moreing is really accountable for this and so and I think one of the things that's going to have to happen I think is going to have to happen but others may disagree because I think as we go ahead through we need to make this fields safe and playable in the fall what we also need to do is try to figure out how are we going to manage I guess the question Miss Spitzer had earlier is you can't forgive me for saying this you're not really just going to make the DPW chief in charge suddenly of organizing scheduling and accessing all of the athletic fields in town like you might be able to close them if they're unplayable but in terms of literally saying you're going to have to be like the czar of all sports leagues in town that's probably not even desired by Mr. Moreing but it's also completely impractical right so you know it can't work that way right and so the question is how is it going to work and the answer I think they'd be honest I'm going to be because you may not want to say this I think the answer is we don't know which means we need to keep engaged on this and so the first order of business is how do you maintain the fields how do you keep track on that and how do you start setting up a policy around necessary closures so that we can get organized for this fall is that right or off base well I would agree with that so I'd write both right now I'd write both Mr. Moreing please yes you can write me as well but this has been raised to a very high level a town level as well so sending it to the town manager to the town manager's office we'll get you into the top of this world where he wants to be involved and Mr. Zomac has spent a lot of time doing this Weston and Samson report so if you get it in there it actually stays a little I mean I'll take it and do it but even what you may ask me is something that I have to go farther up and right now I think you know the superintendent and the town manager at the top of the two pyramids you might want to just shoot there first and then they'll filter it down to where it needs to go and this goes actually on Mr. Deming and Ms. Spitzer was saying earlier that if you if you I'm not going to speak to the other towns in the other towns write your select board you know write your town manager but in the Amherst my observation has been that the counselors have been pretty engaged in wanting to learn about what's going on in town and what's affecting people who live here and because this again is an area with bifurcated authority and lines of budgetary authority and other things this is a classic example of something in which you're going to be doing those counselors a favor even if you don't know what the answer is but you know what the concern is you'd be doing them a huge favor by writing them as well and saying hey look if you're not been following us in the paper this is what's going on this is what I'm experiencing with my kid you'd be doing I mean I'm very serious you'd be doing a huge favor because the worst thing that could happen to them is they show up in a meeting in August and people are screaming at them saying you know why didn't this happen better and you write me in June when I could have leaned in more so in addition to the town manager I'd say call write your write your town counselor write your select board if you're one of the other towns anything else thank you there's a lot of work to be done so the point is this is the end of it's a nice discussion but it's hardly the end of this work thank you you're welcome seal of buying literacy possible vote item 7b would you like what it is yeah so at the last regional meeting miss Richardson described the seal of by literacy some districts the early adopter districts like kind of Worcesters one and some more urban centers actually had this in place just last couple weeks with their graduation this would allow us to start implementing the seal of by literacy next year we'd be looking at multiple grade levels 6, 8 and 12 but the particular one that involves the school committee is the 12th grade one because it actually ends up something that is on transcripts and is part of the graduation exercises that students have and basically if they meet certain qualifications they receive this seal of by literacy as they graduate we think it's a wonderful thing to celebrate our multilingual students and we would like the endorsement of the school committee okay are there other questions can I see a question dumb question I know we've talked about this before but sometimes I don't always know who we is did we talk about this in the regional meeting or did we talk about this in the Amherst committee meeting or both we've only talked about this at the regional committee at the Amherst committee we certainly could bring it to the school committee but it's not a formal graduation no no no that's okay I just I I know this is because I'm dumb but since we since we have in fact talked about it in this venue then we don't have to keep talking about it as much as if we talked about it in a different venue then we'd want a whole presentation I'm not going to stop so if there's any any questions from the committee or even I don't understand a motion depending on what you want to do so Devin I move to endorse the Amherst regional school district's formal implementation of the seal of biliteracy beginning in the 2019-2020 school year is there a second second it's been moved in and seconded any further discussion of the item seeing none all those in favor of the motion please signify Bersing and I it carries unanimously which is one two three four five six seven of us seven to nothing thank you very much policy review first reading somebody say something okay there's an echo first reading of JIC student code of conduct student conduct and discipline and this is our first reading which means this is one of those greatly ambitious things because we can we'll do our first reading now and then we'll do our second reading quite a long time from now so this is a test remember would you like to introduce it sure yeah this is a test of how good our memory will be over the summer right so I think we had hoped to have a different policy ready by now but we'll tackle that in when we reconvene in August and that was the the policies the organizational policies that we needed to address given the new government in Amherst but this is one that actually we had started working on and we were waiting for feedback from council on this which is actually it's it's three policies so we don't have all three policies in this packet but when we come back for the second read let's make sure that we have the other two but there's we have three current policies which JIC JKD and JKE that all deal with student discipline and student conduct and we and in going through the policies notice that it hadn't been updated since 2006 or even looked at and then when we spoke with council learned that actually the underlying regulations and laws had changed substantially and guidance from Desi had been different so there was actually a need for us to do reflect at these so that's why we sort of took these up and in doing so so the first policy that's in there it's his current policy that's one of the current ones the the proposed policy would still be JIC that would replace JIC and we'd eliminate JKD and JKE the advice from our council was a lot of our current policy on student discipline actually just repeats almost verbatim statute and regulations and the advice from council was don't do that because then we constantly have to update every time any guidance from Desi changes or regulations laws are changed and then all of a sudden our policy is out of date and actually inaccurate so instead the language and the proposed policy that we're reading tonight covers and refers to the statute the underlying statutes about discipline suspension and expulsion and really focuses the first few paragraphs on what are the beliefs and values of of this school committee in in addressing student conduct in in our schools and so that's how we've approached this and this is modeled off of the MASC model statute of sorry policy but with specific adjustments based on what we believe is is our our values and and beliefs particularly around restorative practices restorative justice and restorative