 We went into the finals, semi-finals with 21, and then a different 21, the second night. So if this were a baseball team, I guess you would say that the bench is very deep. Yes. So tonight we have gathered everybody that we can muster to come here. And we're going to perform a piece for you called My Girls. And it is by a female composer named Gwyneth Walker. And thank you, Naden. Thank you, Harry Camp singers. Congratulations, and thank you all. Any questions about the agenda or any additions anybody wants to suggest? I'd like to welcome Michael the chair as a new member of the regional school committee. Welcome Michael. Thank you. Okay, approval of minutes of April 24th. Any comments on those? Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Opposed? Okay, great. Announcements in public comment. Anyone wish to make a public comment? Could please come forward and state their name and try to keep it to three minutes and just remind other committee that we don't respond to public comments. Can I see hands of Melissa? Good evening. That was really amazing. It's like surrounded by sounds. So I'm here to talk with you tonight. I did try to email you our statement before and actually had an opportunity to email with Maria and Joanne Smith too and heard back a little bit on this. So I'll read to you what I prepared and then I've edited a few things and just added a few comments as well. So for some of you that don't know me yet, welcome. I'm the co-president for the special education parent advisory council. And I'm here tonight to address recent concerns brought to me by several parents of the special education students in the Ames program that's currently housed at Wildwood Elementary School. Some of you might be knowledgeable about the program and others might not. So I've taken the description from the site, from the Amherst website to read to you so you'll know a little bit about what the program is. So the academic individualized mainstream support program is a specialized program for students who have high functioning autism spectrum disorder or other neurological conditions with pragmatic language, executive functioning, socialization, and sensory regulation difficulties. These programs offer individualized, comprehensive, and intensive intervention to address these areas. And the district currently has the Ames program at Wildwood and Amherst Regional Middle School and the Regional High School. So our concern here is with the recent decision to move the Ames program from Wildwood to Fort River. And so I'll read to you a statement that was prepared by these parents and by several groups of parents. These students are a vulnerable population and should be treated with equal respect as other students in the district. In April, a notification was issued to these parents of these students that the program will be moved to Fort River and this decision was made without consultation with the children's families, CPAC, or to the best of our knowledge, the school committee. Since forwarding this to Maria today, I did hear, like I mentioned, from Joanne Smith and also the program coordinator for Ames and both indicated that they provided outreach to the families directly and worked on a case-by-case basis with these families. But despite this, there's still some concerns that are coming up. So without the opportunity to discuss this at a community level, the district has provided a solution to the overcrowded schools resulting from the redistricting in part by moving this program out of their present environment school into another. And that's where we stepped in because our concern is for this special population. Children in this program with the Autism Spectrum Disorders struggle in social relationships, transitions, and academic performance. On the higher range of the Autism Spectrum currently served at Ames, they are more likely than their peers to be socially isolated, socially ostracized, and find it difficult to make new friends. For our children on the spectrum served at Ames, the risks are greater and may result with a greater incidence of depression or attended suicide as a result of these social challenges. A mid-elementary school move is challenging for all children and reduces academic, social, and mental health outcomes. Children in the Ames program at Wildwood have struggled hard to find a sense of security and community at Wildwood. And they're now being told that they're, aside from their difference, that they must now move. For these children with this disability who may have it, and it might be subtle for them, the move taken a year, taken in a year and no one else is moving, discloses their disability without their consent. And it's disconcerting that the program based on inclusion would do so clearly to a segment of these children. In addition, Fort River is home to Building Blocks program for children with additional struggles. And this has raised another set of concerns. Some parents of children with these needs are worried that their classroom teachers will be overwhelmed by the inclusion of the two programs. As recent school committee decisions have led to overcrowding at Wildwood, we would ask that you please look very closely at the decision and reconsider a move that has immense potential to impact our vulnerable student population. So, I'd also like to point out two things in closing, that this is posted on our blog and we welcome comment and public comment on it. And we would really appreciate feedback from all. And again, I'll mention that they have reached out and indicated the John Smith and Brent Nielsen, the program coordinator, that they're also available for additional comments and welcome feedback. And lastly, CPAC would ask that an open meeting with a neutral moderator be offered to the parents as a group, potentially so that they can express their feelings in a neutral environment. And I think that would be a good opportunity for these parents to be able to voice their concerns outside of an IEP meeting where they might be experiencing stressors and that type of thing. So, thank you very much for your time. Thank you, Melissa. Vince O'Connor, Amherst. And one I just in reference to the previous comments as a sibling of three, two brothers and a sister who had special needs issues and still do. I would hope that the school committee would schedule a discussion on this matter prior to taking off for the summer so that you could have some input into the decision to decide whether this is a move that you would approve of as a school committee. But my concern and it used to have a different process that people could not speak of a matter that was on your agenda at the open session and would have to wait for that agenda item to come up and then would be recognized after the administrators and the school committee had a chance to speak. And right now, of course, you have a policy that's different from that and I would ask you to reconsider that. But with respect to an item on your agenda tonight, which is the later start, I would just like to bring to the school committee's attention a matter involving athletics. When the students who I've been involved with for the last six years at the regional school level, three of whom are graduating this year, first came into the school district, particularly into the high school. There was a policy of handing out academic achievement awards for students who had maintained a B average or higher by the athletic director who used to review the transcripts of all students and who, having done this, you know, going through a year of this with the former athletic director, she said that from her evaluation of transcripts to be able to make these awards, which are sponsored by the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association, it was her view that the student athletes at Amherst Regional were achieving a grade point averages one quarter to one half by the trimester, one quarter to one half above that of the other students in Amherst Regional. So given that a later start might have a significant impact on a matter that I believe where there is differential in academic achievement, it's simply because, as I've observed, students who involve themselves in athletics have to acquire the self-discipline and time management and all the other skills that are necessary to perform in athletics as well as keep up with homework and fulfill all the responsibilities that they have both perhaps for work and at home. So I think that that would be, I think, an important issue to resolve. I know that you have computerized records, and I certainly would hope that one of the things that the committee could consider before it makes a decision is, these are records of at least a few years of trimester by trimester records showing what the grade point averages are of those who participate in athletics in a given trimester and those who do not. And if you determine that there is a significant difference, then I think you might want to think differently about this later start issue. The other thing is that I, in terms of health issues, you manage a school district that, or make policy for a school district that has one mandatory physical education class for each student for four years. Not trimester per year, but one for every four years. You come here, you take one when you're a ninth grader, and that is it. There are some electives, but that's it. And I think that if you were talking about health, mental acuity, long-term, lifetime stuff, I think that the school committee needs to focus on how to involve more students in physical activity, not necessarily in inter-scholastic athletics, but in physical activity, because I think there are significant lifetime and short-term benefits to that. Anyway, thank you very much. Thanks, Vince. Anyone else? Really quick. My name's Birdie. I'm from Amherst. I have a daughter who had a situation in a classroom where the teacher has lost his job. I don't want to just talk about Amherst, but I'm concerned about district-wide professional development that is available for general ed teachers for special ed needs with management issues, classroom management, and discipline. So I don't know if there's a place that I can go about what you offer for teachers or what are the regulations for that, or if it comes to me. Okay. Yeah, please. Please do. Okay. Yes. First of all, I'd like to commend Mark Jackson and his administration crew and teacher crew who made an incredibly well-informed presentation to the Recreation Team on Sunday afternoon. I would also request of Mark that he convey, at least my appreciation and gratitude to the four students who presented as well. I think it's really important that we publicly recognize their poise, their self-confidence, and their eloquence in expressing their experiences here at the high school. If you could do that, Mark, I think we'd probably all appreciate that. Secondly, and I'll try to make this very, very quick, there was an article in The New York Times yesterday regarding Pearson's involvement, Pearson's an educational, international educational company with bringing about a new teacher licensure test. I had an email exchange with a professor at UMass School of Education who was involved, who was mentioned in the article, and who is involved in this debate, ongoing conflict with Pearson. It's a very complicated situation. I would encourage you to see if you can find the article in yesterday's New York Times. The reason why I'm bringing it up tonight is that Pearson made a request to videotape student teachers here at the high school, and my understanding that they were refused. I just simply want to know if there's any way that the school committee can support the administration's position on that, either through a resolution, through a re-examination of our policy, or whatever the administration thinks appropriate. Pearson is working very hard to, they're a for-profit company. They're working very hard, in my opinion, to what I would call commodify public education. They're charging these student teachers $300 a whack just to take the test. So if you don't pass it, it's $300 every time you take it. And I just think that that's the wrong way to go. I applaud the administration for not allowing them to come in, but I'm not sure if that's going to be able to stick and if there's anything we can do. I'd like to at least have that conversation. