 Seeing the presence of a quorum, we'll order this meeting of the Amherst Pollen Regional School Committee. It is currently being, it's not being broadcast live, but it is being taped for rebroadcast, which we appreciate deeply from Amherst Media. The first item of business is approval of the minutes of September 27th, 2018. I don't know if the committee is, I don't know, pretending to look at those minutes or not. I move to approve the minutes of September 27th, 2018. Is there a second? Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any changes, alterations, additions? Seeing none, I'll entertain a vote. All those in favor of approving the minutes of September 27th, please raise your hand, signifying aye. Carries seven out of seven present. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm abstaining. I was in present. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought your hand was up. I apologize. Then it is 6-0-1 and passes. You're going like this? It's like a breath of sigh of relief, I got the minutes done. Announcements and public comments. Are there any announcements from the committee? Mr. Dunlop. Amherst Education Foundation is holding its annual trivia be the 25th annual trivia be next Thursday the 27th, I believe it is. We've done this in the past, it's a hoot holler in good time and it raises money for our schools and raises general awareness, good community thing, they're still looking for teams. So if anybody out there listening or watching wants to throw their hat in the ring, it's free and it's for a good cause. Cool. What's your name? The trivia questions of the 1960s. They're all over the map. Some of them are hammer-centric occasionally though, or need to be local-centric, so knowing your horse caves and general shares might help personally. Yes? I think this is what you said, but I'm not sure, so it's October 25th is the date of the review. So is it the 27th one then? 24th one to make it more confusing, the 24th annual be on the 25th. Okay. How? My mistake. That's quite different. No worries, I just want to make sure. Yeah, absolutely. I apologize. I'm getting this up now. I'm realizing I'm starting to free associate in this picture. Any further announcements to the committee? Seeing none. If there are public comments, please come forward to the microphone. You'll have three minutes to spin the clock up. I can get it up. Can you get it? Why not? Is that all right? Yeah. It goes easier. You know, everyone can see what the three minutes are and stuff like that. And see if three minutes, and of course identify yourself to the committee, appreciate your patience. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's up. Okay. Wonderful. Thank you. Okay. Hi, I'm Deb Leonard. I'm a parent of a fifth grader at Fort River and two students at the high school. And I was at Fort River from much of the day today. We were doing picture day, which is always a fun activity with lots of happy faces, a couple sad ones. You know, it's a great opportunity to see things in action. And one of the challenges today in C Quad was an overall smell of mold. So out slightly outside the hallway, but in the quads, four classes, first and second grade, five teachers, four classes, 64 students smelled mold all day long. So I was in and out over the course of the day. I spent maybe 15 minutes in there and I started to get a headache. And the teachers reported HGI's headaches. So this is a part of the building that doesn't have the leaky ceilings, which is interesting. The speculation is that it's the HVAC system. So I'm here to say, and we all know these buildings have problems, but really emphasize the need to get fast track to getting students in healthy buildings. We really need to do this in a way that's not going to take to 2035 to do one building at a time. The twin building model is going to be the only thing that's viable. So that's what I'm here to remind you of, encourage you to think about working through. I think there's some degree of misinformation out there amongst the public. They seem to think that the Fort River Building Committee is going to solve all these problems and how that fits in with the MSBA proposal. Those pieces are really not well understood in the public. So this idea that there's this magical committee that's going to solve the problems is really out there. And I think we need to do what we can to present clear information about it. Thank you. Are there additional comments from the public? Seeing none, the closed public comment period. The next item of business is subcommittee updates. I know we have on our agenda a subcommittee review, so we could defer a conversation of membership and issues around when we're doing different committees, subcommittees, until that item, which is 6E on the agenda. If there are no updates from the different committees, then we'll proceed with our agenda. Which would be unfortunate because it'd be for our dear superintendent who's on the other side of the room right now. You know what we did? Actually, we did one thing to talk about. So Anastasia Ardenios is the delegate to the Massachusetts Association of School Committees. And she can't, turns out through work requirements, she's not able to attend this year, which means we have an open slot for an NASC delegate. So if there's anybody from the committee whose interest isn't going, if you haven't gone before, is anyone gone from the committee right now to the conference? I've gone. So there are lots of interesting workshops that you can go to. There is actually, as you're called, a delegate. There actually is typically on the agenda some resolutions or other items are adopted by the NASC that as a delegate you'd be then authorized to vote on behalf of the committee. And you're typically, by the way, voting without direction. So you're probably going to have to go there and use your best judgment about what the committee would want you to do. And it's paid for. The registration is paid for. You can also have the hotel, I think, reimbursed? Reimbursed. I know she had already reserved a hotel, so it may be possible. So it may be transferable. And the dates of this are November 8th and 9th? So technically the conference runs from the 7th to the 10th. But I think to your point, the meaty parts of it are the 8th and the 9th. Absolutely. Okay. Okay. So 8th and 9th. So you don't have to answer this second. But just if you're interested or if you want further information, you can certainly contact me. You can contact Anastasia. She's been before. You can contact the NASC. You can go on their agenda, the website for their agenda. But it is available. It said be great if somebody took advantage of that opportunity. And if we didn't mention it before, it's in Hayanis. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. It's always in Hayanis. So that's where it is. Worcester's closer. So that's it for that sensitivity updates on to superintendent. And I think that means relatively brief. So this is a follow-up on an item that was discussed at the last regional school committee meeting. One typo. It should say the districts because all three districts. I know that's a regional meeting, but I think it's, it's relevant. All three districts are working together to receive quotes from qualified firms that specialize in facility of accessibility. So we did that quote process and low quote came from a firm that has some work actually locally, both in Leverett, but also in Newton, which is not super local, but positive references, positive information they sent us. So we're still finishing that process of the references and contracting. But we believe that we'll be able to have the work complete and presented in January. So as the capital project processes is in full swing to have that information available. At us and it's been a nice, it's been nice. That cost, the key very, the reason I said districts is that cost is across the three districts. And that's not a regional only cost. And we feel like we can cover that from facilities, revolving funds that won't hit the fully appropriated budget. Last week on Friday and Saturday, there was a team that attended the Massachusetts Farm to School Institute at Hancock Shaker Village and out in the Berkshires. There's a lot of enthusiasm for this team. Dr. Palmer was sort of our lead on it. The food service director and you heard from her at the last meeting as well. And so there's a lot of energy excitement. The group's getting together this week to come back to me next week to start identifying how they might implement what they learned and what a plan might look like. So I'll know more the next time we meet. But they expressed that it was helpful to work with I think eight or nine other districts geographically across the state who are present. Each of them have a coach who are working with them on how to implement more farm to school getting in front of our students and faculty. We'll hear about Summit Academy later. So I think I'll skip that one and let Mr. Slovan talk through it. And for those of you who were on the school committee a couple of years ago, we partnered with an organization called The Pear Project, which is based out of Boston. It's, I think, political asylum and immigration. And I forget what the R stands for. I apologize. They're basically a group of attorneys. They recognize that there's right now a dearth of attorneys. The supply-demand curve is way off for the need of immigrants and then the amount of immigration attorneys who can support those folks. So they train attorneys who are not specialists in immigration to come and do presentations. From our perspective, that's great because we're not encouraging clientele or there's no business relationship that can be formed. But I was present a couple of years ago, about a year and a half ago, as was Mr. Jackson. Actually, in the space where we had about 40 students have a presentation to be able to ask questions of folks about knowing the immigration rights and that's evolved and evolving. So we're going to do that. Fright students graduate. They change. And we're going to do that again. The additional piece that we're able to do this year is they're willing to come back the following week for individual one-on-one sessions for students if students want to identify, you know, a particular situation and get specific advice based on whatever it is the students share that all that's confidential and anonymous. We don't know who's going to be participating. But we're going to offer it to students and it was highly appreciated last year or a year and a half ago by students and we anticipate that doing again. But it's one of these things that you feel good doing it once and then you realize that the world changes and the faces who might attend change and we're trying to make sure that we're keeping up with those changes both locally and nationally. So that's great. Any questions from the committee? Any of the items put up? We're at risk, by the way, of having a very quick meeting which is going to be problematic because we have presentations that are scheduled and people who aren't here to do the presentations right now. So that's the chair's report. The chair's report is. There's trying to keep the tone light, by the way. I'm having a struggle doing that. He's going to feed me here. So I think we need to do, because we're on the new and continuing business, is I think we should reorganize the agenda to catch up to 7.15. And so my initial thought on that is to, do you have any suggestions? Yeah, I was thinking subcommittees review might be one to put up exactly the one I was going to pick. Very cool. That's so awesome. Okay, so do we still have in our packets the list of the subcommittees? The last page. Okay, great. Yeah, it's a bit of a nitro. So I guess one question I have is which of these committees have actually been meeting that we know of? Now we know, obviously, our CPAC representative has been doing the CPAC meetings, which is great. The SCTF has been meeting, so the SCTF representative is going to that, as well as also the collaborative representative. So there's some of them that are, we know are, some of them aren't meeting, like the regional system of working group hasn't met. Our contracting stuff is obviously off at the moment. We haven't scheduled any auditing or budget meetings yet. Those should be coming up actually seeing, yeah. We have met. Budget subcommittees. I'm sorry, I called them. And we were, I attended the five o'clock meeting today that was canceled. Rescheduled. Rescheduled. Okay, I'm sorry to hear that. At least I'm happy to have met, though. Yes, I did. I met the last meeting. Yeah. Wait, there wasn't a meeting today, though. No. Okay, sorry. You made me nervous that I missed the meeting. No, it's funny actually, my confusion is I was on that committee for two years, and so in my mind, like I thought I'd heard it was happening and then nothing came of it later. And of course, because I'm not on it anymore. I guess we should have added enough things. No, but yeah, that would have been a good thing. That would have been, that would be. Well, that's actually what that slot is for on subcommittee updates. It's just that if you've met, talk about what you've talked about so that the rest of the committee can be aware. It makes not to save me from my concluding events. Although I have that side of benefit, too. Okay, but audit hasn't met? Okay, so that should be coming up, though, sometime in the relatively near future. Data trends hasn't met. Is it contemplated that they would meet in relationship to the strategic planning process and data involved in that? It could be. It's been a number of years since that group has met, but that would make logical sense. That's a suggestion to make logical sense. Okay, SCET, again, what about policy subcommittee? We've had? We need to meet. Yeah. Okay, yes? The problem with the policy subcommittee is there's no chair to call a meeting. Okay. So... Who's on the committee again? Okay. Anyone want to be chair? I don't think it makes sense for me to be right now. Okay. In the future, maybe. Well, I wasn't trying to put people on the spot negatively like you have to declare your unwillingness to do so, or not unwillingness. I just mean your lack of interest in your role. Yeah, whatever the point is. If nobody else is volunteering, I'll be chair. Okay. I mean, because I think the deal is... Officially, I think the chair, the chair of the committee actually officially assigns the members of the committees. I think it also means I can designate a chair. So I'm going to designate you the chair. Okay. So now you can call a meeting. We're with Deb to organize a meeting. Does that make sense? Great. That sounds cool. We're good to go. See, this is a productive portion of our meeting. We're getting stuff done. Yeah. Recreation and working group? I've been retired. The group's been retired or you've been retired? I've been, and the group has been also. Okay. Regional assessment and working group is really not an entity right now. We're going to see if they stay in here. Superintendent Evaluation subcommittee. And that we've also not won. We probably want to get an updated calendar for the year, I think, right? You know what I mean? Like looking at it this year, some sort of draft calendar of activities to be able to present to the whole school committee and discuss publicly. Does that make sense? Yes, we do. A related issue. When is our next meeting? Luckily we have a team. We have a team of people. Crack team. Over this way. We're going to say November. It might be. It might actually be in November. It's the 20th, I believe. Of November. Okay. November 20th. Thank you. It's quite a while from that. So actually it'd be great if the superintendent of the IOC subcommittee met between now and then so that we could have in front of us and also explain to the public the clear sort of calendar of when we're going to, for example, do the media review, when we're going to go through evaluations and things like that. And then I think the last ones, so again somebody ends up wanting to be a delegate to the MSCA, M-A-S-C conference. You can let Deb know or let me know or something. And the other ones, we're still looking for an immersed media liaison. She's a volunteer for that. So are there, this agenda? Yes, please. I thought the immersed media was just the immersed. Oh, we resolved that yet? Yeah. Yeah. I agree with Mr. Sullivan. I think I agree with him too. So we resolved that? Yeah. Okay. Then we can take this off that list. They were looking for a long time for us to designate something, right or wrong. I'm just saying I think they were pestering us to get someone on. The immersed media? Yeah. I think the Amherst rep in the past has sort of served both districts because in that particular situation, some situations it doesn't make sense. I think that one, it tends to. Okay. So were there other items that people want to discuss relative to subcommittees or other, yes? So just a collaborative representative from region? Just because I work from multiple districts, I tend to get confused, so I apologize. But who is, it's not listed here, but who is a collaborative rep for the region? Maybe we don't have a collaborative rep for the region. I'll be there Friday and they typically like to have all their districts represented. Yeah, no, no, that makes sense. It's funny actually. Am I wrong that Anastasia is the representative of the Amherst committee then? The reason I was confused is I know she's talked about the collaborative and I talked up the quality of their dinners and the information you can learn from. Now I'm remembering she was selling it to try to get one of us to join. I believe that's correct. So again, we'll take volunteers for that too if anyone's interested. And if you're not at the moment and you can, what time is the meeting? They're Wednesday nights. Ms. Kessensen may know. Are you the Pelham rep, Ms. Kessensen? Oh, a long time ago. Sorry. A couple years ago. Yeah, I think they were Wednesday evenings and they alternate between Northampton and Greenfield. Okay. So I know there was interest in having this item on the agenda. So obviously I've sort of hugged the microphone walking through all the committees and what they're meeting and what we're up to and stuff like that. And there are other issues people want to bring up relative to, and obviously at some point if we want to have, I'm looking at you because at some point we want to have an advocacy subcommittee. We'd have to actually actually formally create one as opposed to have it as sort of an ad hoc thing where people are working on deliverables for the body's consideration. Yeah, so that was my thought as well. I don't know. So advocacy, depending on what the topic is, can be extremely time consuming. And so if we're simply looking to formalize what consumes our time offline, it makes sense. I don't know, though, how much more effective or productive it would make the advocacy to formalize it into a committee. I don't... It's typically, at least in my past experience the last couple years, when something comes up it's two people that are mostly coordinating on different things to different people. So there's never a quorum issue and it's usually... It's not deliberative in the sense that the committee's sort of already expressed a position whether it's on foundation budget advocacy or charter school expansions or whatnot. So I can't... At the moment I can't see a compelling reason to make it a committee but open to it. Certainly this year is an interesting one to consider given the higher than average level of advocacy that the MTA and MEJA, Mass Ed Justice Alliance, biggest progressive educational advocacy group in the state has been talking up, you know, putting real pressure on the foundation budget as well as a number of other educational issues. I tend to agree with your first point. No, especially because I'll see the committee has to be engaged as a whole. It isn't something where a subcommittee is going to go off and just do a bunch of stuff. It's actually good. I think that the locus of decision-making and discussion remains here with this group but then there's stuff that needs to get done between the meetings and that stuff always comes back to the committee which I think is useful for us. I think it's good. All right, I will move on from this item then and we're still 15 minutes ahead of time. This is just like an unheard of thing. So it's almost do you have any suggestion of the next thing to go to? Superintendent Golds. Superintendent Golds? We could go to Superintendent Golds if you like. Do you want to go? Sure. All right. So it's on the very back page of the package. The only thing I'd say though about this is during the SCTF discussion, we're going to have a discussion about Superintendent Golds. Yeah. So I don't really, the sequencing feels wrong about that. We take that back. How about charter school expansion and letter discussion? Okay. By agreement, we'll move to that. We don't have a discussion? Thanks. Peter? So I don't know if this is going to fit the bill of expanding into your 15 minutes here because it's a pretty short update. Pretty much the big process update is that the new deadline for input to the State Education Commissioner, Jeff Reilly, who is the first person in the process to either approve or not the expansion of the Charter School in Hadley has been moved up. So the deadline for input is now December 3rd. It was November 1st. Okay. So any members of the public and our committee can send emails or letters to him. I've memorized it at this point. CharterSchools at DOE.mass.edu I would strongly encourage any member of the public to send however they feel about this topic. But that is the reason why I don't have a draft letter for us to review and discuss since we have a little bit of time to engage on that. Cool. Yes, Ms. Reilly. Is there any way we can find out what criteria the commission will actually use to make their decision? So that is an excellent question. I wish I had a great answer for you. I think every person who advocates against CharterSchool expansion would love to know that. It's a lot of what goes into how we want to craft our letter and what we want to say. It's pretty much trying to read into the mind and decision making of Jeff Reilly who is a new Education Commissioner and what criteria he'll use to evaluate. There are sort of some standard published projects from the last couple of commissioners where they talk about financial stability, academic performance, serving a population that's representative of the region and other things. But it really comes down to kind of a human decision. For example, one thing that we talk about a lot here is the financial impact and how since the formula for CharterSchool tuition is net school spending divided by number of students that go to schools in economy of scale. It's extremely unfair to public school when one student goes to a CharterSchool. The formula is broken by almost every person's account even those who publicly support CharterSchools. However, the Department of Education doesn't have any jurisdiction over that and so we've talked about, we sort of do want to make that argument to an extent but not maybe use all of our letter real estate making that argument because pounding that drum too loudly could potentially upset and then it's really reading into what is also going to be influential on the Board of Education. So the Board is appointed. It's, I would say shifted ideologically depending on your perspective and evaluation of the members. Given the number of years our current governor who's very pro CharterSchool has been making appointments and