circles so and I look to carry you with it by if you want to add anything on this if I've missed anything in sort of introducing this no I think you did a really good job summarizing and I want to thank you for all your hard work on this and and this was Moreland as well and just say that I think the the big piece that would really be helpful if people have any strong feedback and I think is the statement of our values and in the beginning and we as a subcommittee tried to really shape it and would welcome feedbacks okay so this is the first reading so I guess what we'll do is we'll take questions for the policy subcommittee or any comments and then not belabor it frankly because we're going to have under the bite of the apple um so are there any some idea is this also going to appear on the Pelham School Committee agenda because it says Pelham Elementary School no idea can make a process statement sorry sure which is generally policies are considered to the region and then the municipal elementary districts consider whether to bring them to the elementary level so that's been the past practice actually to maybe maybe even out I think there's a policy about the policy about the policy so we'll continue to have no idea you should take it up with your chair I don't mean that in a funny way I just want to oh I know it just says heading well the new policy doesn't yes no I understand what you're saying are there I think it's a letterhead issue almost yeah the no I think I think the serious answer was that you'll you should take it up with your chair and the superintendent figure figured out are there are there are there questions or comments at the moment I agree with what you're saying that that getting the the sort of the tone of the values statement essentially or purpose statement at the beginning is critical and I also respect the fact that obviously one of the things we've we've been trying to do is find alternatives to traditional punitive forms of discipline in general and so reflecting that in here is critical and I think you've you've been you've been you're trying to do that certainly I guess one question that would be helpful to know when we when we next bite this apple is so the the section on the principal may remove a student from privileges such as extracular activities in attendance and school sponsored events based on the students misconduct that that seems like a fairly broad authority I'm not questioning it but I I am curious as to whether that's common across the state and and what what our current administration team thinks of that in this context doesn't have to be answered now but you know I mean it doesn't happen very often here I can't speak for other districts and primarily when it does occur it's around student safety does that answer not yeah to a degree you know I would be more interested at our again at our next apple bite sure is this the way it is like it typically is this is this an exception and and what's our current administrative team both both in central office and at the at the high school and middle school you know think about that just because it's it's one of those loopholes that says at the principal's discretion you know basically ignore everything else so maybe I can yeah please so so I think so I'm not on the policy subcommittee but but I think the reason that the language is in there first of all it's I think consistent with MGL but I think the reason it's different from the other is it's talking about disciplinary consequences that don't involve what more typically is focused on which is suspensions you know potential expulsions this is about removing not the the core right to an education it's connected to literally what it says extracurricular pieces so we could definitely talk in detail but I think the reason it calls it out as separate is the law is different as it relates to you can't be educated in school versus you can't play in x game and there's different standards for those so I think that's why it it does seem a bit odd I know but I think the law is dictating that it puts the highest premium on the right to an education less stringent group of standards on things that don't involve the loss of the right to be educated in the school setting okay I mean I actually think that that it is interesting now that is definitely that that that paragraph is definitely more of a blood instrument than the other than the other paragraphs and so you'd also sort of beg the question of you know how do you balance giving the appropriate authority to the principle to build a hack when they feel the need to act versus is there any right of recourse I mean what do you do if that occurs is there any other process that governs this and the funny thing is the language at the beginning I mean it's in a loving way sort of weasels around in a vague way that sort of to my bureaucratic eye we you know it suggests lots of process that that the document silent as to what the process is but it implies a process this is one of those areas where it doesn't it actually is very blunt instrument so I don't want to belabor it though because I think it's I think it's something that could be taken up later but it is it is an interesting topic especially in the context where we have so much discussion around whether or not disciplinary decisions are made in a way that's transparent and fair and you know neutral regarding any element of the background of the students and the family and that kind you know I mean those kinds of questions come up all the time that you want to know that you can you can find ways of describing how that kind of any kind of discipline like that is approached in a way that's really genuinely accountable but not accountable and again with it's layering on additional bureaucracy but just how would you explain it to a third party person that this is occurs in a very fair way anything else though we'll always we'll move on to this knowing that this is the first reading we're I wonder if it's worth checking in and he might have taken a break but with our Amherst media friend because I think they're still under the system where oh hey do y'all need this order it is okay so we will take without objection we'll take a five minute break call the meeting to order again the next item on the agenda is the summative evaluation for the superintendent there's proposed motion there's also a memo that's been included that I hope does a decent job of summarizing not only sort of the the what do you call it the dispersion of different responses on the survey but also I tried to do something we've talked about doing in the past which is ensuring that there's a characterization of the kind of range of comments that were provided in the in people's evaluations with the awareness of course that all of the evaluations that are submitted are will be reviewed by the superintendent and I think are public documents so um is there any uh I'll do anything I guess we want should we talk about this a little bit I know it's a public document as of any comments you have a motion I'm going to settle on I mean without belaboring all the details of our individual evaluations I mean I just want to say I really appreciate the work the superintendent's done this year I think uh I probably said this at other committees but I think our our particular neck of the woods is is is a challenging place to be for a superintendent I think we have a number of challenging intersections um but I feel like for the most part a superintendent rises to that occasion that that he's an excellent fit for for our particular style of play in Amherst which is often loud and demanding but you know the the positive side of that coin is that we're always looking to improve and we have a lot of fiscal capital challenges as we've heard throughout the evening going forward and so to maintain our values within those constraints is very difficult and I just really appreciate the way the superintendent goes about accomplishing that balance I think what I want to do is I want to start at one end which is going to be awkward because it'll be then past Peter and then over Peter and just have go around anyone has anything they want to say about their the evaluation at all then we welcome hearing it because then after that if we've exhausted that discussion