 So, I think this is a great opportunity to begin the meeting and I just wanted to start by making a couple observations. I think just last night in Amherst and for three of the towns that are part of the regional school district, the town meetings have approved their annual budgets. For a school committee, the approval of the budget as well as also appointment and evaluation of the superintendent is really the most important things we do as a committee. There are lots of other things that a school committee can do, but I think in fact that authority and that role is in fact the most important thing we do is the most decisive and has the most impact on the district as a whole. For the superintendent it's pretty clear that one of the most important things that that individual does is to find and appoint and then lead their senior team within the district. And so, just as an observation, we've gotten a lot of comment from the public and as well as from staff members, the entire community and a lot of that comment has been very robust and very robust in a diversity of opinions and perspectives around what people believe is in the best interest of our schools as educational institutions, as organizations that are made up of professionals who are dedicated and caring for education in all the variety of activities that are done for the wellness and development of children and support of families. We've also heard a great deal about what the impact and best interest is in the programming and leadership of the school for children and students in our community. And I'm speaking out of turn because we actually haven't debated this as a committee, but I'm guessing that the committee holds a deep respect for all of the opinions and all the experience that the community has brought us around this sort of basket of issues that have come up. And so, for tonight's meeting, one of the things that as facilitator, this is why I'm speaking now about it, that I have as an objective is to ensure that the conversation we have tonight, both on the committee as well as publicly, really embodies the level of respect, caring, and thoughtfulness that I know that all of, sure, all of you are bringing to this conversation and that the members of the committee are bringing to the seriousness of their work and that we're sure, I'll say speak for myself, I'm sure, I think we're sure that Ms. Cunningham and Superintendent Morris are bringing to their jobs. That doesn't mean, of course, that there's not going to be a disagreement. That doesn't mean there might not be an extensive disagreement. But we're on a journey and I feel like we've been in that journey, I mean, Dr. Morris was appointed last October. We've been on a journey together in terms of the path that he is going to lead us as a district and as a community. I don't expect that as a committee or as a community or as a professional staff, everyone is always going to agree with every decision. What I hope is, as we're working through this and listening to Ms. Cunningham and Dr. Morris in having this interaction, that we can see this as being developmental in terms of supporting the kind of excellence that we know we have within our school district, as well as the ambitions we have for it as well. One of the things the final comments make is I'm going to say this now and I may repeat it again a little bit later. And having said what I just said a moment ago, I'm sure it's unnecessary to specifically add that there are rules that govern the conduct of our meetings. And those rules exist in terms of norms and sort of ethics of behavior. But they also, and I think that's embodied by the comments I made earlier around the kind of community I'm hoping we're fostering together and we'll be doing so through this work. But also, they also have usually legal implications too around how we talk about situations. And so just as a, so the public comment section, which we'll have again after the presentation, as mentioned, and I think we've said this many times before, you're recognized by the chair. You have up to three minutes to speak. The chair may permit extensions of this time. This is by the way from the official school committee policies that we have that are published on our website. Improper conduct and remarks will not be allowed, although as I said I wouldn't anticipate any. Defamatory or abusive remarks are always out of order. If such behavior is exhibited, the chair may terminate that individuals privileged to address the committee. If a person persists in disorderly behavior, the person may be asked to withdraw from the meeting or may be removed from the meeting. All remarks will be addressed to the chair. Public comment is not a discussion, debate, or dialogue between residents in the committee. It's an opportunity to express one's opinion and issue of the school committee business. Speakers may offer comments and opinions about the school operations and programs that concern them. But in public session, the committee will not hear personal complaints about school personnel nor against any member of the school community, either by name or by reference to position. Under most circumstances, administrative channels are the proper means for disposition of legitimate complaints involving staff members. So anyways, I say that as a rule simply because I feel that as chair, if that occurs, I need to wield a heavy gavel. And I want to say this in advance, not knowing if anyone even has any comments that would constitute that kind of be perceived as constituting that kind of comment. But so in advance, there's no disrespect intended by me. But also, as I said at the beginning, I hope no matter how widespread the opinion, no matter how difficult this discussion can be, I think if we come at it from the perspective that I mentioned earlier, that in all the letters that I've seen, and I think the committee has seen in the community, embodies that healthy desire to see a really wonderful community and a wonderful school district continue to be so and be supported in that way. And I think if we're all dedicated to that effort, hopefully we can have a great conversation dialogue tonight. But also, I think it'll embody the spirit of our work going forward. Nothing else. With that, we will move into, oh my goodness, call to order, approve the minutes. What a calm down. I actually missed the fact we were not going directly into the update. So hopefully all of you take the time to peruse your minutes while I was talking. We have minutes for April 10th and April 13th, 2018. Are there edits that people have for these? Getting a motion? You want a motion? Please. I move to approve the minutes of Tuesday, April 10th, 2018. Is there a second? Second. Moved at second. Does any edits, debates, comments? Seeing none, all those inferior approving minutes of April 10th, raise your hands if you're going on. It carries unanimously. And people looked at 13? The Union 26 as well, I think we need to approve April 10th. Or Union 26 isn't here. We don't have Union 26 here, so we'll have to do it. Bye, bad. Here, I thought you were going to jump in on April 13th. I sit there and you were there. Mr. Demling. I move to approve the minutes of April 13th, 2018. Is there a second? They're going to debate, other than congratulating Mr. Demling for making that motion. Seeing none, all those in favor? Is it going to be high or is it in your hand? It carries, and is there any nays, any abstentions? It carries one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, to zero of one abstention. Now! What a calm down, right? So anyways, as I said, all the comments, hopefully, I said earlier, we'll carry forward now. Dr. Morris, if you have anything you want to say, or if you can open it up, please do. Sure, so I'll speak briefly and then pass it over to Ms. Cunningham to add more. So while the topic says ARMS Principal Search Update, or Middle School Search Update, I want to just make sure I'm sharing, I'm not sure this is, yeah, if I need to speak closer or. Probably, so he actually is on it, has to be closer. Sorry about that. So I first want to describe a bit about process, more generally in Massachusetts, and about screening committees, and how professional staff are hired. And then I'll get more specific on the middle school. And Ms. Cunningham will describe in even more detail our path forward. So in Massachusetts, we have screening committees. Sometimes they're called search committees. And for teacher positions, it's often principals or assistant principals who are in charge of forwarding recommendations to the superintendent. And that's essentially the role that they play. The recommendations are made as part of Mass General Law. The superintendent is listed as the hiring agent for all professional staff appointments. So I just want to clarify, because there's been a number of, I've received a number of questions around how Massachusetts works. Pre-Ed reform, perhaps not pertinent, but perhaps maybe to some. The school committee was actually much more involved as a hiring agent of professional staff after 1993 that shifted. And one thing I want to share is that one of the reasons that change was made is that superintendents can have, be a check on and exert their value on diversity and hiring. So for instance, if we compare our current staffing to 2015, we're getting more racially, ethnically diverse because of perhaps because of that built-in accountability structure. So compared to 2015, our percentage of staff of color at Amherst and the region, it just, we have a number of administrators and staff that work in both, so it's easier to combine those. Has increased by 27%. Our percentage of people of color, staff of color for paraeducators in clerical has also increased and we still have a lot of work to do. That's why in the past you've heard Mr. Cunningham talk about the para pathways program, et cetera. And so we're pleased with that and we still have, as I said, miles to go when we compare ourselves to our student demographics and the only way that I know how to improve, given that 90% of our staff come back each year or 88% of our staff come back each year is every year our hiring continues to be better than our mean and our mean in terms of staff of color continues to rise and over time, that's how we see ourselves achieving the mission that's been talked about at this table many a time. Thank you, Ms. Cunningham's gonna share one additional data point on that before we get more specific about the middle school. So I just wanted to add, as Dr. Morris mentioned, we are hiring for a diverse staff. We are hiring for a diverse staff and one of the goals that I know the school equity task force had had, I think it was goal number five where they want me to talk about our hires for the year and how many staff of color we had hired and I believe that most importantly, not just checking a box this to how many are hired, the most important part would be how many are retained and so when we look at our data and I looked at the data from the 2013-14 all the way to current, this year has been a year where we had over 90% of our staff who felt valued and felt secure enough to stay in their roles here in the district. So I just wanted to add that piece. Of course I can't get that. So, and that was, for some it may be I proposed nothing that introduction but because we've received a significant number of questions from the public and the community around who does the hiring, what's a screening committee, what do those people do, what's Massachusetts law say, who does the hiring, we thought it was just worthwhile to review that for everybody so I apologize if that was an old hat for some around the table. Getting down to the middle school specific. I was involved in making two decisions on the middle school principal search process as with most principal search processes I'm not part of the screening committee but I do meet with the screening committee to hear their recommendation and their rationale. After I hear the recommendation rationale I do some work in terms of digging deep into the resumes, the cover letters, the writing samples and I often have access to additional information because of my role and so for me I had to consider the profile and needs of the middle school which has experienced incredibly high administrative turnover over the last 10 years. It's not over the two years or four years it's been a long time with multiple administrative turnovers. In addition the middle school is a two year school and something I shared with the staff when we met a couple weeks ago it requires intensive collaboration because it's a two year school. So if you think about an elementary school where yes the kindergarten teacher should be working in some ways with the sixth grade teacher but on a daily basis their roles are pretty different. Their students are really different they don't share students over except over a seven year span. When we have a school that has a two year span it requires everybody all hands on deck to be working actively together and something I said to the staff and what I say publicly is we really appreciate the work that the staff has done despite the administrative turnover that's happened at the middle school it continues to be a wonderful place for students to attend and that's because of the efforts of the staff individually and collectively to support the diverse needs of students. However that was a major aspect of my thought process of making sure that we had candidates given the history of the middle school given the unique needs of the middle school who fit that. And I made the determination that the pool wasn't any individual candidate but the pool wasn't sufficiently matched to the needs of the middle school. There wasn't anything that the candidates were deficient or anything personal I was always looking for a match of what the middle school needs and what I was viewing in terms of the pool. And I went back and Miss Cunningham and I reviewed the notes from when we visited after I was hired we visited all the schools in the listening session looking at what the question wasn't what are you looking for in a principal but it was talking very much what are you excited about your school what are challenges your school is facing. And that was a great data source for me to review as I was considering how to manage this decision. And I wish I could share more legally I wish I could share more there are both legal ethical and I think best practice constraints legally we had candidates apply for a job they're confidential until they're asked to be finalists we didn't ask any of them to be finalists therefore I can't speak to anything more specifically. Ethically my ethical boundary is that when we hire anyone we think about principals or Miss Cunningham last year we hire people in high profile positions I only talk about the person we hire not the people who do not hire. It's just my ethical code that I'm only interested in building the reputation of people we hire and not negatively impacting people who apply for a position in the district. And finally I want high quality candidates to continue to apply to our district that's in everyone's best interest and having a superintendent critique individual candidates even if their names were public is not in the best interest of the district moving forward. It's a wonderful place to work it's a challenging place to work and we want to make sure that when people are brave enough to put an application for high profile positions that we are encouraging that and not actually having a negative impact on future applicants. So that was the first decision I made. The second decision I made was to appoint Dr. Bodhi as the interim principal for the next school year. Subsequent to making that announcement I had talks with our legal counsel Desi's legal counsel and Desi's licensure office and through those discussions identified and learned that I was not permitted to offer a contract due to the licensure status and what would have been a multi-year waiver process laying out the facts to all three of those bodies they came back with the same information and answer. So I want to say publicly I regret making that second decision it was a mistake and the mistake has nothing to do with Dr. Bodhi's work or Dr. Bodhi's character I want to make that crystal clear it's not a reflection on anything to do with Dr. Bodhi's work or character that's to do with primarily with the licensure issue that I learned and I'll own that I think another problem with the decision was it led to a perception among some in the community that those two decisions were the same decision decision to not bring finalists forward while there's a linking there were two distinct decisions that I made I regret this one I don't regret the first one and I want to thank Dr. Bodhi because she shared the licensure piece with staff that's in my opinion an incredibly brave thing to do and I appreciate how she's walked through this and as I said one of the things that we try to talk about both mindset with all of our students and all of our staff is we intend to make it learn from those and for me I've learned from it I've done a lot of deep reflection about it and Ms. Cunningham is reviewing the status licensure status of all of our employees to ensure we're compliant with the regulations that forth with Desi which changed when we went from no child left behind to the Every Child Succeeds Act there's a significant shift in that the acting, the new commissioner of education was actually in Western Mass last Friday and was speaking to his experience in Lawrence he was the former receiver of the Lawrence Public Schools which is essentially a state appointed superintendent and his challenges with some of those changes particularly in his efforts to diversify the faculty in the Lawrence Public Schools and Ms. Cunningham will be presenting more information about licensure more generally as she mentioned earlier at an upcoming meeting of the school committee I'm going to now pass it to Ms. Cunningham to describe how we're moving forward at this point So Dr. Morris and I met with the middle school staff twice the first time we met with them we were there just to listen just to hear their concerns and hear what they wanted moving forward and after that listening session there were people who were not able to attend and they came and met with us after the session the first session or they emailed us with some information so we took all of their information the notes from the meeting we heard from many of our community members as to what they would like to see going forward and we took all of that into consideration and we went back and met with them a second time during that second meeting we let them know that our decision was one based on what they said and two based on what the needs are so the first part of that decision was the concerns were out there that there was something flawed with the hiring process so we are forming a hiring committee to look at our district-wide hiring process so not just how things took place at the middle school but how things are taking place across the district just to make sure that it's transparent it's inclusive of all voices and that we are maintaining our commitment to hiring a diverse workforce so I had a letter sent out to all faculty and staff throughout the whole district and to parents, guardians, just everyone who has an email with us so that they can opt in and express their interest in joining that committee that committee will hopefully complete its work by the end of May so the other thing that happened during that meeting was that some of the staff mentioned that they would like to be able to have a say in how the description is written for the posting for the interim principal and so I sent out a survey to the staff just asking them about the characteristics of the future principal for that school so that survey, I believe, closes at the end of this week after that time I will sit down and work with Dr. Morris and the HR staff and create the posting for that position so in that survey there were lists of attributes and then there was another box in case we missed something that they can write in what they felt was needed the other decision was to have a two-year interim principal and the need for a two-year principal really extends to the fact that we are exploring over the next few years other things such as the master building or building usage also we are having a long-range strategic planning process taking place and so having someone in the transformational piece for the two years will help to have those actions take place without interruption so that's why we are looking at two versus one year for the interim so the plan is to have a new screening committee form within the next few weeks after the other committee has done a lot of the work and the timeline would be this Friday the committee, the screening committee or the process committee as I'll call it will have an opportunity to now hear what our next steps will be what dates we are looking to have these meetings scheduled and answer some of the questions as to who will be on the committee because I've heard from approximately 15 individuals already most are from our stakeholders in our community and our parents so after that or while they're doing that we will create the posting for the principal search and then possibly by the first week of June or so we hope to continue with the process and finding a principal for ARMS so I know that there's been a lot of questions about licensure and I know that once again that was one of the ZETF goals the school equity task force goals that they wanted a report on and initially I was going to report on that in June however with this being so new and so requested I plan to report on that in the next meeting that we have so at this point you thought we'd open up for any questions from the committee so thank you for laying that out I guess I just want to first acknowledge on a personal level this has been a pretty hard issue for me to work my way through being on the school committee which is all about process and not people and yet I just I'm one year removed from being a middle school parent for six years in a row and being on the governance council there and volunteering and having the opportunity to work with so many amazing teachers and students to be in the situation like this is kind of heartbreaking but trying to keep it as much as process and not people one of the questions about how those decisions sequenced is so if the licensing issue aside if at one point you were comfortable and happy with the current principal going forward as the interim then why insert a process that could wrap up very soon depending on how things go that might not allow that current principal to be part of that if the licensing issue could possibly resolve soon and I know I'm walking a gray area but it's a question that's been asked a lot and so I just wanted to see if at all you could respond to that so I think two things and I appreciate you pointing out that it's an awkward conversation it certainly is for us as well I think with the key word to use is possibly and so that creates a real challenge for us and I think for the organization Jesse, our attorney we're very clear that possibly doesn't sort of cut it in terms of planning and I think that there lies a real challenge to set up a process for any individual and it's no disrespect I'm just going to speak in plain language it's the current principal that you're describing that's based in possibly and based on one individual is not something that we can really pursue whether the licensure happens or not is an open question Jesse's very clear on that not everyone who applies for a license in any route gets accepted and I think there's some real challenge in the timeline and uncertainty that go along with that I think there's also critical work the principal to do