it's hard to know what will influence that Board whether it's simply a matter of making a dispassioned reason-based argument using their desizone data or whether additional political pressure needs to be applied either by school committees or the public. So it's a very difficult question. It's probably the root question of all advocacy on this issue. I'm glad you asked it and even though I don't have an answer. Separate from the school committee I've now drafted an initial draft of my letter on this topic and when I finish it, which I would hope is in the next week or two, I'll be sure to share it as well. So I don't see any reason we can't accept gifts before the end of the meeting. We don't have to wait to the end. So if anyone has, yes? I think the next my understanding is the people who are here to present on the presentation. Is my watch really waiting? Is that clock way off? Oh, that's right. No, it's right. I'm just Okay, it's 7.04. The item is for 7.15. Oh, yeah. To me it's early. It's really early. Oh, yeah. So I just wanted to knock off. I almost had it done. It's like it's so easy and quick to get the gifts done. And then look how good we're going to feel when we look at our agenda. We've knocked off so many items. It's like a feel good moment. Anyone want to read? Make a motion? I move to accept. I'll recognize because we've got it. I move to accept the gift. Alexandra Rizzo Cervone 6 to support arms music department in memory of Ryan Moriarty and the amount of $50. Is there a second? I'll second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor of accepting the guest that is read please signify by raising your hand. Carrying in. The gift is accepted and thank you very much. And now it's 7.05. So I think we might want to move forward and see if we're able to. Are you ready? You're good? Okay. Awesome. Does he never know, right? Sometimes other people are waiting to come in. An anesthesia is not here. Do you want to come in? I am. Do I introduce this on it? I'd be happy to. I wasn't able to attend some of the earlier meetings when a lot of the drafting of this document was on. But the group has put together a letter that I think summarizes very nicely the goals that the group would like to see. And we have two folks here who are willing to present. We had asked is it possible at all to do a little bit more of a circle so that it's a little bit of a discussion rather than if you wish you could do two things. One, you could answer as gas, by the way. But I mean, you could either sit where you are, but then the question is can we get on a microphone? Move the microphone up. Yeah, why don't you... Even if it's behind us. Okay. Carioquines. Okay. Do you have any idea if they're wanting? Uh-huh. But I'm not going to spoil that. Maybe our head. Sounds like it's opening night too. Okay. It's a big night. So thanks for taking this early. Yes. So School Equity Task Force was formed over five years ago. And it involved a large body of town people who helped think about creating these six points. And the people involved ranged from tenured professors at local universities to former administrators and teachers who have worked in this district for decades, community activists, parents, guardians, and grandparents of current students and alumni. So that's the range. Um, these six steps involved a lot of work over these years. And it involved initiatives, policies, programs, and directives. And that's how we came to this. This document is an effort to build a comprehensive approach to confront and name inequities in this school based on facts and data collected. But how that's done is very, very important. And that's why this is here. So that then we have data to then compare so that we can see the real results of what's happening in school. So does anyone have any questions? We'll get into each point to provide you a bit of a clearer overview. But essentially this is, as Alisa said, a accumulation of like years plus worth of work based on prior work that's been done by the School of Utah course. So we now see it as appropriate of kind of putting it into evaluation criteria to use to evaluate what we're intended to see. And it is very data-focused so that you can measure, okay, here's where our baseline was, here's where we are now, was the objective met. Right. The second point is eliminate racial disparities in discipline of students at both the middle school and the high school. I apologize. I apologize in two seconds, because Mr. Minino raised a point that I wanted to make sure the committee was aware of. Well, I was going to, I thought you were getting at something else. Since this is a presentation and unlike public comment where we have to sit here and whether we want to say something or not. Yeah. This is the opposite of that where it's an opportunity where we're going to hear information but at whatever point either you think is appropriate or someone has a burning question hopefully we'll be able to get into more of an interactive discussion around what we're learning today from the SCTF representatives. And then also just to follow up if there's any clarifying that's important to understand this in order for you to evaluate the superintendent. This is very, very important. Can I just ask? I don't think you introduced yourself and I think for my benefit and the benefit of those at home it would be really helpful. My name is Elisa Melnick. I'm a resident of Amherst. My son graduated. Went through K through 12. Graduated. Wow, I think two years ago. Yes. Also, I'm here as resident and parent of Amherst. Please continue but I just wanted to realize we hadn't talked about that in introductions nor talked about the sort of the ground rules of what we're actually doing. I have a question about 1A. Yes. Is this a big problem, a large problem? How do we know whether the problem exists at all? Well... Sorry. You were going to be introducing each item and discussing it first. Sorry. Also help people watching at home eventually. So, and maybe just before I say that there is a national fact of a problem in this nation. In this whole nation there is a problem with disparity. So and this town is not exclusive to that. So number one, eliminate racial disparity in discipline of students at both the middle school and the high school. And A is the goal is to get the facts get the data and then reduce what they are by 25%. So once we collect the data then it's to reduce it next year by 25%. That's A. And to clarify again five years SCTF has been working to obtain that data. We have yet to see the districts collection of the data. We've seen whatever Jesse has but in terms of collecting and seeing the actual data for the regional districts we are still waiting for that. So point B is really I was wondering I understood the problem you don't know if this is a problem until you measure it. Yes. So you know you're right. I just I'm coming from an assumption. Absolutely. And then just what's important about collecting that data is you categorize it by grade, race, ethnicity, income and gender. So that you can just start making comparisons. And that's data. You know? That's data that the way you collect it and organize it on a computer. So that's kind of then that it gets publicly reported before the superintendent evaluation and that number D is providing the data and you collect it anonymously by who report when discipline is reported so that no teacher is targeted but that the administration knows if it's a small core of teachers who are doing this this. So that's very important so that it's not publicly known but the administration knows about it. So it's yeah. So that's one. Anybody questions? Clarification? She raised her here there. So I agree with this goal it sounds like unfortunately this is an issue and something I'm definitely concerned about. I am also somebody who's worked a lot in data collection and evaluation and so I have some kind of nitty gritty questions about this because number one I think it's interesting to take one year as a benchmark because as we all are anybody who's done data analysis knows you how do we know that this year is going to be a typical year? Maybe we're going to do this year and then mask that there's a bigger problem that's been going on previously or maybe we'll do really, really poorly and achieving this 25% is going to be easy. So I understand and I'm sorry because I've been talking about this for five years and I've been thinking about this for a couple of days since I got the agenda so I guess that's my first concern like obvious and I see that here but I think it really it's a strong preference to get a few years' worth of data so we can know are we is this year typical because otherwise I think you're setting, if you're going to tie it to a goal that you have to be down by 25% you want to know whether or not this year is yeah exactly. My other concern is just you know I work in health data right now and I have all sorts of protections about making sure that like I can't report things in certain ways by race and gender because you'd unmask the identity of a patient potentially. So I'm concerned about our students especially protecting their, I get the anonymity of the teachers but I'm actually more concerned about the anonymity of the students. So how are we going to make sure if we're making this data publicly available that we're not identifying like if I'm the only not the only but kids know who gets if we're talking about suspension you know oh Joe got suspended and he's African-American male and also low income and he's showing up in this rubric you know I'm just so and that's another really big concern and I'm sure there are legal implications that the superintendent can think about more specifically so I think it's great to have this be data driven but how do we do it in a way that sets the right goal and also protects the identities of the students that we really want to protect and that's the whole reason we're doing this. I can address some of that so as you'll see we're hoping for lunch to know data if it's available the idea is when we first asked a number of years ago that this was being collected we do have to start somewhere though right and I think I think your concern is very valid you know and it won't we won't know the trends until we have a number of years under about collecting but I think it's important that we do start somewhere to see you know what is going on. The other aspect that you bring about is certainly a concern and I think certainly working within you know legal constraints of protecting and amenity and such is certainly to be acknowledged and respected but at the same time I think I think there's perhaps a bigger concern in addressing the climate in the district that we need to really take a look at the groups of students and the trends that we see among those who is getting you know disciplined so that we can make our professional development tailored to what those trends are to try to eliminate any discrepancies that are going on. So just on one A I guess two questions so I understand it better to reduce disparities by 25% do you mean the disparity percent by 25% so let's say for example the disparity is 4% do you mean going down to 3% or reducing it from 75% is it a quarter of the gap or is it? You know there's more clarity on the appendix okay okay so that's just that question so I guess someone mentioned this before but I guess what discipline is I guess is kind of key to this data because there's suspensions but then discipline comes in many different forms absolutely to what level do we want to capture that and how do we categorize that and then I start to think well we don't want to lose the discipline that is not suspension and yet in order for the data to be meaningful and longitudinal all the time to have a data set that's large enough to interpret and also carry meaning right and so you have teachers of different grades, different classes, different schools and I just don't know because I'm not a teacher as to whether that's what the challenges are I guess in saying like oh well I metered out this form of discipline how is that then categorized so I guess it's more of a question it's a question for fact in our limitations of school equity task force we weren't too prescriptive in this so it can be highly interpreted but you know in thinking about just the resources that are available and you know online devices that could be used to track discipline where the teacher goes in and says okay today I did this or you know had this action directed towards this person for doing this you know and just some sort of organized systematic way of collecting that data if it's not already and yeah because the school each school most probably and depending on the grade and depending on the principal collects this it's very important to collect this so whether it's a child sits in a you know in a corner out in the hall doesn't is not allowed in recess or lunch or art class you know it could take a lot a lot of different forms depending upon I think that's a very important discussion because that's how pervasive it can be and exclusion and alienation so I think it's actually a really important conversation and consciousness raising to have actually so I've been reading the newspaper for 40 years and this issue has come up over and over again so I assumed this data was already being collected is it being collected now in some form so it is and to the point about it being on the desi website that comes from us desi doesn't they're not big brother they don't know who gets suspended or how many students or what their identities are that's data that we supply them you know when we're talking about this I think the challenge for us is the collecting the non-suspension data it kind of gets to what Mr. Devlin was saying gets a little more nuanced most what we think of punishment actually doesn't get doled out by teachers it's the deans and the principals who are more involved in that so it's a little harder to distinguish for us and the current system we use for that collects data that also involves things that have no consequences so when a student does something that's concerning a communication home to let the family know and see what's going on and that's not a in our terms that wouldn't be a consequence that's around communication so we were talking about how do we pull out things that are more that suspensions are easy so that one is really clean but when we're talking about non-suspendable offenses how do we do that and what's the difference between a student saying you know what I need a break from X versus a teacher and that line when you're talking about it when you're in a classroom without a lesson that line is not as clear and I think that's the part of this that as we talked about it we have to do some thinking, some work and maybe come back next month of what might make sense because right now that's a little different than how our models are currently focused they're not focused as much on so the consequence end of things because we've really shifted our protocols as we were so like you know going and seeing we're sort of practices professional that's not a consequence for us that's an intervention a proactive intervention and so I think that's what makes part B of this perhaps we need to go back and think a little more deeply about what that might look like because that's not necessarily data that's collected cleanly at the current time we're collecting a lot of data to be proactive not necessarily on the consequence so there's so there is there is an awful lot of discussion around the question of disparate treatment of students actually really of everyone but in this context we're talking about students there have to be best practices that are out there that are being adapted by school districts and different dimensions of this challenge right so I mean socially adopting restorative justice as a practice is in fact it's adjacent but it's actually an important adjacency to this in terms of looking at disputes and how behaviors are going to arise and how you can best socially adjust deal and be proactive on those issues same thing with professional development around racial other issues that are on there too the better you do that the more likely it is you're going to be able to create an environment where all the professional staff are thinking more consciously about how they're engaging with their colleagues as well as students and families but I'm assuming there has to be some kind of a practice that's also directly involved in understanding looking at data to understand if there is in fact some kind of culture or practice that is differential for it and its impacts and then sort of directly engaging and I mean that would probably be easy to think of doing and forgive me for saying I don't mean this in a provocative way but it would be really easy to do in an environment where you already know there's some really wickedly outlandishly racist behavior going on it's probably harder to do or more subtle to do in an environment in which it feels like a lot of people are trying already so but my question I'm sorry that's a long winded up but the reason I'm saying it is only because to the extent people feel there is disparate treatment that's a problem getting data to understand where they can document whether there's disparate treatment and impacts is important to do I agree with that, as you recall over the summer Anastasia Agonis and myself were having a conversation with you and we're ready about that very topic because we thought we wanted to get a better handle on understanding what the data says and we talked about how hard it is but the importance of doing it it's something we talked about as a priority and then the next step to that would then be saying if that were regardless of what the case is how do you hone in on improving practice and improving outcomes and we can't be the first district to do this and so I guess and this is not a statement on whether one would embrace these specific goals to me what it is saying is that it would be interesting to hear the best thinking that your team would have someone collectively including out in the audience about what should we be adopting if the general concept is A, we'd like to know if we have a problem and be able to explain it transparently to the public B, we would like to know that we either are or are adopting best practices in this approach and that obviously that should result in some meaningful observable favorable impact over time meaning a reduction in disparate impact that makes sense to me it does, I think I was going to respond to that we were going to respond to it I should say a little later we're going to talk about professional development which goes along with what I heard you saying identify the best practices identifying it's one thing and how do you implement it I'll stop there but for a matter of time that was literally just item one so unless somebody else wants to bring up I want to stop and let you guys continue and I think that was just the intent to formalize that data collection and to formalize a definition of what constitutes you know discipline actions disciplinary actions so number two, increase the percentage of people of color in each category of school district employees annually until it approximately equals the percentage of students of color so research is shown in our appendix has intentionally been research light we can supplement that if desired because again as Alisa said we do this work so if you want resources but research has shown that it's important that students learn from educators who reflect their racial identity and as I think as a district as we see an increasing number of students of color we need to hire and retain teachers and administrators administrators of color as well so again this also goes to getting measurable objectives where we need to be collecting or obtain the data to show the district trends examining why educators and specifically educators of color are perhaps leaving the district and at what rates in comparison to white educators or administrators happy to answer any questions about that any questions on this again I know this is in the works and being discussed but we're hoping to make it a formal evaluation criteria extreme from one to two number three is fully fund the restorative justice program and participatory action research program when SCTF first proposed two years ago the restorative justice program it was two full time people it included a YPAR program which was training of youth who get paid over the summer in this skill of participatory action research and it never was intended to be chopped up and it got chopped up and in order to really in the same way retaining administrators and teachers of color in a district that has primarily white teachers of color teachers especially when a shift has to happen the district institutionally must be very intentional and supportive in a lot of ways not just by hiring so for restorative justice and YPAR program to be successful it has to be supported and it has to have two full time people it has to have a YPAR program that the students get trained in because then they get the tools to express so many things and that's the essential that is the true way that could be deep rooted success not just flipping it worked this year and few we did it point number one where we're trying to alter or introduce a new means of disciplinary action by way of this restorative justice program which has in the past year has been off to a great start but we see meeting frequently with the director of the restorative justice program we see the need for more funding so much so that she's reached out to ask us to do some great writing which we can only commit so much time to as you can understand but supporting that financially I think will address a lot of the different issues that are systemically connected I just have a question with the idea of stipends for student leaders is that something we do for other student leaders related like other roles that students take on in the district I'm sure there are tons of paid intern programs in the school mark we found in NOAA are there other programs in the high school for instance where students get trained for a few weeks in the summer and get paid and I think part of the intent there also is to use the resources that are Holyoke for example has a restorative justice program through their Palante program right and to tap into those student experts and to bring them to do like a trainer of trainers if you will there's ideas to trial that using that as part of the stipends but then also I guess making this if you think about it a lot of people might be limited to participate in such a program because they are busy after school you know working a job or what not we don't want that to deter people from participating in this that I think was the rationale behind it because it's not just in school hours the purpose of this presentation is what? to come to a vote on these things or just to have them aired and discussed currently aired and discussed there's no food because I have questions about percentages and things like that I'd say two things to that one the challenge we have is that we were time limited in terms of the discussion so I think if there were additional questions that you were looking to get answered beyond sort of what we've already been doing I'd hope you could give them to the SETF because my own chair made your question on all these things how much will it cost well that's sort of an easy question easier they're going to ask a tougher question than that you probably already have a budget you already