then we'll move to emotion Franana I've been impressed by the equanimity you approach chaos problem is presented you say let me think about it you come back with a decent response so I'm very impressed so I just want to thank you for the year and that went as smoothly as it did and appreciate all your efforts I'll echo all of those sentiments and then I I think I would just like to say that I think we're looking to be at a point in time being less reactionary and more proactive and planning and so I think we hopefully are really laying the groundwork where if we do end up carrying out all of the planning that has been a lot of I think the meat of what we've been doing this year and I'm saying you don't be but I mean really led by you and also look many but anyways I just think we're laying the groundwork for really significant progress and a lot of goals and I'm hoping that we can continue to move in that positive direction thank you I I agree very strongly with what is everyone just said but Ms. Pissard has said in particular and I would I would say I'd echo something I said at the Amherst Committee in kind of something I've said previously in your earlier evaluations is that I like the approach and sort of the method you take to engaging the job engaging diverse stakeholders being collaborative learning learning through you know evidence-based research but also justice importantly and I think ultimately more importantly frankly the engagement with your staff and the stakeholders around you and what I appreciate is that I feel like I've seen you grow it's only been a couple of years a few years but you have already seen you grow and what gives me confidence around where we're going is something I said earlier that if I felt like if I felt like you're peaking and that your method was that you know you'd go home from tonight's meeting and you'd say to your family it's like this is pretty great I feel like I've arrived and like a portion of your brain would shut off that we continue to process and grow and learn then I'd be like well we've really screwed up because we should have been much meaner and then he would be he would be like oh well I've got to continue to learn and grow but since that is your mode and I've you know I've said this before but I'm saying because that is your mode I think also because I named Mr. Demling said a moment ago it fits our district and our communities that the moment you stop accepting a challenge from like a department head in one of the schools who says I think there's a better way we could do this at the moment you stop listening to a parent who says I have like an orthogonal viewpoint that you hadn't thought of before that you got to suddenly turn over in your head right at the point you're no longer going to fit the community right because the great thing about this community the set of communities we have is that we're always going to be challenging again right and that should make the job exciting because creating a great school system and maintaining a great school system out of that melange and making it really equal and wonderful for everyone you know is a really wonderful challenge I think for any professional to be given so I'll stop there because it's sort of sort of in there but my point is what I want what I want is what the combinational has just said is more onward and upward and I think next year it could be even better and we can even lay a stronger foundation for what we have I guess the perils of going second second to last is that everything's been said so I don't really have much to add but I want to reiterate and kind of echo the comments that I made at an earlier committee meeting which is you know none of us has all of the answers and I think you know in tonight is a great example I think of what I really appreciated and see in your leadership sort of the collaborative work style with all stakeholders community parents staff us and taking both criticism but being able to still lead with a vision and and make things happen and so I share the enthusiasm from Ms. Bitzer and Mr. Nakajima about sort of what that means for the future and and the big issues that we're sure I haven't been here for a few years but I think it's it's very important to place superintendent Morris's tenure in context and I think it's important to recognize that he became superintendent at a particularly difficult time for the district and has managed to navigate through that and to bring some peace I think peace and tranquility to some degree bumps in the road notwithstanding and I think that's a measure of not just his his qualifications as superintendent but his qualifications as a human being and I I don't know if I don't think anyone was on the committee back then as to how difficult that time was and I for one really appreciate Michael Michael's willingness to take the helm and guide the ship so to speak those are the lousy metaphors so one concern that I do have and maybe it's also a little bit of history here is I was surprised to see some of the a couple of the items on the the pain for the bullets I don't think we spend enough time considering how difficult it is to attract professional educators of color to Amherst it's extraordinarily difficult and has been for decades and I think the fact that we now have a African-American principal here at the high school is an extraordinary accomplishment and we certainly need to keep doing that but I would hope that the committee would spend some time again looking at history and recognizing how difficult it is that doesn't excuse not doing it don't misunderstand me but I think there are some challenges involved that you need to understand the second one that I was really surprised with was the wellness goal it's my understanding that there has been a significant increase in the awareness of social and emotional problems that kids who bring into the table these days and that there have been a couple of initiatives that have begun I actually have already started I think a couple years ago to address the concerns of kids who are at risk whether it's for suicide cutting or drug abuse or what have you I understand there's also a program coming into the middle school next year to address those kinds of issues and I think that that's that's a new issue that's confronting us as parents and as adults and it takes some getting awareness and understanding of the the depths of the problem and the vulnerability of a growing sector of youngsters out there in our community I don't mean to be alarmist but I think we have to be realistic and there are a lot of vulnerable kids out there and I think this the initiatives that you've taken the high school and we'll be taking get the middle school I know that's not part of this really are exemplary and be curious to see what the results of those programs are as we go forward thank you Mike thank you so are there any additional comments or I'd welcome a motion so moved everyone to read the motion I'm sorry I'm going to read it yeah yeah please I moved to approve the 2018-2019 evaluation for Superintendent Michael Morris as presented is there a second second it's been moved and seconded is any further comment on the motion seeing none all those in favor of the motion signify otherwise in your hand is there any nays any abstentions one abstention so it carries one two three I'm doing this again six six zero one and it's approved and so Dr. Morris do you have anything you want to help with that I'll be brief I know it's getting late and we still have more things on the agenda but I joked about this in Amherst and I think I have similar at the Amherst School Committee have similar comments here which is you know a deeper appreciation for the the feedback both the complimentary feedback but also the critical feedback as well and I'll look forward this week to looking at the individual evaluations I tried to I don't know why but my habit is to not do that before the vote and then go back and take a look at the individual evaluations that were completed after that often time you could see the diversity of view points even the scatter plots here and I think I want to again thank the committee for their support we took a bit off a lot this year right so if we think about just looking at the math you know I just had the