over the summer scheduling all those pieces that does require stability to get ready for the next school year probably as far as I can go I feel like I'm starting down a road that's talking about an individual not a process and I'm starting to catch myself and feel uncomfortable with that Are there questions from the committee? So I'm just trying to understand the formation of these two new committees so I want to make clear so we're forming a committee that will look at the process will that committee wrap up its work before we start the new screening committee or is that new screening committee going to be informed by the work that the what I'll call the hiring process committee is doing So I'll say both the first committee will be formed and they will look at what has been done and what can be better while they're doing their work So let's say they come up with the plan that this is how a screening committee should be organized and that is done within the first three days let's say we can then start the process of creating a search committee for the position I guess my only concern is about the really tight timeline and I wonder if you could just share with us how you plan to address just how compressed it's going to be many meetings Thank you for taking the time to explain your thinking and your process I want to address something that I heard Ms. Cunningham hint at a little bit earlier which was a process to evaluate licensure for all staff and administrators and I want to kind of put a fine point on that because I think when you were first hired I had sat down with you to discuss what your thinking was for the district and where you planned on going and all of that and you said to me very clearly at that time which was back in early fall that you were going through this process and that most intentionally you wanted to support the licensure of all staff and administrators to the degree possible and so I think it's an important point to raise in the context of this because what I'm listening for is to see if this is some sort of emerging pattern where we have been making decisions like this that could potentially jeopardize our hiring, jeopardize the district moving forward and what I'm hearing is that actually you, especially Ms. Cunningham came on board very cognizant of the fact that there needed to be alignment with state law and regulation and I very much appreciate that because I'm sure a lot of people will and I also appreciate Dr. Morris working closely with you to try to make that happen to support staff going through that and I guess my question mostly is moving forward thinking about process and even aside from what the screening committee would potentially, or the hiring process committee would be coming up with what steps are we taking to ensure that we are all our hiring processes in alignment with state law that are licensure requirements is there a review and audit that will happen if you can just describe that I think that would help my thinking anyway. So you are correct when I did start I started looking at well all of our staff to see where they were through DESI and the ones who needed waivers we worked on getting waivers and we worked on making sure that they were on track and as much as possible I met with many several times throughout the year some had monthly meetings with me some were offered the opportunity to have to work with a mentor to help them to get through the process some were offered an opportunity to work with a cohort because there were many of them who needed to get through that licensing process most of our postings now say things such as license for this particular position is required and as principals look at the people that they are calling to interview they are looking for licenses I'm not sure if that has been done before but it is being done now so things like that are taking place as well as many others that are making sure that we are on track to being fully licensed Thank you Any other questions or comments for one or two? Anyone new first off? but I may not be curious, is there anyone? So one topic that has come up over the course of these conversations is how we deal as individuals how we deal with racial bias and the reality of racial bias and speaking frankly as a white guy it's something I think about a lot because I want to be very cognizant that it's a latent potential in anything I do so when I'm making an important decision and that issue is risen I want to always honor and respect the question but then my second instinct is to not want to jump to conclusions either way I don't want to presume that racial bias hasn't been a factor in my decision just because I think I'm a swell guy and I don't want to think that it has just because I'm feeling a different way so if you could just talk in general about you're obviously in a position of hiring authority and this issue has been brought up you can only say so much legally and so that sort of limits detailed conversation but just maybe in a general way obviously values racial equity deals with that so I think there's three frames that I try to use when I'm thinking on that question so the first is that I know that our students and we heard it actually at the last school committee meeting are cognizant that there is a gap between the race ethnicity and our staff population and it's really important that we find and I'm going to use this term very intentionally I I'm going to use it so intentionally I'm going to rethink my language so that we were developing both internally and then finding externally because I think both are really important being the Power Pathways program in particular staff members of color that must be highly successful and are supported to be successful in our district I also am aware that I'm not aware of any district and certainly not here of a year where there are excellent white candidates who have experiences working in diverse populations with great experience great backgrounds that fit our dynamic so for me both are true it's not an either or and when I'm looking at any candidate who I feel like is high potential to be successful in our community certainly I'm aware of their background and I also am conscious that someone's race ethnicity is not a reason to hire someone in and of itself that leads to a bunch of unintended consequences both for our student population as well as for our staff population and community that's really important and certainly asking the questions you asked I think those are the right questions to ask what biases do I bring to the table how am I viewing these candidates and what are the potential for growth within that and so what I think we've done well I cited some statistics earlier and by we I'm really indicating well I end up being the hiring agent and superintendent in almost all situations in this situation a couple candidates are being recommended to me and so what I want to really appreciate about our principals in general and our human resource department is they're actively seeking so it's not a passive system it's a very active system both of internal people who have talent and I'm not just picking on the power pathways program multiple times unintentionally but we've had other versions of this before from special education to other groups a couple years ago because we knew that we had retirements in that field we knew we were going to have vacancies we knew we had high quality there's a lot of our paraeducators work in special education with our students so I think I'm doing as clear a job as I'd like to answer your question but the biggest frame for me is who's going to do the best job for students and how do we have a more representative sample it's not only Hobson I wish I had like a screen that said it's so much better than me but it's not either or a question it's an added question and that's the lunch we reached through them and I'm never, we're never interested in hiring someone who we don't believe will be successful in the district and that could be, that's not a race ethnicity piece that could be, they went to Harvard University and got a great degree and have advanced degrees in mathematics and when the high school interviews them and they do a model less and they can't connect to kids they're not going to be successful unless it's in the textbook if they can't relate to our students they're not going to be a successful educator in our district so it's multifaceted and I'll get a little cleaner on my thoughts on that and maybe share them back in the beginning of the next school committee because I think it's a really important question to be asked and answered so in the moment we're going to be at a point where we're going to transition from the school committee's engagement on this issue to active listening with the community because the train is about to leave the station for school committee members and I have something I'm going to ask but if you look at the agenda we're actually not revisiting this item today and so I'm sort of urging school committee members who have something on their mind that they want to ask or say to not feel caught at the point I suddenly moved towards the community and then you feel like you've you know that is another second you would have formulated your question and your thoughts so the question I have for both is coming in with Dr. Morris and I know this is kind of a challenging question and so I apologize for it you mentioned earlier that there has been significant leadership turnover at the middle school over the years you've talked about how outstanding the leadership overall teaching is the instruction environment in the middle school is and given the pathway or approach you're talking about moving forward with you're there's sort of a unique and singular responsibility on both of you knowing that there would be a new interim coming in for a period of potentially a couple of years and then and then in case you're missing any of this no I forgive me people can there's just a sort of unique and singular responsibility in terms of thinking about how to support the middle school and it's fully dimensions obviously the students but also the staff the professionals that we care deeply about what you do so I'd love to get your thoughts on if you have thoughts literally when you're looking out in other words over the next few months or the next year what's your perspective on engaging in support and obviously the key point is the committee's gotten a bunch of letters and communications and so it's not unknown to us at least a number of staff people have expressed as their views and so I just feel like I'd feel irresponsible not to ask this question or for the community to ask this question given the fact that it's one thing sort of the talk about a process that you think might provide some stability in terms of structure and then it's another question to say we still have an organization filled with human beings who are going to bring their own felt experience and emotions and perspective to the day and ultimately with this pathway a lot of that burden is going to fall on both of you for better or for worse and in that sense of going back to what I said at the beginning our job was to hire you and so now we've done that and so it's not it's a hard ball in the sense that I don't know if you have an answer for it today it's not intended to be challenging in a sense that I don't think you have an answer for or could have an answer I would just like to say that when we had the first meeting at the middle school one of the words that stood out to me was the word healing it was something that they talked about and that when I hear Dr. Morris talk about all the different principles or leadership that they had over the years and I saw many well enough members in that meeting cry I felt that the need is for someone who's strong enough to help that healing process along the other thing that I noticed were that there were some in session who did not they didn't speak and some who came later and spoke hoping for privacy and so as we look for our next person I'd like us to be able to have someone who's able to work with that and help them all to come together so that they feel united all voices are heard and respected and that the healing does take place so I know that part of my job in my role and with our office we have to work to help that to take place or the individual who then is interim to make sure that that happens for the staff but I think the other thing that I think is truly important given the number of things that will be discussed at the regional level in the next couple years we have incredibly clear priorities so that whoever the interim is understands what she or he what the major tasks major priorities are that they can dig their teeth into because I think in addition to the running the school there's also the 10,000 feet are we going to study sixth grade and what does that look like and sever the 12 right that master planning piece is pretty central to the intersection with that and I do think kind of the last thing I'll say is also that an interim just having been one just understanding what things are the I'm resating myself but I want to say it slightly differently what things are the priority and how to walk the staff and support the staff to have their voice as being central so kind of all the things that we're talking about the next couple years that I'm using the phrase 10,000 feet for really need staff to be involved and so we need to support that person to have a process where staff feel actively a part of that whatever decisions end up getting made on the master planning piece whatever decisions get made in terms of strategic planning and having that and so setting some priorities for that individual and then supporting them to be actively collaborating with staff along those dimensions would be I think one of the core components of my role in supporting that individual to be successful so I want to run down the line here and just see if anyone has anything they want to mention or bring up and then we'll run through it and then go to the public okay just one last comment and I think it's mostly to reiterate something that Miss Spitzer had mentioned which is just about timing the condensed amount of timing and I have to say probably that is the one thing that concerns me the most I think with this conversation is you know that we are and I completely agree with the ideas and the way that you have put forth this process the way that you're describing this process but I feel like we need to do it right and that ensuring especially if we're going to be evaluating what our hiring process has been in the past because both of you are fairly new to these positions and have just you know without that history of how things have been done previously there's a lot of learning that we're all going to be doing as part of this and so I feel like it's important to take that time that you need to make sure that you get it right and that you really understand the information the data that's coming back from staff who have been here for a very long time as well as parents in the community and all of that right and so I would encourage you to think about that about you know making sure that you do have enough time to gather all of that and to make sense of it and then to translate it afterwards because I think that you're right there's a lot of healing that needs to be done there's been a lot of tumult around not just this particular process but I think quite a few others in the district and it's helpful to learn from those experiences but only if you can actually translate that into a new way of doing things moving forward I have a licensing question we have the parents who are working on that first cohort with their mtels I'm curious how are we doing with assisting teachers with the SEI endorsement because last spring this committee put forward a policy that ensure that teachers could be hired without it as long as that classroom didn't require it and I'm just curious how we're doing on helping assisting those teachers get that endorsement so we have had courses held after school for teachers who need it we have also looked at the licensing of our teachers and those who needed it we invited them to join the classes so they are most of our teachers do have it the ones that need it are working on it thank you so when the leadership transition is so publicly volatile like this it can actually lead to concerns particularly on the part of parents about what's this building going to be like I didn't want to end the conversation without commenting from having been a parent there for six years and through those six years I think it was four principles some transitions were smooth and some were more volatile the thing that I directly observed was just what an amazing place what a special unique place this building is for educating students and the opportunities that students have the thing that was amazing to me was that that was so consistent regardless of the volatility or not of the administration whether in the building or larger in the district and I really attribute that it sounds kind of corny but to the spirit and the dedication of the teachers and there's like 100,000 examples of this that I won't iterate now but just this past year with the student walk out and teaching how that was handled collaboratively with teachers and students this sound bites cafe which you might not know there's a science teacher volunteer time to bring in researchers from UMass who get kids all excited at a really young age and kids at that age getting engaged at high level topics and the immigration stories project that I think has a reception next Tuesday where kids working with students and the teachers about expressing their own personal story and I'm just scratching the surface I'm just fly by examples and I saw these happen again and again and again over six years and so I mean I would just say to any parent who's maybe anxious or thinking about you know is that place still going to be there for me I'd say absolutely it's going to be there for you and it's a wonderful opportunity in so many aspects because of the students that the energy they bring and the teachers who are so devoted to always providing that well I think I'll just echo what Mr. Demling said quickly with just that my experience at the middle school was two things I remember I remember strongly was that I was in a group that dissected a shark on the table of a science classroom after school with I think the same person who was doing the science that you mentioned and also I had one of my favorite math teachers who got me interested in math and STEM in general which I'm now going to college for so the middle school was really an important factor in how my academic life has shaped so I just wanted to echo that point so I think I guess my final comment would echo the question I asked earlier is just the observation that and I'm sure you'll do it anyway but we've talked about it with that presentation about ways in which you're engaging the staff regularly throughout the district in different ways but I think that that process given the perspectives we've heard in the passion with which those perspectives have been expressed and I'm sure we'll be again tonight that I think there's you can't do it too much in terms of engaging and ensuring that if anything you're more present but you've expressed your concern and interest in doing that so I don't want to belabor it but I think it's a moment that requires it so moving forward to public comment and announcements I guess we'll do announcements eventually from the school committee so just be patient, keep your notes together as mentioned earlier we talked about the ground rules earlier I'm sure I think most people are still here so I'm sure everyone will be deeply respectful of that and I hope they will three minutes I'm going to be a little lenient with the three minutes but not endlessly lenient so try to keep a clock in your head because also I don't want to have to gavel anyone certainly feel like I'm being rude so I'm going to start with the list that I have and call people up and then after that take whoever wants to speak and we have this on the agenda until 7.50 we're running a little late now so that could take us to nearly 8 but in all honesty unless the committee ends up objecting I'm going to let people talk until they don't feel like talking anymore so with that we'd like to thank you please hello my name is Sonia Nieto I've been an educator for over 50 years beginning as a classroom teacher in Brooklyn, New York and completing my formal academic career at UMass where I was a teacher specializing in physical education and so this was a UCF purpose and I had a teacher for 23 years encouraging me to co-assist in principals and have time be a self-teacher at ARMS is my daughter Heidi Goulding I'm here this evening to speak about the situation at ARMS I want to address comments that I heard at the previous school committee meeting because I found some of them misleading inaccurate or untrue and I believe they've muddied the waters not to mention that reputations have been sullied as well and I think we need to take that into consideration I also want to comment on why the decision not to reappoint Dr. Bode is terribly wrong it's evidence that she and her entire staff have transformed ARMS into a stable nurturing and multicultural environment with high expectations for children of all backgrounds yet to say to quote one of the people who spoke at the previous school committee meeting that Dr. Bode is not even minimally qualified and that there were a quote a myriad of reasons that she wasn't recommended by the screening committee for the principals position and then to mention only certification is at best dishonest suggesting that many other factors were part of the committee's decision without saying what those factors were having been involved in certification programs for many years in higher education I know that it's not the only requirement for being a qualified administrator more important are extensive knowledge as well as solid experience and expertise in middle school education among other qualifications so to imply as another speaker did that people at ARMS do not seem to understand how to deal with middle school youngsters this despite the fact that the ARMS leadership team all three of whom have one important social justice and education awards and who have a total of 75 years of experience at the middle school level among them is uninformed at least to insinuate that Dr. Bode was selected quote to advance friends in their careers while providing no further explanation is unjust and to claim with a straight face that words like multicultural education cannot be used for a white person's resume is to misunderstand not only the goals of multicultural education but even serious more seriously to dismiss Dr. Bode's lifelong commitment to equitable and socially just education it's through these kinds of allegations that reputations are ruined I'll leave it to others who work at the school and know best to describe some of the great things that Patty Bode and her entire staff have done in the past two years I would say that as an outsider looking in she's done an extraordinary job of gathering the energy commitment and creativity of the ARMS staff to advance the goals of an anti-racist and socially just education through curriculum pedagogy and school climate I believe your decision will have widespread negative repercussions for the students the staff and the entire school system let me end by making a personal plea to you Dr. Morris and to you members of the school committee to do what you can to reverse this terrible decision so that the ARMS community can continue striving to provide a highly innovative, anti-racist and rigorous education for all students. Thank you I hope this letter that I'm going to read from