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments? Okay, moving along to Superintendent's Update. So we're going to, we have two wonderful events with students tonight. So I'm going to ask Jeff's daughter to come up right away with his students to talk a little bit about the project, the memory project, the project memory that they've been involved with. And I know they're going to show us something here, too. So thank you for coming, Jeff. Thank you. I'd like to thank Maria for inviting me, Kim Stender, for facilitating that. So I'd rather the students talk. Yes. There's three here. We had 17, 16. Thanks, Sarah. 16 students total involved in this. So they're very busy people and we didn't want to bring out 16 for you. But their names will be part of this PowerPoint projection that I'll run in a moment. So last spring, Sarah Waldman, who's here tonight, came to me and brought to my attention the existence of this charitable group, the Memory Project, which is run out of Wisconsin by a man named Ben Schumacher. And told me all about it and asked if we could start a club. And I had a pretty full plate. So I said, well, I'll look into it. And then after looking into it, I really couldn't say no. And you'll see why in a second. Because I think it's just a fantastic idea that, again, this guy in Wisconsin started up. And so we gathered in the fall and these 16 students made a huge commitment and really spent tons of time doing their very best to create portraits for orphans in the developing world. And so we were assigned certain pictures mailed to us from Wisconsin. There was fundraising involved. We did amazing bake sales to pay our fee to get the pictures delivered in the hands of the subjects. And I guess just to very briefly generalize what the idea behind the project is is creating a portrait so that a child can have a picture of themselves as a youth. These aren't kids with loads of digital pictures of themselves so that when they age, they have this painted portrait, which still has kind of a value greater than a photograph in many cultures and situations. So I know they're really prized and these guys are going to talk about what the experience was like a little bit. Hi, I'm Sarah Waltman. I'm a junior. So for me, I learned about this project from my school in Harvard, Massachusetts. I moved here at the beginning of my sophomore year. And I had seen other students participate and all of them were really, really attached to these kids, which they had never met before. And I didn't quite understand that. So that was one of the reasons why I really wanted to start it. And after going through this experience, it's been absolutely incredible. You'll see the photos up on the projection, but just really quickly, this is my little girl, Jessica. This is the portrait that I painted of her. And this is her reaction photo. And any time I look at it, I just get so happy because I spend these hours and hours on this portrait and suddenly you see her face that, you know, this is hers. And it was all worth it because this little girl now has something that has such meaning to her. And she has a memory that will last her lifetime. So for me, it's just been something really priceless. Hi, my name is Mae Raphson. I learned about the memory project from Sarah Waltman. I'm also a junior. Well, I think coming into the project, I didn't really understand what it was. And then having, after a while, I kind of really got to know my kid, like what Sarah had been saying. And I think it's very hard to have a very touching experience in your life. Those don't really come that often. I think getting a portrait of themselves painted is one of those moments that you don't really come by often. So I think that was a really great experience. And I think it was also really nice for me to be able to know that I made a difference in a child's life and stuff, rather than just kind of sitting around. Overall, just like a really good learning experience for me. And my girl is Michelle. That's great. And this is my portrait. That's great. Yeah, I think I'll definitely be doing it next year if we do it again, because it was really fun for me and it was nice to come after school and do it every day. Thanks. Hello, my name is Zouay. Zouay Adams. And I'm also a junior, and I heard it from Sarah Waldman again. And my girl was Valentina. And the first time I saw her, oh my gosh, I just liked... Oh, sorry. Okay. This is my first time doing this. You're doing fine. So, I just fell in love with her. And for me, the fact that she was an orphan, because I'm adopted also, I think it was really important and made me reflect on what it would have been like to have a photo and a portrait made from a teenager who actually took the time to paint me. I don't know. I just think that's really a change, I guess. And I think... I don't know. I think it's really cool that one photo has so much power and I think that a lot of the people I know, at least, they just take photos and photos and photos and I think the time ruins the power and beauty of it, I guess. And just by learning how to do these... just by painting them, I guess. Because I've never done this before, either. I guess I just learned so much. I don't really know. I think it's also really good for them to realize that they have, like... I don't know, they're worth something. You know, that they have people that don't really do care about them. So, it was a really amazing experience. Okay, so I just wanted to... Go. Go. Mike, you see Jerry takes the mask to work from anywhere? Magic? Okay. So, if you could... It's on the TV as well as the screen here. I just wanted to make sure you could see all the work that all the students did. So, the names of the student is there. Zoe Tesler. And you can see these were the portraits that were delivered in March. So, we'll just go through them. Kids learned a lot about painting as a way I can tell you how many hours and hours of doing a realistic portrait with acrylic on paper. They do many, many portraits every year. So, we are going to keep the club going and it could be any country in the world really is where the memory project goes. So, there's the ways. Yeah. Definitely captured the hair on that one. The students also wrote letters that talked about what it was like to look at the picture for all this time. So, it was really a great experience I know for all of them. When we got the pictures and I showed them this very... They hadn't seen the pictures yet and they all saw it. We had a lot of tears and stuff. So, it was pretty moving experience. I think that's it. So, thanks again. I'll take a little attitude. I want to use Jeff's work with the memory project to make a larger statement about our art department. So, the memory project took place as was noted outside of school. And so, the other... the pattern to the art department is the other kinds of projects that complement Jeff's work are the empty bowls we made the art department made the ceramics department made 100 empty bowls to participate in the survival centers fundraiser in January. And the third thing I would note is that this is the fourth year in a row at the Naples Center on Main Street on their own time after school they do an end of the year culminating art project which if you haven't seen it's a don't miss kind of thing and it goes to the testimony it testifies to the depth of their commitment to cultivating the artist in the building and it's all complimentary of the in-school work so Jeff is not alone in his work. Thanks. Thank you. Can I just say one thing this is the first time I've been brought to the verge of tears for good reasons in a school meeting. I really want to thank you I want to thank Sarah for bringing it to our school and I want to thank Jeff for taking it on given I know how much teachers take on and I want to thank Mae and Zoe for coming and sharing it with us it's really beautiful work all of you are very talented too. Really? So now I have to follow this. It is spectacular and it's nice to remind us again I know it takes some time for our meeting to have students come but it really reminds us of why we're here so I'd love to get back to having more student presence. Zoe is always here with us which we greatly appreciate but have people come and talk about what you're doing in the schools is really meaningful. So you know I'm going to just be very brief because people can read this and it can go online. I just I did want to mention that we mentioned I think at our last meeting that we have an Amherst College intern for the summer who's working with us 30 hours. We're also very fortunate that Dr. Carol Soles from UMass Civic Engagement Service Learning has secured a VISTA intern for us as well for the months of July and August. So again the projects that we have going on in our schools and our central office they're going to help us with. We're really happy to be stepping up and supporting us. I also just briefly wanted to mention we're really happy to announce that we have and this is the old one but the new alumni directory will be coming out in July. Kim Stender has been doing a substantial amount of work to work with the organization that updates this for us free of charge. We have a number of alumni who've responded to update their information and over 700 purchases of this book and what this will do is it's going to kick off for us an alumni giving campaign. We're partnering with Amherst Education Foundation and we plan to kick off in the fall an alumni giving with a music and art opportunity for our community to come together. A free experience for people to come and hear some performances which we are in the beginning of planning. So we're going to kick off our year of giving from our alumni to bring back to our schools. So more to come on that but I just wanted to give you a brief update. Again, I just want to recognize that the high school is want to recognize them for their performing random acts of kindness and contributing to the positive school climate. This is I think the third year of this being acknowledged in the schools where people are acknowledged for doing positive contributions to the school and to each other. And then I guess this random acts of kindness there's a recognition grant so when people are nominated they're able to be recognized to this grant and I don't know exactly what they get at the end of this grant but I'm sure it is something spectacular from the raffle. So we thank them for their efforts. Also the ultimate frisbee which I'm sure lots of people saw have been chosen to represent the United States and the national team and they're going to be going to Dublin, Ireland and August which is impressive and we have Zoe Friedman Coleman Danny Ahn and Angela Zoo, I believe and we congratulate them on this honor. So Kip already mentioned the ask so again I thank people who were able to come and we're still in it. I think we have one more day of our visiting team and we'll look forward to hearing some feedback about our high school shortly. I'm going to go down to there are a couple of things that I will just mention. Charlotte's Web at the middle school was spectacular and I want to personally thank Sarah Wilson who I think single-handedly pulled this off and I don't know how you do that with a bunch of spectacularly enthusiastic middle schoolers but she did and it was an impressive event and I also want to mention that we had some middle school students who participated in a kid wind challenge at the Science and Sustainability Festival that happened at GCC and Peter Hadlicka and Michael Kamlaurs I believe created a science project which was featured and it was a mini Greenstream RV bus powered by hydrogen fuel cell, solar power and recycled rain water. Again, huge acknowledgement of our amazing kids and our amazing students and at that moment I will stop talking about this so we can move on. So great updates today. Okay let's move on to the fiscal year 12 third quarter budget update. I thought it would be