pleasure of getting to witness some of the professional development that occurred over the last week about the implementation of new math curriculums in grades six through 12 and I'll say seven through 12 for this purpose and just that there was ongoing dialogue and feedback that we were receiving both from the community but also from the committee really facilitated a process where we could make pretty significant shifts in our programming in a pretty condensed time frame so I think that's just a very tangible example of how in my role and then with kind of leadership staff that you get to interact like quite frequently and the committee were able to shepherd the community along to make changes that are for the benefit of our students so particularly in that case all students but focus on the opportunity to gaps that we see in our district so I want to thank the committees and just that going too deep into it something I sorry for the folks who have heard this before but you know I think one of my goals people talk to Ms. Spitzer and others talk about planning and the planning that's happened and one of the things that I'm actively working on is how to be more present to observe the ongoing work of principals in my supervision work with them and also district directors but particularly principals frankly you know one of the piece of feedback in that 306th degree survey that that I struggled with in a positive way by struggled I mean you know it's forced me to think about things critically was that there was a pretty significant delta there was question that was loose I don't remember the exact text but is accessible and responsive and that was rated higher than you know is with me to observe practice and and I think that's an accurate reflection I appreciate that the staff I work with closely can be candid about that you know one was significantly you know rated higher than the other because that's how in my reflections I experience things as well and so in the next couple of weeks even probably not even till the next school you please be on the lookout from you know an email from me just how I want to structure things slightly differently from my time next year because planning is great but implementation is actually a harder work speaking to a chair who's a planner so I want to be cautious but I think you'd agree with me that you know you can have great plans and if the implementation is not in place and there's not checks and balances and is that going to my said taps totally accountable people who are being held accountable the whole thing doesn't work it ends up being you know exciting things on piece of paper not influencing all of why all of us are doing our work which is to benefit our students so I will I am actively thinking about how to shift some of my work and make sure that I can be as present to make sure that the plans that you've seen and that we'll continue to talk about the strategic planning are implemented in ways that that are effective in to use Mr. Francis I think phrasing the outcomes that we want for our students so thank you for this feedback and being partnering with me on this process and I look forward to doing it again and better great okay so we'll move forward thank you very much and oh and I should say so I guess we've done it again right this is the last meeting of the year which means we're not going to pick up superintendent goals until August right do you think we can how do you want if you don't mind me asking this question solely ad hoc are you going to come in with goals then are you going to want to have a conversation about it or or what I mean I don't really feel comfortable totally doing that at a retreat which isn't really a public meeting I mean it isn't it isn't like we don't anticipate tons of people showing up at a retreat yeah so what I was thinking was coming up with some loose draft goals based on the feedback and all the individual as well as the collective evaluations coming with that in August for feedback I think if individual members particularly I'm cognizant that you know we have two members one who's present and one who isn't who are not members of the full committee last year so I think as people have thoughts about next year please feel free to share them with me individually sometimes people might share things a little differently if it's in a formal evaluation document versus a less formal conversation you know email's fine but I actually tend to like two-way dialogue on that topic and I think that also can inform what I would bring in August okay does committee feel comfortable with that? I feel comfortable with that I mean I think I and also again the we talked earlier about the idea that we wanted to actually try to move the process up so that we weren't constantly approving goals unlike November and so I think this is the way of doing that and hopefully you've heard enough from us and you also have you have a strategic plan I mean it's this sort of a known body we have athletic fields we want to improve it's sort of a known body of things we're wrestling with wellness that's right and the next step is the wellness yeah all right cool excellent then we now now we'll move on discussion and potential vote on statement regarding lead testing and drinking water and related litigation so I think should pretend we'll we'll sort of guide some of the discussion here but in essence I mean we're this is the last meeting we have prior to the end of August and as I think people are aware this this question of ongoing litigation has come up in the newspapers the reporters have occasionally been interested in it and and we we have not I think as a committee been organized to be able to offer a thorough response that allows this is my opinion anyways allows us to be on record with the media and other interested parties around what the position of the committee in the district is around our record on the question of safety of our water in regards to lead and so we felt it was important to at least bring to the committee's attention so that over the next couple months if there are inquiries and media we're able to be able to offer a statement with them knowing with the knowledge that the committee is in fact stood behind what's being said you know what I mean what I'm getting yeah anyways so do you have anything you want to add I think actually you've captured a lot of what I would have planned to say I think the particular and I'm happy to say it's in public it's been reflected in the press reporting is I've not as someone who gets has been contacted by the media multiple times on this particular issue I have not made a public statement that's any different than any other prior statement in very long time magnitude of months not in the magnitude of weeks and so I think just having a statement on the record of what the body believes would allow for you know there to be a response that's different than what's been shared in the past which was pretty minimal that was basically what you said two or three sentences exactly spelling nice minor question on words on the the letter in the last paragraph on the first page it says the school committee then retested the water outlets and then the school committee repeated these steps is there a technical reason why we're saying the school committee I mean obviously these individuals didn't go around do that work it's yes we oversee it but you know as I don't know of what they'll think in the air unless yeah please I could guess which is I think the actions that were taken were in the I think of the right language for it I apologize any actions that we take are in the spirit and the guidance of the school committee had discussions throughout that period including a presentation by you know myself but also other experts and so I think the language likely comes from that that it's it's all on behalf of the school committee as as the board that governs the district but I'm not went yeah I mean it could be all I think I think I'll be honestly that I think we got some we got some guidance from our our attorney and how to write it and my guess is because the defendant in the case of the school committee there was an intent to declaratively state the school committee was supportive of all the essentially directed or supported all these