sharing my experience at ARMS will help to shed some light on the qualities that Dr. Bode has and that we should look for the next principal at ARMS I'm Nadlata Vadismith and I'm an English the second language teacher at ARMS I'm originally from Brazil and I self-identified as Afro-Latina I was recommended by Dr. Patty Bode and hired by Dr. Morris in July 2017 before starting work at ARMS I had heard exceptional things about the work of the administrators and staff I was thrilled to work for a former art teacher who has a masters in education with concentration in multicultural education in addition the interior assistant principal is a self-identified Latina ESL teacher and we also have a music teacher I was certain that ARMS was the perfect place for me little did I know that I was about to embark on an educational experience that encompassed a variety of issues related to diversity first day of school at ARMS was the most remarkable first school day of my entire career as a teacher it definitely set the tone for what was to come throughout the school year of 2017-2018 the very first day of school the entire school students and staff were reminded of the very own reason we were all gathered in that school on the white screen was projected the famous painting the problem we all live with by Norman Rockwell of a very infamous moment of American history racial segregation as I sat there all looking at the painting and listening to Patty while the analysis of it I more than ever felt that I was at the right school the right school for me an immigrant after Latina woman the right school for a person like me who dreams of equity the perfect school for someone like me who is committed to social justice as the days months went by the conviction that I was at the right place just grew stronger seeing the administration and staff and to inclusive and equitable quality education for all students made me very proud to be part of the school team critical things part of any regular day at arms and can be found in any classroom you walk into in the lobby on the walls and in the minds and hearts of its team members some of our extraordinary educational projects and exhibitions have been featured by the teacher in the local media all I want to convey in this speech is my admiration for the work done at arms by every single member of its team and especially our leader Patty Bowie, thank you Tiffany Tibido Hi, I'm Tiffany Tibido I'm a math teacher and the curriculum leader at Amherst regional middle school and I'm an Amherst Massachusetts resident I'm a proud teacher at the middle school July 1st marks my sixth year here and at that time I will be I guess greeting my fourth principal despite this inconsistency the staff has continued providing excellent social emotional and academic instruction but none of those years more powerful and innovative than the past two years a month ago some statements were made in this forum that were inaccurate about the work happening at Amherst regional middle school and we as a staff just want to correct the record so I'm writing this letter just to address those inaccuracies previously stated and to highlight some of the many ways our school has flourished under Dr. Bowie's leadership Dr. Bowie is an inspiring leader for the way she listens to the needs of staff and then empowers and supports us this is evident from her introductory meeting with the staff when she not only shared about herself but she gave us index cards and she asked us to share who we are what was working in the middle school and she asked us what were our wishes in terms of professional development that very summer she made time to meet with me to talk about my role as math curriculum leader she welcomed me to discuss the goals of our department she frequently asked for me let me know if I can help you in any way I'm probably going to cheer up a little bit Dr. Bowie empowered me to make changes our department knew were necessary to improve the equity in our instruction from that our department started a process to begin the heterogeneous grouping instruction that is starting in the seventh grade from my first interaction with Patty I felt valued and I felt supported as an educator since then on numerous occasions Dr. Bowie and I have discussed individual students needs and math and she has helped me consider creative ways to support students where they are academically on our first official teacher work day of 2016-2017 school year Patty involved the staff in a mini lesson including visual thinking strategies featuring the painting aspects of Negro life from slavery to reconstruction by Erin Douglas on the first official work day of 2017-2018 she led teachers through a part of her hand painting lesson we begin this year with activities and conversations about identity and race she modeled for us how teachers can address difficult conversations in a classroom and reminded us that social justice is a part of the work we do every day Dr. Bowie has been instrumental in leading change and improving opportunities for social and emotional and academic instruction appropriate for middle schoolers I could go on and on about the positive changes in the positive ways that Dr. Bowie has contributed to our school and have benefited my students and me I'll leave off with I won't read the whole letter that just this past weekend our school our school has been taking part of a district-wide initiative called Challenge Discess which was started by Mike Morris in which staff, parents and students attended a conference and have been reading some works and really looking at how to focus on students' social, emotional and health and to sort of create a positive climate at the middle school and for adolescents at that age this past weekend we attended as a follow-up to the Challenge Success and at the regional conference I and other representatives from ARMS were able to meet with other schools and to talk about the work we do here at ARMS and we were commended for the creative ways that we support the whole student Other schools in Massachusetts stated that they were planning to share our practices with their schools to help them implement and so I highlight these details to say there is a clear reason why I love coming to work here and I probably tell others that I'm a teacher and I'm going to be doing middle school thank you Ben Levy in the comments should be close to three minutes I'll summarize this very long letter that we all wrote together my name is Ben Levy I teach English at ARMS and I have a letter that I'd like to submit to the school committee it's a letter that highlights some of the things that Tiffany just spoke to and tries to draw upon the long, long list of things that ARMS staff have put together over the past couple weeks of accomplishments that we have felt were Patty Bodie's responsibility and part of the reason why we wanted to do that is because we felt that there was a kind of misrepresentation of our school and community and that representation was governed by a couple voices and we wanted to be loud and proud about how happy we are as teachers at ARMS and how proud we are as teachers so I'm here to represent 52 staff members who in four hours from lunch onward read and signed their names to this document essentially what this document is it's organized by categories categories that Patty Bodie has actually I think I gave you my document oh did you here I have a number of handouts for you all so that's my English teacher in I don't have enough so you have to look with a partner um no I think I got mine back again it's got red on it I think I'm going to kind of go off the cuff actually because this is really long so I want you to read it actually because we spent a lot of time looking at it we spent a lot of time thinking about all the reasons we're proud of the school um and I think that uh the tears that you all witnessed on those days that you came to see us um that could understand could be interpreted that we need healing or that we are broken I think with those tears where we're tears of relief um and tears of loss tears of relief that we have had Bodie as our principal and tears of loss that we might use her um I'm actually not going to go into more detail about this letter I just urge you to read it and hear the voices of the 52 and more staff members I'm sure who um are proud to call arms their home particularly under Patty's leadership thank you so we have I have a line that has two names on it uh Claire Claire is going to speak okay well I was going to say you could both speak if you wanted to thank you very much please I'm Claire Coco are you hearing me okay hi um I'm reading this on behalf of 49 staff people at the middle school um we appreciate Dr. Morris and Miss Cunningham taking the time to conduct a listening session with armed staff on April 26th about the search process process for a principal at that session several staff clearly stated their wish to have more input into the search process and more transparency it is important that they heard this feedback and made efforts to address it however we have grave concerns about the timing of their proposal to create a committee to and their words from a letter dated 3rd review current practices formalize the district's commitment to social justice and hiring a diverse workforce and create a consistent district wide process for future searches these are indeed critical needs we do not dispute these goals we are extremely concerned though that all this can be accomplished in the time frame outlined this committee will start its work no earlier than May 14th by the end of the month the committee will need to take on huge and important tasks in the meeting with armed staff on May 3rd Dr. Morris said that each school in the district has a different method of searching for and hiring staff this means that this committee will need to evaluate each school's existing hiring process then the committee will need to determine a uniform process that will meet all school's needs as well as address our commitment to diversity and equity this task needs to be accomplished by the end of May so that a search committee can then be created to hire the new interim principal for arms Dr. Morris and Ms. Cunningham decided this principal will be needed to be hired for no less than two years Dr. Morris affirmed to us that it is the goal to have this person hired by the last day of the school year this means that there are about two to two and a half weeks to come up with a policy that will affect all students and teachers last Thursday teachers raised the concern that this seemed to be a rushed process considering an especially busy time of year for teachers Dr. Morris pointed out that there is often no good time for such work school is always busy and it's true there is always work to do but think about it the end of May teachers at arms are already working extra hard to facilitate the transition of their students to the next grade and the end of the year planning that comes along with that in the high school many teachers will be busy giving exams and grading papers for seniors in time for the graduation in early June and we're sure elementary school teachers are feeling the crunch the end of the year crunch as well so can this process be reconsidered if an interim principal must be hired by June 21st perhaps the process could follow past practice at middle school in which staff nominated and elected representatives to the interview committee then a more thoughtful inclusive and less brush process could start in the fall to evaluate current hiring practices and make recommendations for broad district-wide changes if an interim were hired for a shorter term than two years such policy changes could then go into effect to help us find a stable long-term principal such as many of the other schools have had for years thank you and I'd like to enter this document into the thank you for hearing our voices tonight we did not have a lot of time to prepare somebody said a couple weeks but honestly it's been a couple of days we know that not everyone who wanted to join in our message had time to get involved we would like to encourage you to continue to engage with us on this we invite you to continue to ask us questions about arms and to celebrate the work of our students and to look for evidence of what is really happening there we would like to share with you a piece of evidence it's a typical piece it's not an unusual artifact it is a Bode note which is something that we get as staff daily from Dr. Bode from December 16th, 2016 and again completely random sample Bode notes for staff what are we learning today there is an invitation to a party a celebration for the season there's a two hour delay and a concern don't worry teachers you're going to have your prep there's an awareness of what is going to attract here and teach your concern there's a family diversity project inquiry group announcement advisors don't forget schedule this date more is coming to help you with this process there is a note that because of the recent anti-Semitic activity that had happened post-election last year that Patty had gone and met with the Jewish community center in Amherst and that she was reporting out that things went well with this and I'm going to quote continuing anti-bias work please continue to engage our work with anti-bias curriculum and discussions please continue to share resources in our anti-bias curriculum folder one that she created for us please inform me about additional curriculum or extensions expansions you are engaging students are reacting and responding in a wide range of ways but what is clear is that we need to continue in addition expanding the fight to combat bias and oppression toward multiple affiliations groups and affirming all identities I'm sorry in addition to combating bias and oppression toward multiple affiliations groups and affirming all identities we need to move forward with assertive training and active bystander skills it goes on with some things we need to know important dates this is not unusual it shows the work of what's happening if you want to know more about how and what students and staff have been doing under the leadership of Patti Bode you might look no further than gathering these notes from the last year and a half they record and tell the story of a school that is doing its best to walk the walk and talk the talk of what is best for students for our community and our society we do this proudly we do this tirelessly and we do this in debt and gratitude under the leadership of Dr. Bode I want to teach you more about it I have to go off script here based on what happened in your discussion I just want to respond a lot of people that they've been reacting in a couple weeks that we've heard this news said I just want to stand up and say we need her and I want to just say that I believe Dr. Nieto is correct this decision warrants a creative solution and the possibility of reversal this is going to be an important thing that I hope that you can discuss my name is Eli Edinson I currently teach math at Amherst Middle School I'd just like to go on the record by saying that I think it's an absolute travesty that Patty Bode is not at least being considered for the leadership position at Amherst Regional Middle School I I got a little no-card here sorry so I do want to preface my comments by saying that I do understand that Patty is not currently licensed currently to be a principal in the state of Massachusetts but I do want to say that I've been in a lot of schools when I worked for a lot of administrators here in this district and in others I've never even seen the license of my administrators I don't even know if it existed if they had one even if it did it's a little piece of paper it usually has your name and your birthday and your method ID and that's about it it says you're a good principal but as much as a driver's license says that you're a good driver it really doesn't what does impress me is the body of work that that principal puts in and the way that they can cultivate relationships amongst the faculty amongst the students the way that they can inspire others to instill the beliefs and values that we say that we so cherish in our community and the way that she can encourage us to continue that work in our classrooms the way that I got some other notes here sorry but that whole idea that she doesn't have a light it doesn't it's really that's not what's important here I had a little anecdote that I wanted to do something Patty there for the sake of time I'm not going to share but basically there was an incident of anti-Semitism in our school last year and the response that Patty had was amazing and it touched me as a Jewish educator in our school it was empowering and it made me feel safe and supported and it was something I never seen an administrator do basically and that doesn't happen in other schools and it's important to know that these are the things that we'll be missing if Patty is not part of our building and I know that that was just one incident and it was targeted at a very small Jewish population of our school but I will say that I've seen Patty do something either empowering or creative or inspiring or she created awareness around the Latino and Hispanic students in our school she's done something for the African American students in our school she's done something for the homeless students in our school the LGBTQ students in our school she did something for the ELL students for the immigrant students I mean I could keep going here but I think you're getting the picture what she's talking about is those kids like they're her own she is an amazing person to work for if she's not allowed to continue working at this building I personally will be devastated and I know that there's other people in this room that would be devastated as well my last comment you're a good man I've had the pleasure of teaching two of your wonderful children in my opinion you were instrumental in bringing Patty into this district and you did it for all the right reasons and you did it because you were on board and this building was two years ago it was a disaster and people were miserable and this is real we have to go home to our families too at night and it's very hard when those schools are in turmoil and we've created something amazing here why would we blow that up now it just seems insane to me my last thing is I did this for Patty this is a little art analogy you wouldn't take Van Gogh out of the art museum because he didn't have an art degree you would figure out a way to keep that painting in the book my name is Steve Zeichan Anderson I've worked with the middle school for 12 years and in addition I have a little other perspective from serving for three years on the school committee at the frontier district I know frontier isn't amourst I get that but and actually I'm going to squeeze a quick comment and I appreciate Ben bringing up and I really do want to reiterate that I feel it was what I heard also is a misunderstanding of the emotions you heard in the lectures at that first meeting because we were not it was about a past time the healing had happened the thing that happened at the school a few years ago had been healed and so those were emotions of thanks for the people that have brought that on so I just wanted to make that clear it sounded like that was misunderstood I'd like to share some additional perspective on Patti Bode and the arms community but I'd also ask you to hear what I'm saying as well as speaking to the qualities that I feel it's essential for a principal to have who's going to lead our community as you're likely well aware by having taught at arms over the last decade plus I've had the opportunity to work with quite a few administration teams in the two years that Patti Bode has been the principal of our school I've had an experience that is completely unique during my time at the middle school and that has been the opportunity to work for an administrator who I've felt truly inspired by a principal who I greatly appreciated learning from and a leader who I have felt very confident to be led by Patti has consistently shown that she understands how to lead a school community in a collaborative that engages and involves everybody she's a leader who understands when it's appropriate to make decisions that are hers alone to make and also when and how to include stakeholders in a collaborative decision making process whether meeting individually with Patti or attending a meeting with her along with colleagues, parents or a student Patti always truly listens to the feedback and comments of others and incorporates their thoughts and concerns into her consideration as part of her leadership style Patti consistently shows a deep respect for an interest in hearing a diversity of ideas and viewpoints during my times at ARMS I've also had the opportunity to serve on two different principal interview committees not hiring committees and in addition I was involved in the evaluative processes of school leaders in my role on the Conway school committee as a result I've seen many education professionals who have applied for or are working in a leadership position I can say that during my time on the screening committees I've not had the experience of advocating for a candidate as a must-have person someone who I felt so strongly we should choose as our leader instead honestly I've been left with the experience of proposing a candidate who would merely be the acceptable choice from the pool that was left and Patti Bodie however I have seen in action a professional who I can easily say I would have called a must-have as a principal candidate for vast experience in and clear commitment to social justice, equity and multicultural education and her demonstrated ability to lead a school community in a respectful and collaborative style exactly the qualities that I would want in a principal for our middle school Patti has truly walked the walk as well as talked the talk of what makes a great principal and I can now only be hopeful that I'm able to say the same for the next person sitting in that office thank you I want to take just a moment there are a few more names and obviously as I mentioned before I'm going to keep letting people know as long as they want but earlier when I talked about the ground rules that we have as policy and they're grounded I think in good ethics as well as also to some extent the law there's it's an interesting phrase you're not allowed to pick out individuals for complaints or criticisms but there's nothing actually in the rules that prevent you from praising people and I say that this is actually kind of important I'm not I'm saying this because it's important because I have no idea what anyone wants to say next who comes up here and I need to say now before we continue that the ground rules that I mentioned earlier are still in place and that may not feel fair to members of the public if I've sat here as chair and allowed a lot of very nice things to be said and then I'm going to wield a heavy gavel if anyone comes up to what they might naturally consider to be an alternative viewpoint that is a member of the community they have a right to possess and so I'm saying this now because the ground rules are in fact in effect and they're in effect because they need to be as an ethically bound as well as legally bound school committee I've literally no idea what anyone wants to say who comes up next there may not be anything like that but I really felt they needed to reiterate that because I'm going to gavel the living heck if I feel like we're crossing in lines that we shouldn't and you just need to know that now that it's not either personally or to prevent any freedom of speech it's really because the rules of our of our body as a public body are bounded by law and bounded by our ethical obligations having said that, again as I said I have no