presented a budget previously we have yeah and the initial budget was upwards of 150,000 and a certain percentage had been granted 16,000 of which had been granted but then reabsorbed in the budget so at any rate where are we going to have this fall DW on the regional agenda? we had that scheduled I believe it was December okay which is helpful what I learned at some point in the past few months whenever that was was that I think it would be helpful for the committee particularly when we're talking about restorative justice and restorative practices to not have kind of a abstract talky understanding of what that is but actually have more of an integrative one which I think meeting her and having I don't know how we're going to organize it in an unusual way of organizing the conversation do I come or see anything recent? no I think you've captured what we had originally talked about good for me so unless there's anything else then please continue to the next one point number four is brought in and deep in the learning of faculty, staff and administration about race and racism with special emphasis on systemic racism and unconscious bias we've heard presentations and know that you guys are all working on this and again without being prescriptive we just want to emphasize this idea of ongoing learning and not the kind of one and done models but using perhaps low cost effective professional development strategies such as you know peer learning groups ongoing reflection on practice or you know even equity oriented observation tools for teachers to be observing each other or observing their own practice the idea here creating a shift in how we think about and talk about systemic racism and then also point C just to highlight is to develop a plan for educators to have ongoing training about how to have the difficult conversations about systemic racism and unconscious bias with students this is a challenging topic for a lot of people but to offer professional development and ongoing practice with each other as educators is incredibly important if we want teachers and I hope we do want teachers to kind of capitalize on school local and national examples of inequity and use these as teachable moments for students right because we want I would hope our students to leave middle school high school with a sense of racial literacy where they can talk about race right that takes practice believe this number five increase the enrollment and success of students of color and low income white students in honors and AP classes in the high school so again the data to show what percentage now students of color and low income whites who are in honors or AP and then once we see those facts assuming develop initial steps for an action plan to shift that and a final evaluation criteria that we propose is to broaden and deepen the learning of students about race class and other equity issues and I might it it speaks in general terms but it's important I think that we think about the capacities of our students and perhaps target those students who might need more practice in this than others and again research shows that it's oftentimes white students white people who need to explore white privilege white fragility so perhaps tailoring our classes or trainings towards those topics in particular so I think another challenge that I don't think should prevent data collection but it's just something to like that will be part of the mix once we start reporting on this data is that when you start to break down data by more than two or three variables it's really small and so it becomes like you're talking about race within AP class within department it's going to get a handful if that or single digits depending on what you're talking about when you start looking at trends you can see really wide jumps so I'm talking about data sets in general and so I don't think that should be reporting on data but it becomes a communication issue because you could have one year where it looks like you had double the number of students of color in a particular department's AP course but that's a difference from one to two or from two to four and it doesn't really represent a meaningful trend and so I think as much as reporting the data vigorously is important it's communicating as well in an ongoing fashion that's not just because even if every single piece of data the SCTF or asked for is produced tomorrow that's the beginning right it's not the end it's okay how do we interpret it how is it changing over time it's a means to an end right it's like I think it's really important to call out specific numbers to have goals and yet the data and the trends are all helping us to facilitate improvement so it's a big challenge I happen to work with data in a similar sense and we run into this problem all the time where we really want to know what the trend is but it's hard with noisy small data sets that can also be consecutive of trends too because a lot of this is a result of the quality of data that's derived from conversations with people and hearing people's stories earlier this year we had a presentation describing various courses history literature social science that address these issues but the call is for at least one course devoted primarily to one of these issues is there even one course in the curriculum now that is devoted primarily to these issues so overall I do want to say that these goals are valuable and to answer your question I know that we did have someone come in the assistant principal at the high school came in and reported on them and what I would like to say is that I'd like to invite her back to respond to this and another thing I wanted to mention is that you talked about intentional planning for all of this right and I do recall when I did have the presentations that we were doing a lot of these things already yet we were asked to make it more public and report it more often so things such as if you look at goal number four where it talks about broadening and deepening the learning of the faculty and staff we are doing that the administrators also have a UROC on doing racism training on November 8th and 9th and we aren't looking at this to be a one and done there are things that will be followed up afterwards and we're looking to try to have one of our curriculum days or half of a curriculum day be something where the district wide professional development continually takes place so when you look at your last goal under that column where you talked about the plan for the ongoing training about having those difficult conversations that is part of the professional development that we are doing we do have Dr. Stephanie Logan from Springfield College coming in to perform that or have that workshop for our staff there's so much here that we are doing that in the November presentation that HR is going to have some of it will be addressed but once again it's something that we do have to let the public know that we are actually doing these things I think to just address your course it's not that the course is offered that that becomes kind of a requirement for graduation right so I mean just to pick out one of them by the way because I've been talking about the desirability of understanding and getting data so that we are not operating in an environment of even if the anecdotes are meaningful for any individual but we are not planning on that basis but we are actually looking at the discipline information and figuring out what that is is important because it frames a conversation around what would it mean to be optimizing our practice and where there ever is disparate treatment reducing it sort of the equal side of that coin is also if the one thing is I hope bad things aren't happening to folks in a disparate way and unfairly then the other point would be it would be wonderful if all our students I guess on average meeting there's nothing in the data that looks weird or funny are equally advantaging themselves of enrichment courses and opportunities that we have as a district and so I'm just saying this because you know that someone I've brought up before it would be great to understand and being able to have a realistic quantitative and qualitative understanding of what our classes look like in the high school level in terms of taking advantage of and actually I'd expand talking about AP and honors courses is great I'd also want to ask the question of whether there are other kinds of enrichment activities that can substantially advance an individual as a person how are kids doing in terms of taking it you know what I mean? there can be arts and dance and music courses that it turns out that that's the thing to turn someone on and it adds to their quality of life and it gives them an exposure to things and culture or ability that they might otherwise have at the core you can have honors in AP but beyond that there are other ways in which you'd love to know that all students to the best we're able to accomplish that goal are able to advantage themselves of it and that's a conversation that I think we need to have and we should be having do you have any time and the clock in the absence of further questions oh we have one after those two if you had anything you guys want to talk about around what you were thinking of that would be valuable to do since this isn't the end of the conversation we're going to have it again so one of I just want to reiterate I share all these goals I think it's great that you can do this for five years and I'm only trying to kind of go deeper into them because I think they are important and I think if we're going to adopt them we should make sure that we do it properly and we make sure that they're achievable and something that we can get a lot of support from the community for because it's not just going to be us it's going to need to be the entire school system that's going to have to motivate and move to make these changes that I think are important so like for example with number five I think this is an excellent increase in the enrollment and success of students of color and low income white students and honors in AP classes in high school but I feel like so much of the groundwork needs to happen starting probably in kindergarten probably some of the evidence shows in pre-k so how can we is there a way that we can try to or get you know go across these we have the regional issues here but then also the elementary and the middle school so I just want to highlight that it seems like a lot of people put on the superintendent to bring people up to achieving at the AP or honors level if for some reason they're not prepared and that's a problem that our community should be addressing but I think we need to think about this within the bigger context and then the other thing I was thinking we do this the survey so is there a way that maybe we could introduce some self-report data on discipline or some self-report data on you know do I feel like I'm encouraged to take some you know is there a way that we can make you know data collection is so burdensome if we're already doing the survey annually with students is there a way we can maybe get some of the questions to reflect these goals and try to get some of that longitudinal data to see if it's changing in the eyes of the students and then the other thing I was thinking is going back to the first one you know and like I said I've been working in healthcare and one of the things they do is often something called audit and feedback where like if a doctor is over prescribing a certain like obiates for example at a hospital they'll privately be sharing with that doctor like you know you're prescribing a lot more obiates than your other doctor in the ED so maybe we want to do it and that kind of motivates people because I'm hoping my hope is that most of the teachers who are doing this are not actually trying to penalize kids so maybe I don't know if that's a model like it's a model in healthcare I don't know if it's something that's already being in practice here but it seems like it might be a good thing to think about you know your points are really good and we have to start somewhere so that if we collect the data and there's three kids of color who are in the entire honors and AP program we say there's a problem here and you know the solution will take a long time it's deep and breadth and you know why and but you know we're committed in the figuring the chisel and you do it step by step the other thing is why par is exactly that which is students are asked their own questions and then they do their own research and then they share the results and it's exactly that and it would be killing many birds with one stone so because you'd be collecting data you'd be empowering students to learn how to research you'd be empowering students to ask their own questions and you'd be also getting a real hit about climate social climate academic climate and then there was one other thing that said that was oh and then the self that the peer staff why we're encouraging these peer staff faculty to support each other to do this sort and it takes training and it takes commitment but that there are these little kind of self reflective affinity groups or self study groups to do just that you know with maybe a mentor not completely alone but so all those things yes yes yes it's become my it was more a comment not really a question so I'm a member of the SCTF but only I've only been able to attend one meeting so but I do what I really appreciate about the work that you've done is this focus as you've repeatedly said on starting somewhere and laying the ground foundation for collecting the data and defining and actually creating a common definition of what the issue is and what the problem is and where we need to improve or change because I think that's something that's been missing and so we've had a lot of stories a lot of conversation but without having and sort of forcing ourselves to come to some common definition and defining both where we're starting and where we want to go clearly and precisely data as well both quantitative and qualitative is really helpful in moving us forward on this so so I appreciate it I know I'm part of it I it's you guys have done all the work up until now and I do think that as a next step focusing on some of these areas where the group has been vague isn't the right word but imprecise in some ways and figuring out ways to be more precise as we outline that what the goals will be so that we're defining that upfront and not sort of at the end of the year well this was the way we were able to collect the data and I think putting that focus over the next before the next meeting sort of to try and define what we can do and what we can collect and measure ourselves against I think will be really helpful yeah I was just going to say what I'd like to do is I'd like to have any thoughts you have in terms of both of you have in terms of follow up and then move on on the agenda only because I suspect we're going to bring this back for our next meeting and stuff and so we'll keep the conversation going yeah so um a couple thoughts and I'll be brief one is um you know it was already mentioned before I got to it but I think the climate survey we did and at the high school we'll be implementing again at the high school to make it an annual data source as well as the middle school which was an idea that came from SATF a number of years ago I do think that is valuable data as well it's not in conflict with this it's actually telling a broader story because when our students to the point you raise when our students are voicing how they experience the school that's some of the best data that we can collect I think I think the only other comment I'd make I mean um and I know we'll come back to this it's just you know a caution or a concern you know that there's Cunningham's to probably modest to say it but just there's no data analyst in Miss Cunningham's department and so when we're talking about collecting data and this data some of the concern that I have isn't around the request because they all I mean there's logistics to work out there's clarity that we've but some of it's around capacity and so I want to voice that here and I don't want to get into a huge budget conversation of the last couple of years but I want to say in response that any apprehension that I express or that we express is not around the intent because the intent is we are fully in agreement it's the question is what's the capacity you know and so that's what we have to work out around do we think these things are good things to collect or bad things to collect because I think we're very much on the same page as you and it seems like the committee and you know with a lot less staff what are we able to collect and what are we able to collect well and that's why those definition statements of what we're collecting are so important I think further so one thing I'd say is that earlier at the beginning of the meeting I think before you were in here I made the comment that the data trend subcommittee should probably get ginned up again because it could integrate with the strategic planning process my assumption is that these whatever else we do that these recommendations or goals are going to be in some ways integrated or reflected in the strategic plan even organically like you come to the meetings you talk there at it and they're built in right and so then the question the question about how we end up gaining or finding capacity to track what we need to track I mean in other words you know no one's going to make money appear underneath the desk somewhere around here so I'm not suggesting that but I think it's really part of the question writ large of an even strategic plan that's going to include lots of things that we need to measure and track over time how are we ever going to measure and track them and this is the classic problem that I've had in planning work is so frequently what you do is you end up tracking the things that you have as data not the things you need and then they don't necessarily tell you they may or may not obviously some data is great but it may or may not then tell you anything significant about what you really wanted to learn and the reality is that's just the world we live in and so it's almost it's only a partially solvable problem but if you don't sit down and address it it's completely unsolved problem so I want to put that front and center as something that we should be talking about going into the budget season because where it aligns with the ACTF goals that are being presented it aligns with everything else we're trying to do strategically as well and so I think we need to talk about that and getting the SID committee going for that reason is also good because it means the school committee should hopefully be engaged and integrated with this conversation about what we do where it fits so budgeting on things along with that committee I'd like to add that maybe the policy committee should look at some of this because if they are looking for this to be something that's ingrained in our district whether Dr. Morris or me whether or not we're still here we should look at making these into policies that's true too so we'll just to be continued thank you so much for coming thank you very much the art of our work is that we can go from 15 minutes ahead of time to 10 minutes behind like that it's like magic oh no no no and this is terrific I'm kidding around this is terrific too and also that's a conversation it's not only important but it needs the time to come so next on our agenda is athletic facilities strategic plan we appreciate Mr. Zomek's patience can you sit with the microphone you're giving it to in bends so you can I want you to be as comfortable as possible you can even take your jacket off if you want to well Mr. Zomek's getting seated I just want to thank Mr. Zomek but I'll say it he was along with Mr. Sullivan and a number of other folks Mr. Farrowhood to go to coach so he was here but the timing didn't work for him to stay part of a group that looked at our field as you'll find out about and there was a meeting and you've seen these slides from October 3rd Mr. Sullivan was present for as a school committee rep that was a partnership with the town and the regional school district so just for people who weren't clear on the history this is a while ago with the capital request to study this and this is one of the products of that study or probably the primary product of that study it was funded I want to say it was two years ago but I'm looking at Mr. Sullivan two years ago as capital request to take a look at these fields and some of them are owned by the region and some of them are owned by the town of Amher so just make sense to have a partnership is it anticipated that some elements of this plan might come forward in our annual capital budget, capital plan budget we'll be looking at in a couple months I think this will set the stage for those conversations absolutely the reason I brought that up now is so that way the committee when they're listening to you can be thinking oh I get how this fits with what happens next I don't have anything left to say just what's that thank you very much as Mike said Dr. Morris said I am Dave Zomek assistant town manager happy to be here tonight I wanted to start off with an image as I was coming around the corner to the high school I noticed that the girls soccer game was being played on the football field and I want everybody here tonight and viewing this in the future just to think about that that's actually a first for me I've never seen that soccer team playing on that field but we're going to get around to that in this presentation as to why that's happened I think the committee knows but it's an important part an element of the work we've done so as Dr. Morris said over the last two years the recreation working group has been diligently studying the fields and what we have on the screen here if I can does this have a pointer Mike or no let's see so what we have here is really the main focus area of the work that the recreation working group looked at and that is the fields and facilities at community field the high school and the middle school fields and as I said this work began about two years ago and in that time we brought together representatives of this committee of the LSSE commission DPW a number of sports teams in Amherst and we all began to really talk about both what we have currently in terms of fields and facilities in Amherst and what we need and what we quickly realized is that we needed help and luckily through CPA funding and through the region we were able as was mentioned earlier to put together a funding package and hire Weston and Samson and they are a leading firm of landscape architects out of Boston they do a tremendous amount of work on fields and facilities particularly for municipalities for schools for private clubs etc so what I wanted to do tonight was quickly run through a slide set just highlighting some of the the main points of the work they did this is actually not the final product but a visual product that we can use here tonight in other meetings but they are actually compiling an entire report on their findings both kind of the history of what they looked at and what we presented to them and that they will make recommendations for some of the scenarios you'll see here tonight they'll also make funding recommendations they'll also make recommendations on such things as what should our maintenance plan be for the typical football field natural turf how much does that cost in New England to maintain a natural turf football field how much does it cost to maintain an