actions under the leadership of the superintendent that's it's interesting because having having having gone through this thing I hadn't picked up on that on that point which is a good one but I but I think that's really the key thing is there to declaratively say that there's any there's any distance between the superintendent's actions and the school committee's actions in this matter Shelly other than that I would like to say that I think it's a very strong letter I fully endorse the phrase Mr. Hustin's claims are demonstrably false I think it does an excellent job of detailing the evidence what the federal state action levels were what the response from the EPA was and I think it's very informative on that on that front great thank you I mean I think one of the key things about it is that you can't there's no point in making a statement unless you unless you go through the evidence and you go through the action steps including future ones that we're doing this summer to even reduce the levels even further I mean if you don't say those things then what's the point right you're just saying you're claiming innocence rather than demonstrating it which I think is the key point in accountability and responsibility okay so if there's if there is I would entertain a motion to approve this statement someone can I ask a procedural question before we do that this is a lot of other I'll just say it bluntly have the information supplemental to this letter included in the packet and I'm wondering if that is germane to this item or a potential later you mean the previous document yes so I'm trying to understand like what the chair feels about scope of this discussion are we just talking about do we approve this letter or not and then we go on or are we talking about other aspects of what has transpired in this I I'll look to tag team of the superintendent of us I am comfortable talking about other elements in the previous document with the exception of any discussion that would bleed into litigation strategy because I think you you if you get into a question around strategy and what's next in terms of how we'd work with our attorney to respond to things then we would need to exercise the thing at the end of the agenda of going into executive session but in terms of a factual recitation of elements that is more than appropriate because they're all public documents I'm conscious that I've raised my hand three times in a row so I want to pause before okay hold on I'll look around quickly Mr. Damlan all right so I just want to just one thing this is hard for me because this is about one of our members who's here who I respect but I feel like it's something I want to share because when I became aware of this affidavit in support of the litigation against our committee by one of our members it made it was shocked initially and they're just very sad because I honestly don't know how to integrate this you know I feel like when we freely take the oath we swear to represent the regional school district as representatives of the regional school committee that that's what we are sworn to do and that while we all have individual feelings and thoughts about items that we might engage in which might not always be the same as as what the the school committee is doing that that's one thing it's it's for me it feels much differently and I say feels much differently because I want to be very clear I'm not trying to claim any illegal activity I'm not a lawyer and I'm not saying anything about that to me it feels highly ethically inappropriate for individual members of our committee to reference their membership and service on this committee in legal action against this committee it feels to me ethically impossible to be pursuing one's own action at the same time representing responsibly the interests of the region which is what we swear to do and it feels to me like a very direct violation of trust that that we all put in each other to represent the committee when we're serving on the committee and a violation of of the community's trust in us that when we are in this role any information and and titles and service that we have access to or or have contributed to is in the service of the committee and I I'm not sure how how to move forward as a committee as as a result of this I mean I I like the letter the letters good and we'll we'll figure it out but I I I think there needs to be some serious reflection if members feel like the personal action has to go directly against litigation against the committee you can't be on both sides of the lawsuit I guess is what I'm trying to say and you know that's that that's it it's an unfinished thought but I just I just had to share that feeling sure and by the way I should say that one of the beats of advice that and by the way there's nothing you just said that contradict this but one of the bits of advice that the attorney or district's attorney said was that that that we could talk about this item publicly but we should be mindful of the fact that as a recorded public record anything that said at this meeting could further be used in in actually as evidence within the litigation itself which puts a I'll call you in one second Mr. Munch which just simply puts a something to be mindful of as we're talking about this Mr. Munch yeah I I haven't been here for this entire controversy but I think at this point I would like to move that the continuation of this discussion of the letter be moved into executive session we have that on the agenda later and so forgive me for saying this but if if there is a general sentiment that the committee would like to continue this conversation in executive session then I would keep it probably on the agenda where it is and just move through the rest of the agenda yes let me speak in favor of my own motion please yeah sure I'm not sure I understand and have no quarrel with with your remarks sir if anything I take them very seriously given what's in this letter I don't believe that a public discussion at this time of this matter is in the best interest of the committee we need to sort this out as a committee and I don't think we should do that in public this is a committee matter it's not a public matter per se and I think it should be conducted within an executive session I'm very reluctant to continue myself I would like to participate in this conversation but I'm very reluctant to do that in open meeting that's a question do you do you feel that way about literally the statement is written because I recognize that what Mr. and I'm not this is not a critical comment what Mr. Demling did is he raised essentially an adjacent topic to the the actual public statement and so I'm just curious as to whether you're including both of it may I yeah to ask him was that me a question actually I I I think clarifying characterizing that as an as an adjacent issue is misleading the issue is mentioned in this letter black and white so it's not just adjacent it's critical it's part of the very context of this letter and make some statements that are very difficult for me to um process given there's severity of of the discussion and I I just would like to do that in in private I'll stop there Mr. Demling so I totally see where my colleague is coming from and I understand the need for privacy however I'm also cognizant that there's very specific and very limited reasons why we can go into executive session and being uncomfortable with potentially negative interpersonal relationships with our colleagues that might make people feel bad and believe me I thought about people's feelings before I said what I said is not one of those reasons and the only and we also have to publish that reason ahead of time and the only reason we have on executive session is very limited says we can only go in if we feel like what we're discussing may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigation position of the school committee so we have this this letter which is public document so the only reason we could go in there is if we we thought that that specific reason you know we couldn't go in there because we felt like like there was going to be difficult personal exchange or or other matters I get that that's my my feeling I don't know how I feel different yeah Strauss yeah I I understand what you're saying