idea what anyone wants to say next so my next person on here is Norman Price so first of all I want to thank you for this opportunity to speak and your service to our children and our community for this idea of the challenges you all face sitting in those seats I am so fortunate to work with you this thoughtful and courageous leadership of the school committee, Dr. Morris my awesome colleagues and our remarkable students and families so it's from a place of deep gratitude that I stand here today with a few observations so Dr. Bodie and I came to the middle school about 27 years ago as an art teacher I mean I could go on and on of course about that but as an art teacher Patty made great things happen every day we all look to her as a leader in multicultural education she brought theory to life for our students and our school so flash forward two years ago I was extremely optimistic she would be a visionary leader who could take theory and bring it to life in our community and as you can hear people think that's been happening so as also a parent we have a fantastic faculty at the middle school it's you know in science you use analogies sometimes right to try I'm a science teacher at the middle school and so if you have an analogy it's sort of like we're in a giant boat full of very very strong rowers and we can make the school move and we do but we are better when we have a great coach a coxson, a captain who rows along with us and we have this with Mrs. Bodie or Dr. Bodie and as you probably know finding a principal with this talent is so difficult I mean if you've seen her resume this doesn't happen in my opinion someone like her comes around every 25 years if you are lucky some schools never will get a principal like this so we may not have this chance again so my question is will this district, this town who values multicultural education be creative enough to see this as a staff development issue this licensure issue the state changes gears every other freaking week they switch from Nickel B to ESSA the rules change, the websites down all of these things happen over the course of this two year period will we bend over backwards as we should to keep this outstanding person in place we obviously face we all do as a district because we've seen what can happen as a district we face political and bureaucratic challenges to this but when I look around at you folks and our leadership team I have to believe we have the courage the brains and the political savvy at the state level to figure this out to solve this puzzle it's a bureaucratic and political challenge it's a puzzle but I think together if we put our minds together we can find a solution that will keep an amazing person in place I'm Sue Tippett I'm the school adjustment counselor at the middle school I've worked for the Amherst regional school system since 1994 which means I've served served under more than 12 principals I was going to get up here and tell you how wonderful Patty is but everybody has said it so I just want to add one other thing in honor not wasting time which is that I think the principal hiring process at the district level has been broken for a long time long before you all were here I have worked under a college pedophile I have worked under people who were fired I know families didn't experience this but we started the middle school one year with no schedules kids were in with teachers for six hours because the principal had refused to listen to people about making schedules she was gone by the end of September we have had incredible upheaval and difficulties not just at the middle school but at the high school this hiring problem cannot be corrected in a month this needs a really really thoughtful process it is difficult to find an incredibly a person who has everything that we need for the principal what we need is a person who has a passion to be a principal because in Amherst it's incredibly challenging to be a principal we need someone who has the skills to be a principal and we need someone who has tremendous commitment and the ability to actualize that commitment we have all those things in Patti Bodie with creativity you can legally keep Patti Bodie she can be teacher in charge of the school schools do that when there isn't a licensed principal she could be co-principal with some other staff person we have staff people who have principal licenses who are willing to be co-principal with her there are ways to keep Patti Bodie as Dr. Price said in the program we will not find another one and we will not solve this in a month thank you Dr. Baptiste I'm trying to talk quick first it's an honor to be in a room with so many of what I consider the noblest professionals teachers I've been a teacher I'll also say it's an honor to be in a room with a former school committee member it is very important that teachers voices be heard and it's very important also to hear the institutional knowledge of what has happened before I've come to bring some of that institutional knowledge as well although not as far back as 12 years so I appreciate that a lot of people are here describing with good measure and good reason the reasons why Patti Bodie is a good principal but I personally don't find fault with that second of Dr. Morris's decisions and more so with the first to me it is at least as egregious for different reasons that not that Patti Bodie isn't the principal but that we won't have a principal until you know next year to me that is the issue so what I want to describe is in all my time in public service and the point that everybody is here is that it's always in the best interest of the community for public education to have public people involved as such I've said this before we've spent plenty of time debating and deliberating and giving it to the point that the administration can be responsive to the community that was the inception of the school equity task force we've spent many other deliberations and debates making sure that we can have a position like Ms. Cunningham's position so to have a hiring process that involves a search committee I definitely echo what you're describing the processes here have been a skew for a long long time and I would humbly suggest you know because I have been part of the continuum of this that what we're describing in terms of fixing a process has to come through I hope you don't knock me down chair but I'm criticizing the school committee the school committee has to make this process so even if Dr. Morris and Ms. Cunningham get a committee together in the next couple of weeks we're not in their jurisdiction or authority to decide this is the way it should go forward so everybody is comfortable with their involvement in the process except to each and every one of you solemn members of the community elected to represent for a public school system until and unless that happens oh and I also want to acknowledge this is you know good stuff I want to acknowledge Dr. Morris and this is praise with a backhanded slap praise for taking on your shoulders and speaking the criticism of sitting in this in this garden I know people with less of a character wouldn't do it this is not about whether Patty Bodie is a great principal many people would say she is this is about whether not the leadership in the district that's you school committee people and the superintendent can put together a process that can demonstrate that people have a say in what's going to happen in the community the reason we're at this juncture is that enough people feel like they have a say and the superintendent can decide no you don't I'm going to do something else for reasons that I doubt anybody here can articulate so that is the issue and that's not so my point is that speaking about Patty Bodie is kind of tangential to where we are in the district and where we've been for a very long long time the final thing I want to say diversity and our questions about diversity are also secondary I've been in many of conversations about diversity in our district and many people describe diversity in different ways our conversation has never been about historically about the number of para educators or clerical staff we hire for the sake of having numbers it has always been about the lived experience of not just people of color in the community but everybody in the community when young white children grow up they don't see a person of authority that is of a different background they go into the world disabled we've always been arguing and discussing how best to get positions of leadership filled with diversity of thought diversity of geography diversity of people and I don't want to argue whether not one person is good for it or not I want to argue whether not a process is in place to make that happen and I think we're chasing bread herrings and we do anything less than that so thank you for allowing me to speak I think I'll be doing this so the names on the sheets that were submitted have been exhausted if there's anyone who would like to speak they can come forward to the microphone please identify yourself you have three minutes to speak hi I'm Heather Sullivan Flynn proud teacher at the middle school and the parent of a child who will be at the middle school I would urge the school committee to slow down this process the one mistake that we can make right now is to put a permanent person in place July 1st clearly the middle school is ready to work with the school committee with the town on our leadership and on the future of our school let's not make a decision based on having someone in place quickly as of July 1st it's an unreasonable timetable and even in future considerations like if we're consolidating with the high school or elementary schools these are all secondary issues to taking the time to have a dialogue and to have a process that's going to work and I think that July 1st is too quick for that thank you anyone else want to speak you've got to wait a second because sometimes people don't see I'm about to close it off and then you're like no wait let me apologize I stutter I'm one of the two co-assisted principals at Amherst Regional Middle School David Wainan I'm about to finish my 38th year in our school district over those 38 years I spent the first 15 years working under one principal for the last 23 years I've worked under approximately nine principals if I count my years as K-12 performing arts coordinator high school elementary principals many more I've worked under approximately nine superintendents for many people there was a time in our school district where we had the term B-A-M-S-S BAMS and BAMS goals I don't know how many people even realize what that stands for but you can go look it up I think it's important because it's history of our school district and you shouldn't know that however I will say this I have spent the last the last two years working with two individuals not just one individual but two individuals Alicia as well as Patty who are BAMS who live BAMS who have brought BAMS to school when BAMS first started I had the honor of taking the very first BAMS class with Beverly Tatum it was a wonderful class she's an incredible professor I then went on to take part two of BAMS and then our school district in a way kept that that acronym as nothing more than a figurehead and over the last few years we've really tried to work very hard at getting that back we're a school district that likes to say that we honor culture we honor diversity and yet I see two individuals that I have worked with as well as taught with as well as who've known both of my kids who went through our school district who are BAMS and I do want you to really consider whether or not you want to lose that I also want you to really consider are you going to end a school year without the middle school faculty and staff not knowing who they will be working for and with come September that would be real travesty will it matter to me it will matter to me because I've spent 38 years in the school district will it matter to me September 1st when it's time to walk into the building I'm old because I'm not walking into the building I'm retiring and I can say that I've spent the last two years of my career here working with two of the most incredibly dedicated individuals I have ever met thank you does anyone else speak so my name is Nick Yaffe Principal of Wildwood so Mike Doreen I totally respect and feel very grateful for working with you so I just want to put that out and allow me to be the kind of principal that I aspire to be but if I didn't speak I would feel like I couldn't live with myself really my father always said to be a mensch so this is my attempt to be a mensch for those of you that know Yiddish I couldn't speak because I don't know how to say something about Patty so when I became a principal of 14 years ago I had been through seven principles in my time at Marx Meadow when I looked for a mentor or someone to talk to it was Patty who was the art teacher at the middle school and working with turning points so I feel like this is my opportunity to say thank you to Patty and then when she came to the district I thought this is it this is a keeper this is somebody who is just right so dedicated and I saw the effect on all the staff, on the parents and the kids and I'm really thankful that what she did heal the school she did work with everybody and for me as a principal I know how important it is to inspire a staff and so she's really inspired staff and that you galvanize in all this energy and it's not easy to do for the great of good so I just want to put that out there I know how complicated the situation is but I'm still in a sense of feeling of loss and sadness and sadness for the community for our kids I know as a community we will strive to do the best as I said but I'm still hoping beyond hope that something can be done too because the healing has already begun to move us forward but I don't know if it can be done so I just wanted to say thank you to Patty for all you giving so thank you so I'm Ginny Hamilton I'm a parent of a third grader so an aspiring middle schooler which actually inspires fright rather than excitement except sitting in this room tonight hearing teachers talk about the work that they're doing at the middle school and the kind of education my son will hopefully get there in a few years reminds me that that's the reason we moved to this town to participate in this town to provide our son with an education that's top quality academics and focused in social justice the second point I want to make is professionally I do work as a healer and teaching people how to heal themselves through movement and through body work and so hearing the talk of healing needed tonight it's important to realize that healing happens through movement when we spend time thinking that we can just sit and rest for too long we actually lose health rather than gaining health and what I'm hearing from teachers in this room tonight and from others who are speaking is about the need to keep moving but to keep moving slowly to keep moving in a way that gives us a chance to hold on to what's good and what's working and what's inspiring and to find the creative solutions that deal with a very real legal issue that's here so I echo what was said earlier of seeing if there's a way to find a creative legal solution for the short term and to move more slowly so that we can keep the growth and the goodness that's existing at the middle school right now at least for six or four years so are there other, I mean Hi I'm Deb Lutter I don't public speak I apologize but lots of people have been crying so if I sound strange that's okay middle school junior high school nobody looks forward to it it's just not the kind of experience our kids are only there for two years what's the big deal it's a big deal now it's a good place now for a long time it hasn't been let's see if we can hold on to it legally and spiritual clients at the middle school thank you for your time and efforts to think about what we're sharing with you I want to share with you part of a private letter that I sent to Patty Bodie it took me a while to come up with it but I do have perspective with Dave I think I might be second in line with the oldest person there I have makeup on but whatever so people have talked about what you've done for the last two years and I just wanted to comment on the concept of putting something on a resume to kind of gain credibility thank you so I said to Patty I have known you of you and your work for over 25 years and I have admired your boundless energy and commitment to doing what is the right what is right and not feeding your ego in many ways you've been a role model to me here's another story which I am sure you don't know about when I was working in East Long Meadow so this is 1993 Martha Jenkins and I would commute together sometimes she told me about you and your hand painting activity around that time I had been reading The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen J. Bold which is a book about scientific racism I was developing in the early beginnings of my science unit on scientific racism and race as a social construct Martha and I developed a quote unquote required elective at the middle school called Beneath the Surface which included many of the activities and topics that I have later used in my science unit which I also teach teachers in the summer and so they're informed of this practice science teachers of my unit on scientific racism every kid at the school had to take the elective Birchland Park was largely white with a few students from Springfield the course got a lot of publicity and I was awarded the anti defamation leagues world of difference teacher incentive award for that course and the unit that I developed on scientific racism I am proud of that award more than any other I have ever received and I can truly say that it was your hand painting activity that was the thing that started it all at the time I didn't even know what you look like fast forward and I get hired to work the middle school and then I get to see you in action and watch how everything you do and did and do with your boundless energy is for the good of your colleagues and the children you teach I feel additionally grateful that my daughter was able to go to DASAC which is another thing that she established so when I heard of your appointment I knew that nothing but goodness could come from it the staff and me were starving for goodness thank you so we're probably getting to near the end of the public comment section I want to give people a last chance if you have something you want to say don't feel the urge if you don't want to but I also know that once we close it off we're closing it off so I wanted to make sure if anyone had anything they wanted to say they were able to and didn't feel Hi my name is Wendy Affey and I am a recently retired Amherst preschool educator and a little bit of Horton hears a who I don't know if you remember that book about having worked with little kids and that's what I feel like right now a little bit where I just say dig deep do something you have the incredible brilliance amongst all of you to do something to find an answer dig deep and save the diamond please public comment section is over are there announcements I'm underlining that word because it's not debate or economy are there any announcements from the school committee is there anyone CPAC would like to share with the community that they are open for nominations for stars which is the annual recognition of any community member student who wish to recognize anyone wishes to recognize their work in special education instead of me reciting the google url it's probably easiest just to email cpac at arps.org and they'll shoot you the form so that's affects a lot of students so if you know of anybody please send that along thank you very much any further announcements yes so I'd just like to thank Mr. Becktold again and congratulate him on his Sammy because I was remiss when he was standing in front of us to congratulate him in person and I'm sorry for that and congratulations okay any further saying none subcommittee updates and this is a voluntary basis for those who have updates is Mariette I just want to mention some work of the policy subcommittee we Ms. Cunningham came to us and brought us the idea of creating a policy around kind of the work that the HR department is doing to provide opportunities for staff all across the district to further their careers in the district you know supporting that and so her thought was that we might consider crafting a policy about that work or affirm it in some way so I just kind of wanted to get the committee heads up that that's in the works and if anyone has any thoughts you'd be welcome seeing none superintendent's update I'll try to be brief I do have a number of items though so first thing I want to note I believe this is Ms. Mariette's last meeting if I'm remembering that correctly last regional meeting I think it's speaking one more last-minute Pella meeting in but I'll speak to the region seems the way that school members go out with these like one item quick vote you know having some Amherst members as well sorry that's an aside but I just want to appreciate Ms. Mariette's work both from the Pella and the regional committee I call something upset about some other departing members as I entered having your institutional knowledge memory and to be a trusted voice where I could connect with you about number of issues you bring things to me I really appreciate the dialogue we've had both in the public meetings but in particular in terms of the other dialogue that sometimes happens between school members and superintendents so I really want to honor and recognize your service thanks I just wanted to quickly echo that and that I have the fortunate opportunity to work with Ms. Mariette at the elementary level on the regional school district planning board I just wanted to also say one thing I really appreciated about her contributions the signal to noise ratio in her comments has always been as high as anybody I hear in a public forum it's always so very thoughtful and things I've not thought of before so I just really appreciate your contributions She is the best I mean we actually have evidence further down here on the superintendent evaluation so we have like more we're not done yet there's more cool stuff so one thing that's not written in here the updates in the packet for those of you who are looking for it it's not a separate document like it sometimes is so three of the four town meetings have occurred both starting in Leverett and then Sheetsbury Mr. Dinsmore made an incredibly powerful comment which I let him know and that's not a joke it's not meant to be funny I know you laugh because you're embarrassing he was powerful for me and he was speaking more to the elementary school in his town than he was the secondary but just the level of coherence in his comment and depth was extraordinary and then Amherst last night so three of the four towns have passed both the assessment method and the overall budget Pelham Town meetings on Saturday as I have been I'll update the committee this Wi-Fi in Pelham so I'll update the committee hopefully from that meeting to know that it's gone around they were actually reported in the Daily Hampshire Gazette and they were really impressive but also more importantly if you didn't see them you can actually go find them and see for yourself that they were terrific absolutely so we'll update after Pelham and then we will hopefully have a budget passed with all four towns in agreement so that is good news I'm going to skip around a bit I do want to mention the Facebook page the district has started visiting and I want to say that out loud and we've had some good initial feedback and made some adaptations to what people would like to see on that site but if we go back to the communication plan that was presented quite a