great to move this up in the agenda but I'm not so sure. It's tough to follow on. Does everybody have a copy? Do we need a copy? So I'm assuming you all read this interesting document so I'm not going to belabor it. Essentially we're right on target we're pretty much where we said we were last quarter report we are still looking at about $350,000 plus move into E&D which we've been planning for since December in the first quarter report we talked about that. So we are right on track. If you have any questions I'll be happy to answer them but otherwise I guess we'll belabor it. There's no drama here. No questions. I like it. Can I jump in again and I apologize. I did announce this at our last meeting but there's a new member this time so I wanted to make sure to say again our first annual African-American achievement night is this Friday 6.30 to 8.30 students will be acknowledged for their achievements in a wide range of areas, academics, athletics extracurricular community outreach so members of the school committee are invited to attend and then we also have our annual Latino achievement night which is Friday May 18th and that's in the middle school auditorium again 6.30 to 8.30 Latino achievement night has been a spectacular event and I can imagine the first annual African-American achievement night please attend if you can so I didn't want to miss that point again thank you. Moving on to later start time follow up So this was really just an opportunity for I think people to hear a bit of follow up there were some questions that were posed which we sent the information to you and would be happy to reference any of that. We have Mike is here again we have Rich here and Mark here for their specific questions or follow up I know Michael you've been following this so you're in the conversations I think solidly enough but we also wanted to have enough opportunity for community members to send information to school committee if necessary so I think this is your conversation to be had unless there are specific things you'd like me to reference because again I think we're hoping for a vote in two weeks which is the 20 second. I have questions thanks for pulling this additional information together so my questions are kind of along the lines of what Vince was talking about the implications for athletics and you know I know we're by shifting the start time we hopefully be greatly reducing the stress on kids early on in the day but you know the goal is really to kind of improve all student outcomes and if we're just shifting it to later on in the night I'm not sure whether we're really accomplishing that so I really want to get some details on what that later in the day looks like for our students who are also athletes which I understand is about a third of our students so I'm curious so it looks like it looks to me if we are following kind of the current way of our schedule that athletic practices would start at 4.30 and so my questions are is that true that athletic practices would start at 4.30 if so what time would they end is there any discussion about putting a cap on the time that coaches are allowed for practice to get kids home earlier and if in fact those times are correct what are going to be the times for games meets matches whether they're home or away and if the home matches are significantly later than they are now have the other ADs within the league been talked to has this have come to agreement on this or is the idea that they in fact even home ones would be earlier as well as away ones so kids would be released from school earlier for any competition so those are my main questions and I will say it was interesting in the material I looked at all the information on the website for the Sharon school they shifted to a later start time it was a small shift it was like less than half an hour so they now started 8.05 but they really did a pretty phenomenal job and really laid out all the details which I think what you're hoping to do in this coming year to give all those details to us but I'm kind of struggling with what I'm voting on if I don't actually know those details ahead of time so those are the kinds of questions I have oh the other questions morning when will the school open when will the library open when will you know people be here to provide support to students those kinds of questions will you tackle anything now or are we writing I guess shortly after we met last time Debbie sent out a request for a request for information that seemed to address Debbie Gould and I responded in a way that kept the same math in place because one thing I would be unwilling to do is if we did this I wouldn't want to stipulate that somehow the kinds of after-school supports that are both contractual and then nail the things that we do that would somehow be sacrificed so let me just review that publicly so currently teachers contractually are in their classrooms 40 minutes past this missile so that's 2.20 to 4.00 so if we've dismissed at 3.15 under the flip and move I would still want to insist that teachers are in their classrooms for 40 minutes right so we're to 5.04 and then as it currently exists in the high school when kids need to dress in order to compete for practice for a game there's another 15 minutes before a kid can be expected to be on the field right so now we're at 4.10 as the earliest that a practice could begin so that's under the current model if we just rotated everything forward and kept the same length practice begins at 4.10 so during the winter when we're all inside light comes from here in the fall when it's soccer and we get on into the into the later fall and light diminishes that's a challenge we need to figure out so the other thing that's come on I just want to stipulate that I can't imagine compromising on that kind of basic framework in fact I would think that's one thing that we want to stipulate that we would want to maintain that kind of structure so subsequent to that after the articles were in the paper we've heard from coaches that said I'm going to be getting home at 7.30 at night and I'm certainly mindful of that so there's that challenge scheduling contests with other districts who don't have a late start date is equally a challenge so the other thing that's kind of surfaced is that I heard from several faculty that it would be fair to think of the morning as a potential one practice time if that made sense it would also be that there's some kind of arrangement where they after school support framework could get shifted to the morning kids who wanted additional support they could come early so there would be contractual things with that so those are and I think this is the heart of your concern is those are things that need to be worked out but the essential thing I want to say is that I wouldn't I can't imagine a scenario where we would compromise on having those basic structures that we're concerned a second meeting here we didn't have the elementary school principals in the first meeting here we are in the second there's still no elementary principals why is that? do you feel that that input is not as vital as the secondary principals input? the elementary principals have been in the conversation since the start from then weighed in on what they preferred in terms of a switch time and they were much more comfortable with this model than moving a half an hour later so they were in from the beginning and could come and talk about the elementary but it really was shifting the question of whether to shift the later start time to the secondary was the charge of the regional committee there's a secondary effect on the elementary that's but it wasn't the primary group that was deciding whether there was a benefit because there isn't necessarily a benefit or a detriment to based on the research the elementary students it was more of a logistical how would we work it out when if a decision were made to move later start so that's where although if the committee and Amherst would like to hear from the Amherst principals more than happy to have them come to the next meeting here also from the staff in the elementary schools it would be great to have them survey my concern they were originally yes yes so we have that as well Michael I'm unconcerned I guess since I'm new to the committee I have to share both where I'm coming from personally with Sheetsbury Chris might have shared that we had a forum that was joined Sheetsbury Leverett a bunch of months ago there was a combination of elementary and secondary parents and what the Sheetsbury school committee did was endorse the slip and move and I think there was a general sense that if we corresponded for the year plus an era that we would have time to figure out some of the details but from the elementary perspective there was support that we'd figure it out and I think it's relevant only because the logistics are harder in Sheetsbury and Leverett just by distance and you know I think just in response to some of the details I'm actually very excited about it I find that the inertia around this issue is huge and that you know there's just so many concerns and what ifs that it just draws back to the status quo that you guys are going to do diligence about figuring out the details but you can only go so far until you know it's a reality and it's really complex because if it wasn't really complex it would never happen this is why it's such a big issue so I appreciate I think Mark what you're saying which is that there's some values put in place and it is a bucket this is the value we're going to maintain here, here and here and then below that we'll get details so if you guys commit to that I think then you've got some time to figure out the details oh Rob just getting back to the sports scheduling scheduling competitions with other districts who don't have a later start time and or practice do we have a good feel of how Holyoke does that so Holyoke didn't shift theirs by quite as much as we did I believe I don't know if anybody has the exact I think it was a half an hour shift but they originally had started at 7 I believe I think they moved to 730 so they've basically shifted most of their their competitions from 4 to 430 that are the ones after school and I think I get the sense that for the most part it's worked for them at times to start at 430 especially early in the spring and later in the fall when you start running into issues of light and some schools have artificial light that allows them to go further on into the evenings and some schools don't so there are so many variables within this and I appreciate you seeing that that it's hard to figure them all out ahead of time to start to get into deciding whether this is something we're going to do or not but I know there have been challenges for Holyoke but they're also still competing in all the same sports that they were before but it is a little different in terms of the time that's not quite as far on in the day Annie in one of the emails we received a person from the liver had sent in about Bellingham school I think it was where they have a flexible schedule where students can take public transportation to school at one time and then take the buses at like the still 745 but I like the fact that this flexibility and what you're talking about that there could be academic support in the mornings for teachers and students who do perform better in the morning that there may be some kind of flexibility to work that out or for students who want to be able to do afternoon activities earlier to maybe do an online course or a morning course that there be some flexibility that if they can get themselves to school they can do that and know if we can do bus passes or things so Holyoke starts at 8.15 that was the official word I just want to say in terms of the after school sports are less of an issue at the middle school we will run all our same sports and we just don't do as many hours in terms of things so it'll be I think much easier for us to work it out the in terms of the after school I think reiterating what Mark said so the default for the middle school will be everything pushes an hour and a half and then if we're starting at 9 o'clock that will open