artificial turf football field or soccer field etc etc they'll also they've also compiled data which is crucial on how much the fields are used on a yearly basis and by which teams both school teams as well as recreational teams through LSSC through MRS baseball, MRS soccer MRS ultimate etc so as far as I know this is the first comprehensive study that has been done certainly in my 14-15 years of the town of all of our fields so really excited to present some of that data here tonight this will all be compiled later in November early December and put together in a report for all of us to view so let me quickly buzz through some of the slides and then we'll open it up for questions I know that the athletic director was here earlier he had to go actually work related commitment I know principal Mark Jackson is with us and if there are questions Mr. Mingano also participated in this work so if there are questions that any of the three of us can answer so let me quickly go through so the focus area was really community field the high school and the middle school we're really going to focus on the high school and community field tonight frankly because that's where most of our practices and games happen and honestly that's where most of the work needs to be done so I'm going to buzz fairly quickly I'm going to skip through some of these slides as I said this is about a two year effort by about 15 people representing a broad range of interests and concerns and energy regarding recreation and Amherst as we said Weston and Sampson looked at all the fields including Mill River, Grawl Park, Kiwanis Park so as part of their study they're actually going to compile all of that data for us and believe it or not you may not be aware but our teams from the high school and the middle school also practice at some of the town fields in South Amherst and in North Amherst but again the main focus will be right outside the front door here of Amherst Regional as we talked tonight but here's a listing of all the facilities that they did look at so again the core properties are the high school and the middle school you can see here that what is represented is what is townland versus what is region region here at the middle school and then town both at the Hawthorne property and the middle school I think you're all familiar with the layout but just quickly because I'm going to be buzzing through some of these slides but we have the main 90 foot diamond baseball field here football field softball field the pool, the war memorial pool the track, various practice fields the lacrosse field there's a funny name for the lacrosse field I forgot what they called the swamp or something like that the snake pit which came up at multiple meetings we had it actually slopes off in one corner toward the wetland out back and it's kind of a home field advantage for our lacrosse players we had a number of students who participated in athletics and play on these fields come to the public meetings that we held so it was really nice to get their feedback as well as I said we do have a plan for redoing the fields at Wildwood, Hawthorne and the middle school but I don't think we're going to focus much on that tonight I'm happy to come back at a future date so condition I think you've all heard probably through the years from many of our athletes the conditions we have in Amherst are challenging we have gone out and we have talked with and looked at other fields in the region talking with other athletic directors and teams throughout the region and we certainly have discovered very quickly that our fields and facilities including the track in fair to poor shape for the most part one of the two key pieces that we focused on with Weston and Samson was safety and access and as we buzz through some of these slides and if you've had children or friends and family participate in sports here particularly on the fields outside the doors here at Amherst Regional you'll realize very quickly that our fields are in quite challenging shape particularly the soccer field inside the track the track itself is in very poor condition as I think you know from various capital reports and our accessibility is as Weston and Samson stated rated quite poorly it is very difficult for people with disabilities to get to any of our fields I'm thinking of the field named after my dad Zomac baseball field you know the sloped layout of that field there's nowhere to sit there's no way to get down because of drainage issues the slope of the fields there's no biteuminous pavement there's no pathways likewise to get out to the track it's virtually impossible for someone with in a wheelchair or with a disability so we focused a lot on safety and access we looked at all of those fields and I'm just showing you some of the the current state of some of these fields in these photos can you just explain the difference between the regional fields and what community field actually you can sense of it's a great point let me go back one many people in Amherst don't really understand the difference between what the town owns which is this and this Memorial Pool is the varsity softball field the football field and our 90 foot diamond and the old playground that desperately needs to be redone that is all town owned land likewise to the north the region owns the fields behind the high school the track and the associated field sport area as well as some of the practice fields in the north of Mattoon street through the years we've had informal relationships there is no MOU Memorandum of Understanding that I'm aware of that defines who uses what when it's always been a cooperative cooperative understanding so for instance the varsity baseball team has priority on Zomek field on that diamond even though it's owned by the town so town leagues can't get on that field until the varsity is done with a game or a practice or whatever so there's been a good collaborative relationship at sharing these fields through the years which is admirable that doesn't happen in every town but it's important as we looked at these fields to think about how we could gain efficiency in more efficiency in sharing those fields one of the big challenges as we know much of Amherst is very wet this entire area and I have some of the old photos was a swamp and you can actually tell that not much when these fields were built they were designed and engineered for drainage approaches at the time probably back in the 1950s and 60s you do not drain well at all particularly the field in the middle of the track these fields are often wet so the teams and if Mr. Farrow was here he would tell you how we are often behind other schools in getting onto our fields in the spring because they're simply too wet so we looked at drainage issues engineering issues as many of you may also know there is a very large culvert that goes under these fields that pulls the water and drains the water from all the way up near the middle school and that is the Tan Brook and takes it all the way through the northern part of town through the campus pond and into the Mill River so all of this was once a wetland that has been drained many many years ago but it still retains many of the characteristics of that old wetland so shared fields the best we can do Weston and Samson said we have different arrangements of these fields again I'm not going to focus much on that so we know that the condition of our fields generally are poor I would call the baseball field probably good we've done some improvements there but soccer lacrosse ultimate are in poor shape moving along quickly a war memorial pool we've done some renovation on that pool but we know it needs more so here's some of our field notes I'm not going to go into great detail on any of these but we wanted to focus on improving the facilities access safety and making them more efficient for town use and for school use I won't go into great detail here but you've seen that we looked at field types as well what kind of field types do we have and what types of fields in terms of size do we want I won't go into detail but essentially what we want is more multi-purpose fields our fields don't fit the sports we're playing on them the field inside the track which we often consider our best soccer field if you will which is now closed is not regulation high school soccer it's too small so we've been playing on that for years has it ever mattered I don't think so but if one were really by the book if you will we might not be able to host tournaments on that field because it's not a regulation size so Weston and Samson wanted to design some alternatives for us that have multi-purpose fields that fit the sports that we have and that are gaining in popularity so we're going to move along to very quickly to some of the different options again I don't have much time and I want to leave time for questions option one I think you saw this and what the core elements here again we wanted to focus on safety efficiency and access so what this shows really is the most dramatic change is moving the track and creating a multi-purpose field just to the west of the high school in a north-south orientation the current soccer field that is used sometimes for other sports as well but mainly soccer is oriented the wrong way an east-west orientation is not the proper orientation because when the sun sets during different parts of the year it actually obscures the vision of goalies in particular likewise our softball field is oriented our current softball field varsity softball field which is right here is also oriented incorrectly option one does a number of things it creates a large multi-purpose field that can be played on by ultimate soccer lacrosse football any field sport can play on that field we have not made any recommendation on artificial turf or natural turf that will come in the report from western and samson but that's a decision for the community to make in the future we also move the women's softball field facility over in this corner orienting it north-south I'll go into some of the other details in a few minutes on some of the next schemes this was option two a lot of the same goals we were trying to achieve we move the track and field facility farther west this has some advantages some disadvantages and we create multi-purpose practice in plain fields alongside it between the high school and that field we also create a multi-purpose field out back and in this area what we're talking about is enhancing the options for young families to use both community field and create a space there that includes a playground a small splash pad splash park throughout you will see these tan walkways we've designed what amount to a likely a couple of miles of walking paths that people can use for exercise and along the way you could bring a stroller someone could be in a wheelchair you could run on it along the way our exercise pods where you can stop and do push-ups or sit-ups or stretch throughout the entire facility here both on the townland and the regional land option three is probably the most radical and you always ask your consultant to kind of go big or go home on this one actually we said probably no go home we don't like this one and what it did was it moved the football or multi-purpose facility on and over and taking the place of the baseball field here and it moved the 90-foot diamond varsity baseball field to this corner of Mattoon Street and again moved softball here and created that kind of complex and ultimately that wasn't what the committee recommended the final version, the preferred version really was more like option one and again what this does is it takes advantage of the natural topography of the field just to the west of the Emerson High School you know there's a hill there so we can actually build bleachers into the hill there we would build some bleachers and seating into the 90-foot diamond at Zomek field you can see there are walkways around all of the field allowing people with disabilities to access those fields what this also does is it creates a field house right here that would serve both the pool and all of the other fields so say you're having a weekend tournament you have teams coming I know we have an ultimate tournament or a lacrosse tournament whatever it might be teams could actually change here there would be restrooms in there changing rooms and head right out into the fields as it currently stands we have a very modest comfort station over here in this corner and then teams actually have to go into the high school so the high school has to be opened every time we have some sort of a tournament this would make it much simpler teams to go right to the field house change get suited up and head right out into the field so this is the preferred option that we're moving forward with in our recommendations so from that looking a little bit more closely this is just a little bit more detail I think one of the other features that Weston and Samson did for us was they actually made arrival areas in other words when people come to Amherst High School for a community a game or a high school game you're not really sure where to go or have you arrived and can we create spaces that allow us to actually determine where people park and if we're charging a fee for a game or a tournament so what they did is they've actually made real arrival points here and here so that we can kind of control and then over there's one off the screen here so that we can kind of have better control and there's a real sense that you've arrived at the high school and this community event space that we share with the high school and the region so this you might ask how many, what kind of a plan is this what's the year what's the year what's the timeline we don't have a formal timeline but clearly this is probably a 10 to 15 year plan I want to make that clear we don't have unrealistic expectations we understand the capital needs in the town we understand the operating needs so we envision this to be a 10 to 15 year plan so what we asked Weston and Samson to do is give us a sense of priorities and clearly the priority that came through time and time again as we were in discussions in public meetings was the need for a new track and a multi-purpose field that could efficiently serve town sports as well as regional sports and that's what they came up with in phase one of this 10 to 15 year plan and again phase one would focus on creating one element of the preferred plan and that is having a track and field facility just west of the high school and then regrading all of the other fields around those so that they could be prepared for the next phase we would not do anything south of Mattoon Street because frankly it's just not a priority the baseball field is in reasonable shape the softball field is in reasonable shape the real need is north of Mattoon Street on the region's land so that naturally led us to getting a range of costs and so let me start with we asked Weston and Samson what it would cost and these are approximate numbers this presentation was just made on October 3rd so we have not had a chance to work more deeply on these numbers with them but just to renovate the existing track and field in place had bleacher seeding make it ADA and all of that they were really in the $2 million range to do that so right now we believe that just to do the track in the east-west orientation which is an improper orientation on a field that needs serious work would probably be in the order of $2 million $2.5 million so we then it's a range depending on what amenities we asked for in this and again we realize that $6 million is not something that is going to happen here but we wanted to present a range but to do a reasonable practical phase one would probably be in the $3 to $4 million range reorienting the track north to south reorienting as much of this work with new bleachers, new track shot put discus, all of the field sports as well as a multi-purpose field now again these ranges would increase or decrease based on whether you do natural turf or whether you do artificial turf and that's a decision that we have not made as a group I think there will be a recommendation coming to you and the town in the coming months probably $2 million plus to do the field as it is $3 to $4 million to do it in the preferred location with brand new everything, bleachers and a multi-purpose field let's see and I think that's really where I want to stop we have lots more data on the middle school but I think tonight we just want to focus on phase one and the high school and we might have an opportunity to come back to this conversation again later yeah well certainly so there are questions for the committee so thank you for this presentation I guess one of the more concerning things I heard was the fact that we built on what probably should have never had these fields built on from what I'm hearing about like the wetlands and some of these structural issues being about the nature of the library building on and given climate change and we just went for a really wet season I'm just wondering what were their opinions on the investing so much in this land that may not be the best place to put a field and was there any conversation about whether or not these fields should be relocated to a more appropriate spot probably the town doesn't own land that would I mean given what you said about I know some of those other fields also face issues around being really wet but just if we're going to be investing this kind of money sure no it's a great question I appreciate the question let me start by saying Amherst is probably one of the wettest towns in Massachusetts we are blessed with a lot of water we are blessed with the Mill River in the north the Four River in the south and all of the tributaries that connect and are throughout our town most of the land that we've currently built on that we've built our houses on roads was once either wet or farmland or actually wet farmland many of the crop farmers actually left Amherst many generations ago because they realized they couldn't really grow many crops here it was great for growing cows at one time we had 55 dairy farms and Amherst think about it 55 dairy farms we have one now cows simply needed pasture land it was primarily wet so much of the places that we currently use for our houses and our schools and whatnot are wetter than normal at no time did we or Weston and Samson think that this site could not be engineered with current building practices to be drier and more sustainable in terms of the playing surfaces it is not you know there's no question we could use the site and frankly it makes sense I think from a sustainability standpoint we looked at this as part of the core educational facilities of the town with Wildwood the middle school and the high school and then we looked at the fields around them and said it makes sense for us to invest in these fields honestly and I said this on October 3rd I believe it makes more sense for us to invest in these fields some of our outlying fields so if we collectively the region and the town put funding into this over the next 15 years we may not look at Gough Park 7, 8, 10 years from now and say we really want a regulation soccer field there because frankly if we do what this plan calls for Gough Park may be a wonderful recreation area informal it'll have a spray park by then we're building that in the spring I don't believe we'll need to invest two million dollars in Gough Park to bring it up to speed it is also wet and challenging topographically and what not but I don't think we'll need that so from a sustainability standpoint and an investment standpoint I believe we should invest in Wildwood the middle school and the high school fields we'll take a couple more questions and then potentially move on depending on the volume of the questions will these fields be dry I noticed about maybe 10, 15 years ago Amherst College rebuilt their fields on Route 9 by raising the road the fields by 5 feet and great big drainage tanks in there will these be dry will the weather should be addressed yes so a great follow up the practices that were used you know in the 1940s 50s and 60s are not the same as we currently use today so there's no question that these fields if some of them would be natural turf there may be a recommendation for one or more of them to be artificial turf but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it but there's no question that we can engineer these fields to be drier than they are some of them have no drainage at all and water this year was very plentiful two years ago in 2016 this the field in the track was like a desert and was hard as a rock and we were concerned that students were going to get hurt playing on this very hard surface in part because we have a very old irrigation system out there so we we they were engineered for with the technology of the time period that has changed dramatically I would be I think remiss if not mentioning that I think many members of the committee will will recommend one or more turf fields be considered for that very reason that we can engineer a turf field it can be used eight nine months of the year it doesn't need the same kind of maintenance that a natural turf field needs honestly we're not even caring for our fields we're not investing in our fields the way Weston and Samson will report that we should be we don't have the money for fertilizer irrigation, proper drainage, etc so a turf field may be a more economical option down the road and many teams can play on that one field while resting some of the natural turf fields that's another problem is we don't have enough good fields in the core we even rest some of the fields other questions I just have a comment on the safety of fields I was at that public meeting two weeks ago on that Wednesday and I was horrified to learn that there's four season-ending injuries each season on that field now and that's totally unacceptable well I don't know Mr. Jackson and Dr. Morris may know more about that I know it was referenced that there's been four season-ending injuries I don't think it's per year but I think over the last couple of years I'm not sure I heard it wrong but again I think thinking back to the contrast between 2016 when we had a rock-hard field this year we have what's essentially a swamp and kids are sinking in when they're out there running full tilt the fields are not engineered to current standards this plan suggests a path forward to engineer them so that they can be more efficiently used after it rains if this were a turf field you can play on it moments after it stopped raining because the drainage takes that water away yeah if I could just add to Mr. Sullivan's comment and you know this because I've shared it electronically with the committee but we had so many concerns about the field this year that we had an official comm and evaluate the field and essentially they said it was playable but they couldn't guarantee the safety so we've not been using it so the comment that actually both of you made separately about seeing the soccer game on the football field today was based on we're always going to make decisions in the interest of student safety and the field has been so wet it's not possible to manage and that's why we've shifted some games that were home games to away games and occasionally when that hasn't been possible to do as was referenced here to use other fields that are not regulation and they're not perfect but from a safety perspective they're better I also want to highlight it wasn't referenced here but we've talked about in the past the track is also an area of concern that we've had officials question whether