few months ago that was one of the goals for this spring was to get that up and running again I'm going to skip around one important national teacher's week this week as I announced in Friday's newsletter I want to acknowledge our exceptionally talented, dedicated teachers and while it's technically teachers I want to acknowledge that we have many people who don't have the title of teacher and actively teach our students and that includes our educators, clerical staff custodial staff, food service staff who are actively educating about healthy foods and so we've I want to both acknowledge the people with the formal title of teachers and also acknowledge and celebrate that we have such a strong staff beyond the formal title who do incredible teaching for our students every day and it's an incredibly hard job and it's worth noting that going down to the regional specific updates happy to report that the middle school we have the VELLA program and as you know which was positive for a budget process this year that VELLA grant that we received is continuing or has been renewed which is a competitive process in another competitive process we got an additional grant by the collaborative who supports the VELLA program with us for summer programs so that part of the VELLA program during the school year have access to ongoing academic and social support throughout the summer as well which is great news the middle school students have been working on a food drive if you've been in the middle school you might notice under the migration science which I'll talk about in a second that the Leo club has been sponsoring a food drive with little boxes so it's actually this wonderful pulpery of different things going on when you walk into the middle school right now Thursday which is two days from now as a privilege of welcoming back a graduate and a World War II veteran and Pearl Harbor survivor there's an optional assembly for all students and staff during the P-Period on Thursday in the auditorium and the times there if anyone is interested from the committee you're certainly welcome to hear that I'm sure being kind of a talkie we'll be receiving it out of a degree of UMass the following day and on that skipping is not important I'm just going to mention Consent Week which is the while ago which is where it got on the update it's an important topic and perhaps one worth coming back to as we address student identity immigration stories which you will see in the lobby I just want to note that on May 15th in the evening at the arms lobby there's going to be the official reception everyone is welcome and one of the things we chose to do at our administrative team meeting last week we've been sitting down for about an hour and three quarters which I know at this moment may sound familiar to you all and we got up and just walked with our administrative team to see the immigration exhibit and it really is worth if you're not typically in the middle school some people mentioned that earlier taking a walk over because it's an incredible project and thank you to AEF the Amherst Education Foundation for supporting that to other pieces we'll talk more about climate surveys in a short while but as you know we discussed here that school at the test first particularly former school member Rick Hood discussed that length importance and we agree with them on school climate surveys and while it's a different instrument that was used some of the questions remain the same and both Mr. Jackson and myself high school faculty were incredibly heartening to see the difference between questions asked in 2015 and 2018 about three questions that you know I've talked about here none of this is a surprise teacher should respect school is a place where I feel safe and I know an adult at school I can talk to if I need if I need support or need help and so the first chart has the aggregate results and you can see in all three there's a pretty significant uptick in responses and the end size for instance the survey was 700 so it's not like an optional survey that kids can fill out at lunch it was done during an advisory period the second survey major cause of concern in 2015 was African American student responses and you can see the incredible difference between 2015 and 2018 and the last slide shows the differences in Latina and Latina responses you can also see the significant difference so the really good news of these three questions or prompts were that all the scores went up in the aggregate and the achievement graph essentially shrunk to statistically and significant margins so the last thing I'll say on this cause we'll talk about it more in further meetings I hope we can leave that in is that the high school I really appreciate Mr. Jackson not here anymore I know he went to the fields meeting he was double booked the high school is not using it yes they're patting themselves on the shoulder as they should but they're actively digging into what is the difference why are the results so different from 2018 to 2015 and using it from an inquiry approach as well as celebration but really focus on the inquiry piece so that they can start identifying what did we do differently who's different on the staff what programs are we doing differently so they can actively learn and investigate and understand better why there's such a stark difference in the results of the school climate survey that was offered to students so I just want to he's not here but I want to publicly appreciate the leadership it would have been easy to stay just with the celebration mode and acknowledgement mode of the work and with the leadership leadership team teaching and learning leadership is what they call it at the high school as well as the whole faculty to understand better what's different now so they can build on that to make continued improvements in the future so 2015 to 2018 does that mean there is any overlap in there would be some overlap in students right because this is all the whole secondary level I'm just wondering if there's any way to connect individuals who've filled it up both times and see if their score has changed so one of the prompts that we can disaggregate by is by grade level since we did own the 2015 data it was done by an outside vendor we have some of that we don't have full data but we one of the things that I know Mr. Jackson is doing is actively disaggregating by multiple variables I share three questions with three disaggregate or two disaggregations I should say but the nice thing about owning the data is we can do as many disaggregations as we want and the system is pretty facile to work whether they're working with Mr. Grimacky or Mr. Jackson just the technical parts of that I don't think we talked about this yet but I mean is there your intention to have a schedule soon a deeper agenda because I don't want to the accident would be we would start digging into questions about the school climate survey now we actually haven't seen full presentation or been able to look through it are we going to do that soon I'd be very amenable to that the will of the committee so is it the will of the committee that we talk about then look looking for nodded hands he's very interested in that great it is the will of the committee and the last two things I'll just share are flyers this Friday night everyone's welcome to the Latino Achievement Awards the 12th annual it's at the school auditorium it's family friendly I'll be there with at least one of my kids probably dragging both of them not dragging myself he's super excited he's watching hopefully he's asleep he's like oh my god I liked that last year he's super into it and my daughter is into it as well so he's the wrong verb and the black scholars rising is on May 18 and also it's 6 o'clock and both are open to all families in the community and all school can remember so really nice fun events they bring families together and especially at this time of year where we have lots of different events the feedback we continue to hear one of the reasons we continue to have the events is not for show it's because families look forward to the events each year as a celebration of the getting towards the end of the school year as well as the affirmation of affinity groups within our community and it's welcome are there questions for the superintendent any questions on any so next moving to the chair report thing so next meeting we reorganize assuming no probably I'm sorry I'm asking you to speak to it I was just making faces sorry so Pellum has their election a week from tonight but the new school can remember won't be seated until the first Pellum meeting which is after the next regional meeting so it likely would be the first June regional meeting because Pellum has to meet to reorganize not just because it's a new member but just they reorganize in general that makes total sense okay so this is probably not as germane now I was hoping that as prep work for that reorganization that we redistribute all the subcommittees a list of all of them and then we probably need to update them because then we have an informal advocacy group it's not formally identified but I don't want it to be a secret either where people don't know that exists if they're new the list I saw most recently that I was able to find didn't include like JCPC or the budget but I think my guess is we have one that's broader because what I'd like to do is I'd like to distribute it to all the members of the current committee I would still make sure we do it whenever there are new members appointed so that they have it in advance and then my advice to the future chair whoever that is including if it's me would be that what we've done in the past is sort of a cattle call where we throw out a whole bunch of names of subcommittees and people throw up their hands to see which one they want to be on and so some might be popular some might be unpopular I don't think that's a really great way to do it what I'd really rather do is move to something like where people submit the Deb Westmoreland or something like that a couple of committees I'd like to be on at least to the future chair would be that they sit down with the future vice chair and sort through all these things and sort of see if there's a natural alignment and then come back to the committee and discuss it afterwards so that we can just have a more what I'd hope a more rational process and that's my chair's report it's as good as I can do we have school committee planning later so undoubtedly both the discussion we've had today or anything else might engender other topics we want to talk about but that's at the end of the agenda so we'll get to it when we get to it anyone want a 2 minute break alright so probably it's going to be more like a 5 minute break but we'll take a break I mean I think we have one I was surprised because there's so many several like does that get text messages just it has happened in your face you said 120 so I think we go through let's hope we remember me in training this week okay we look at the nominations we've received and once we select the winners we go to their school and tell them so much fun but he's going to be asking for a volunteer he wanted to do that but then next week thank you um if you don't get volunteers you can let me know yeah I figure something about you tonight because it's fun it's got you should get a chance oh thank you Debbie you want one more right it was funny if you did it last year I told her it's really fun we were at our segments to the person 70 times screaming at all the news you're right right there's not that many things that you really keep this fun it's just they're always surprised they're so excited so okay so of course they're not you don't necessarily hit every bill ah that was exhausting well yeah for sure it's on that I have to say a little more moved by this than I was by Tony yeah who submits nominations yeah yeah some of those folks though I was there I kept okay um putting the words it's pretty amazing for somebody to inspire that much creativity from that many experiences and that's yeah it's not going to be quite as fun oh yeah let's find that I don't know if you followed us two years ago do you remember who you were the star of your nonsense it was interesting I wasn't on the school committee but I was coming to public comment yeah she doesn't look like a principal one story short the teacher of the role we had a different teacher the teacher of the role voicing that so I was working with some former teachers writing things in the paper coming to public comment school committee career well it's funny though because like the tone was completely different because it was like fire and brimstone kind of stuff um so to go from that situation to the latest but this is why I'm saying is that this is why I'm saying is that this is why I'm saying is that oh pick your nose so I'd be doing that okay in run mic yeah it is like thank you she was very excited last time one of them got away with that oldest are there any are there any oh I don't know did you remind me did you check it out there I signed those last week yeah just follow me we meet last week it's kind of far for the course you signed yeah the next day right no I mean what about the rest of my life next Tuesday is this the 8th yes it is the 8th it's gonna be a presentation I've been doing that we're back oh every time you want to show a film I've always been in the wrong direction film stress oh great with a little like not paying attention to his like one slide behind film when Dave when Dave Rayden started I was wrapping up junior high I mean he was there in a homework club a student asked me now how did you use computers when you were in school I said they weren't any computers it's just funny it never the entire thought there's a good part when I was in junior high to now the end of Dave Rayden you know the funny thing when you're a kid I had no idea like it was the beginning of his career it must be like when you have children children see adults unless they're really old there's like this endless spectrum of some sort of an adult whether they're young or older so when I learned that he was actually I knew in the beginning of his career I had no idea hey how are you we'll call ourselves back to order transportation it's an oddly named item we're going to vote a discussion so we're going to vote and then talk about it discussion oh so we'll give you a little context about our transportation system and then I'll talk more specifically what the discussion is about so our transportation system is a little unique like many things we have so I'll just explain so Five Star is a busing company they handle our Amherst bus routes and our Pellum bus routes some of our Amherst bus routes and all of our Pellum bus routes Cosmeskis is another bus company they handle our Leverett and Shootsbury bus routes both elementary and secondary we have about seven or eight drivers of our own who don't do some of our Amherst bus routes we own some of our own buses and they do certain routes and we also use Five Star for our field trips we use Five Star for some of our field trips and some of our staff tour field trips we also use Five Star for athletics so we have this potpourri of groups that do our transportation for special ed transportation you go on a contract earlier in the year we use vanpool so there's just a lot of groups but tonight what we're talking about is the contracts for Five Star and Cosmeskis and the role that they play in that transportation system so I provided a sheet in your packet of transportation and the pricing sort of by those groups that I just laid out I'll miss one route, we also use Five Star to do a vocational bus that we split with Hadley and it goes to Smith vocational so that's the sheet and then I also showed this contract which was a five year contract but the last two years of the five year contract are technically option years so it requires the school committee to vote to extend the option essentially to the busing companies and see what our costs have been our transportation costs have actually improved between the last contract and this contract we found some efficiencies in our routes due to enrollment drops and so underneath the pricing for each contract you'll see a bus cost per day that's how we compare ourselves to other districts so for FY19 this is what the cost would be for the district the contract is based on the annual increases to the contract are based on inflation from the prior calendar year that's been completed so we know exactly what our costs are going to be for next year so those, the FY19 rates here that is what our cost would be and so you can see the 302 for Five Star for the Amherst routes same thing for Pelham because they give the same rate for Amherst and Pelham Cosmescus does Lever and Shootsbury, that's at 339 those routes are a little longer with fewer kids so it's a little more expensive those are very good rates there's a survey of other school districts and what their bus costs per day and they're generally between 300 and 450 and sort of the median I'd say isn't like the 350 to 375 range so our rates are pretty good and just in general around bus procurements it's a real challenge in the state right now there's not a lot of busing companies that are competing for routes and the last two times that we've done this we had the same two vendors and they both were the low on the same group of routes the low bid on the same group of routes so there's not a lot of competition in this area we try as a group of business managers we try to meet to figure out ways to make transportation more appealing out here to get more companies to kind of enter this pool you know we consider sort of combining doing sort of a joint bid among several districts to see if that'll do it but that's still sort of in discussion so so yeah the discussion tonight is around the contract if you have any questions and at the next time I'd ask you to vote to extend the contract for FY 19 and the next year probably another vote to extend it for FY 20 if the if the contract still looks good every week day at 8.30 the Pelham school bus crosses my driveway and I wave an empty bus is there any way we could have a smaller and less costly bus so do you know when it passes your driveway if it's where on the route it is oh it's near the end so Pelham is sort of a little more difficult we can put in when we do bids for smaller buses it doesn't make a huge impact on the price when they bid the bus in prices they sort of amortize the cost of the vehicle over three to five years depending on the length of the contract so most of that cost is for the driver but we can certainly you know see if we can lower the cost by getting a smaller vehicle Mr. Dinsbar well I have just a similar comment that my bus I live in Leverett my bus on the way to school is very full but on the way back it generally has about five people in it and so I was just wondering well does that factor into the calculation that there are some different numbers of people there and back yeah I think at some point maybe Jim will come and speak more specifically about transportation but that's a challenge a lot of districts have and it has to do with after school sports and clubs and a lot of kids take the bus to school but they stay for after school clubs and sports so we can't we can't assume that they'll never take the bus we kind of have a spot for them and sometimes they may take the bus most of the time they probably don't and the bus is efficiently well also not assuming a kid won't need the bus that day so it is a challenge especially in rural towns where there aren't many kids on that bus to begin with I just have a question about the process with the contract going forward so the vote to approve the existing contract for another year and then again next year for another year we'd have to negotiate a new contract yeah so what we do is after that we would do a new bus procurement so we put together we look at our routes again we see what we can consolidate we put it out there we reach out to as many transportation companies as we can to get them to bid on the transportation and we're very happy with our current vendors so I don't want to make it seem like we're trying to get competition because we're not happy we're very happy with our current vendors but we do try to get it's just better for everybody when there's more competition around that so we'll send it out to as many people as we can and we do an invitation for bid which is the lowest price and the reason we have two busing companies is because we structure it we do one bid for all these routes but we structure it so individual vendors can win groups of routes and we select the overall lowest cost package so if 5-star for example submit the lowest price for both the Amherst routes and the Leverchute Spray routes they could theoretically have both but it doesn't usually work out that way usually one company will have lower rates for those towns another company will have lower rates for Amherst and Pellum and so we kind of split the contract that way just one informational question does the I guess greenness of the company's factor in it all do we consider whether or not the type of the vehicles if they're hybrids or if they're oh that greenness it's thinking like new companies no sorry environmentally the environmental practices of the company one of the reasons why most transportation contracts are for 5 years is because the procurements are really involved and so when we get to that point we'll update our specs and so it could be something that plays into when we update our specs if there is a desire to try to green our busing fleet it's maybe a good opportunity for Mr. Sullivan to ask a question because we have had some experience with a green bus electric bus and it's maybe I'll just speak to your question now he asked me a question before he's going to ask the question related to that point I noticed when I pulled up to my parking spot over on the corner of the school that our electric bus is once again parked in front of the shop is there a reason for that? I'll speak to that so for those who weren't on the committee back then we received the grant to buy an electric school bus there are about four times the price of a regular school bus which is about $325,000 however there's like a wave of hybrid electric buses that are more cost effective so that this is a fully electric bus that was built to be electric it's not like a diesel bus that was converted to be electric so we've had some ups and downs with it it's sometimes really great but we've had some weird part breakdowns that really sidelined the bus for a while because it's not like the technician can just go ahead and fix it it's a sort of a unique skill set to fix an electric school bus and the parts that you just pull out of a diesel bus and pop in they're like high tech conversion things that Bill Gluckman who's our bussing coordinator bussing fleet manager could probably come and speak to more sort of what the problems are but we've had numerous breakdowns as of late and we've been in conversations with E-Lion which is the company who has the bus to try to get extended warranties because right now our warranties are bowed up we've had the bus for about a year and a half to two years and so our original warranties are bowed up on the bus so there's a lot of conversations going around now with the state and with E-Lion we've got this bus it's paid for by a grant but if it's going to be a huge cost to us to keep replacing parts and they're very expensive parts at what point do we say we can't continue using this bus and so we're not at that point yet where we're going to say that we're still working with E-Lion to see if we can get an extended warranty and we're hopeful that they'll do that and we'll go from there but so in general back to your question I think we will want to review what we want to do with that