up opportunities so we have some situations where we have teachers, tutors, things like that working with kids past the contractual time so we put funding towards it and all those different things so with those types of opportunities we can look at flexing and having some opportunities at the beginning of the day of course we will run into a transportation issue at that point the reality of it is you wouldn't have an additional run early in the day but then maybe public transportation and things like that would give just another opportunity I guess I want to, I agree with Michael that change is really really hard and this is a big change with lots of complicating features but I also having read again the literature and read some of the letters that have come in and there was a very compelling letter today from a sleep doctor who's been doing this for years who talked about how significant this extra sleep can be for adolescents and so if we think about our job as a school district which is to do again provide the best environment we can for our students to learn this makes sense and yes there are a lot of things that need to be worked out I agree with Vince that athletics is incredibly important and I'm not hearing that we're not going to have any athletics we're going to have opportunities lots of opportunities for kids to be on teams and have practice and get the extracurriculars that they're currently having and get their after school help and that there are some elementary school things as well that we need to work out but I do get the sense that over the next 16 months these are things that we can figure out so I guess I wanted to say that and I'm sort of again thinking about Northampton and how how many years this has been going on there and now their school committee having charged their superintendent to make this happen somehow and and I think because they also recognize the compelling nature of the research and how much this will benefit a lot of students, most students so I I guess I just wanted to say that and I understand that this is hard so I don't want to sound like I don't understand that this is going to be difficult for individual families and for different groups and I think it really is our job now to figure out what's best for adolescents and how are we going to deal with the things that come up if we and I hope do make this change Zoe So first I just have kind of a small question and this isn't as significant as like some of the things you guys are saying but what if we changed the start time much later what would that mean for kids who want to take college classes because I know a lot of those like I'm taking two in the fall, one's at two and I think the other is around two or two thirty and if we started later then a lot of those kids wouldn't be able to take classes at two or two thirty because they'd have to, because you know E-period would end I mean E-period would start a lot later I don't know what that would mean because that's something you can't really reschedule so So we just earned her keep knowing all the feedbacks that we had that I've taken all the mail nobody's raised that So it is something to think about because particularly Amherst College accommodates us by trying to schedule an upper level calculus class at a time that matches the E-period and if we did this we'd be very dependent on them coming with us to still provide that opportunity so so do I have an answer to that? I don't but I now have the thought in my head and one other thing just kind of going off because you were saying about like with adolescence I did do a little survey I got, I asked nine juniors, nine sophomores twelve seniors and twelve freshmen just to get like a kind of large amount so out of that forty two fifteen said that they wanted to stay the way it is one said that they would want to push half an hour back and then only six said nine a.m. to three fifteen and the main, or three thirty five and the main reasons for that I mean a lot of them said sports obviously but a lot of them said that option keeping in mind with sports and extracurriculars and college classes option number two which was I had just put them in order it was pushing half an hour back would mean that our sleep cycles could kind of change and adjust to that and you'd get more sleep and you'd get used to getting a little more sleep and a lot of people were saying that getting up at six is hard because it's still dark out and it's like it seems like it's night and you don't want to get up and I know I agree with that if it's a lighter out you're more inclined to get up and that and obviously options two and three both would mean that we're more awake in the mornings and a lot of people have trouble with the first period and then by the end of the day you're exhausted but so those were the main ones and then a lot of people did say option one that they wouldn't mind it staying the way it is because we're used to it extracurriculars and everything start earlier and you can take the college classes and it's kind of we're all used to it but that was the data that I got Thank you Anyone who hasn't gotten a chance to speak I'd love to go I actually agree with most of what Catherine said I do think it is our job to do what's best for our students but I just don't want to lose sight of the fact that we also have the end of the day to be concerned about we're not only concerned about the beginning of the day and I think it's important for us in our jobs as school committee members to be responsible for what we're actually voting for and that is my concern I agree it can be worked out but until we know what the answers are I'm not sure how we can vote yes absolutely I guess we could take a vote on do you move forward with creating the details but again I go back to the presentation that Sharon gave to their school committee which contained block by block the time of day the change would be immense detail on what it would mean for their students and I just think it's important and it is our responsibility as school committee members to pay attention to those things and I do think forcing kids or having kids not home until 7.7.30 in the evening can be very problematic for many kids and I think it's important not to lose sight of that well I would just I think the hard thing is for there are lots of circumstances like when we redistricted I mean there were a certain level of details known and then there's a certain level of details that are handed to the administration to make work so I guess that's I think where people are struggling with the comfort zone of saying do we acknowledge that which is what I believe that the sleep study the research in itself is so compelling that it says it's unnatural to have kids waking up at this time and that is detrimental to them in terms of their well-being overall and in particular the students who really struggle are those who are hit the hardest with this getting up early and going to school and I will there be an effect and I know I'm going to say that again yes there will be effect on some sports but it's like weighing the options it's more compelling to us as a committee and I trust that we will have to and we have 16-15 months to do this work to say what is that specifically going to look like because quite honestly we don't know what the high school schedule will look like in what year are we talking about 2014-13-14 because we're also in that opportunity to take a look at our whole structure at the same time so I don't want to get lost and sometimes we can almost get lost in all the details because we can't do all of the details right now we really cannot without being engaged in a real conversation Michael and Mike just two things picking up what Maria was just saying I think if we ended up doing the details and one it's an immense amount of work but it sets up a situation where it's going to impact some people in negative ways and impact people in positive ways and other people won't care because of the scenarios but rather than sort of take it at the higher level saying what's the right thing to do based on what the evidence is and what we're trying to do as a district which I think should be the leading one as opposed to the micro level the other thing which you alluded to which I wanted to pick up in the minutes I think it was Kip who was talking about homework there's structure that's in place it's in place for a long period of time and there's inertia that sets it and what this does it frees that up so if you change the way things work then it opens up a door to bigger discussions about how we deal with homework how we incorporate physical education and age of obesity for example I mean those are really important things to do but unless you first move something nothing moves and this I think is the first important thing to move and then you have a shift and you can have subsequent conversations I got a lot of letters from middle schoolers about this because they're learning persuasive letter writing they were all very respectful but it was interesting they expressed a lot of essentially some just saying that would be awesome I don't want to have to get up at 6 or 6.30 anymore and others that were concerned about what does their after school look like and one was worried about when would detention happen another one another good one was a student who was very against it because he was worried he wouldn't get home in time for Futurama but it was pretty similar in terms of a split on the different views that people looked at and I'm actually going and talking to a couple classes about it I already talked to one a lot of the same conversation happens at that table as you guys are having here the one other piece in terms of the details on the times my understanding at this point in terms of particularly the region everything moves an hour and a half and the only thing that stays open is the sports we don't have all the details figured out and we do have a long spreadsheet that had all the details on how every sport was affected potentially affected by this and potential solutions that he would work on and I think one thing to keep in mind is at that level of work Rich doesn't actually know until he goes to actually schedule the golf matches what schools will allow him to figure them out on Saturday and which schools and so there is a piece to that that will happen once he sits down and has to actually schedule them which changes how when he talks to other athletic directors as opposed to saying if we do this what are some possibilities and then just the one other piece is at the elementary schools I can't speak as well to this but my understanding is it's less of a shift it's a 25 minute shift but essentially everything would shift the 25 minutes and I think it's been really interesting from I've learned a lot about the elementary in terms of after school buses and after school programs and all those different things and it brought up a lot of things that it sounds like Maria and the principals of the elementary schools are now currently working on but my understanding is also at that it's all going to be a 25 minute shift so but if there is more specifics that need to be known I do think it would have to be in the athletic realm and I'm not positive how much more we could do until it becomes more concrete Mike so I'm thinking the same thing as Mike just that'd be based on your comments and so this is really the wrong time of year to take on something huge right and yet I understand the press on the school committee to bring into focus details that aren't micro but details that are significant can somebody paint a broad picture of what the afternoon would look like right and so the picture that I had is Rich on a monthly basis goes to an athletic directors meeting right all the athletic directors of all the teams in the conference and periodically principals go along so what I would recommend which is kind of a mid-link position is that we take our act on the road to the athletic directors meeting right and we put our proposal in front of them and we try to gauge their receptivity to coming along with us down the road and meeting us at some point and that's