I believe that the information that's contained in the paragraph this set next to the last paragraph on page two is consistent with concerns about making a discussion of the litigation that it would have a detrimental effect I think that's that's part and parcel of what you were speaking to and I think having a member of the school committee be on both sides of the matter is seriously problematic and I think we need to sort that out in the executive session because it is very directly and intricately connected to the litigation well the interesting thing about it is that's actually why I called it an adjacent issue as opposed to a direct one is that the language in the paragraph was very careful to not actually characterize in any way except for factually what Mr. Hootsstein and the committee member did meaning in other words it describes what they did it doesn't actually characterize it in any way except for to propose a statement to the school committee that we don't believe that the statements as referred to in the letter are accurate so there is a proposition being offered that the school committee doesn't happen to agree with what the committee member and Mr. Hootsstein have put forward as their position it doesn't actually characterize it so the issue of whether or not people think it's appropriate for a school committee member to do this or not do this is in fact actually in no way addressed in this letter this letter is this letter is an attempt to propose a statement that the committee can agree with or could choose the table whatever it likes that we don't actually agree with the substance of the claim that's being proposed by Mr. Hootsstein and the committee member and so that's actually so to my mind that's actually at least in terms of the statement that's actually what's in question not whether there are any you know ethical or other concerns about what school committee members should or shouldn't do which by the way I'm not disagreeing that isn't a right topic but discussion at some point what I'm saying is that's actually a separate question that's being proposed in the in the statement I'm gonna have Ms. McDonald then Mr. Franch because you haven't spoken yet in thinking about this I'm not a lawyer I'm not an attorney so I don't know what the rules are for executive session but I had this similar reaction as I probably isn't something that would be warranted and even if it were I do feel in this particular case as uncomfortable as it may be I think it's important for us to be transparent and out in public having this having this conversation for frankly just from this is just my personal opinion but just be based on the allegations that are being made in the case itself so I think a sort of transparency and open conversation on this matter can be helpful for everybody in the community to be witnessing so I I for one in favor of continuing the conversation on this here in open meeting I do in rereading that paragraph that Mr. Franch specifically pointed out I do generally agree that it's a statement and of what's happened to date with the exception of middle sentence line one, two, three, four, five where it says what the school committee is doing the school committee wholly rejects those accusations as improper inaccurate and unfair and so that might be the one issue that whether sort of a rephrase of it to sort of get back to pure statement of fact as opposed to the school committee's strategy or approach to what's been happening and I don't have a solution for that but I do think that that might be sort of rephrasing that might bring it closer to a straight recitation of what's been happening in recent weeks or months but that's okay so much there was no second for my motion so I will withdraw my motion and if it's the the consideration of my colleagues to go ahead and have this discussion if it should occur in public so be it okay Spitzman you want to look at a request yeah kind of kind of for the reasons people have listed this is really difficult I hope we will have a conversation in the executive session and I hope we will also be able to talk about this letter openly okay and I think the things with the letter is I think if there's any member of the school committee who disagrees with the strongly with the idea that we are I would like the school committee to be able to state firmly and openly that there is no concern about lead in our school's water because I think it's it's bringing up an issue that as a parent and as somebody who comes here on a regular basis and drinks the water like it's it's fundamental that we have trust in our in our schools that we are protecting our kids and if there's ever finding that we're doing anything wrong that we do everything in our power to protect them and I believe and and from all my conversations with the people in charge who are who are doing this and I trust in them that our water is safe and that people should not be worried about it unfortunately I think because of this litigation and the coverage it's received in the press there's questions around that issue and I think we should state this so I'm in support of this letter and I'm wondering if if anything we should just take out that questionable paragraph and just make it a statement purely about the safety of the water and the measures we have taken to protect our our kids and anybody who's ever drinking water in the schools and if that might be even more power I think that's for me that's the heart of the issue I'm less worried about you know I am worried about the personal stuff but for me the the core is that we are protecting our kids and that we have faith in our institutions that are doing this right now so in other words in that in that in that context by the way first off I completely not really agree with you about the point being that we we we I my I'll say my belief we've I've been at all these meetings and I believe we in fact have been focused on the safety of staff students parents members of the community 100% I believe we've been doing that that's the reason why I think my opinion that I think that that that on a factual basis this sort of seems cases is without merit not because it couldn't be considered well intended in terms of wanting the water to be clean but in the fact that factually we have in fact been doing the right thing I also think it's critically important to the public be aware of that so I guess this goes to something along the lines of something that Mr. Pontres saying a moment ago that you that that you could really genuinely make these issues adjacent as opposed to connected if you remove that paragraph and simply say here's here's a recitation of of the what we consider the facts to be around what we have done and what we're continuing to do around the safety of the schools and the water and then essentially if we're if the committee is interested in dealing with the substance of the litigation and other elements of it we could deal with that separately that's that's sort of what I'm hearing these that's what I'm recommending okay I mean I guess I would we do that in the form of motion so I move to approve this letter with the removal of the fourth paragraph on page two okay is there a second second removed and seconded is there further discussion of that item I guess what I would say is I'm actually I actually am in favor of that motion mainly because I actually I agree with you we need a really clear statement out there around what we've actually been doing to ensure the safety of of the water and I think throughout and it doesn't mean we can't talk about other issues at some other point but let's get that done so and I think the issue the reason why it came up is because I'm going to be very blunt about this the reason it came up is because the nature of the additional filing for Mr. Hootstein was as much a surprise to myself and the superintendent and our attorney as it was to you when you looked at it and so this was essentially a kitchen sink response but we don't need to do a kitchen sink response it's more it's more than appropriate on my view it's more than appropriate to proceed as you want did you have anything you wanted to superintendent okay so any further debate on the motion the motion by the way to be clear is to approve the statement with