we try to use newer buses more fuel efficient buses in general we don't let them have the vendors provide buses that are more than seven years old I know some districts go longer than that and usually when you do a new contract there's a huge wave of buses that they then amortize over the life of the contract but that'll be part of the spec process can I ask you a question for our residents and forgive me because we must have done this last year and so I'm just forgetting so we have a five year contract we're going to go out to bid soon what are we voting on so we're going to put differently why are we voting to affirm a contract that we already have that doesn't expire for another couple of years so the way the contracts are structured is that the original award is for three base years and the two option years have to be affirmed when you get to those option years so we're actually approaching the first option year you didn't say that earlier it's important for the video it's in a different way by the way on behalf of Mr. Demling again it's a great thing to have I don't know how I missed that forgive me just consider the precept with respect to the electric bus a leadership has its price yeah I think you're absolutely right we've made that argument with the state we did a pilot in addition to the breakdowns there's just a lot of work that goes along with not the price of the parts but the price to get it fixed and try to troubleshoot it Speer had it and our Bill Gluckman who I mentioned before has gone above and beyond in terms of he's gone on speaking engagements on this bus to try to share knowledge with other communities so we really invested a lot of time and we want the bus to work so that's why we're really working hard to try to find a compromise where we can keep the bus going but you're right because it's a pilot program that's why you do it, it's difficult so in the interest of time this is just a very quick comment and I'm going to take advantage which I don't usually do with this little soap box that we have here but Mr. Demley and I have been in conversation with some of our statewide representatives around regional transportation and so I'm looking at these numbers and I'm doing the calculations in my head because I'm thinking to myself that we don't nearly get the kind of reimbursement that we should be getting and these prices would definitely come down if we had that kind of if the state was actually fulfilling its promise and this year I think it seems like we're headed in a better direction than we have in previous years and we're actually getting a higher percentage so far the Senate still has to vote and there still has to be a couple more technical things that will happen at the legislature but just to say that I appreciate these numbers even more now and I'm hoping that we see a decline next year Anyone else? Thank you SETF Goal to Update Broaden and deepen learning with students about race, class and other issues Is this coming in? I just really want to start off by saying that I was really excited can everyone hear me? I was really excited to go through this goal first because being new to my position and new to the district I didn't know anything about what we offered and so to be able to research and meet with Miss Alschler and other districts just to find out what's going on and what's being offered was really exciting to me So without further ado I've asked Miss Alschler to come and join me in this because she's able to talk more about what the high school has to offer Miss Alschler is the current one of two current assistant principals in the high school that she works with guidance and she knows quite a bit about the program of studies that's taking place at the high school for this year and for many of the previous years and moving forward So the way that this presentation is going to be broken down is she'll talk about what's taking place now I'll jump in and talk about what's taking place in other districts our two surrounding districts and then we'll just talk about moving forward So goal number two of the SCTF goals were to really broaden and deepen the learning of students about race, class and other equity issues So the proposal was where the SCTF group wanted us to create a course they wanted the course to begin as an elective and then become a requirement So before I can do something like that I needed to know what we were offering and here goes Erica's help So the three main academic areas where that might address the goal of broadening and deepening students knowledge and learning about race and equity are in our English and our social studies departments So our graduation requirements are up here and we require students to take a full year of English every year and at least three full years of social studies and one in 9th and 10th grade students have specific classes that they have to take unless they're on an IEP in which case there might be a pull out class that sort of mirrors one of these 9th and 10th grade classes and in social studies we have a required class for 9th, 10th and 11th grade then 11th grade is going to be new starting next year I want to go to the next one So what are our current courses so I'm going to start in English and again these are classes that might address the goal specifically So like I said in 9th grade everybody takes English 9 in 10th grade everybody takes English 10 in those classes there is some work towards equity there are equity discussions race discussions they're reading a lot of different authors that represent a bunch of different types of people but we have specific 11th and 12th grade elective courses and you might be able to speak to some of these as well Mr. Dinsmore that are available for students to choose so one of them is African American literature again it's for 11th and 12th grade and there is you'll notice that we have put 11th and 12th grade to indicate which year they would take it and if it says honors option it means that you take it at either the college prep level or the honors option and so this one talks about slavery it talks about African American literature from slavery all the way up until contemporary African American voices there's a list of some of the different works that they might read in there and I just wanted to kind of tell you how popular these classes are so for instance this year there are 93 students taking this class so again it is an option and there are lots of options for students to take English electives they take two they get to choose two or three years in 11th grade and 12th grade and so 93 people out of a little over 400 like 425 are people that could take it are taking this class this year so next one we have is LGBTQ literature and again it's an 11th and 12th grade we have 89 folks taking this class this year these are classes that are offered every year there are some that I will mention later that are offered every year but these are classes that are offered every year and they always have approximately 100 students taking them let's see next we have contemporary literature and multicultural identity right in the name it talks about multicultural identity and this is a newer class that we've offered in the last three or four years I believe and this has to do again it's more contemporary and it really has to do with developing the identity especially in the U.S. and currently we have 64 kids taking this class and this is again a class that is offered every year every other year it's on our rotation we call it we offer a world literature class and colonialism liberation rebirth and the last two times we've offered it it has to do with African literature this has been great because a lot of the students who have chosen to participate in the Senegambian exchange have chosen to participate in this class as well so we have started offering it on the years that we would go to Senegal in the Gambia and it was offered in the fall so that students had a chance to take this class read some literature before they actually went on the cultural exchange we only have one section of that when we offer it and there were 23 students that took it this year so then if we move into social studies and a little bit about social studies we have a ninth and a tenth grade class that we have required students to take every year and then next year and you've probably heard from this social studies department either this fall or the fall before about why we are changing to a global history 2 class I don't really want to speak about that but starting next year there will be a global history 2 class in ninth grade students have to take global history 1 and 11th grade they'll take global history 2 10th grade is US history a required class not for 10th grade but we choose to take it in 10th grade and both global history 1 and global history 2 one of the main goals is to introduce students to people of various cultures both ancient in global history 1 and more contemporary in global history 2 so lots of lots of exposure in that class we have a class called sociology of race, gender and class in the US we've offered this for several years now and we have 60 students that are taking it this year we had approximately the same number of students who took it last year again these are these are classes that were offered only to 11th and 12th grade students including this year but starting next year it will only be offered to 12th grade students because of the required 11th grade class we have a modern African history class this was on our rotation so there are in English and in social studies classes that are offered every year elective classes in 11th and 12th that are offered every year and some others that are offered on a rotation modern African history was offered on a rotation and it's going to be offered it was actually being offered now and there are 24 students currently in that class so this again is history history class from the slave trade to present we also have a holocaust class this is this has been on a rotation I don't know if it's going to remain on a rotation or if it's going to be something that continues to be offered every year we currently have 55 students it's not currently offered this year it's being offered next year and last year we had 55 students taking it I do know that because I build the master schedule we had enough requests to have five sections of it next year which is 100 students and then lastly we have an anthropology class and I included this one mainly because they talk about the construction of race and ethnicity and different cultures and this is one of our most popular associated electives it has been on a rotation I think this is the last year we're going to be offering it and we have 84 students and we generally have 84 to 125 students take this the years that it comes up so those are the current classes that we have I'll take a moment and say does anyone have any questions because she is the best person to answer anything that you just saw the global history one and two are those required courses? those are excluding those that course what percentage of students take one of these courses you mentioned numbers 20%, 50% of any of those elective courses so it's going to vary because we have a different number of electives every year I don't remember how many we had we probably have 10 to 12 different electives that the 11th and 12th graders have been able to choose from next year we do have 8 classes that the 12th graders are going to get to choose from and they each take 2 I'm not a math person a lot of kids take these classes everybody is taking these classes the other classes that we have I would say that so I would say there are some classes that there are going to be some students who don't take any of the classes that I listed here but I would say that the majority of our students are going to take at least one of these classes and many of our students will take all of the classes that I listed I don't have a number for you I'm sorry I think I understood that the number of sections is based on the number of students who are interested my question was do they ever get maxed out and students who want to take them aren't able so the number of sections we offer are based on multiple criteria one is how many students requested it but also who can teach what and how many different prep suite provide a teacher so for instance I think we have enough requests to have more sections of holocaust next year then we actually have staff to teach it so we just can't we're going to have big holocaust classes just a couple of questions so do we pitch out to SCTF to look at what sections were taking place on these dates we did okay and the other question it sounds like this was covered before but just briefly is there a new state requirement for three years of social studies is that why it's a requirement in junior year just because I've heard some grumbling from juniors that they don't have another elective space so it's not my understanding and again I wasn't part of the decision to move to but I think that the state standards changed recently and this is a move to be more aligned with the state standards in social studies and we have a lot of I think that there was a sense also that a lot of students were choosing not to take more history but rather to take things like economics or consumer economics or criminal justice things that weren't history and I think that the hope was to immerse students into a little bit more history but I again that's just me speculating on things I've heard so thank you for this presentation I was wondering and I'm trying to find a way to ask this question without it seeming one way but it's really just a question I'm wondering for students who don't who managed to not take these electives you mentioned that there might be a small percentage that don't have if there is a way to incorporate at least the principles or the thinking from these classes into another part of the curriculum to ensure that everyone is getting access to this in one fashion or another and I understand some of this has to do with school culture as well which I think you guys have done an incredible job of fostering but just in terms of sitting down with the schools and going through curriculum process is there room in the curriculum outside of these electives to incorporate this kind of thinking and study? So I would say that we do have some mechanisms for doing some social justice and some awareness activities not necessarily a whole curriculum worth but so we have an advisory that meets twice a month and in the last two years we tried to beat that up we sort of limped along at the first couple of years it came as a result of NEASC saying we should do it and we decided yes we want to we still want to be accredited but also it's a good thing and so we're trying to figure out how to do it and I think we keep improving our advisory program every year one of the things that we have put in place the last two years to have student-led and student-designed advisory lessons and advisory into student initiatives so for instance I think somebody talked a little bit about Consent Week that we had a couple of weeks ago that was a student-led week of activities and the students created the advisory lesson for that and then they also led it so we had five different areas that five different lessons that were planned and led by students or a speaker that they pulled in from outside this is Pride Week and we have an advisory lesson that students again have put together and so I think that students are bringing forward some of this stuff as well so I think that our advisory is another way that we have started incorporating some of the stuff so not only do we have the student-led but we have an advisory committee who have been putting together lessons and so for instance in the fall we had a lesson on microaggressions so I feel like there are other avenues that have raised a level of we did a whole class on it so just to add to what Ms. Alice Schiller said I think the presentation of Social Studies was probably two years ago I'm remembering so some people probably seem to be a number of people in the committee weren't here when Mr. Lutz and Mr. Jackson made that presentation but one of the pieces that I remember from the presentation about the change in social studies and how that was going to be scaled for more in-depth study around culture and making a requirement that everybody had access to it I'm not suggesting that that takes the place of some of the elective pieces but one of the points that was made in the presentation was the ability to ensure that all students had access to a more global understanding of history from multiple perspectives and that second year of global contributes to that so it was two years ago so it's actually my memory of it as well I guess a question I have is on things like global one and some of the topics of the courses are by definition going to be getting into the race and class of gender things like global one and two is there or what's the process if you have different teachers teaching it what's the process of laying out what the course structure is in terms of weather and how they address some of those topics and how they arrange their course I'm just curious to learn I don't currently oversee an academic department I oversee the guidance department in the performing arts and library but I've been in the building for 17 years I do know that especially for global one and two there's been a lot of professional development people have created the class together and they meet they have common prep time sometimes so that they can make sure that this is how I'm addressing it in my class how are you addressing it in your class let's do this together, let's do the same thing they have common assessments sometimes so I think there's professional development and people are not only like on our early release days they might get together like the global history one people get together and the US history people get together and make sure that they're creating a common ish obviously we want people to be able to teach the way that they best teach and we want we don't want to have clones of people in different classrooms we want everybody to have a rich educational experience but I think that there's been a lot of work to make sure that things are aligned within the building as well the only reason I was asking it was one I figured you had an answer but the other one was getting at that question of which courses are required and so you can have expectation material versus sort of a self-select even if it's a lot of the students in high proportion the sort of self-select in courses where the nature of the course someone's signing up for is definitely going to lend itself towards exposure to a certain kind of material so it's interesting Spitzer so I'm just so happy to see some of the courses that I really loved as a student here still on the list I'm sure the teachers have changed but it's one of the things that I really think I value most about my education at Amherst High School was the fact that we were exposed to things that kids I met in college hadn't even heard of Zorinia Harston I'm very proud of the offerings we have at the high school level I guess I have two questions one is just some of the courses like I took a course on criminal justice and you just mentioned that's still there that seems ripe to me at least in the United States for all of these questions about race, class, and equity and mass incarceration all sorts of issues that could be discussed there and same thing with the 10th grade U.S. History course I was surprised that's not here either as one of the courses that potentially deals with these issues and if it's not currently dealing with these issues it seems like that would be a problem to me given the history of the United States so I'm curious about why that wasn't included are outside requirements about what we cover and also how this intersects and I'm not sure what the AP offerings are now but how does all of this intersect with folks who are pursuing, do we still offer to what extent are we still offering AP history and social studies classes does that constrain us or in any way on dealing with these issues when we put these together we were really looking at the course description and figuring out what actually says in the course description that we're dealing with race or we're dealing with the class I know that the U.S. History does deal with race because there's no way not to starts with reconstruction and I do know that our American film class does deal with race and class and issues of people but essentially all of our history classes could be on here I do know the criminal justice class does deal with race and the disproportionate number of men of color that are incarcerated in our country just I could have given you our whole program of studies but these are the ones that stood out to me as it's integral to the topic and then as for AP we currently offer AP European history but because we are going to a global history class next year that is not going to be offered next year and they are looking into what AP class they are going to start offering again they're re-imaging the electives for 12 graders so what we have now is just a one-year assortment and they're still working on what are we going to offer in 1920 and moving forward but there will be an AP class I'll make sure you get a microphone too just for I just have a clarifying question about is the plan that you would add in another unit or something like that into one of these courses about I want to get the phrasing the way you phrased it about the race class and other equity issues so you would add another unit into one of these already existing courses so no but the goal is not mine I was just here to present but I think that was the goal of the equity task force it was a question that the equity task force has they wanted to have us create a course and I want to show them what we have and then hear their thoughts so that will come later where I'll get more into that after I finish talking about the surrounding towns but I'm just allowing the opportunity to ask questions on what we're offering here if you have any thoughts about what we're offering here if you want feel free to share them well I was just the reason why I asked is because I was just thinking if the plan is to add something to an existing course I was some courses that I've taken are more packed than others with information and one thing that came to mind was the fact that in US history in US politics and government which I took in junior year we studied some things that were studied again I don't quite remember what other course it was but I was thinking maybe that would be another good candidate because I don't know it seemed like a less full class than some of the other ones so can I ask that since you're someone who experienced these courses first hand that you join as we prepare this and give me some more information and feedback so why don't we continue so now we started looking at the surrounding districts and what they had to offer and so I called Holyoke and their guidance counselor and she was excited to tell me that they start at the middle school level with their social justice work and with looking into race class and other equity issues and so they start with as they mentioned here a two week mini unit in September and in that unit the students examine systemic oppression in public schools and then they continue on with four lessons and with those lessons they look at the Puerto Rican culture since Holyoke is predominantly Irish and Hispanic they look at the Puerto Rican culture the history of Puerto Rico colonism, imperialism and resistance and they use two powerful cases of Puerto Rican resistance to continue with their work so that's what they start off and continue with at the middle school level and when they go