the question where could you meet us on this if we wanted to maintain the integrity of the conference you want to keep us on your schedule what would you do so rather than getting into the business of email and putting Rich on the phone maybe we work the executive of the PVIC to get us on the agenda when we go and we make a 10-minute presentation and solicit kind of the broad pattern of feedback and I think that would be useful to you and answer to Debbie's question come into focus which wouldn't go to the same level of so could we get that golf meeting in on Tuesday the 3rd right but it's what could the broad pattern of conference competition look like in light of the proposal that we're making so I don't know when the next one is scheduled but I assume they're monthly right so let's see if we can get on the agenda and maybe subsequent we can come back before the end of the school year and paint a broader picture or a cleaner picture Yes you best so you know it is an important policy shift we are asked to consider here how it strikes me that we're talking about this as a later start time proposal but there are actually two proposals here there is a later start time proposal that affects the secondary school but then there is an earlier start time proposal that affects our elementary schools and I don't see that we are properly addressing the elementary the earlier start time proposal for the elementary students I could vote tonight in favor of doing it if it's just a later start time proposal as concerns the evidence as concern the way students have weighed in as concern the kind of lingering questions out there having trust that with the year or more that we have to work it out that we can put it in the hands of our administration and perhaps with the reopener clause but I feel we could do that but I don't see the proper consideration being given to the earlier start time proposal that we also face here now of course we're not doing it for any benefit for the elementary school I understand that this is about a benefit that we are convinced is important for our secondary school students but there still is a relationship here to the experiences and to the questions of enrollments the questions of the proper education that we're charged to look out for secondary school students that for me that is my lingering point in this and so between now and May 22nd I could be certainly in a much more comfortable position if I feel that we're addressing the earlier start time aspect of this proposal so you know Catherine as chair will be setting up our agenda meeting for the 15th so that topic could come on what we could do too is just visit the survey data that was conducted for elementary families as well as elementary staff and when we went to the forums we did have data that was specific to elementary so we can kind of call that out and sit with it and talk about what that means in terms of the 25 minute difference the reality is if region votes this then we still have to have votes of the elementary schools so we have to be really conscious of that Kip and Michael have been having conversations and Leverett and Chutesbury to kind of gauge the receptiveness of the not only the community but also the principals, the staff and such it's and the principals the elementary school principals will be there on the 15th? Yes so I think we should have to and that raises a concern I have thank you very much for the follow up information one of the pieces of information I requested last time was the demographic data and absent the demographic data the survey is no good we don't know who's being surveyed we and another concern I do have actually about the survey is the construction of the questions we're not particularly scientific I have some serious concerns about that can I and then I know Mike wants to jump in on there were so information was gathered in two ways one was the survey itself whether you know the structure of the survey which I know we can take a look at again the demographics of the survey was not able to be disaggregated however the one point that the school committee was specific to looking at in terms of the demographic was income eligible families so that was the demographic that people were suggesting may not be represented well by people who typically come often to school committee meetings we wanted to make sure that population was reached out to and at the secondary level that did happen at the elementary level I did so Marta her staff made specific phone calls and translated phone calls you know bilingual staff made the phone calls so we do have the demographics from that specific population that I'd be happy to present fully do we have the questions because I'd like to make sure that those questions were scientifically sound from a statistical point of view so the question I can tell you what it was it was a phone call or a survey monkey and essentially what it was asking is how would it make I can't remember the exact wording but did it make their family like planning around the school day did it make it harder, easier or equivalent that's trouble because it needs whenever you have a question like that you really do need to elicit specific circumstances around you know when it's about your day your work day your family day so we were talking about their family schedule and we told them specific times this was conducted by Marta and her office so I did and that was the request the school committee that's exactly what they requested I know it was before you joined but when we had the original conversation that was their concern that particular demographic and that's what our follow up to it was I also wanted to address the thing in terms of the elementary schools I do feel like we've spent a fair amount of time engaging in the elementary schools about the different possibilities the original recommendation that went out was actually the half hour shift forward and after lots of conversations with the elementary principals and families that was actually why we went away from that because we actually thought the half hour was kind of an easier thing to think about at the regional level in terms of having less of an effect but then when we were looking at the elementary schools there was a wider concern around that and so that's why we actually went and it was actually the school committee when we also when we came back the school committee really wanted us to push that the maximum effect happens when you go to nine o'clock and at the same time that for the elementary schools the administration and the families there was a much larger concern about them moving a half hour back because then school was starting at I think it was nine something and that really became a problem for families in terms of the morning, child care in the morning so if I could just make, if I could I didn't mean to be oppositional learning if I could just get the questions about how well it was teased out so that we could see the specific impact that would be great. I know you all think I'm just resistant to change but I'm going to go anyway here to Lawrence's point one of the things that came up in one of the forums that I was at which I thought at the time was a good idea and I thought we might actually do it but it doesn't look like we did is some of the parents said when they were filling out the survey it was sort of you know and now that we've kind of narrowed down come to an actual proposal where there are times around it, framed around it don't we think there's valuable there'd be some value to resurvey both parents and students to say okay this is now what we're talking about this is the concrete information that was the suggestion that came up at the forum that I thought was a good one but I don't know if other people agree with that. Michael? Just factually from the Schuessburg perspective in the last year the Schuessburg school committees had two presentations originally Josh came up and then Mike came up the second time so we've had two full school committee discussions about this we've had two surveys both of parents and staff with the initial proposal and then the tweak proposal subsequently and a forum where we had decent turnout and we consulted with the superintendent for year 28 which is our elementary school superintendent as well as our principal there were some staff at the meeting but also the principal consulted the staff and the Schuessburg school committee unanimously endorsed the idea of a change you know we didn't have a proposal we're waiting for the region to make a vote but when Kristen was the representative we took basically a strong vote saying that we supported the change depending upon what the region would do so in terms of where the member towns elementary schools are we're fully on board and I think we've done due diligence on our part I'm just going to say this so from what it sounds like that Mike was saying that elementary schools it was easier for them to not do the half an hour pushing like that was the hardest one for them to adjust to yeah that was actually easier to the current proposal on the table is a bigger shift for the region it's the hour and 15 minute change but that coming back the 25 minutes was easier for elementary families logistically because most of the elementary schools don't have before care before school care and so with it being pushed back to I think the 9-10 or so it basically became most of all our schools have an after school program so that could be flexed essentially have to add before school care in some way to be able to make that one actually a viable option so I'm just going to finish so I guess from my perspective I'm just looking at the high school like the secondary education middle school high school I think that's first of all I think especially high school is a much more important like years of students life than elementary school and I think that it is more important to look at okay no but okay no but I'm saying it's okay Zoe we're with you go right ahead okay stop laughing it's fine but if we're looking at elementary and high school and middle school I personally would vote to keep it the same because I think that the huge jump for switching times first of all you know before the Niasque people came we were looking at we read we were supposed to read over the social justice and practices and the whole last part was about students and community and the opportunities that students have in the community and you know for me academics are really important and I think our school does a great job with academics and I think that like I was saying before with the college classes I was saying that students get to do like you don't get to do that in a lot of places go to Amherst college for free take classes and that was the last point of that so I think that in that aspect pushing it half an hour back would work for that but I think that if you include the elementary school I would vote for it to stay the same so that kids so that that can still be present in the society thank you um it's been a pretty exciting past two weeks um um that's probably that's probably an understatement um I've received uh as many of you have numerous emails and other correspondence from uh particularly people in Leverett um and they many of them not all but many of them took me to task for saying that my constituents did not support the change I've also received correspondence from uh constituents who wanted to remain the same also in the two weeks I've made a concerted effort to study much more carefully much more closely the research and I still don't find it good research um I think it ignores a social context I think we do not pay enough attention to the details of adolescent lives specifically such things as the consumption of sugar and caffeine during the day which we don't know how that impacts sleep patterns I read very carefully Dr. Neely's email an expert in the field of sleep disorders and I found it interesting that in the course of her letter or email she noted several adults who suffer from so-called sleep disorders and I was puzzled by that are sleep disorders or problems with sleeping unique to adolescence apparently not and so I