the removal of that said paragraph so if you vote yes you're actually approving the letter okay any for discussion no discussion all those in favor say that again please you're approving this statement without that paragraph without that paragraph but I'm saying it's not like a vote to amend and then we approve it's one motion you're approving it with the elimination of paragraph all those in favor of the motion to approve the letter with that amend that change signify I'll be raising your hand any any opposed okay any abstentions okay so one two three four five eyes and one nay and one abstention and it carries it is approved thank you so so actually what we can do at the end of this meeting is a adjourn and enter into executives yes Mr. Fonch yeah I'm just curious will the letter now include the name of the member who was identified in the deleted paragraph uh you know to be honest with you I hate that like do a motion to reconsider but I would actually like to eliminate the names and it'd be a statement of the school committee because in fact it's a statement of the school committee I guess I can move to reconsider something since I am since I was I was in the affirmative on the motion I'm going to move to reconsider the motion I think that requires actually a second and a second moved in second yeah uh all those in favor of reconsideration of the motion okay can I appreciate it so this is just do we reconsider it and then if we reconsider it then we vote again to approve it again right yeah probably with an amendment yeah yeah eliminating those names so this is just do we reconsider yeah yeah yeah all right thank you so all those in favor of the motion to reconsideration signify verizing a hand that carries unanimously wonderful okay uh so I actually move to further edit the statement with the elimination of the names and it simply be signed by the Amherst all in regional scope there are seconds moved in second so it would be approved again with that change to the signature page and again the elimination of said paragraph so all those in favor of that motion signify verizing a hand okay any nays any abstentions okay we have the same vote but now we've cleaned it up and Mr. Franche I actually appreciate you bringing that up thank you very much so as said a second ago we have at the end of our agenda a potential adjournment to executive session so we're going to currently move to item 7f which is FY20 schedule and retreat planning there is an item of business involved in approving the calendar but we also so I guess one question I would have for the committee is we have done retreats the last few years I'm assuming we're going to do another one is that something that is desired by the committee I mean even if the format's changed or whatever we do at the actual thing they'll want to have one and like August I'm saying nodding heads are there any opinions to the contrary which are perfectly welcome we have a sponge I thought of retreats as an opportunity for a couple of things to happen with any committee one is it's an opportunity for bonding and secondly it's an opportunity to address matters that we wouldn't normally address at a school committee meeting that you know if there are matters of particular difficulty or importance you know something of that nature I simply would like to know what the agenda is going to be and what the proposed what the hope for outcomes will be of the retreat well I mean the reality is we're going to if we choose the doom on we're going to end up brainstorming the agenda you're you're I mean you're absolutely right in terms of past practice though what we've tended to do is focus on how to improve the performance of the school committee or the school committee and the superintendent together and so we focused on practice I hate to call them practical but practical things that we don't have the time to do like do we need to prove our orientation for new members do we need to improve the organized what what are the things we need to do to improve the agenda setting not just in any given meeting but sequentially what do we need to improve meeting flow so those are the kinds of things we've talked about in the fat in the past and typically we've done that agenda set I mean I've been chair for all the ones I've been participating in so lucky me I can actually say that that we every time we've done one we've done it by brainstorming with members of the committee both in terms of what we might talk about literally right now but also in follow-up with emails that would go to myself and the vice-chair to basically say hear my thoughts what you might have and the meeting by the way is of course publicly posted so that the public's aware that it's going on and it is an open meeting and I don't want to say it's technically an open meeting somebody wants to come they can come but it is formatted then as a retreat and in particular what that means practically is that that for example I don't facilitate it I get someone else to facilitate it so that I'm just I mean I don't have a I'm duck role of choreographing the meetings like I do with these it also means I get to shut up more often which is a good thing yeah okay so so I saw a lot of nodding heads about having one which is good and are there ideas of things you'd like to cover now and I don't want to repeat myself but I said also there's plenty of opportunity to do so after this fact with emails by the way for anyone who wasn't here Allison was voted the vice-chair so she gets the long short straw whatever it is but work with me they put this thing together any ideas so many Astina the Mrs. Sir I don't know if this is an idea but we talked about how do we respond to announcements or student comments from the community how do we respond rather than dead silence okay Spitzer I'm just thinking about the major change that's going to happen once we have all five seats up for election in the fall and potentially how that could impact transitions as you were just talking about and it might make sense to talk about that and think proactively about it maybe that's goes to item eight but it could also be a I think a reasonable topic for a retreat and I would just give feedback on the last retreat I feel I think the nice thing about a retreat is that it may let us like it would kind of be nice to do a little bit of small group work or like writing reflection like it felt a little bit last time like we were kind of sitting in a room somebody else was taking over your role but we weren't necessarily talking more to each other and we weren't necessarily changing things up and I'm hoping that maybe we could have a chance to either change the way we share feedback either through writing or conversation or just working smaller groups on topics and just use it as an opportunity to change as much as we can Sure. Ms. Patel? Yeah, I sort of have a similar thought about our last retreat and I think potentially we would probably bit off more than we could chew in the agenda setting so like thinking through like what are our real priority topics that we want to address and really spending the time to dig into them and I love the idea of sort of small group work and sort of group reflection but I think something where we take fewer topics and sort of consciously prioritize and put things off the table and I love I like the idea of figuring out the engaging the community during our meetings as well as structure going forward and how how we can sort of make that less disruptive for the committee going forward two ideas there but yeah I think how we facilitate it and how many topics we try to tackle in that retreat I think can really make it more productive because I sort of felt like not sure not that it wasn't worth it because it was to your point the bonding experience sort of getting to know everybody because I was new on the committee but I think that's it was a lot of time for just getting to know each other and I think it might be helpful if we feel like we could walk out of there with something really solid sure just my reflection based on Miss Spitzer, Miss McDonald's comments is that two years ago the facilitator did actively break into small groups and the context was different every year's different they're different people but from my role I found that really