we could host meets on our track because of the condition of the track and some of the areas as well and some of the images that were shown in the slide deck show some of those gaps where we're patching essentially a track and quite a bit of experience with that and patching a track first of all it doesn't last and second of all it leads to unevenness like the moment after you patch it because that's the nature of it and so we have multiple I just want to be really clear because the sticker shock on this slide when people are watching it will be high what we have now is not sustainable and you know when we're having this level of safety concerns about student athletes you know all of our concerns go up significantly it's not a beautification I mean that might be a possible outcome but I like the framing that Mr. Zomek used it's about safety and access and that's really been the framing that we've used throughout the process well I've only been on the committee two years I think today might actually be my anniversary congratulations but the but we've been this is the this year is going to be the third cycle where we've been talking about our sports fields and just even this being the third year every year the condition is reported to be worse and worse and it becoming more significant a challenge in terms of things like whether it's going to be even allowable to play based on you know the requirements around safety the concerns that the leagues will have and so I mean I think it's a great thing to have a plan particularly think long term and make all of our fields work better more collaboratively and more effectively over time I think the funny thing is it's one of those things where I'm looking forward to the next step because we need to move on it's clear that we need to move on this I think the other question would be which I'm also grateful that the report includes questions about ongoing maintenance and things like that because that's always like the one thing that's always forgotten like build the shiny bobble and you'll worry about maintenance you know in 10 years or 5 years or something but also part of it is that I think if you look at it from that perspective it's possible that you buy now for the price that you need to pay but over time you're going to see lower costs for upkeep and the ability to you know have you know you need to do this basically and fiscally can work out long run other other yes please I just wanted to conclude and I couldn't agree more with many of the comments of the committee and Dr. Morris again I wanted to emphasize that this is a long range long term plan we're very realistic the committee is very realistic I feel very good that we have a plan I said on October 3rd what would we do if we knew we need a new track the soccer field was failing and we didn't have any of this information so I'm very grateful to you all to town meeting for supporting the work of Weston and Samson and this volunteer group that came together staff and community members we're in a great position I think now to plan for the future and I think it was set at the outset this is really meant to inform capital planning we're looking forward to working with Mr. Backelman and his staff on the town side Dr. Morris, Mr. Mangano and Mr. Jackson on the school side and all of you to really say ok what is the plan moving forward what can we afford what are the priorities we will put together what we believe our recommendations to you to the new town council and we hope this will provide a great foundation for decision making in 2019 and we come in with our eyes wide open we realize these are big numbers we need to work these numbers so I would just caution you all a little bit and those watching we need to work these a little bit more we don't have them all down to the nitty gritty but we will get there in the next couple of weeks and we'll have a written document for you that will obviously send out electronically so I thank you for your time and look forward to future meetings thank you very much is everyone good? keep going it's been a break keep going I don't care slight break good evening thanks for being here this is a topic of great interest for us as you know no I feel kind of this is great next step I feel like we've gone through it together all of us this is really important so I was going to say we're here we are here most importantly the socks are up 8-2 JBJ with a grand slam awesome awesome we like that we're a little behind on the slides we're here thanks to lots of people one really important guy is right there and I don't want to miss him he's working his butt off all summer excuse me John Cody right there and he just deserves a lot of hand so I'll try to keep this brief so you guys can have questions but we made it not only did we make it in the summer some of you know this we got our greenhouse over the kids got it over and that was great so just there's our house spots and we'll you know I guess some of it's predictable right so we didn't have everything done and we're still kind of completing that that was a challenge but it was met right and so we had to deal with so when you're dealing with these transitions it's nice to have everything in order and then kind of do it but we had to deal with that and the kids I'm so proud of the students because they were already challenged by the transition already and they came in and like most things they're the most resilient and the staff we got some great new staff and our current staff just have risen to the occasion also central office people really we couldn't have done it without them Dr. Morris Sean Mungano we needed that help and they helped and it showed that kind of community effort and so we're really pleased about that Mr. Jackson has been amazing I got Dr. Brady Mr. Jackson, thank you but Mr. Jackson we've been able to meet with their staff we've been able to continue a conversation that we think is really important and those lovely flowers that you see right there was only part of a major day over Labor Day that was really run by by Dr. Brady and without Dr. Brady really taking the reins I think we would have been kind of a short circuited so another real big hand for Dr. Brady and it's been with us the whole time so I'm really pleased about that so just a couple of fun things so as you know we've moved into this kitchen and we've had cooking for years now we have this incredible professional kitchen and we're using it and so those pies that you see which we could have never done at our old kitchen actually happened on the day that Mr. Jackson and I got dunked when we had a whole, what do you guys call it? Field Day? Community Day and what was wonderful was this community day my students who were new to the school were able to go out in the community with their friends and do it or stay in and make these pizzas and they chose it it was up to them and it just worked out incredibly and I'm just pleased about that and so it's something that's been extra special and we'll continue to use that next week we are having a grand opening, kind of a soft opening to our mountain top bistro and you know it's our cafeteria and it's kind of the vision of the future and so we want to make it's a small kind of leap but it's an important one and so we're going to be cutting ribbons and that's thanks to Sasha Palmer Where is the mountain top? The mountain top bistro we have seven sisters over you choose the mountain top you want I just think it's not to belabor the point but I think it's worth mentioning that the food service directors Ms. Palmer has taken a high interest in working at Summit looking at the students with the kitchen and I know she I know you said this but I want to emphasize the point because she's not here that it's not just like a check on a checklist yeah I've checked in and making sure Summit students get food and they're closer to the high school cafeteria it's been really about the students being involved in that process and that's above and beyond so I just want to note that No and thank you for saying that Sasha Palmer has been over to our place maybe a handful of times she was here today and she was here yesterday and she was here last week and there really were reconfiguring and they're really absolutely committed and one of the things when we were over in South Amherst that was a major issue was food and I think you guys know that and it's kind of like a full circle and Sasha's totally invested and it's important so that kind of investment the kids see it and it's really nice the other thing that we did have is we had Jessica Minahan in I think it was almost like the first week of school and actually it was incredible you'd think oh gosh we got all these things going on and we're having this consultant come in and it actually slowed us all down it kind of got our feet kind of grounded to start focusing right in on the kids and trying to support them and so that actually was something that was really a great piece and we were pleased with that so you know just the quick educational update I mean it's been phenomenal for the kids that used to have to get on a bus to go here to take a class and sometimes get on a bus and come back they're just walking out the door to their classes and I think it's created a connection that we're going to be able to utilize along the way for kids coming to us which we talked about before that maybe this will be an easier way for students to come to us and an easier way for students to make that transition back or and so that's been really nice the other thing that you know we had talked about in second semester is adding an eighth grade onto the program and so I think we're going to be in that place where we can really identify the needs of the district and expand our programming and so we're looking forward to that it's a challenge but we're also looking forward to it because like what we've actually we've taken on and we've talked about this three tuition in kids which has an impact monetary impact but also supports the neighboring towns to have a choice that's not what we're here for exactly but it offers an expansion and that's been great so that's been really a plus so far you know ongoing we're finishing up we've got some things to think about we've got some trips to go on you know believe it or not our numbers have risen right so we're getting to that 30 that 30 student kind of it's not a hard cap but it's a place where we want to pass and look at what's going on but that's where we wanted to go that was the trajectory of what we're doing this couldn't have happened without the support of everybody including you guys and you know it just has to be said that I'm really proud of the staff and the students and I'm really pleased that you know when I come into work every day there's possibilities that are that you can see that maybe we're not as much over at the other place just using that track using the fields having those opportunities I think we're going to be able to really utilize them and you know right now we are in transition so you know I want everybody to know that we're in transition but to me the sky is the limit and so I you know you know so we're pleased but any questions anybody what are the admission standards for entry into the Summit Academy what do you have to do yeah that's a good question so we're a public day school so there's no real admission standards although it's we're like a small you know private school everybody that comes to us has an IEP so I mean those you have to have needs so it's a public day school and you read I guess the admission standards can we meet their needs can we meet student need and so the team will meet and we'll say yeah we can meet we can meet your needs we have the therapeutic supports we have the academic capabilities of either creating access for students or accommodating for students and that's kind of how it happens and then a very practical question is there staff and faculty parking yeah thank you yes there is there's plenty and so again you know the high school has really set us up for we have a student entrance we have a main office entrance and we have about 20 spots for parking which works out perfectly so how is it I guess I'd ask what's the process been for engaging with families parents and guardians or students on an ongoing basis to sort of understand how they're dealing with the transition and then that sort of one question is how are you knowing what's going on and engaging and responding then the second question is just how is that going is it a mixed bag or is there you know I don't know what the character is so the first question so we're a small school right so we get this great ability to kind of meet and connect with our parents on an ongoing basis and so there were three or four parents and students were really troubled at the beginning so they came in and they kept coming in and we kept listening and in the sense of saying okay and there were some really clear hey we need to have this change and actually it was helpful to all of us and so the doors were always open kind of thing and then also kind of just being really straight forward with people I think is really helpful you know in the sense of this is where we're at and this is where we want to get to and so the people that were really feeling it the most we talked to the most that's my feeling and so there's so we had meetings we brought people in and next week we had an open house so we kind of are the last open house and we did that on purpose because we wanted to be able to kind of get through this transitional place and be able to kind of meet with people having given a couple months into it and so Thursday is a really big night for us right but again to reiterate being a small school gives us the advantage of really kind of meeting with our parents but I mean honestly you have to have had the relationships with the parents to begin with in order for that to work right so it's what the good thing from what you're saying is that the good thing about it is is that instead of having a relationship with the families of the parents that they're concerned about what's happening and they want to close off or they feel alienated if they kept in mind they felt like they could or were welcome to do so even if the feedback they're giving wasn't always positive which is a good thing. Yeah, no I was really pleased I gotta tell you I was really pleased because some people were really upset and so it was nice to cash in those assets in the sense of what you're talking about of really putting in time and they knew it and I knew they were putting in time and that makes life easier when things happen and I appreciate you saying that because that is what happened. Other questions? Yeah, it's okay I just want to so the thing I want to acknowledge is that everything you heard from Principal Slovan tonight was about his leadership and it was about listening to families because I heard from him hey families are concerned about X and I know Dr. Brady and Mr. Jackson and everyone else heard about that as well and sometimes I was advocacy I mean this needs to happen and some of that Labor Day piece that was referenced was around things that were really getting in the way of students feeling welcomed in school not on a human level like person-to-person but around some of the spaces that still needed some work and whether the implications are morale and how students felt so I really want to appreciate the advocacy you did and also the process you set up in listening to families and working with the men students as well so you made a huge amount to do with the success of this transition. I'm not just trying to throw it back and forth here but the truth is that Dr. Morris door is open and it's not like oh no no no we did this every single time we have a conversation and I feel like he's not just listening to me he's listening to the students and so that's really important you can't do the work unless you have that kind of piece there are times I'm like we need this or we need that and I'm like I don't know if I'm pushing it or if I'm not and it's reality and he gets it done so I appreciate that I do. Thank you. Yes. I think it was a year or two years ago a couple of students from the Summit Academy came and I was here I was sitting there because I was a member of Indian 26 at the time but it was very moving to me like I was really really impressed with them so I just wanted to wish them all the best at this transition and will we get a chance to hear later in the year and update on how it's going and if everyone's happy and you know that was a watershed moment for me and I think for the school committee but for even for our school and I'd love to be able to get if we could if people are willing some students up again and hear their experience those two students that actually got up in front of you guys were strong leaders and were really it was a good time for them and so they were able to really do a great job but I would love to get an opportunity to have students say their piece too. You know what I'd love to do is and it's a work in progress so the funny thing is I'd love to wait a couple months so it's further down the road and I'm hoping that just means more success but it'll mean whatever it means in terms of the experience of the students and your staff and everyone and the principal Jackson High School what does it all look like in two months and what additional learning is there from it what should the committee know how can we be additionally supportive of everyone involved and if that makes sense to both of you we could do that put it on the calendar for the beginning of the year either end of this of all or the beginning of the year I think that would be great I really appreciate being able to give you guys the transition I know you guys are interested in it that being said we are a public day school we're dealing with lots of students with incredible sometimes challenges and sometimes just great things that are going on we have such talented kids at our school not in the arts academically and I want to really be able to showcase that and be able to work through whatever is going on for them or their families and have that balance you don't have to come back with problems you want to come back with nothing but success that's great I love the notion of having that being played out in both hands being able to realize that we have incredible talent and also we have challenges and sit here in front of you guys and give you both to the extent it's appropriate I for one would love to hear some of the problems you faced I mean I can imagine them but having them describe would be helpful what are some of the problems that you have in running the academy it's a really good question not now thank you at some point that would be great sorry absolutely could I close on just one positive note that's another positive there were but a positive note particularly what Ms. Cassinson said so I thought the students were great I agree with that comment but the interesting thing was when I would go back and talk to students at summit the impact it had on the school they were able to present the experience they had being that's a small school being that all the things that Mr. Principal Slovin just mentioned it was amazing the impact it had on the school and what students were able to tell me and their level of pride and feeling like they're part of things because I think anytime you're in a specialized program of any sort there's a natural inclination to not feel like you're on the same plane the bulk of the organization just numerically there's all sorts of reasons why and students who weren't at that night spoke about the impact that they had two student council reps who then went to the biggest stage in their opinion of the district which I think is true it is and present their piece so I would love to think about that again but I wanted you all to hear because I don't know if we ever look back to that in this way the impact it had on the school not just the two students who came and on the committee and just a note so I still connect with those particular students and they're both in college so they're doing well awesome they were great well thank you so much for coming now we're set up for another one this is great because when you were here in June we set up this one now you're here we're setting up another one it's never going to end dude you're going to keep being coming back I love it I can see myself on TV have upbeat discussions really engage and upbeat so I'm assuming budget regional assessment discussion is on the agenda because it's similarly mirthful upbeat and positive conversation Sumangana you're on the hook for this one that's a hard intro for Sumangana huh yeah do you have a flash or something is that your account? can you put this in? so assessment methods are always tough after 9 o'clock so are you going through methods? no but topic is a tough topic I'll try to make it brief most of us have been there one way or the other we're on the committee we have two new members that so most tonight's presentation will be context and leading to the decision or the discussion that you have to have and then you can either have it tonight or maybe the next time we come back to talk about this topic yeah perfect snazzy template there yes it is it's different than usual yeah it is it's the google standard so again this is more sort of just factual to provide the context for this topic the regional school district has to choose an assessment method every year and it has two options that it can choose from one is the statutory method and one is the alternative method I'm really sorry 9 o'clock but we'll keep going so statutory method what is that so that is the method that the state created a long time ago and has made updates to along the way that basically factors in town income property values and a few other factors to calculate something that's called a minimal contribution and that basically says of all the towns in the region here's how much each town has to basically be assessed at a minimum and then if your assessment goes beyond that which most regional school districts do the assessment that goes beyond that minimum is assessed based on your regional agreement and so in our case our regional agreement is a five year roll in average of enrollment but that's just us specifically that could be different in other regions this method requires approval by the regional school committee a majority and requires approval by three out of the four member towns so in the past there's three out of four town meetings we think it's going to be three out of four town meetings slash city councils but have we got confirmation on that? not yet so because we changed the form of government I think we're unique in the state of being a region that has a city in three towns what would be the alternative I don't know popular vote okay let's talk about sharing information with people I was going to table that one until you got back from the attorneys there are regions without town meetings like Bridgewater and Rainham I think are those two cities? Bridgewater is Rainham I think Rainham is the I might be getting my singles crossed but one of them I think it's Bridgewater that is switched to Mayor Constance but it might be the question has been brought to the council for the town of Amherst probably to find a solution that doesn't involve having a plebiscite every time so yes but we'll see see that wakes you up yeah any question on what the statutory method is generally how it works and what it factors in so the other option is the alternative method and this method allocates 100% of the