wonder why aren't we talking about other people's sleep disorders here I just think the the research to me and I'm not a scientist I'm not a trained researcher and I don't pretend to be but I do see holes in the research having said all that I think that the decision should be made very quickly because I think the longer this lingers out there it's not going to become an issue based upon impact on family or the research it's going to come down to an emotional play which I think it's already had some some beginnings of and I'm worried about that that will make a decision based upon emotional response to whatever problem we're faced with so I would certainly hope that we make a decision on March 22nd my constituents are split but I'm not I'm still not in favor of this change and I suspect my next two weeks will be pretty busy as well I'm not going to debate I won't debate the research with the kit although I did have I did want to address the idea of sleep disorders I don't think we're talking about sleep disorders here I think there are adults with sleep disorders I think there are adolescents with sleep disorders we're talking about a natural sleep rhythm of adolescence and I think that was Dr. Neely's point that that she would see adolescence as patients who suffered sleep disorders but discovered that when they had a later start time in schools their sleep disorders disappeared so she was making a distinction I thought the way I read it was that she was making a distinction between actual sleep disorders medically defined and normal adolescents who just weren't getting enough sleep so I think there probably are adolescents with diagnosable sleep disorders but she was saying most that they're on occasion they were not sleep disorders and we're not talking about adolescents having sleep disorders in this conversation just two quick points first I I can't help it I can't get over the hump of looking at classroom instruction and wondering if adolescents are not engaged because the instruction practice with the instructional activity that they are being exposed to is not engaging the survey identifies a majority of youngsters who fall asleep in school occasionally without any definition of what occasionally is what does that mean once a week, once a day once a month, once a semester what is occasionally I'm not going to deny that kids don't fall asleep but I wonder if we're not also missing what are we asking kids to do in school that's causing them or contributing to their putting their heads down on their desk and I'm not unconvinced that instructional activities don't have something to do with that if you engage kids in a serious respectful manner they'll stay with you, they'll stay awake and you can only believe that I'm going to also back what Katherine was just saying number one that I don't think we're talking about sleep disorders we're talking about natural circadian rhythms and natural sleep cycles and I wanted to put out a hypothetical out there for anyone who feels that there isn't a natural circadian sleep cycle that would affect how teenagers fall asleep at night and when they're able to get up in the morning then we could hypothesize for both all the adults who teach at our schools and the kids who go to them we could start at 3 a.m. we could have them get up at 2 a.m. and start at 3 a.m. and say it doesn't matter they can go to bed earlier they can go to bed at 6 p.m. the next day we can start school at 3 a.m. but believe me every adult in there and every kid in there would be devastatingly tired and it wouldn't matter how much you engage them in the classroom they would be devastatingly tired because it would go against their natural sleep cycle I speak of this somewhat of experience in my own job you can't sleep enough or at the right times to make it make up for your natural circadian rhythm and I know we're not talking about something that drastic for getting up at 6 a.m. but it's fairly drastic enough for the natural adolescent sleep cycle and so I just wanted to give that example because I think if you say you don't believe that it's a natural circadian sleep cycle that's pushing a later sleep time for adolescents try to think of it in more drastic terms and I think you'd realize what the research is trying to say Catherine? I'm sorry just my last I promise but I'm talking about starting now I guess just to your other point about engaging teaching when you when you look at the districts that have had a late start I have to imagine seeing students coming in more awake changes in achievement especially for you know struggling population reduction in automobile accidents and better overall mental health I don't think all of those districts suddenly changed and their teaching became more compelling I think it has you know that it's related to the kids are more awake and I think if you talk to students at ARHS on a late start day that would be an interesting thing to look at you know do the teachers all of a sudden become more compelling or are these kids just more awake and therefore first period they're more engaged so so just a quick comment from my experience on late start days I've talked to like a couple of my friends agree with me I don't know majority obviously I haven't talked to people about this I think I'm weirdly enough usually more tired on late start days because I don't know what that has to do with the whole reason we're so used to getting up at 6 and I'm always more tired on weekends also when I get to sleep in so I don't know what that has to do with and if it's my friends I know some of my friends are like that too I don't know if that's obviously for majority but just adding in one thing I want to make sure before we end this discussion is what more information the regional committee wants if any I've heard information that they might want on the elementary level that we could have at the next Amherst meeting and at the next Pele meeting I guess can be handled that way but on the regional on a secondary school level so some things I've heard are that you'd like but we may not get is a really detailed sports schedule like what exactly would it look like not a detailed sports schedule but I would like to hear what the other superintendents think of this I mean superintendents athletic tractors thank you whether it seems like this is something that's going to be reasonable or whether we're going to have to early release our athletes for every single match whether it's home or away so that I think would be okay and whether there's any consideration would be any consideration given to limiting the amount of time allowed for practice I'd kind of like to know whether that's on the being considered at all and then another thing was college classes how would that be affected anything else on secondary level were the phone surveys done with the parents of students on the secondary level so I would love to get the text of the survey and demographics of the survey so I think all of that we could have by May 22nd except I'm not sure about we have to see what so what I would say is I don't know when the meeting is do you know what it is the next one is at the beginning of June and the next one is the most okay so this is what I would suggest as an alternative that we I'm going to ask the athletic director when I see him to get a list of the ADs and either he creates a bulk email or he gets on the phone but we have to be able to take the pulse and the essential question is can you come along with us to maintain our competitive relationship in the context of a later start time so it would be easy if we had we could go to the meeting if we can't I think that's what I'm going to ask the athletic director great can I say oh without a doubt well and the athletic director can also send the letter to the superintendent who can also send it out to the superintendent there you go can I say one thing just respond to so I got on this bandwagon late right I didn't get out of the gate as quickly as everybody else but so here's the context for me that he's her anchor what don't give up the day job so over 30 years ago when I started in this profession nobody talked about the whole child was academics early academics late as we push through the 80s coming with the standards movement people started asking a wider set of questions are kids clothed, are they fed, are they warm are they safe so I see this as the next logical iteration of the widening angle of concerns that educators legitimately have to have to create a context within which we can be as effective as we can so if I put this in a 30 year continuum it makes sense because if I'm trusting the research and I'm trusting the medical people there's a real biological substratum to this right as is the need for kids not to be hungry to be warm, to be safe and those are necessary preconditions of them being academically successful so for what it's worth I want to come back at one of the things where do teachers stand on the issue you know I guess from last meeting that was didn't do a good job of trying to express what the input I was interested in from teachers where are teachers on this do you think it's a great idea do you think it's a bad idea do you think it's very important for the emotional intellectual well-being and growth of our students and will affect teacher and learning in great ways or not it's really not that aspect I just really wonder and perhaps you all being on the line with them every day have that sense but do you, so I'll raise it to you then do you get a sense from are there any kinds of questions are there any kinds of additional input that or concerns that you're hearing raised from your faculty that you work with that ought to be a part of our consideration in terms of the issue of this policy I assume since you're in support of it you've already reconciled and resolved all of those whatever input you've gotten from your faculty about this change from 7.45 to 8.45 or 9.00 a.m sure if we're at 8.45 or 9.00 a.m but I guess you've resolved it to your satisfaction but that's really what I had in mind when I say the feedback from teachers do they have ideas both positive things that might be part of the hurdles that we'll be looking at over the year that we ought to think about or have in mind now as we ultimately weigh our vote on this so that's what I had in mind rather than just are they going to come along contractually or not or do we throw the book at them? So what I've heard is any concerns that I've heard have been around their own personal lives from the middle school perspective there hasn't been any concerns raised about our programming you know the we have a faculty meeting on it and conversations informal conversations over time it's been acknowledged that for middle school it's didn't feel right to start at the time that we did but we have heard I've heard from probably three or four teachers who have kids and go to elementary schools and it'll affect my family's life so that's the piece that we heard one other thing I actually wanted to say and I actually not trying to convince Kip to change his vote it's getting very complicated so all I want to say we sent the the gazette articles of the last two meetings when there was discussion we forwarded to the faculty right so though they participated in the survey a year ago the issues laid largely dormant and this catalyzed a resurgence of interest and I would say to you and I think this holds up that my email is running 50-50 people love it can't wait for it, people who are deathly afraid of it and largely the frame of reference though is not the research, the frame of reference is what we'll do to their programs that they run the sports that they coach with their family lives they're at the level of trying to work out the specifics of them but it isn't in the context of whether or not it's educational they're just trying to wrap their head around the logistics of it so that's been the latest round of feedback if I could just follow up to say I have no problems making a vote on on an issue where it's not like 90% of embers is already for this that's fine if we're in a situation where it's 60-40 running through the community or running through