helpful I think that's a really good suggestion and it got a little closer to and not that it was perfect but a little like there were things on white boards that people were working on and it did feel like it was collaborative work instead of mostly oral dialogue and I think the retreat as opposed to these typical formal school committee meetings perhaps allows for that structure to work so just from my vantage point having gone through three of them well actually more than five or six go back to when I was in a formal role I just want to second or third that notion of can it be an interactive collaborative work session where at the end people go back and there's there's kind of evidence and you know people say like oh we've got this done we've we've worked on this and here's our next steps I think we're lying in an oral dialogue well it can be interesting and bonding it doesn't necessarily have that same feeling yeah that's interesting I mean I think I think that there's there's sort of I like the balance point of one wanting to get things done that we can move forward but also I think changing the nature of how we engage with one another but I think one of the things that I've been mindful of over the last few years is looking for opportunities to ensure that all the members of the committee feel engaged and empowered and sort of flatten any perceived hierarchies in the sense of how we come up with topics how we talk about things how we edit them and stuff how we do the work that we're doing and I think that's hard to do with nine people it's hard to do with nine people so it's also hard to do with nine people who come on at different time points and have different levels of familiarity which is why it's something that I think you have to build in structurally into how you do your work I mean you have to build it in somehow otherwise you'll never get there so can we let's um if it's okay two things one I think Deb should send out some kind of a doodle poll for dates to try to find dates as soon as possible before people disappear I think the second thing is if the committee is comfortable with this then as McDonald and myself and the superintendent can sit down and start thinking about structure but then also thinking about how we can then send out some kind of a survey or some sort of email to the committee to respond to to garner your ideas in a way that allows you to actually have a cup of tea and sit back and think about this rather than being forced to feel like you're answering on the fly right now I think we should be able to do that okay is that alright is that can I ask a clarifying question about the doodle poll are we looking for only evening potentials or are you looking for daytime when have we done them in the past again we don't even eat them right they've been in the evening the last several I've in the past history here have been some daytime because I just wanted some guidance from the committee I want some guidance from the committee evening is there anyone who dissents from keeping with what we've been doing in terms of time well I know you don't you just said that for evening but I I'm retired I can do 24-7 well that is a challenge I prefer 24-7 retreat that is a challenge for all of us Deb why don't we stick with what we have now I think that'll do good okay and so I need a motion for the calendar I just have one quick question is Tuesday August 27th day before school yes that is so what does that mean so that is the problem yep good catch because I'm thinking about you not us yeah I mean some of us but no no no more you that's about on no we'll we'll correct that okay so we're gonna correct it now we're gonna correct it later I'm trying to be cute I don't know I'm just asking I think that's what's going on sorry no one thing that Amherst and Regent I mean we can certainly I mean you could do a different day other than a Tuesday but just that wouldn't be so the only the only well I mean I think the thing is that you want to structure those that you you know that you you're doing it for a good reason essentially and I don't want to get ahead of ourselves around what we're going to be doing at that meeting that makes that a good idea not a good idea this is going to yes oh no I'm sorry I was just thinking the other thing is the first regional meeting you know we referred to earlier also hopefully it can be a year 26 meeting simply to reorganize yeah um but I'm you know I think Thursday of that week would be fine but we could also I'm open to other ideas and I really appreciate the catch by Mr. sorry yes great there are Thursdays by the way something that people look at three months from now two months from now no one has any idea so let's do Thursday tentatively because no one can figure out a reason to seem no at the moment which we think at that time a seven to a nine which also seems typographically easy to do and then I still entertain a motion to approve I move to accept the schedule of the regional school committee meetings as amended for the 2019-2020 school year is there a second second it's been moved and second any further debate seeing none all those in favor signify the reason that carries unanimously thank you we have gifts where are the gifts and we're giving out the second sheet well I guess if someone else wants to read them I'm good Spitzer sure I move to accept the following gifts Palms Lion Club number 1312 2019 High School Scholarship in the amount of $125 anonymous gift number five six zero one seven eight nine five six zero arms at the principal's discretion amount is $10 $10 a gift from Donald and Susan Mayo number 7526 Amherst Regional High School Girl Softball in memory of Donald Gipavich apologies for mispronounceations in the amount of $25 a gift from Sharon and David Wars in the number 5511 Amherst Regional High School Girl Softball in memory of Donald Gipavich in the amount of $25 a gift from Cynthia Haddock number 5352 to support the girls of versity tennis in the amount of $100 a gift from Cynthia Haddock number 5353 to support girls junior universities lacrosse in the amount of $100 gift from arms PGO number 222 to support environmental action club waterfilling station in the amount of $150 gift from GoFundMe Jennifer Wellborn number 2206 to support the environmental action club waterfilling station in the amount of $1,206.92 for a total amount of $1,741.92 should I include yeah yeah okay also grants from the Amherst Education Foundation number 1571 to support the second payment of Amherst Regional High School light board performing arts in the amount of $3,347.50 the Amherst Education Foundation grant number 1571 second payment of Amherst Regional High School Restorative Justice in the amount of $5,000 grant from Amherst Education Foundation number 1571 to support the second payment of the coding robotics to middle school eighth grade in the amount of $4,000 for a total grants of $12,347.50 it's been moved is there a second second it's been moved and second any further discussion of that agenda item seeing none all those in favor signify raising your hand carries unanimously thanks everyone for the gifts the next item on our agenda they kind of feel like we just did this the school committee planning so given the fact that we have a long way to go before our next meeting I'm going to waive this item or to consider fulfilled unless somebody objects no one's objecting we'll waive that and then I heard significant sentiment from the committee that item nine on the agenda is in fact ripe and salient so I move that we adjourn and enter an executive session pursuant to master in our law for 38 section 28A the purpose three to discuss strategy with respect to litigation in Michael Hittstein versus the Amherst Pellum Regional School Committee U.S. District Court for the the district of Massachusetts case number 317CV30146 because the chair finds that an open meeting we have detrimental effect on the bargaining and litigation position the school committee and we have no intention to return to open session it's been moved is there a second second it's been moved and seconded this is a rule called out we'll begin over here with Ms. Manino Manino aye Demling aye Sullivan aye Spitzer aye Naga Jima aye McDonald's aye Fonchai okay we our executive session thank you Amherst Media