assessment based on whatever formula exists in the regional agreement and so again ours are the 5-1 average enrollment but in any given year you can amend your regional agreement to whatever you can get the towns to agree to or the committee to agree to we've had to do that the last few years and this method requires approval by the regional school committee majority but the different piece here is that you need all towns in the region to approve this method at town meeting or city council so you need it unanimous whereas the statutory method is 3 out of 4 and that's sort of been the the issue you'll see in a little bit so history from 2004 the region used the statutory method from 2005 to 2007 we used an alternative method that was amended every year to have like one year was equal increases so all the towns assessments were of the same amount and they really went year to year and had different things each year in 2016 the region started using the regional agreement method or the alternative method and using the 5-1 average of enrollment every year and then in 2017 to 2019 we've kind of gone back to that limbo phase where we've used modified methods so we're technically using the alternative method but it's not the 5-1 average of enrollment it's modified to include that and other stuff so in FY17 what is that other stuff so in FY17 the assessment was based on 10% taxable property values our regional agreement or 5-1 average of enrollment so that was basically to acknowledge that we weren't factoring in the town's wealth in the past when we were doing it strictly by enrollment and so by making 10% of the assessment based on taxable property values it was phasing in a little bit of a town's wealth into the formula in FY18 we did sort of the same thing as a slightly different measure of a town's wealth we did 10% of the minimum contribution and 90% of the regional agreement and then in FY19 we upped that to 20% of the minimum contribution and 80% of the regional agreement and the minimum contribution is some factor of property values and town income and a few other things but primarily property values and town income so context for why we're here so in 2014-15 issues of that year the next year somewhere around then some officials from Shootsbury express concern about the regional agreement method the one that assessed towns purely based on enrollment and said that they had trouble supporting it because it didn't factor in a town's wealth and really the data would show that they paid more every year for quite a bit of time under that method than they would under the states method and over time that added up to quite a bit a large amount of money so in response to that the region has hosted multiple working groups really three of them for each of the last three years to try to find a long term solution we've only been successful finding short term solutions which has avoided big budget issues but it's got us a year we're back in the same place of how do we find a long term solution there's an FY19 working group this is the one that we elected to get outside consulting support for Mark Abrams who's also working with our regionalization group now that wasn't successful he made a recommendation that wasn't agreed to by all four towns FY18 was sort of an internal working group same thing with FY17 and there's even a working group in FY08 where I was here that kind of did the same thing they moved this back to the regional agreement method they all four towns supported that at the time and so the path forward this committee and all of us have some options what we want to do for the FY20 budget and beyond so we could continue phasing in the statutory method that was sort of the path we started on last year we moved to 20% and we could keep moving that incrementally towards full implementation of the statutory method so the next logical would probably be 40% or maybe 30% the second option is we could stay where we are 20% the benefit of that is it doesn't the budget impact won't be affected by the assessment changing every year when we change the assessment method there's either a positive impact or a negative impact just from the assessment itself or the assessment method itself or three we could propose a different method and see if we can get four towns to agree to it there's probably other options but those are the three to discuss questions so it sounds like this assessment has more to do with the share of whatever the total budget is that each town contributes to so I'm trying to figure out the relationship between the size of the total pie and then the share of that pie that each town is responsible for I'm assuming they're related and I'm just trying to understand a little bit more about how the issue first popped up it was more about the share not the total I think all four towns were in a position where they really understood how robust and comprehensive the region is and all the educational opportunities it provides to the students and it was more about how should we split that cost I think in recent the last couple of times what's sort of new is some towns have questioned is the level of funding for the school is the right level of funding sort of bringing in that total piece to the equation so I think right now we're in a place where it's both the total and how it's shared with some towns focusing more on one than the other it was confusing for me to follow who said what and how the final decision was made for this year's assessment agreed to what, was it a town, was it a committee so it's very difficult so basically we present options we try to provide as much time as possible for feedback on those options and sometimes we hope that there's a natural sort of agreement one rises to the top and that is an obvious one that works for everybody sometimes that doesn't happen last year I think it was sort of like what's the least bad option sort of agreed to who was this every month do you want to speak you can but I was going to say there's context here so what at the end of December or January we get all the boards together for both December and then last year we did December and January and basically what you do is you get the politic whatever this should be in a perfect world the reality is this is a political decision that involves the major political stakeholders that we have within the four towns and so that means you have the various select boards you have the various finance committees and then you have the members of the school committee who all have a significant role in whether within their communities oh and then obviously of the townstaffs who are involved and who are making assessments on what they think reasonably the town is going to afford and what the tax rates are going to be and so the challenge is to get agreement amongst that range of stakeholders all of whom actually have a role in the process however the town council is going to work so I'm sitting inside the question of what's going to happen in the future is you know you have finance committees that develop and recommend budgets and hold some sway in their communities you have select boards that also then vote and approve recommendations and budgets and hold some sway and then you have the school committee with whatever influence it has and we have and so the reality is you've got it and if things aren't contentious then you have discussions and present interesting information and everyone nods their head in a contentious situation the reality is you've got to get some combination of these actors over a period of time to be willing to either ideally we want it to be happy which is the point of that outside consultant in the working group last year is to get happy about a common method and get a common agreement around the variables the reality is though there are a lot of really complex variables involved so people want there's many people and even sort of philosophically people would agree that in some weight or factor around the wealth of a town or a community or income in a community would be factored in but then there are other folks who then started arguing this past year that Amherst had an unnaturally they would call it an unnaturally low median household income because of the inclusion of students in census related data and state related income data and so they would then say well I like the factor conceptually but I don't like the data source we're using because we think it's skewed to the favor of the town and I bring that up only because there's even a case to be made for that too but my point is that's how you go down this rabbit hole of a combination of people's genuine and perceived experiences how that relates to the factors they think they can involve and then the bottom line is for some people once you put all of that through the sort of rib-gulbred mechanism if they don't like the final number they see at the end then essentially they'll work backwards to why they hate the methodology because in the end the number doesn't work anyway I'm trying to sound unduly negative but also I'm kind of being negative in that regard only because again I've only been here two years but I've been involved now and there's an enormous amount of work that's gone in over the years and discussions on this subject I think from my perspective all of it's actually been of good faith even people who disagree really strongly about what to do people have brought who they are to the table and what they believe are the issues to me and I'm being very blunt I know this is on camera the scariest thing for me last past year was when we moved beyond either sort of like underlining antipathy that sometimes have sometimes between each other where they don't talk well to one another and even beyond questions of well what do you do about income then household income in Amherst that's unnaturally depressed and you got into questions of well what are step increases and why do we have them and how do you build what your base budget is that you're creating on each year and is it even the right one and I know I'm saying this publicly but I'm going to say it that philosophically we know we have and I'm overly simplifying but we know we have school districts in this state that essentially look at what the foundation budget is that the state would say they should have and any percentage they are over the foundation budget represents their amazing dedication to education but what that means the practical matter is cutting lots of things and lots of programs because you can be over the foundation budget in this state and still actually have to cut a lot of electives and a lot of other services that you might otherwise want to provide our town hasn't really done that in Amherst our region hasn't done that among all four towns we've tended to compose the budget and services that we genuinely think creates the best educational and supportive whole child environment for our students and our families and then no we can't really afford it we work down from what we really want last year a philosophical argument broke out over whether we want to actually be a fundamentally different kind of school district that's a really bad place for us to go it doesn't lead to a good place because anyone can look at the data between Pell and Amherst, Leverett and Schuittesbury and say their differences in income their difference in property values there's difference in businesses whatever you know what I mean you can have a rational argument over the capacity of the ability to pay between different communities and it's based on reality whatever we want to do if you start arguing over who you even want to be that doesn't lead to a good place in my view but I mean I know that within the communities themselves there are arguments and discussions breaking out over this very question sorry no no by the way I was trying to it's one thing to talk about the methodologies and how do we come to agreement but I wanted to bring this back to reality in sort of like a cold bath of where we're actually going to go for the next couple months and if I'm wrong and the conversation isn't that and people come into the room saying alright let's look at the alternative method we adopted what variation of compromise shall we come up with awesome that'll be, I mean even if we like the numbers I don't like the numbers it'll be a great place to be I just wanted you to be prepared for the possibility that you go into a four towns meeting in December or even before them when you're talking to your neighbors and we're actually in a much different place and it's a much harsher place no no that's exactly so taking a step back and then I'll go forward the reason we're talking about this in October which is atypical in my recollection we have not talked about assessment methodology in October is to have this kind of conversation that we wouldn't be talking about October if we didn't have significant levels of concerns about how to build consensus to move forward with it with the district that we all want to have and with four towns willing to support so I apologize should have sort of framed that out at the beginning of the conversation as to the purpose I think the chair did an excellent job describing of, you know, the recent history on the political side and one of the things that I think we're looking for guidance from the committee on part of this gets complicated with the change of government of one of our towns I mean logistically complicated that's not a political statement of good bad whatever it's just going to be a transition is how to start engaging that conversation we've you know as Mr. Margano said we've had consultants in we've had working groups you know at the end of last year's working group it did feel like there wasn't a desire for another working group like we got as far as working groups are going to get so I think it becomes a political question as the chair mentioned of, you know, how do we approach this in a way that's inclusive and has conversations early because we don't want to get to February, March with the level of uncertainty that I think the district the staff are very concerned about having knowing that one of our towns is changing government in November December and how does that complicate it so I think that's and we don't need to resolve this you know when chair talked we're going to come back to this in November again a little earlier than we typically would talk about system methodologies but you know the thing that I think we need to think about certainly and make some decisions about in November is what's our strategy moving forward and you know we can you know staff we can come up with whatever methods people want us to come up with Mr. Mangan is wonderful wonderfully fantastic about and creative about that but it's not so much about for me I'll speak to myself about what method are we going to use it's actually how are we going to engage the larger political question of how to approach four towns and both to Ms. Spitzer's point both the chair and then the sum total because I think that last year we came up with a solution that mitigated sort of our worst-case scenario but I think I know that different towns who have contacted me came away with that with different expectations of the current year some towns as Mr. Mangan said oh yeah we're going forward with a 20% increase so it'd be 40% this year other towns agreed to last year without the additional caveat leading into this year so so the goal for us is how do we engage the towns early and often and in inclusive way so we can we can functionally get things moving in a way that supports our students. My final point on that too is that unless it's changed so correct me if it's changed but my recollection, my clear recollection is that there was one town for example that said I want to go to the statutory method as soon as humanly possible ideally next year or immediately there was another town we're not naming the towns right because we're all being really cool and polite. I think that's how it goes the town that that shall not be named right? At town meetings but anyways there's another town that we might be sitting in right now that didn't actually agree to move to the statutory method at all and said I'll do this as a one year compromise just because we need to make sure there's a budget in place but we're not doing it longer term so my point is there's not only not agreement there was a clear statement of like polar disagreement on that sorry Sean can you explain I have this thought in my head that it's we were working on the assumption last year that it would be bad to go immediately to full statutory could you explain why if that's true and it's a why and also what happens if only two towns agree what if we don't get to three or four if you don't get to, so if you're under the statutory method and you don't get to three then you don't have a budget so we have to keep working until we get an agreement by three if you don't get that by the start of the fiscal year then you move to like a one-twelfth type situation where the state would only give you one-twelfth of your state aid and you'd have to work out one-twelfth assessments and things like that that sounds also bad cash flow becomes a real issue so that's bad so the reason why going straight to statutory was a big deal is because so right now and this is one of the bigger problems too is Amherst is sort of structurally different from the other three towns Amherst provides lots of services, has the college you know robust fire departments that's been brought up is that they're just they're not equal in terms of what they do anymore so it's hard to compare them as towns and so right now the statutory method would shift a huge amount of the assessment to Amherst all at once and that would either Amherst would absorb that or they couldn't and then the region would have to cut that cost to a level that they could absorb so that's the main reason why the statutory method was going to it all at once definitely wasn't going to work is because it would shift I think it was $600,000 or $800,000 or something like that all at once to the town of Amherst Yeah so just to add to Mr. Mangano I think that's one of the other challenges with having mathematical challenges with having towns of significantly different size so if we're lining up shares the impact will be oversized because and I'm not suggesting it's a hardship on Amherst mathematically from the district point of view I'm not talking about political fairness or anything you know a small difference monetarily for the district from one town because it's a share piece and it's all relational can cause a huge difference for the district and I think because Amherst has such a significant share of the cost that sort of plays into what Mr. Mangano can I just clarify that real quick so for example if we wanted to reduce Shootsbury's assessment by $10,000 if we use the formula to do that then we actually have to reduce the budget by $100,000 because Shootsbury is roughly 10% of the total and so we have to reduce the total by 100,000 just to get Shootsbury to where it might need to be and that's just an example, Shootsbury's not asking for that but that's why the differences make it harder Shreveen I agree with you that this is a two part process the assessment process and what we want the schools to be in terms of what we want the school to be the first time we get the proposed budget to consider so in terms of a real detailed looking budget our normal budget that we present would be January is when we present the budget with roughly what we're thinking for cuts and ads and that's usually based on feedback we get from the four towns at the first four town meeting in terms of what their assessments can look like for the following year so if that process is the same it'll be January we have budget projections prior to that where we can just have projections of what that means for the assessment but in terms of a more detailed budget it'll be January So this is going to be continued Anything else you guys wanted out of this? Good Is there any documentation that we could review for those of us who are new like any reports I can send you lots of power points and reports I would actually just appreciate a little bit of that as somebody who just the history would be interesting Does anybody else who wants that can I make a process suggestion if you can make a Google folder that has all the presentations in it and then Debbie could send the link to the full committee because even if you've been on the committee for a while just having a review of that I think everyone having the same information I think it's good My recollection is the presentations we went through last year from December onward did a pretty good job of walking through some of the history but also what these methods were, how they're derived how changes in those methods have different impacts on the towns Right? I'm just saying I've front-loaded some of that stuff Could you also include the date that the conversation here was videotaped on that same thing because the discussion amplified the report You know, like with the February meeting when the one was finally presented to us and I assumed that those were all archived on the Amazon Media website Certainly, if you had questions there would be guided conversation essentially It's interesting Cool, so we'll move on Thank you You know, I keep bringing over to the gavel to make something that's going to happen Superintendent Goals So the draft goals are on the back page of the packet Easy to find So I thought I'd just go through the draft and the thinking behind it and take feedback and see where the conversation leads Yes So the first one is to provide social justice professional development with a focus on historically marginalized groups for all staff members and provide an intensive focus on racial equity training for administrators The references that are made we didn't print all like 45 pages of the superintendent rubric but it links to multiple ones because it's an evaluative document and should be connecting to the superintendent evaluation rubric And again, the focus on this sort of was addressed earlier in the evening was that it's one thing to have the right values and core principles and another thing to make sure that all staff are included in training there's paraeducators, bus drivers professional staff, administrative staff and the focus on historically marginalized groups is pretty, I just want to be super clear that's very inclusive so certainly race ethnicity is part of that but there's many other like I know some of the PD we're planning includes you know there's Ms. Cunningham and I are going over today LGBTQ gender orientation what to do with challenging student conversations come up so some of it's around being proactive and some of it's being responsive because that's the nature of working in schools so I guess I'll go through these and open up our questions The second one is a sustained multi-year goal to increase the diversity of teaching staff by ensuring that new hires of the district represent a higher percentage of persons of color than the current staffing percentages I think it's a way to continually both track our hires and also continually raise the bar so that's what we've done the last two years so our hires have been here about this from Ms. Cunningham next month but our hires have been more diverse racially ethnically than our current staff and so as that continues to be our goal the nice way about it is it's we don't hire I mean one of the things hard things about putting a percentage on it, I'll just say here is we don't know how many staff are hiring year to