to the ninth grade which is as far as I got through their course of study they have four essential questions that they ask that drive their course work through the year and so they talk about how systems of power and oppression become institutionalized they talk about ways that people of color are marginalized they ask the question what have people of color marginalized groups and such done to organize movements and then what can they as students do about this systemic oppression their first semester they have three units that all the students take in the ninth grade and in those they look at the factors that shape their own experience they talk about why ethnic studies matter and then they talk about the history of public education in their second semester they look more at and I like unit number five where a very central question is why was race created how has race been used as a tool to justify the othering and dehumanizing of black and brown bodies and then last, it's a culmination where they have a summit through WIPAR please don't ask me what that's an acronym for so the other district that I called basically told me to go online and look at their course work and they offer something similar so they have the four English courses they do one each year they offer the world history and then they offer the electives and the one that stood out as something that might be fitting for the race class and such that we're looking at was this black history and it was a priority for their grades 11 and 12 and in that they look at the differences that separate people and they say it's a result of ignorance basically why the separation occurs there were four other courses that they offer in Northampton and I just put the title of the courses if anyone wants the course description I do have those so this is what our two neighboring towns Holio and Northampton has to offer when I look the next slide just says comment and one thing I can say to begin with is maybe we can start our work early like Holio does and then Ms. Alschiller talked about even if students aren't taking any of these courses that they still touch on the work of social justice through the advisory curriculum but even if they don't we have ten courses for English six social studies that they have as an option to take courses addressing such as institutional racism, social oppression obstacles to survival, race, class, gender and ethnicity and how they intersect and the impact of the slave trade so this is what we have and as a goal let's create something so now that we know what we have I'm going to go to SCTF to see what they'd like to create and Mr. Dinsmore if you can join in with your experience and say well this is how I experience this and this is what I'd love to have offered for others to experience it'll be great for that to happen and I just want to add and I said it before that we're changing the order of the goals that are being addressed so where goal number five was going to be addressed in June it's going to be addressed at the next regional meeting which talks about hiring questions for me Ms. Hernandez thank you Ms. Cunningham this is great to see what's going on and hopefully get inspired also by some of the other districts just a couple of comments and then a question I think you know regarding the SCTF goals I appreciate that our subcommittee brought forth these goals to the wider committee and I have to say that I actually think that these are broader regional school committee goals and not just the SCTF and I think it's important to say that because you know there are many of us care in many different ways about the work that's going on here that you've identified and that Ms. Alschuler has identified and outlined and so I want to see this conversation happen at a much broader scale not just you know and I think ultimately the SCTF subcommittee it's about how do we bring it out to the wider district to the community at large because they're important and they should be part of our conversation all the time not just you know certain things so I just wanted to say that I also think that I do just at a detailed level really appreciate the thinking of having these kinds of things come at a much younger age because I think you know are in a more formal way because I actually would say that a lot of our educators are probably already doing some of this even at the elementary school level and my son comes to me all the time telling me about the things that he's learned in school and he's in first grade and so you know I understand that these conversations are already happening before they get to middle school and to the high school but yes I think you know in ways if we can formalize these kinds of things earlier looking toward administrators and educators to figure out how to incorporate that in a lot of sense and then I also just wanted to say that my question earlier about you know students who may not go to these electives who may not take these electives who may not participate in the honors classes you know by thinking about ways to incorporate these lessons in a multidisciplinary way also maybe gets at this right and I think you know we have talked so much about the you know the the various ways that we incorporate multidisciplinary learning for you know bringing math into literature and vice versa right and you know in having these kinds of conversations take place in different ways I so appreciate the community member who stood up earlier the educator who was talking about the mis-measure of man and you know the perfect example of how you can bring you know these kinds of lessons into a science curriculum right and so I think you know in addition to the advisory curriculum and you know in those you know sort of examples that are sort of the low fruit I also think it's important for us to think about you know the higher hanging fruit and the ways that we can really become and I think that ultimately that is the level of conversation that we need to have as a district that is progressive minded and that is cares as much as it does about social justice and social change because we cannot continue to just compartmentalize these topics and have them exist in these small little buckets that people may or may not take or absorb or think about but they really need to be across all disciplines across our entire school experience and also just remembering that students bring this back to their families and to their communities we learn from our students as well right our parents learn from those students caregivers learn from those students and I think the more opportunities that we provide for those kinds of conversations the better our community gets so I guess you know it was probably three comments more than two comments and a question but I'm just looking for you know thinking about you know how we can do that and maybe at some later stage you know I look forward to hearing that so probably it's worth mentioning particularly because we're going to have more new members soon but we have two at least relatively recent members that if you weren't you may be aware you may have been at one of the meetings but a few months a number of months ago the SCTF had I think it was even in November or something had put forward a list of goals that had been worked on very you know rather thoroughly by the subcommittee but also identified under it a series of desired actions and what the regional school committee did was two things one we've discussed it obviously very thoroughly with Ms. Kiningham and Dr. Morris is we released the goals but then we asked the leadership sitting over here to come back to us with what their response would be their constructive response would be to those goals and out of that came of these presentations in which as you can see the format like the previous one is looking at what we're doing engaging in some investigatory work sort of a platform of common information for a dialogue for continued action and improvement over time so I thought I'd say that out loud because I'm realizing especially as the committee continues to turn over this will seem like an increasingly if not random it'll be like an unintroduced series of actions but also I'm echoing something that Ms. Adonis just said is the school committee regional school committee by assent had already essentially adopted these goals as things that are now no longer I mean I appreciate how it's been described so I'm not criticizing it being described as SCTF goals because that is the genesis but it was something that where the committee as a whole said yes we all embrace and value these goals and now let's talk about how we build them in incorporate them into all the work the committee is doing so I thought that was important context Ms. Meena earlier this year that meeting that the equity task force made this request they seem to be passionate that this material wasn't being covered in the current curriculum now I don't know why they believe that or is this a history course is this a social studies course is this a literature course they're requesting I wasn't sure what they were requesting Dr. Barnes? Yeah I think I guess my response or my frame for that is that I think we haven't been asked and we haven't in the last couple years anyway had a more comprehensive look and coming through of our curriculum and where critical issues of social justice came out so for me this is around communication it's not about proving we have everything in line or not proving it or finding gap for me I think the work that Ms. Alscher learned and greatly appreciated is can we get a baseline of what we're currently doing and can we communicate that effectively so that the conversations moving forward are informed that everyone having the same information I don't think that was necessarily in place before and if there's no one's fault there's no blame but I think this the conversation feels different and hopefully will feel different moving forward because it's a common base of understanding common base of data and I'm not talking about numerical, quantitative data qualitative data of what our current offerings are and I hope and I fully expect tend to be optimistic that the yield will be a more informed set of conversations moving forward on how to continue with the good work and continue to improve that work for our district so for me that's sort of the frame well I think that if you I'm taking it's a heart also that Ms. Cunningham was describing at the end of her presentation in which you were describing the next steps but essentially your initial thoughts on ways in which one might take is a foundation what we currently have and learn from both an internal analysis as well as an external scan to say hey there are probably things we could even if what we're doing is great in many ways there are things we could continue to do to grow upon and build upon and I thought that was very positive I was just going to say that that's why I started off the way I started off saying that I was excited because I didn't know myself what we were offering and so for me to go and have to find out this information I'm so excited to now sorry to use that word but I'm glad to now go back to SETF and say hey this is what we have let's see how we can build on it and come to that common ground and see what would you like to see is there more, is there something different and we work from there I just wanted to have two comments so one of them was so again the social studies department is in transition and they're trying to decide what they're going to offer for 12th grade electives and it might be a wise move to consult with them the SETF to consult with them to make sure that your goal is being met when they're deciding what classes to offer and then the other is just to clarifying I just wanted to make sure that our presentation wasn't a little misleading so when I talked about the classes that instead of honors option those are heterogeneous classes and that those are not just honors classes I just wanted to make sure that people didn't know they were not just honors classes so anybody can do take those classes so I deeply appreciate your I want to wrap up this segment only because we have a big agenda so yeah I was going to call on you I'm just saying to everyone else if you have an urgent thought or question we're going to move on yeah so I just wanted to echo a little bit of what Mr. Arjunian was saying and to kind of tie it into one of the next steps in terms of looking at possibly starting things earlier you know I also appreciate the tremendous depth of offerings to the breadth of offerings we have at the high school I didn't know all these details so I think that's right enlightening and we also heard a lot of really excellent examples of how at the middle school teachers are weaving all of these themes into the fabric of what they do in an interdisciplinary way that isn't so rote and academic but it's just natural in terms of what they're doing but maybe isn't so well known so I think it's part of that communication effort that has been done at this level at the high school another way another next step maybe would be to look at what's being done just in a either a regular informal or a natural way at the middle school that's already incorporating these values I think that would be helpful for us and the SCTF to understand I mean actually I think that one of the challenges we have sometimes is that we said this before we for a lot of reasons are mostly just sort of structural and legal in terms of constitutional we segment our conversations as if elementary school doesn't exist if we're talking about secondary things and secondary doesn't exist if we're talking about elementary things and yet I'm just building off of what Mr. Demling is just saying is that when we're talking about this I would kind of like to see a presentation that actually started like in an organic way like what are we doing at the younger grades and just really walk through and not in a critical way because my guess is I mean critical in terms of critical thinking yes not critical in terms of negative that my guess is there's an awful lot going on across the grade levels in age-appropriate ways and I think the most organic way to talk about this is that way in which you have a good sense of what by the time somebody is in 10th grade what are they unlikely already experienced over multiple grade levels in different ways that may be either units or even just as you were describing weaving it in so I don't know how we do that but I think it's a challenge to the superintendent who fortunately sits as the principal's educational leader for all those different jurisdictions that need all the time so yes I can work just one thought this might not be helpful at all but the goals are in some ways I think they're a little bit they're very specific it's kind of an awkward relationship that they set up because I think it maybe would be more productive for the goals to articulate what the desired outcome is and then the staff and the teachers who know best what's already being done can maybe best identify how to get there based on what's already there versus coming in with their prescriptive you know what I mean so I don't know if there's a way to shift the conversation a little bit because I just feel like you might be more productive with achieving the core of what's desired so this is very briefly I want to go back to Mr. Dona's comment which actually I'm connecting the two in my head I'm not saying they're actually connected but so it makes me think of the goal of the goal right so why what you do with goals and I think the conversation is 15 minutes is engendered in me a thought process of moving forward how do we broaden it from what was listed on the SCTF goal to more comprehensive look of social justice within our curriculum and I think that's a different conversation and I think very consistent with I think the hopes of writing a goal is that it's not just like a narrow goal it actually engenders dialogue that we can have over time in a structured way so not that it's brilliant but I just think I appreciate Ms. Alshuler coming tonight because I think she was able to offer a level of depth of understanding given her role and I think I'm just connected to your comment as well that we connected with other teachers' experience that we heard tonight even in a different context in terms of public comments so I want to ruminate on that a bit and certainly as we think about my goals and district goals for next year just think about how to structure that where it's a regular item and that teacher's voice is pretty central and I think that makes tremendous sense the one thing I'd say in the context of the SCTF goals that are presented is that given that to be blunt the nature of the dialogue is often I'd like you to do this thing why aren't you doing this thing are you doing this thing I mean whatever it is I'm not in trying to be patronizing about my characterization I'm just simply saying the great demands are put forward I think the risk what I like about what we're doing now is developmentally what we're doing is we're responding to very specific desires and I think a healthy thing for us to do is to allow that response to be a launch point for a dialogue that may lead to a different place in terms of the goal in the focus but I'm saying this it's the kind of thing I'd probably say privately if it weren't for the fact we're in a public meeting and here we are my advice would be I think that a healthy endpoint is that common goal that maybe is restructured but beware what you do in the interim because if it seems like I asked for X and now you're giving me a presentation on Z I don't understand what just happened then you're going to be arguing over the list of building a constructive platform over the goal that is in fact by a lot of this evidence commonly shared in fact and you don't want to argue over semantics if in fact you can get to a better place otherwise I talk so much that I'm going to give other people a chance to talk again if they want to because I promised we were going to move on no we'll move on thank you so much regional advocacy I know who our two regional advocacy people are so either one of them could just start talking yes before we jump into that if it's not too forward could I just make a process comment or lead a process conversation I know Dr. Brady's here for item number four and it's 10 to 10 at night I just asked Mr. Mangano to go because he's been with me on Saturdays and multiple evenings recently so if we get to okay I want to re jiggle it no I'm just saying we'll take more time doing that than we would otherwise with consent we have consent great let's do that so if we could start with number four and perhaps question number seven off because I just I think that's fine capital letters go home is anyone coming forward or so I'll introduce and Dr. Brady's here more for questions so in your packet you can see it as a memo from Dr. Brady it's right after the presentation that you just saw and essentially what has happened is that Ginny Tate who's been our special education lawyer for many many years is starting to wind down her practice she is graciously willing to stay with us for all but essentially one thing in terms of special education which is if matters go to a hearing at the Bureau of Special Education Appeals so we've had good success in our opinion and working with Ms. Tate in addition to working in these ways she's provided training for administrators and anti-bullying and with a particular lens toward special education and other protected groups this year so our opinion from the administration side is we'd like to hold on to that we engage in conversation with Mr. Terry who does not do who's the district council for other matters he is not involved in special education law but his colleague who actually came for the interview for those of you who are here does special education law essentially we asked the three of them to see if they could work out an arrangement that would work for them and they felt comfortable with work for the district they came back with an arrangement that they feel comfortable with Mr. Terry shared that in the contract we have with Meric O'Connell while it doesn't include special law special education law it has a clause that for other matters as needed so the existing contract in some ways already covers the sort of arrangement if we wanted to enter into it I'm looking at Dr. Brady if I'm missing anything I'm giving a rough snapshot and then opening up for any questions or comments from the committee but we don't want to get to this summer and not have this conversation because our current contract would end on June 30 with both agencies and this would be a change in the special ed arrangement I'll say the thing that makes me feel more comfortable because Dr. Brady and some others in the audience know I don't like messy lines if this then I'm probably an Occam's razor too often that's probably a legitimate critique of me but Mr. Terry who's handling the school committee and district matters since he's not directly the one doing special education law I feel like it's actually a much cleaner arrangement if someone was on both sides of it as it is it's the fact that if Miracle Connell as a firm might potentially be on both sides of it but no individual so for me that felt much cleaner there's been opportunities at times this year where we've had to connect because things aren't always clean as like non-special ed or special ed from my vantage point the parties, the council have worked well together in those limited instances so this is what the table for discussion with the committee and is this considered to be effectively given what I presume based on what we've heard before is essentially a change or tailoring down or changing career plans for this state is this considered to be sort of a transitional arrangement? I mean even if it's for next year it's considered something to do next year then we'll revisit it or how are you viewing this arrangement? I'll ask Dr. Brady to speak to that. I think that's a I don't know that that's something that we know for sure how transitional it may be I think certainly there's a reduction of Attorney Tate's scope of the work that she'll do in terms of not doing hearings at the BSEA again going forward she is still going to be continuing on the retainer at the collaborative for special education matters and we've participated in that and so for us as a district it's helpful to have the same person that we can speak to for the retainer for special education matters be able to consult with us on matters in the district but how long may this transition go I think it's unknown at this point. Are there questions? Yes? Just to clarify questions and maybe I'm just misunderstanding but it sounds to me like we would not be assuming any potential additional cost for Ms. Tate because her retainer would be handled through the collaborative right? So there are certain matters that from the retainer with the collaborative are covered in terms of broad topics however when we call to consult on a matter or when we're asking for specific training for our personnel in the district that's where we pay on an hourly rate and we've been doing that on an ongoing basis that wouldn't change from what is so when we look at our special education legal costs over the past few years we don't anticipate any rise in the costs from this change of arrangement at this point we can never really predict what will happen from one year to the next but when we look at trends we can look pretty over the past six years and look that our trends are happily in a nice downward trend for costs so just a follow up question then I guess my question is does Ms. Rosak's additional role end up incurring any costs any extra costs to the district in the event that there is a hearing and she has to then represent so