the region or even 50-50 but we ought to at least let people know we're hearing you we're hearing all sides of this we're thinking through why it's at 50-50 and we're coming to a really serious decision about it understanding that it's contentious understanding that different people are seeing it different ways and those ways all are worthy of respect but then we're going to at the end of the day do our best here if it's May 22nd or whenever do our best to make the wisest choice quick one I just think it's important that I think all of Kip's points about instruction and how much sugar kids have those are all just as important and I don't want I think it's important to realize that no matter what we do at the late start time we still keep all those things on the plate and we if you look at our school improvement plans our district improvement plans absolutely looking at how we engage kids on a daily basis that's we got that now because we started at the right time I just want to be clear about that a school committee member who's no longer in the committee we talked a lot about math and one thing we were talking about she was saying textbook what do you think of the textbook we went back and I said it nice I really think training good math teachers is the really important piece and I'm less concerned about the textbook and then she made an important point to me which was well that's good we could be doing that but don't you want to start with the best possible textbook and so I think that applies also here is absolutely we want to keep thinking about instruction how do we engage kids how do we wake them up get their minds going because we could certainly put them to sleep at any time of the day easily but what's our best starting point and I think that's the I think that's the question they're not opposed to each other okay so we should probably wrap this up and so we'll have some more information at the next meeting and we'll schedule a vote for the next meeting if you feel like you're not ready you don't have to vote but that's what we'll be scheduling I just want to make one more just and I know we're closing but I just would like to I want to appreciate Shavas' comment and about really valuing everybody's voice in this conversation because it is a big shift if we make a shift it's a very big shift to recognize that we will have many of us will be affected by a shift some in a positive way some in a negative way and I want to I really hope that we all keep focused on what we think is actually best for the children involved with the adults we may all have aggravations in our lives that we have to rearrange we will have a 16 month period to do that but it's going to be hard during something that's so emotional for people that we really try to stay focused on not that we don't but just we all want to sit when we make this vote thank you all this was a great conversation thank you very much okay approval of clerical media awards have a good night Zoe thanks for coming your voice is great to have in the conversation Annie the media clerical awards do you want to something to be acknowledged and voted do you want to speak to that since you were involved if we can find it in the packet I know I saw it in here do you see where it is Annie do you want to speak a little bit about before you make the motion just what that you were the rep or if not that's okay sure Debbie and who did we meet with Debbie Jennifer Ryan thank you we met and looked through recommendations and decided upon Terry and Michael to grant the awards for all the positive feedback we've gotten and it is a wonderful opportunity to acknowledge two people who are doing a wonderful job in our school system and then it's fun because people get to go and actually give the award which I know is a good time especially I think for Terry with me ask and all the work she did with that this year was amazing and for Michael I think they called him a guardian angel tonight him they wanted to be knighted they wanted to knight him we're lucky to have him would someone like to make the motion so we'll second discussion all those in favor opposed thank you all I moved to approve the following gifts the Washington Post Company matching gift to support the high school theater program for total $1,000 a gift from Steven and Brill let me say this right cut Serratus to the Kingly Perry Award for $500 a gift from Virginia and Daniel St. John to the Kingly Perry Award for $500 a gift from David Perry to the Kingly Perry Award for $500 a gift from Debra Ritzer to the Kingly Perry Award for $500 a gift from the Exxon Mobile Corporation Education's Alliance program to the high school math and science departments for $500 and a gift from the Rotary Club to support the banner for ultimate tournament for $300 any discussion all those in favor opposed any reports from subcommittees other than when we get to policy going on to policy K, H, B I'm going to ask Rick to come up if you would please feel comfortable answering all questions pertaining to this policy I don't expect just from the mount this is a policy that we submitted to you for you to consider we're not even on a first vote we're just discussing this so the policy subcommittee is meeting again on this coming Monday so we can look at your concerns and questions fairly quickly I just want to add that also on our agenda for Monday and for looking ahead to another item on the next agenda which is class size discussion we're going to try to come forward on the 22nd with some wording on class size I don't want to you know have you misread what we're going to come up with it's not necessarily going to be anything close to definitive it's too difficult a topic and a concept but we hope to have something for you on the 22nd but in any case this is for you to re-discuss whatever you want to do with it pull it apart tell us what you want to see it to added and the athletic director is here to answer any and all questions yes I'm sorry just before you ask questions to clarify Debbie said this is pre first read so this is truly discussion so I had I guess one is a logistical question then I can give you at least some high level comments would it be helpful to email you specific things rather than take up time here because I have a lot that violates anything that many then send them to me actually send them to me and I'll bring them to the subcommittee on Monday if you're okay with that oh yeah I think the two high level things for me just in terms of us considering it is what are we trying to achieve so I know in Chutesburg when we looked at this for years ago we really didn't want to have commercialism in the schools we didn't want sponsorship and support for different things but opening the door I was listening to a story a few weeks ago where there's schools selling their roof space for advertising for flybys literally in the revenue generation category it's really whatever our objective so we're trying to narrow the venue which you can have revenue or we're trying to leave it for sponsorships that are already embedded in our activities which looking at this although it's titled sponsorship signage and advertising it's 95% advertising it really doesn't get to the sponsorship in my research I did a little offline research online there's a lot of insidious stuff so there's product placement there's concepts and really in terms of advertising the two things that it's trying to do is brand loyalty as we're constructing this it's really unless about that is looking at it's collecting information so there's ways of saying I'm giving it for free but you're really getting consumer information about parents and kids that's the number one objective of commercial and the number two is the brand loyalty so you might not sell something now if you sell something in 20 years so if we're constructing this in the advertising realm and we want to be cognizant of protecting the kids and not just delivering a unit of consumerism we should be thinking about that I think first this is one of many responses to the crisis in the athletic department and the lack of sufficient funds second piece of that is a feeling and I think I'm accurate on this is the overuse of booster clubs they're getting worn out and so this is one effort at looking at a way, an alternative of raising funds for the athletic program recognizing and we've talked about this at the subcommittee level every single concern that you've had including but one that you didn't state is that there are businesses in the area corporate businesses that support the district in some ways pretty substantially and would we allow you know would we say no you can't advertise here in any manner in any medium even though you've contributed a considerable amount of dollars to the district so that's something that this committee has to deal with that's why that's why this is before you tonight for the committee to ask and probe those questions so I guess to follow before you do that I just want to make sure is that all-encompassing pretty much at least in response to that question can we go back to what the I just do this I think the two things would be if we're focused on the athletic issue that maybe we actually narrow the focus and title of the policy because right now it's all inclusive and I think a lot of things that I was looking into is curricular and proposal athletic program stuff so learning math through county M&M's for example can you draw a floor plan from McDonald's and those things exist so really being specific about the policy the other thing I would put out to consider is I know in Chutesburg when we looked at use of the building that we really differentiated between local businesses and local nonprofits as opposed to national or state so if we have genuine businesses that are local in supporting that and the national corporations coming in that looks really different than something that's a coals so equally a business but it's grounded here so something to ponder a couple things on that and I understand the concerns about commercialism I hesitate I just I want us to recognize that although I also support local businesses over more national that's a personal value judgment on mine and there may be other people within the district that don't hold such values and say it shouldn't be the job of the school committee or the district to say one business is good and the other one is not so I want to be careful going forward that we have some sort of way to make sure that this advertising is appropriate but not necessarily a bias to one's personal view or one business versus another getting to the athletic portion of it I'm a little concerned about the section on the top of the second page about advertising displays during sporting events that it's too restrictive it typically says that it would be temporary advertising for a limited time of and just prior to a sporting event and I can foresee and I think of a number of institutions where they might have signage up in the gym for the whole winter season something like that so I would hope we would have a less restrictive policy in that section at least as an option can I stop the conversation just for a second I appreciate both comments I just want to pause for a second people have concerns but it doesn't necessarily mean that they're concerned to the entire committee and I'm not exactly sure how to get a hold of that Rob I respect your concerns Michael I respect yours but they're yours and they're not necessarily those of the entire community and I don't know how to conduct that conversation so that I can take back to the subcommittee members who are here how to respond to those within the context of the policy so I would like if it's possible without going on until midnight hear people's responses to Michael and Rob's concerns just to get a better feel for how deep that is does that make sense? I would think you can take it back it's not a first read yet so we have an opportunity as a committee to discuss it at least three times I'd like to hear from some other folks Debbie so I just would like to say I agree with Rob I mean if we have a sponsor that wants to put a banner up in the gym for all of basketball