year and so we're not an organization that turns over like 30% of its staff and like I think if we were to make quicker progress on this and that would also be really negative in terms of our staff we really incredibly valuable staff we want them staying as long as they want to be in the district so the idea is that we're continually tracking and that bar continually goes up and we send the expectation that every year it's above the current level and then the next year continues so we feel like it's a sustainable model around increasing diversity the third one was in good methods that include broad participation of stakeholders throughout the process using methods excuse me develop multi-year school and district improvement programs so this is really the strategic planning process that you've heard about and will continue to hear about the fourth goal is present a capital plan to address the significant infrastructure issues in our aging school buildings including issues, mechanical systems access and you heard tonight about exterior spaces and the second part which I also heard about tonight it's kind of this is the way it should be right the goals are connected to things that are routinely updated at school committee I didn't plan it that way but happy accident completed an ADA audit of the school buildings to be shared with the public to identify access issues and potential solutions this was an agenda topic last meeting the fifth one something that was in the capital planning for this year successfully completed a building use master planning process to develop multiple options for consideration understanding the cost and implications of each option thank you Ms. Kessins and I know she's agreed to be on the review team for the proposals that came in certainly a lot of community interest in this I get lots and lots of questions from this quite frequently both elementary and secondary parents because of the possible implications for sixth grade and the last one is to develop goals and objectives to advance the district work on student wellness I'll be explicit that it this is the Vegas goal on the list and you know for instance you know Mr. Jackson and Mr. Sheen were at a conference today thinking about wellness in a particular you know having a particular angle which is you know learning the evidence about school start times and considering that that's not to suggest that we're heading down that way but I think the hard time with defining wellness is that we're starting the introductory phases to thinking about this more comprehensively so for me to put school start times is way presumptuous on a goal sheet but what is what I think is being very intentionally focused on is how do we think about wellness of students right so we think of Jessica Manahan some of that around student anxiety what we're hearing from our mental health teams and to develop goals and objectives that we can continue in future work so you know while this is could be seen as connected to strategic planning I think it's a bit more focused than that because it's an issue that we know is a problem our students tell us that our counselors tell us that our families tell us that and we don't have an articulated vision for how to address that so it's you know more than action steps are like oh we're doing this next year it's like how do we think about student wellness and more holistically than perhaps we've focused on it prior so I understand and I'm open to any critique on any of these but particularly that one perhaps in the vagueness but I wanted to explain the intentionality is that how do we approach this task how do we think about this task so we could isolate any number of things start time mental health needs of students homework load what time athletic games start right there's a whole swath of things that we have done right now where I think in this place of looking at them as isolated issues and we want to take a more holistic view on how do we think about the wellness challenges that is our students are facing in 2018 think of digital media and these things and the implications for students which there's some some evidence about what these things do to I mean not just children but we could talk about all of us and how quickly you email me and I email back we go back and forth that's its own thing but particularly we think with the adolescent brain so that's we want to have a holistic approach I want to sound like broken record and we want to be thoughtful about how we're approaching the task of thinking about our students and the whole child so that's I'm open to any feedback but this is based on the feedback that I received last time when I appreciated getting that when we went around the room this is what I developed and certainly I'm open to feedback and people want to do that and we can come back and vote next time you know whatever works for the committee I think two things I think one since we're not going to meet until November 20th again I think whether or not we vote tonight and I'm open to whether we vote tonight people want to we'd have to get a clear sentiment from the committee with this I'm on the right track because the idea that we'd be voting on six weeks from now you know almost halfway through the year be like oh no no I don't like three of them that's nice so I think that's really you know as a procedural matter if you want to vote or not it's up to the sentiment of the table based on how you think they are I know this is going to sound stupid but I'm another broken record on wellness would you include like looking at eating disorders, substances where we are is one of the handful of states in this country that have legalized recreational marijuana and it's out even though it's illegal for kids and they're not supposed to have it it's still out there you mentioned other things that are more sort of academically and building oriented does it include how this school engages with the wellness of students otherwise? some low hanging fruit but certainly substance abuse is it's a high school and a middle school and what the national data and local data tells us from things like the Spiffy report which is western mass centric evidence is that there's an increasing use of legal substances at younger ages you know so that's the trend the trend isn't necessarily like wild increases at the high school and they're seeing some but what they're really seeing is the middle schools across the region are seeing things they haven't seen before about one substance to introduce so absolutely and we've done some work on that but again the larger vision of I think this conversation is exactly the one we want to have yeah why don't we go around the table again just because it's useful and again like last time if you want to pass with a moment just pass first let me state I wouldn't take your job for all the tea in China this is a reasonable list of goals it's measurable to some extent I could vote tonight on this favorably yeah thank you I think actually I think this does a really good job of synthesizing the committee members suggestions last time actually really like number six and there's kind of like a it's like a goal of having a goal you know like it's like a way for us to actually frame a discussion and then organically come up with more goals so I think that was a good I really like it I'd become trouble voting on these tonight and the last thing I mentioned is that the Pellum meeting but in future meetings I mean I assume we'll have updates on progress and maybe just within those updates if we could have a sense of like what artifacts we could be looking for and how they relate to these standards we can look at that ourselves but sometimes I think drawing those connections is helpful having missed last our last meeting I still think that you know just being on the receiving end and reading these at this point I think this is a good collection of them I am I could be persuaded on voting tonight I hesitate only because this is our first read of them I mean we saw the agenda packet earlier of course but I want to my only hesitation is sort of thinking through the input that we received from the SCTF and if there's any tweaks that we would want to make in terms of some of the specificity of some of the things and I would like I do also really like goal number six and I understand the rationale of being vague but I do wonder if there's an opportunity to spell out more precisely could include some of these things just to again so that when we come back at the end of the year and I like how you phrase that understanding what artifacts we might be looking at or wanting to see throughout the year and I'm not saying spell out now what the changes would be but just sort of put guardrails on what might be included so I guess my only question is about the relationship between four and five and I apologize for my ignorance but could you just go into a little bit more detail about because if it's already happening the building use and master planning so develop multiple options for consideration meaning multiple options of just how to use the space we already have is this related to the middle school potential consolidation or is this something so I'm just confused so four is really about the capital needs we have having nothing to do with consolidation so we have a middle school roof we've got a significant number you heard about the fields we've got a significant number of infrastructure issues we had a log jam of projects that were not completed from capital and we were now actually caught up and improved projects that just for a whole host of reasons took longer than we wanted them to take and so we now have a significant set of needs across our buildings that we need to tackle you know, interior and exterior so that was really the attempt of number four and I know for the Amherst members you heard about it and it's a different thing at the elementary level but no less important when you heard some of the reports of the track and the safety needs that were expressed you know, and I think in terms of roofs Mr. Cody's not here tonight but if he was looking at all the buildings and all the districts he works in which are all the ones I work in the middle school roof and some of the infrastructure there is the highest priority that we have in terms of that and it's a big ticket item so we have to figure out what we're going to do with them number five is really more about looking at the capital item last spring that was focused on the master planning so what would it take to move 7th and 8th grade to the high school institutionally I mean practically logistically, financially infrastructure wise what would it look like to perhaps have 6th grade come to the middle school and what are the implications of that these are questions that we will get asked again we get asked routinely those of you who have been to go to four town meetings for a while I think Mr. Sullivan might have to take the cake for the most at the table and we need to have better answers than either we agree or we don't agree or we can't do it or we think we can do it we need to give the communities real clear information of what are the implications and then if the communities want us to and we agree then we can focus on the educational realities of that piece but we need much more hard data than we currently have about what options exist and what are the implications both on capital and operational expenses of our district so I guess my only recommendation would be we could spell out from this one the potential consolidation of the high school and middle school because otherwise I think we could be thinking about are we using the space in the high school appropriately or the middle school it's also including potential consolidation of the two that makes total sense I agree I just want to thank you for continuing to consolidate and being more concise as we move through the evaluation process because the first year we did it with you it was kind of it was super broad and you've been listening to us and you're pairing them down and you're becoming more succinct with what you're actually trying to do and I just want to thank you for that and I'd be willing to vote on it tonight thank you very much so I also appreciate the work you put into it which I think is very good and I think one of the challenges we have I think I said this to you offline there's like a million things you could put into your priorities or goals that we could collectively put into your goals and I don't mean that sarcastically or fliply there are genuinely a lot of priorities that could be in this that could be a completely different list that would also be worth prioritizing and it also doesn't represent everything you're doing in any way for example for another tough budget year and last year we had one of the goals being in maintaining a sound ship, good leadership and focusing on the core educational mission and trying to wait to support and preserve that and that's not on this list now that doesn't mean that isn't still a goal that's critically important for you to do and I say that only because I think the challenge when you're voting on these sorts of things is when do you decide that this is okay and is either enough or right and the reality is you can spin around this thing forever I think I agree on number six that it'd be great to just, it's not about what the deliverable is I think saying student wellness, work on student wellness is probably specific enough in the description of like the topic, you know what's in the box, the question is what's the box right, I mean by the end of the year we'll do x or y whatever you think would be reasonable to put in would be probably a good idea for one and two I like them but also I like the fact that they directly correspond the things that are already in the SCPF memo that we got today and I think that demonstrates a responsiveness to those items and forgetting the issue of like we're already being responsible I don't mean that I'm just saying collaboratively we're talking to one another and it's in there and I don't know that it needs to be in here, my view specified is my view is number three meaning using broadly participatory techniques we're going to actually make substantial progress on developing a multi-year strategic plan already incorporates everything else that was in the SCTF's memo if not in specific specifics about how do you figure out where you're going on x and y numerically do we need to know more about x and will we learn it do we need to know more about y and how do we get to consensus on what are good processes to advance that objective I mean forgive me for saying this if in general those six items or some combination of those items five or six of them aren't part of a district improvement plan at the end it's not going to be successful it's not going to work right they're going to have to be echoes back to what the community is saying is important and my reason I'm saying that is because that's a way of at least from my part of acknowledging that this question of are we baking in multiple elements and do the goals for the year whether they're literally called out and said do x by May to me they are that's my sentiment anyways on it and I will punt it to my right so I as to the voting question I guess my weak preference is not to vote because I've heard some tweaks to this I think we could spend a lot of time doing little micro amendments for a long time so long as you don't feel like you're slowed down over the next six weeks because I hear a pretty general consensus of support for the themes you've advanced that's just my thought of voting a couple of specific questions the number three to vote multi-year school district improvement plans so we have two schools middle school and high school and yet one of these things is a building master planning process to see if one school might move to the next school one of the possible futures is that we have one school and so I'm wondering do you feel like that's a beneficial thing to set out have people go about the effort of doing a multi-year school plan when that school might not exist as a separate entity in it in the near term I do I would say for the three schools we have the way we're approaching it is each of them have teams of staff parent guardians who are going to participate and two of them happen to be in the same building somewhere in the high school and I think in any scenario where there'd be any consolidation in the future there'd still be some level of autonomy having visited schools I mean Frontier being an example I spent quite a bit of time up there 7 through 12 school there's a very defined middle school and a very defined high school and yes they share a building and is there connections of course and I'm not pro 7 through 12 or con but I think I can't imagine a scenario where like the 7th and 8th graders don't have a unique identity and that and I think it's also many many I don't I don't think that's happening I'm not suggesting that we would make a change that soon where it would influence her could you tell the story though that you told it recently around co-located so when I was in it's germane I promise I was in Virginia so for people in the amber school community they've heard at least the front end of the story so Ms. Richardson is the ELL coordinator and I were in Virginia visiting a district that has many dual language schools and we walked into a middle school and we spent an hour and a half there we met with the principal we met with the family outreach coordinator we got a tour of the whole school and the next school was an elementary school and it was like one was like 900 main street one was like 916 main street so I said can you walk there or do we need to drive and the person said it's through the window and the window is probably maybe two feet behind Cara and it was these co-located schools and I said how does it work they said oh it's fantastic if a custodian is out we can do coverage sub coverage the autonomous schools the connections we have they shared an auditorium so it was a little coordination but there was no blurring of which school was which school that it was two distinct schools just Ms. Richardson I felt very silly because we'd spent an hour and a half and there was a window between them it wasn't as distinctly separated as one might imagine it shows you that co-located separate schools can actually function as separate schools my other short question was on on that building master use plan process so is that this is sort of related to Cara's question is that specific just about 7th and 8th to the high school or like because when I think about building use I think of our our gold standard world class performing arts faculty and how they don't have a gold standard performing arts space and like gosh every time I walk in there I would love for that to happen someday over the rainbow if this leads to the rainbow does not lead to that rainbow but to be to answer a question more specifically it's looking at a number of different configurations so one being what would it mean for 7th and 8th grade to be at the high school would that fit would it be involve a building project how comprehensive would that building project be right those questions it also is looking at 6th grade to the middle schools maintaining two different schools but potentially expanding the enrollment of the middle school is an area that has been raised to my attention by members of the public as perhaps being the most cost effective and again I'm not advocating for any of these changes we need to study these things and have answers to questions about cost and logistics and infrastructure is what if 8th grade moved to the high school and 6th grade moved to the middle school so those are the kind of configuration kind of questions that we're considering we'll be considering but I also want to be clear that infrastructure questions facilities questions when we get that information we then have to make a choice do we engage the educational question because this is coming from a place not because we think any of these configurations is better or worse than our current scenario it's being driven by what we spent some time talking about before was we have real fiscal pressure and we have communities who are rightfully asking us is there more a more fiscally efficient way that's educationally sound to where our students are educated and I think my opinion is we need to answer that question clearly about what the financial implications are then we need to engage the larger community on does any of these things make sense if there's really cost savings to be had and we know that then we can start comparing options with that I believe at least at one point okay so now we're at the downtown retail marijuana establishment as people may recall and I think recall from a previous meeting there is I don't think I have this wrong that the circles that existed in town that prescribed areas where retail marijuana establishments could legally go left a hole a very small but a small hole in the downtown where there were then venues that could be potentially leased for marijuana establishments where the boys and girls club got their new home because when we met in June the whole downtown between the library the boys and girls club the schools of course that's logical of course that's logical of course that's logical explain this so there's a buffer area around there's some exclusion zone basically places where children congregate but Steve mentioned some change the boys and girls club they were downtown they were stuffed up there's no exclusion zone anymore well none of the point is they just moved they moved to an old dentist office down by the high school track field basically from behind Antonio's pizza the second floor it's not literally true it's figuratively true and if you look at where the buffer zones around those facilities were it previously meant that there was no eligible location in the downtown for a facility to lease and open and then now there is and so the question that we debated last spring has sort of risen again is does the school committee have a position that we wish to advance to the town manager on the select board relative to the approval and opening of marijuana establishments in the downtown is there so this is on the agenda essential well one by request but the other reason is because it's timely because there is in fact a proposal for an establishment on Baltwood Place close to where Buenos Aires is the only reason we're commenting on this is to prevent the business from operating it is on the agenda to discuss whether or not the committee would like to take a position I suppose conceptually based on your comment it is conceivable the committee could take a position in favor of opening the shop but I think the intention of bringing it on the agenda was the contrary position of seeing whether it would be interested in taking a position to not do so I'm literally describing the item I think there's someone else on the committee who might prefer to advance the argument or not just a clarifying question so what are the options though because the zoning is the zoning so when you say if we want to take action what would that action be I don't actually know the efficacy of the action so I'd be interested in hearing what the efficacy of the action would be please just to bring you up to speed on the process so basically the way that retail marijuana facility gets approved in town is that they have to go through a certain number of steps one of the steps is having a community engagement meeting public meeting, you meet with the retailers