those costs would be replaced the cost for her services would be what we would be paying because those would not have been covered by the okay none of that is covered by the retainer thank you that's actually very helpful is there anything else seeing them thank you very much so I have a no we're good thank you so I have an agenda question is Mr. Donnell leaving I keep encouraging him no he doesn't have to I'm gonna ask him is there an item here that calls his attention to the activities that can manage that's cool I just figured I'd ask because I'm realizing Dr. Morris that originally we made an editing error we actually originally had the regional advocacy going farther down on the agenda and we just forgot to move it we intended to do exactly what you requested I'm gonna go to realizing that about such as life so now we'll go back to regional advocacy and again I don't know if it's Mr. Demling or Ms. Adonios but whoever it is speak up I can do this if you want and then okay so let's see I'll try to summarize it so this is mostly related to the state budget which is right now checking along so the broad brush right governor to house to senate and then they and then the governor signs it and their budget so right now it's in senate we did a lot of advocacy with other regional organizations around transportation reimbursement fully funding that it came out it was out of the house ways and means it was a million more than the governor's budget and when it finally came out it was a million more than that so incrementally increased we were asking for 100 others were asking for 85% it didn't nearly get to that out of the house however there is some optimism there used to be at least the perception of more support or at least awareness of this as a regional issue plus the other sort of ask of regional districts is this committee to S217 which is originally senate bill which is why it might have more support in the senate it's also co-sponsored by the current senate president channeler to relook at the funding and structure of regional districts which would be great for us so that's going another really good thing that happened last thursday I think is that the foundation budget review committee the bill the Chang Diaz bill was reported out favorably from the senate ways and means committee which apparently is a pretty big step so they'll actually be debating that next week which is pretty exciting we've been following that addresses a lot of what's broken in chapter 70 formula with regards to health insurance and special ed low-income ELL so that would be a huge thing so that's good there's kind of an update in terms of our senate representation so obviously we're going through a transition with senators there was a new story recently that some local senators so Heinz from Pittsfield Lesser from Longmeadow volunteered to represent our interests in the time when we don't have a direct senator and the senate president echoed that I have a couple of long quotes here but they basically say yes we're here for you which actually might be kind of an opportunity so normally I would say emails to senators that are already on board with things don't make a lot of difference but if they're kind of feeling like they kind of should do something for us it might not hurt for our committee so the ways and means committee budget comes out for the senate on Thursday and then they start debating a very short period beginning of next week so without wordsmithing a whole letter if we had either the chair or somebody who wanted to designate just to contact the senators who say they're going to represent us and say hey, don't forget about regional transportation S217 the senate bill and while you're there the foundation budget might it couldn't hurt so those are my initial thoughts so I think in the interest of time and maybe just to put a finer point on it from what I understand the committee has asked Mr. Demling and I to sort of help facilitate this in these conversations and I think we've already put together various materials for this use perhaps we can just go ahead and write something because it does have to be submitted within the next two days they really are voting on Thursday so we don't have a lot of time for this so if this is okay with the committee then we'll just move ahead and do what we've been doing did anyone have any nodding hands nodding hands I think that's a good idea if you're going to do it what I would actually suggest you do is you both I'd be happy to send a letter actually you know what I'd like to do I'd like both of you to send a letter with both of your names on it and put my name on it as well because since you're both leading regional advocacy work and just throw my name on it as well I think that's because somebody has to send it so I don't really care whose email it comes from as long as it reflects the fact that our committee is making a strong statement on this behalf and if it's an email literally you're going to CC us on the email and I think that'd be a good approach people are okay with that but you're okay with that cool you're welcome Superintendent Evaluation Tool and we do need to take a vote on it do you want to introduce it or somebody want to choose this I can so at the morning meeting we had I think it was April 13th I shared this for the first time I haven't received any any changes to it so this is still this is the same as what you saw then it's based on the goals that we voted for Dr. Morris and the desi rubric and Dr. Morris identified the parts of the rubric the elements and indicators that pertain to the goals and those are what are reflected in the tool correct comments they can move to approve it if you want I just point out one very nitpicky thing it says 1 of 7 but at the end it's 14 of 7 yeah I didn't worry too much about some of that because this will get turned into a online survey so I didn't spend the last 30 minutes of fine tune editing it seems to always take to do this less like 2 details you're just funny how figuring out how to make that change might take longer than drafting the entire rest of it otherwise reminding of the work that Yeoman's work that Mr. Demling did on correcting tables and pdf or panoramic chart or inversion school letter I'll still entertain a motion by the way is there a second it's been moved and seconded is there further discussion on this item remind us exactly what's going to happen next I'm looking at both of you I think we humbly ask Debbie to turn this into an online tool that you can use and then I think the plan was for like in the process at the next meeting Dr. Morris would present artifacts and at the I guess shortly after that or whenever the survey would open so people would be able to complete the evaluation and then is it the late June meeting that would be when the community would come back to vote on it so sometime in the interim after the evaluation closes the chair would and or his designee would compile the results and you guys would vote it at the last June meeting in open session cool any further discussion on the item to vote for seeing none all those in favor of approving the evaluation instrument signify authorizing your hand carries unanimously terrific thank you very much thanks to the hazards not here previously I know this stuff I just mean your committee in general has just done great work Mr. Sullivan Mr. Sullivan will carry the torch excellent I mean this has to be like I mean along with policy which we're about to get to this has to be one of the most productive and extraordinary committees we have although regional advocacy is coming far up on this policy first although you know what's in the lurking in the rear is our recreation group one of these days you're going to come forward changes to soccer field the soccer field is going to be realigned with the sun the goal you can see the track you won't trip when you're running around it it'll be amazing there's practically like Greek myth align it with the sun alright I guess we'll move on on that policy first reads do we have a chair right now the policy for the moment for the moment right so the first three policies there student harassment, sexual harassment in the workplace and students sexual harassment were reviewed by Gina Pierre from the Boston public schools I think over last summer when she was here doing consulting work and so she had some recommendations for these policies which is why we're revisiting them now the recommendations are based on kind of pulling them into compliance with the law and updating some of the addresses for people to go to for further issues so those are the main changes in all three of those policies so just as an example for a JICFC the student to student harassment in that second paragraph the kind of groups listed didn't reflect what's legally identified so that list was changed so it's messes with the law oh sorry can we just say with that policy that was just mentioned the way that the school committee or the school policy was it was broader encompassed more than what the state required so if someone had a concern about something that was listed in our policy but was not covered by the state if they did not like our outcome they had no recourse so this kept everything in the changes now has everything in line so that all the categories and classes that we have listed here are so reflective of what the state will cover if there's a need that's very helpful are there questions? is there an answer? I'm just looking for I see so most of this seems to be the same just like in different order have you guys looked at that it just seems like it's so you have political party as a protected class here and it's not protected class so removing this so that it's not something where if I were to cover and actually investigate something under political party and the person did not like the results of my investigation they couldn't go any place with it so we remove that and we leave only the things where they can go further and let's say file an MCAT complaint go to the office of OCR and have their complaints heard so just a clarifying question I guess because I hear what you're saying and I understand that I can also see the flip side of a policy created not just to reflect sort of legality but also to reflect the values of the district I guess I'm wondering even if there's no legal recourse for a person for example they feel that their political position has been violated in some way is there something that the district or that the school can do to help protect their political position you know what I mean so it may not stand in a court of law so you're looking at it through that lens that totally makes sense but if you're looking at it through like this is our policy this is something that if you violate it there are repercussions they're not legal repercussions but there are other you know ramifications yeah so I just want to clarify this is around student harassment and harassment is a legal term so this doesn't define all the negative behaviors that might merit a consequence for a student so I think the advice we got from Miss Pierre was that when we're using the term harassment which has legal connotations we should use that term accurately legally political party just using that as an example so if a student like play out a scenario I'm not going to mention one but play out a scenario where a student feels like they're being unfairly comments are rude about political party it's not that the administrators say oh, political party is not a protected group too bad there's still an intersection of what behavior happens and how students are affected I think the confusion that Miss Pierre was pointing out from her perspective was that that's not harassment from a legal term and if we're saying it's harassment we're actually using a legally incorrect term for what's happening it's maybe negative behavior maybe there is consequences for negative social behaviors but it's not harassment in a legal way so I think that was the line that she was distinction not that we absolve ourselves from being responsible for everything that's done on this list but when we're calling something using a legal term for something that is not accurate legally it actually breeds confusion more than the ability to take their appropriate action that's just her perspective but hopefully that was consistent with your I had two questions here one was just clarifying what criminal record inquiries only means and then my second question was about I know Amherst has tried to become a sanctuary city or town so immigration status isn't here would that be included under national origin or is that another issue similar to what we just talked about with sorry political party where we haven't included it because it's not at the federal level because I can see an argument for like political party not being one of those but immigration status especially given our community and the current federal environment just something I was thinking as I read these so that came up when Ms. Pierre was here and it happened it often gets her experiences used through national origin and ancestry that it applies to both of those because it's certainly an issue that is rising in schools and is certainly seen as harassment legally and is covered that way in this policy can I just ask for your first part I didn't answer that one what page is that on if the student to student harassment it says color, age, criminal record parentheses inquiries only so is that like with employment I know you can't do that I know you can't exclude people based on a criminal record but if they actually I'm just I'm looking I'm not a lawyer so I'm trying to understand a little bit more about just what that means or if you could clarify okay so not limited to harassment on the basis of having a criminal record so we do the query checks and we can't discriminate against what the results are of the query checks thank you a couple of things I forgot to mention the copy for JICK in the packet is not the the current one so it's loose in your stack and with that one the second paragraph I guess I'll just say in this one as a whole and this occurs mainly on the second page we tried to change language to make it more gender neutral so where we had she he before we changed that today and hopefully we're trying to remember to do that in future policies as well when it occurs you can ask any question you like what does the acronym stand for JICFC GBA so the Massachusetts Association of School Committees has a model policy book so they set policies so the letters often in most in most districts they're sequenced even if the language is different they're sequenced the same so that in anywhere in Massachusetts you could try to find a policy the first letter is particularly important because the I think just about every district I know the policy handbook is organized that first letter indicates a classification or grouping of policies within certain areas so when you see B I can pull it up if it's helpful but that indicates some level of grouping the rest is I think supposed to be sequential in some logical way but I think it gets a little for me it gets a little fuzzier after the first letter so it's a table of contents now it doesn't stand for something it's not an acronym we could make some but so they're further I was just going to say another update that's listed on all of these policies is changing titles because over the years people change titles change and we had to also reflect that in our new policy principals and administrators were asked who do you go to for A, B, and C and they had no answer so as we searched through the book it seemed like they would have gotten the wrong answer too so we wanted to make sure that they knew that for some things they would go to the assistant superintendent for diversity equity and human resources there are some things that they would go to the family engagement specialists and such and to make sure that the correct titles are listed in the policy as they do just because we're talking about this and before we get to part where we're going to vote on it I think I would feel a lot better if we could get maybe another opinion on the immigration status versus national origin ancestry thing only because you know I know from friends who are lawyers who are working this you know a lot and this is changing quite rapidly even the definitions based on how certain cases are being heard and what's happening and so I would hate to put us in a position where we are somehow unintentionally leaving out that recourse that you mentioned before especially because we have taken the position as a community as a sanctuary community so just because it's so top of mind and fresh for so many people so if it's at all possible and I'm happy to help do research if that's appropriate or not but it's just a thing coming up with a couple of different perspectives to incorporate here would be helpful I wonder and I'm not that close to this one but Mr. Terry a quick question to him just from a legal perspective maybe more up to date than most on the legal implications because he certainly knows about policy that was passed by the school committee last year on immigration works in many communities some with more some with less public dialogue about immigration just a process idea other questions or comments seeing none what about school councils school councils this one also the most updated one is the loose one not the one in the packet the policy subcommittee I think this started last year was also kind of just systematically going through policies in the policy book and updating as needed so this is one that came forward through that process and basically we just simplified it somewhat and made sure it agreed with the law any questions about that one we had a lot of discussion about the representation on school councils and how that kind of comes about because it seems like there's a lot of variety in how that is taken care of at different schools I don't know that legally we have a lot of say so we just we try to emphasize that there needs to be sufficient outreach so the parents know that that's an option if they're interested it seemed like it was general but emphasizing the need for outreach and inclusion and sort of pushing the point okay seeing no further questions or comments about this we will move to our next item which is fiscal management student activity funds which is called a policy vote so we looked at this I think with the 10th for the first read I don't remember any comments at that time so again this was recommended by our new auditor so I think if people are comfortable this can be voted tonight it's the second reading my recollection is is this a situation where there's a longer document but that this was the sort of introduction that was believed that we could vote to a formally adopt this section in lieu of the entire document yeah the I think it's a large kind of book of procedures that are very specific and that I think the business office would regularly update as needed so this is right this is the introduction to that Dr. Horace it's not necessarily changing practice of the practice which the auditor recommended us doing which hopefully jogs the memory of any committee member that doesn't remember this conversation from last time as we talked about this is there a motion Mr. Demling I move to approve the fiscal management student activities funds policy is there a second it's been moved and seconded any further discussion does it not get a little acronym after it's approved is that how it works we'll figure that out later all those in favor of approving the motion as signify I'm raising a hand that carries unanimously thank you very much so now we have more than one sheet of gifts so this gives an opportunity for group participation for more than one person let's start in your packet in your packet there is one document that lists some Amherst Educational Foundation grants anyone looking at them and has found it and feels like reading them knows how to make this motion Ms. Sullivan any interest oh sure I make a motion and we accept the donation from the Amherst Education Foundation Inc number 1532 and the total amount of $3,000 and the Amherst Education Foundation Inc check number 1532 and the amount of $5,000 for a total of $8,000 could you read out the purpose to support oh alright to support the final AEF excellent grant payment ARHS wellness improvement for $3,000 and the final AEF excellent grant payment picture my immigration story for $5,000 for a total of $8,000 is there a second second it's been moved and seconded any further discussion seeing none all those in favor approve the motion raise your hand say goodbye I carries unanimously we have another one Mr. Dudley I move to approve the gift from Helm after-school program number 3410 the amount of $500 to support 2018 high school scholarship and the gift from Amherst Academy number 1549 and the amount of $1,500 to support 2018 high school Latin scholarship is there a second second it's been moved and seconded any further discussion looks like we have emails afterwards all those in favor of the motion please signify by raising your hand carries unanimously thank you very much to the donors we have the final topic which is school committee planning upcoming topics do you have a running list I think I do for the next meeting transportation to vote the EMP presentation should represent hiring process and licensure I'd like to put back on Summit Academy formalize with a vote perhaps two votes in there one about the use of the building one is about connected to the town so I have to get some more clarity but I'd like to put that on there artifact presentation and the climate service I know we put on probably too soon for the next meeting but certainly we can do this in June that in June because I missed the other other topics I can't predict the extent but I think it would be prudent to have the search update as a agenda item for the next meeting that makes sense I just want to remind you that I need a volunteer from the school committee to help select the clerical media that's right so there is a clerical media award and typically a member of the school committee volunteers to assist in the selection of this awardee which is a really neat thing and is really welcomed by the recipients in my recollection as this takes a brief amount of time it's fairly brief what we typically do we meet one time during the day we select the winners and then we go to the school and let them know the big one it's very very fun so A it's fun and that's the most important thing for you to know about it B I already know that it's a deeply appreciated so it's something that's really a rewarding thing and then C it'll only take up a little of your time who's our volunteer what is the award can you describe it's called the clerical media award each year the school committees per contract with the clerical staff award two at the elementary level and two awards at the secondary level for clerical staff who have gone above and beyond in their work each one receives $500 it's a really nice award can you do it on a Friday? I would love to do it this week if there's a volunteer you can do it this week would Friday work? I think we have a potential volunteer available to do it during the work day on Friday? Yes that would be great Terry Ominsky is the clerical union representative so I just need to make sure that she can do it but if she's available that would be great that's a wonderful thing thank you Mr. Sullivan that's a wonderful thing that's great so anything else in terms of the immediate agenda before we adjourn the clocks never over until the agenda is posted so if you have missed please just let us know and us in that case is Dr. Morrison myself is there a motion to adjourn? so moved second moved and seconded no discussion is allowed for the second all those in favor we are adjourned