season I think that's appropriate and we shouldn't be restricting it through the policy Yeah I also agree I thought that was a little restrictive because I imagine that banners would be up for a season at least maybe for the school year I don't know and I also agree with Rob's point about local verses even you know northeast businesses because I do know that big Y for example and stop and shop our local stop and shop are very generous and I would not want to you know say no you can't have a banner because you're not considered so you know that's something I would like the policy to consider is how how are those decisions made and I agree that I don't want to impose my own personal feeling on that necessarily My own opinion on this is that we should always be we should be thinking like everything else about the kids and the money is going to do good for the kids so I'm in favor of getting as much money as possible anyway we can and so I would bend on the commercial things to get more money so I think local is great but it doesn't preclude getting bigger bucks from national companies and you don't have to take you can turn down any ads you want to turn down and I would put as many fence ads up as you could plaster the place with to get more money so that's my opinion that's a good opinion I'm more comfortable myself having it all on the website because it's a structure that's already set up with advertisement and so it's something that we're used to but we could have control over that and I'm against the idea of having stuff up in the gym because I mean I understand the need for it and I like to work on something to make it happen but it's when you talk about the whole child and the whole person and with that branding loyalty and setting them up to always be seeing this all the time where they can't walk away from the screen makes me a little hesitant so if no one else wants to talk I'll just throw a couple other ones that's all right there's in the section about advertising by non-profit organizations one it seems like you would want to include government and community groups that are not necessarily non-profits I'm sorry what? it's advertising by non-profit organizations it says only for non-profit organizations and as opposed to businesses but there's the other categories that are non-business would be government for non-incorporated community groups who might want to advertise stuff so and that section just seems a little bit more constrictive oddly than the business one it seems like non-profits are actually they're charitable organizations by definition so why would you be more restrictive than not I would move the definition of advertising to the beginning because I think that's sort of where it should live and there's one place I think the two other things I've just seen in what you know the rest is it needs a little bit tighter definition about things I could talk to those philanthropic at the very very beginning without hampering philanthropic efforts and that the school committee requires that any advertising benefit the school district so I would have a distinctly different definition than we reckon in terms of what benefits so we need to have some parameters some of the stuff that I saw is that actually building in some review process that right now where the school committee either can choose the superintendent but actually just like we have there's committees not to make it overly bureaucratic but you can build in different perspectives and actually have a process so it's not based on one other and I think the only other thing I would say just now is that there's somewhere in here where it talks about the school committee giving the authority to the superintendent to make the decision but there's nothing about saying that the school committee can pull it back so it might be that in day to day operations for decision making the superintendent review committee can make the decision but it might be a big thing where we want to have the ability as a school committee to say this is our decision and so building that into the process where it reaches a bar or there's some reason why it would be retained okay so maybe to Michael's point and I had a hard time kind of understanding how the process would work based on this policy who would actually be approving individual ads or sponsors but it does say specifically in here the school committee reserves the right to reject a refused placement or to require removal of any or all commercial messages or advertisements that do not comply it says something different later on see well that and I think I'm a little confused I did find that confusing it kind of went back and forth and I thought maybe it could be a little clearer laying out you know what that process is so like like with a lot of things it doesn't strike me as the purview of the school committee to be talking about should that be in a mauve or a yellow or low right that's just not what you're here for right so what I would recommend is that the decision-making reside at the school level we are the superintendent's designee what we received from you is a set of parameters right and we can be called here to defend our decisions but like you rely on us to pick the books hire the teachers build the master schedule right I think this sits on that plane of decision-making you set the broad parameters and you charge us to go execute it so I would recommend that you folks stay out of that line it does speak to the superintendent has to create guidelines and so just like other things where there's going to be district guidelines that regardless of who's making the decision superintendent or the principal that's my point absolutely and I create the guidelines that we approve okay anything else thanks a lot Mark thank you Rich can you be here at the twenty-second because we're proud to come back with this in the twenty-second if we don't I'll let you know thank you thank you get some rest yep we'll see you looking at the calendar next meeting we've got later start both we've got a discipline update discipline report we've got we're going to start discussing district report card which is one of the things we're going to be discussing at the retreats let me jump ahead to that the retreat on June 26 we're going to be, well I want your input but Catherine, Debbie and myself and Maria have been talking about what might be on the agenda and we have three things one is a report card you know what can we look at that tells us whether the district is improving or not improving and what are all the measurements that would go on to that report card so you can start thinking about that now and we'll discuss that at a meeting before the retreat to start getting ideas for that so that's one thing report card the next thing is how do we make our goals we haven't, we've kind of struggled with that in the past where and we've struggled with the differences between school committee goals, district goals, superintendent goals and what are the goals that we're evaluating the superintendent on and it's kind of been a mess of the last year or two now three years ago there was apparently a committee there was a committee for this and they went away with a superintendent and worked on the goals and came back and I'm told it worked a lot better so we're thinking of maybe we'll discuss that at the next meeting too or at the 612 meeting about reestablishing that committee to talk about doing goals now I wanted to do goals before the end of June because the idea was we do the goals at the end of the spring so that they sort of feed into the district improvement plan that comes out going into September since we're going to be talking about that at the retreat which is our last meeting before the July break I think we're going to learn so much about how to do that that I think we got to postpone the actual goal creation until first or second or both meetings of August but if we form this committee they can be working on this during the summer perhaps even before the, not before the retreat but right after the retreat they could get going on that and then the third thing was just simply discussing the responsibility to the school committee versus superintendent what is covered under policy what is covered under budget and things like that Glenn Kutcher is going to be here to facilitate that whole process and as a sort of a fourth thing probably at the end he'll start to talk about his governance project that he's doing with districts and we're one of the districts of his governance project which is all about all of this stuff so that'll be exciting to hear about how that's going to happen I think we'll learn more about how we can govern ourselves better anyone that mentioned orientation yeah yeah what was that again four to six oh okay so there's a, they're going to be here four to six for an orientation orientation for anybody who hasn't had one on how to be on the school committee on June 26 and then every two years we'll start at six and end at nine how long do you have to have been on the committee to not go to the meeting you have to have had one oh okay yeah it's ideal if you can okay but but we haven't, and we'll figure out the location and such of what we're going to do this so we'll let you guys know any input, yeah oh I have a different question I just want to make sure somewhere in here class size is talked about I put it tentatively on 522 if you want to think about it then or on the 612 sorry I get distracted on the retreat that's okay so yeah district report card on 522 and in class size in 522 or maybe that will jump to 612 I haven't received many but I have received some emails from people who this is a pretty important issue okay at least begin talking about this absolutely sure not a problem and then on 612 an equity report update a partnership presentation could you tell us about what that is sure I'm asking, I was going to ask lots of partners to come but I've kind of narrowed it to the three UMass professors who work closely with us around improving instruction in the schools so Rebecca Woodland Sarah Whitcomb and Laura Valdeviezo will come and they're going to talk about their work related to equity and ELL work within our schools the positive behavioral support so the behavioral part of the triangle of the tiered instruction and then Rebecca's work around instruction in general and creating the conditions for teachers to improve instruction so they'll be coming to talk about their collective work with us anything missing anything you'd like to see on agendas I don't know if it's appropriate for the regional or the Amherst but I would actually be interested in getting a report on the program the move, the aim program if you could give us a report that's Amherst I can update you at the Amherst meeting on the 15th but I can also send you something in advance not a problem can I just ask a logistical question about the 15th because the 15th will be a joint Amherst Pellum union meeting so from an agenda standpoint do do we just have one agenda that is also posted at Pellum how does that works that's what we traditionally do so if you I assume it's joint simply so that you can have the math report and for the executive session so unless you want input into the agenda and Ms. Garrett can set it and then I'll be happy to make sure it's posted in all of the towns again this is Amherst Pellum then does it make sense to let union and Pellum go and continue with just Amherst business at some point or do we not have enough Amherst business to make that make sense we may let them go at some point but we'll have to see if we're going to do the executive session then before the meeting but we can that was nice of you no we can definitely figure out that when we look at the agenda although if we're going to discuss again the impact of the late start on elementary schools so that might be a but then when we go to the Ames program we can go back and be we can do this if you want to let union go early make sure to do the executive session at the beginning of the meeting anything else okay I'll take a motion to adjourn I move to adjourn any discussion all in favor okay great thank you everyone thank you all