they answer your questions so that was a few weeks ago now maybe four or five weeks ago there was a few people there asking some questions and then at that point it goes to the town manager so that's where we are in the process at some point there isn't a specific date but at some point the town manager will either approve based on his understanding of the zoning what he feels is best for the town and then if there's objection after that point it goes to the zoning board of appeals which is a town board which would then hear arguments and make a final decision so we're at the point where the town manager has not yet made a decision in terms of what we want to do it's like Mr. Nakajima said it's really up to the committee I ask for this to be on the agenda and I appreciate the lateness of the hour so I'll try to be as brief as I can because I have some concerns with this like we mentioned earlier our understanding when last we left this was that downtown was completely covered by the buffer zones and when the Boys and Girls Club it left this very small spot and my concerns are basically about preparing our students in terms of education about what it's going to be like to be in a town with retail marijuana that's going to be a very popular location one of the comments from the retailers is that they expect hundreds of customers a day they understand the draw from college and so it's education and access like I'm not naive to think that there are no current high school students marijuana illegally and I'm not naive to think that access won't increase whether the location is downtown or whether it's at the outskirts of town but my concern is with the downtown so the proximity is my first concern in that we have a tradition if not a regular occurrence of our middle school and high school students going downtown and it's not the case in every town in Massachusetts where our middle school and high school is so close to downtown where it becomes a regular activity and we're one of the first adopters of retail marijuana and to be clear this isn't about concern of kids getting into the store the retailers might over bad swipe access and I'm sure the door front security will be very good we're talking about how people get access to illegal drugs today it's the second hand resale market it's college students walking out with products and selling those and I have a hard time seeing how putting a retail marijuana shop in downtown wouldn't increase the access for our students then if the retail marijuana establishments were elsewhere in town and then we talk about the product because you know I also want to be clear that this isn't like an antipot thing for me I do feel like alcohol is a much more harmful substance for adults and will continue to be than marijuana is but when we talk about pot especially our generations which are older generations I feel like we have to recalibrate our understanding a little bit and the THC percentage in marijuana products has increased dramatically and has only increased much more so in the last 10 years when retail marijuana has come on and it's a complex data point to talk about in terms of what the exact percentage has been over time but the numbers people typically talk about is the pot we grew up with in the 60s, 70s, 80s is anywhere from 2 to 4 5% THC maybe and the pot that's available now just the buds the actual marijuana buds are 25 to 30% THC and then there's other products cookies, beverages all sorts of chocolates and addables that have an even higher percentage of THC and so it's a different drug that we're talking about being introduced into the environment and another sort of exacerbating catalyst that I think about in terms of how it impacts our high school population is that we know that we have a juuling problem at the high school and if you're not familiar with juuling so it's e-cigarettes are basically a device where you can rapidly heat high-dose nicotine and you turns into a vapor that you inhale vaping and joules are a form of e-cigarettes that look like a USB flash drive that are designed to be able to use in conspicuous manner and it's very easy for students to use a juul to vape high-dose nicotine in the middle of class and without teachers noticing or going into the bathroom and it's not just an ARHS issue this is the FDC commissioner has called this an epidemic in high schools this is a problem with high schools everywhere and one of the products that the retailer sells 365 recreational marijuana are these concentrates that you can then put into these juuling devices and these concentrates are anywhere from 80 to 96% THC so compare that to what me in our experience or what we did or did not inhale in our youth of the 2-4% and it becomes a different thing so you know at the end of the day again I don't want to be naive to think that kids aren't going to get access to what they're going to get access to but I feel like right now it's all speculation about what retail pot is going to look like in our town and wouldn't it be good to have the benefit of experience to have those lessons learned that we're going to have a year from now a year from the first day that retail pot opens this is what we would have taught our kids in middle school and in high school this is what the program is going to look like this is what law enforcement would have done differently in order to minimize sale in the retail market so again I don't want to be anti pot but I do have concerns and you know my desire would be for the town to pause at this central location until we have more experience with it in our town I'm just reluctant to place additional restrictions on the legitimate business beyond the current law I just have a problem with that you're saying that if a business operates totally legally they should be excluded from going to business because of second hand problems I'm not going to debate that back you're not literally asking I'm asking what is your position on vaping should we come up with a position against vaping too okay I guess that is a question you know what I mean like we don't normally do cross debate I'm sorry I am glad that you brought the question up because a problem I think with illegal marijuana it's been stigmatized and it's been frankly it's also been used by law enforcement continues to be used by law enforcement particularly at the national and state levels for incarcerating people of color and it's been used as a precursor for other sentences and guidelines recreational marijuana is legal in Massachusetts now and it's a lot of land and I support it in town I think what we have to do and this is why it's a zoning question and this is why I would like us to think about whether we express our concerns about a zoning decision is where ought this to be in our town the very first year there's no data on how this is going to look right and so like there are half a dozen other retail shops already proposed there's going to be lots of retail marijuana in Amherst, lots of places to get it so access for adults is not going to be an issue do we want to put it right in between Antonio's and Bueno where we know our kids go we know our kids go independently we know we're happy our kids go independently and is that something that we want to do right now okay I guess I'm disappointed that this new opening hence arisen because of the movement of the Boys and Girls Club I think I share some reluctance about taking a stance against it but I wonder if there could be a way of taking a stance for more proactively engaging with the organization to make a plan around the potential for younger people to be around the establishment I guess I'm just thinking like there's on the main street there's a liquor store and I don't think they're that different you're supposed to be in either location I'm also really hopeful that this will potentially be a source of revenue for our town and in turn for our schools and if potentially I mean that's the silver lining I'm trying to see the establishment arising and so maybe to try to work with them maybe rather than against them or find a especially if we can't get agreement on the committee to take a stance against the establishment being located in that spot then maybe we could just try to be proactive and thinking through and making sure they're thinking about this issue having grown up in this town then marijuana has been readily available throughout the entire time I've lived here this may increase it a little bit but I'm not sure it's actually going to be such a substantial increase that we're going to see it having a really big change I mean marijuana is readily available prior to any of this change in law for our high schoolers and middle schoolers unfortunately so what I'd like to do is move through the committee for any other additional comments and then obviously the superintendent has any comment and then stop basically only because it's a discussion and it's 10-0-5 so I can run through the committee I guess I'll start with you since you put a lot already I think it's a bad thing I also hope for the retail revenue I think it's a little overstated and rose colored glasses in terms of the impacts it's going to have on our financial situation I do think it is different my concern is different than alcohol even though I do think alcohol is more harmful to youth is that because of the concealability and the high potency it's going to be really easy for a student to bring in high concentration THC into the high school and to use it and as well as cookies and beverages and that kind of stuff is not available in Amherst today and I think there will be lessons learned about what we would like to empower our students with our youngest students in middle school and high school about what to expect and the decisions that they should make and I think there are lessons learned about how law enforcement is going to want to manage outside in the greater zone it's not just about right outside the doorway you know it's about the stream of students leaving and partying downtown and where do you pick that up and do you want that concentrated on university drive do you want to concentrate on downtown and I just I don't see a lot of downside in asking for a pause I'm not even saying you know don't have a retail pot shop in downtown I'm saying let's just pause let's have some experience with it in town so that we can make a more informed decision about our education and our regulation approach I'm with Miss Spitzer on this really I think earlier when I asked the question on the wellness goal I didn't know Dr. Morse knows this I keep every opportunity I get seemingly I hammer the nail on what are we doing to plan as a district to more holistically engage around issues of wellness but in particular with the legalization of marijuana how do we how do we engage in a really affirmative and positive way and I think but to me I said the same thing that we still record but I said the same thing last spring that I actually view issues of wellness to be a rate along sort of a spectrum of issues and behaviors that people can get into and the question of how one is supported, taught as well as counseled and supported and engaged with to get on a track in which they're dealing with either behaviors colleagues or substances in an affirmative way is is challenging but I think that it's really necessary to do and I think it's necessary anyway I mean Mr. Demlin's brought up the question as you did earlier about our interaction with electronic devices including obviously purely kids and how it affects them neurologically and otherwise that's really true and so to me I would love to see the school committee be proactive and the schools be proactive on engaging in being a real leader in the state around wellness because I think the issues that are raised around vaping and and how that was already currently an issue and I know there's been programming in the schools around it but also that it's going to be compounded by the availability of and it's challenging right because if it's if it's legal and it's sold legally but also the message is we have certification labs now so this is a safe liquid cannabis cannabinoid or whatever it is that sends a bad message to someone youth or otherwise that this is somehow a certified safe liquid and so engaging really proactively and really creatively is really important and it's important on the townside too I guess this is where I'd have a mild disagreement that I think that I think the any increased ready availability of legal marijuana products including in the downtown is already going to be accelerated regardless of whether there's a shop in the downtown I don't think the presence of the the presence of the shop may create more of a visual appeal around the idea of it's legal and it's there and it puts a front in mind I think in terms of accessibility including accessibility in the alleyways downtown I think that's going to increase anyway and it's going to be present anyway and so the question of how the town is going to engage in that there is a public health or law enforcement action and how we do that with the shops that open up and others becomes a really critical question it's important that it be done well and done right and my point on that is that it's a different approach to getting at actually the same point which is this needs to be taken seriously it needs to be taken creatively and proactively and two years ago one of my biggest disappointments sitting around with people who are involved in public health around town was there were a number of people I know who were looking ahead at the ballot initiative had their head in the sand like I don't want to deal with this until it passes because I'm kind of hoping it'll just go away and my message at the time being was oh my god you've got to know your town this is going to pass overwhelmingly and according to the polling it's going to pass everywhere else in the state which means don't stick your head in the sand think creatively now about what needs to be done to have a healthy supportive but also legally enforceable environment stop there I'm sorry I'm going to pass the side of the table has said what I would say I think I'm sort of in a middle ground because I share the sentiment that we have zoning laws it's legal and I don't want to want to be in a position of asking our town leaders to be making a decision that's sort of contrary to what might be already zoned and perfectly okay so puts them in an awkward position and so we'd sort of be out on a limb asking them to do something that might not be perceived as enforcing the laws that said I do think I'd go back and that's why I asked the question about sort of what action could we be asking them to do and I think the zoning when it passed because I was on the town meeting when it came up and I think the zoning the maps at that time showed that there was not going to be anything in downtown and I think that part is critical and I think that probably weighed in on as people were evaluating as the town meeting was evaluating whether this zoning what made sense and so looking at that whole downtown and there was you know there's not any spots where this could happen and now it's sort of the shells have moved and now there is a little hole and so I'm not sure if the intent had been to in thinking of those zoning I don't know but I think that that going and sort of talking about the pause in terms of looking at the zoning might be something to talk about versus going after one business person who wants to open up a shop that is right now perfectly okay and within bounds so I know that's sort of a wishy washy statement but I do sort of think that there was a perception that in passing the zoning and looking at the zoning that we were saying we didn't want retail establishments in downtown and so I would say that could be the the angle that I would be comfortable sort of signing on to we're done we're done I don't really have anything to add I think it's yeah thank you it's everyone said it but I don't think it's at this point okay you ready at this hour no I'll be very brief so I think to the chair's point our focus at the school level hasn't been about the wellness piece right so it's wherever the shops are and I'm not trying to minimize I think Mr. Deming raised some good points you know I would say this community access is more readily fulfilled than in some other communities but we expect that to continue and what's unclear to us is is the specter of marijuana being something that's illegal even though it's still be illegal for students in our high school how does that affect the public perception of of students of children about the use of marijuana there's plenty of other things that one can't do until their certain age but we're going from something that legally one can do it all the exception of some medical marijuana or you know some not recreational marijuana I'll just put it that way to something that's now been legalized and from official bodies of government saying yes this is something people can do it's one of the things that we are actively in conversations about is how do we work with children about that change and I'm not just talking necessarily about high school students that is most of our conversation or even middle school students I know it's a regional meeting but I think it's worth saying that we're thinking about at the elementary level what does that look like how does it change their perception of marijuana as being a substance that some adults may legally use but is illegal for kids and how do we get pro-social thinking about that when students are younger than we typically have talked about it because I think the change will get students will see marijuana stores whether it's on University Drive or in other communities and I don't know about Leverage, Sheetsbury and Pelham at this point but that's a really different mental schema for young children and so we are actively talking about this K-12 and that's where our focus will remain be okay well I think I heard a mixed story from the committee a couple of references that could potentially be supportive of a motion or action of the committee and numbers that were not yes where are we going with this when we have to make a decision on whether are we moving do you know what I mean? obviously one of the questions that only we know is whether remember 20th would be too late whether it's likely the town manager make a decision before then so I think that's when it would have to come up for consideration or request for a special session of the regional school committee to meet and you know you know I I guess I'm not if the committee wants a motion put forward then we can request drafting of a motion to put forward I'm actually not hearing that from the committee so I'm not hearing the majority of the committee saying that and so if a member of the committee or members of the committee were interested in putting forward a motion they could do so we put it on the agenda next meeting it would be published in advance of that meeting and we'd have a discussion at that time and then take a vote as we would have anything else that's what we do it and with that I'm moving on upcoming school committee planning upcoming topics we're really going to talk about something as far away as November 20th we need to so the topics I have I think we've invited I think they'll be able to do it our MSAN students martyrs for achievement network students who are taking the course they're traveling Boston so no flights this year which is great, easy to a conference their conference is not this week but it's the end of next week I believe might be the week after I think it's the end of next week excuse me to invite them historically going way back students usually came and talked about what they learned at their conference and their action plan we'd like to get back to them coming to school committee to share that it's always meaningful experience to interact with students and talk about what they're working on we have budget guidance which is different than what we talked about tonight budget guidance I would like to come back to regional assessment that conversation we had and get to perhaps the next steps more clearly final superintendent superintendent goals vote I've got HR office update diversity hiring professional development math curriculum update another one and something that may want to talk about given a prior conversation literally this evening with Amherst media is location of meetings so that's a little in our meetings? yes so I don't want to it's not going to get fixed or something so I don't want to it's not on the agenda so I'm trying to be cautious about not leading forget no no no for strike strike my question Mr. Minino the Mr. Domenico a constituent of mine have asked me to raise a topic of homework could there be a study similar to the elementary school homework policy for middle school and high school could that be a possibility Mr. Domenico I don't know if we should add it to this I probably won't be here I'll do the 16th so if I am here I'll be who knows but I'm hearing that the marijuana conversation is going to be it's going to be the first time we'll be seeing the draft yeah that's great anything else I don't know if we should add it to this the marijuana conversation is one that even if we're not going to be passing some sort of resolution or sorry motion is one that given what I just suggested that we were proactive about it I'm wondering if maybe in the upcoming weeks or months we should put something on there and if we should consider inviting I mean Jeff Kravitz has been the most kind of from the economic I'm not sure he's like who would we want to engage with would there be people from public health just thinking about how to start thinking about planning for this change and maybe it doesn't need to be on the agenda may not have to be somewhere down the road maybe one in December or one after that I think that's awesome because I mean I've setting aside the issue of doing a motion or resolution or anything else you know this I've been radiating nervousness that our committee is not taking enough proactive measures forget the committee we can vote on anything we want right? in a certain sense who cares I'm worried that our school district isn't taking enough proactive steps and also that when we get into budgeting like before we have a new town council I want us to already be down the road on a plan of saying what we would do with resources from the town in the upcoming budget I'm sorry to go off on this but I genuinely want us to view ourselves is what would it mean for us to be a western class maybe even national leading and it's not the issue of being national leading itself what I'm saying is, wait a Washington and Colorado get California there aren't a lot of places doing this I doubt the state of practice is that advanced in trying to figure out what do we do to advance a safety and wellness conversation with kids around legal recreational marijuana but within the spectrum of the other drugs or behaviors right how do we do that right and what more could we be doing we should be really working on that and I feel like maybe you are but I feel like, I don't see it I don't feel like we are so I'd love to put that on agenda not that I wouldn't have the futures to ask anyways but I don't express my enthusiasm putting on the agenda weren't that enthusiastic about studying homework I'm no one likes talking about homework it's painful it's the late hour no that's great it's a wonderful topic good, you got it? is there a move to adjourn? I move to adjourn is there a second? all those in favor? adjourn, thank you Amherst Media