 We are calling to order this meeting of the Amherst Pellum Regional School Committee at 6.38 p.m. seeing the presence of a quorum. If people are following along with the post agenda as posted unfortunately we're not able to convene a joint meeting with Union 26 School Committee due to late posting of this agenda and so we are going to forego the executive session jointly with Union 26. We're also going to forego item number two which is called potential shift of role of finance director for a future date on January 29th. 22nd. Okay then 22nd. Yeah that's what we looked at today which we include in. So we're gonna add you're gonna add it you're gonna add a regional meeting to the Amherst meeting since we're meeting anyways as part of the ADA audit and then we're gonna go into executive session. Yes. For all of you following at home this is how you coordinate agendas when it's getting a little complicated. The point is we're not talking about it tonight. I guess we are talking about the 22nd. It'll still be an executive session. There you go. Both of public. So our first order of business then is to enter executive session in accordance of national law chapter 30 a purpose three to discuss strategy with respect to litigation who's team versus Amherst Pellum regional school committee because as chair I find it that an open meeting would be detrimental have an additional effect on the litigation position of the committee and we do plan to return to open session upon conclusion of the executive session. So I so move is there a second second it's been moved and seconded. Just take a roll call vote starting in this end. Sullivan aye. Benino aye. Demling aye. Spencer aye. McDonald's aye. Nakajima aye. Kosensky aye. Ordona's aye. Great we are in executive session will return in a few minutes thank you very much. Seeing the presence of a quorum we're gonna re-enter into our Amherst Pellum regional school committee meeting at 7-11. Our first order of business is approval of minutes at December 11th 2018 and I don't know if the committee is on an opportunity to review those minutes if you haven't please do so now. Also entertain a motion to approve the minutes of December 11th 2018. Move to approve the minutes of December 11th 2018. Is there a second? Second. It's been moved and seconded. Are there any edits or comments or other sort of salinia? Seeing none all those in favor of approving the minutes of December 11th 2018 signify I'll be raising your hand. Are there any opposed? Any abstentions? One abstention so it should be then. What's wrong with me? 7 yes, 0 no, and 1 abstention. Yay! Let's teach math. Announcements and public comments we're open for announcements from the committee if there are any. Any announcements from the committee? Mr. Demling. I just wanted to briefly mention a few things in the national news that are directly affect a potential advocacy issue the committee may want to be involved in the next couple weeks. One is the district of Los Angeles is currently the teachers are striking 30,000 teachers second largest school district in the nation really fighting for for base level funding they're dealing with things like class sizes in the 40s and then there's a big privatization theme there about the pushing of charter schools and funding of public schools. Last month the second sort of update is New Orleans voted that by 2022 there will be no more public schools. One of the largest cities in the south that's all all charter now. Say that again. So so by 2022 this is the McDonough district decision McDonough 35 district they voted to go charter now in New Orleans all schools are charter schools that are no more public schools in New Orleans and yesterday the commissioner of education and the mayor of New Bedford and the board of education agreed to a charter school expansion which is strongly opposed by teachers parents apoplectic they'll be demonstrating outside of headquarters of Desi and Malden on Monday and so I just sort of say this all because we have our own charter expansion our doorstep and obviously we fight that for reasons of budgetary preservation and impact to our community but it really does exist in this broader context of this this war that is going on this well-funded coordinated war that I don't think is an exaggeration to say as an existential threat to public schools I mean they don't exist anymore in New Orleans and you know if if we continue to think that it couldn't happen here that's that's when it becomes more easily done and so I think when we engage the community in the press and all that it's important to be mindful of that larger context thank you any other announcements seeing none we'll open the public comment if there any public comments please come forward approach the microphone identify yourself you have three minutes to speak is Mary Lou conca I'm on the wellness committee as well as the equity task force greetings I'm here to say to speak on my own behalf that when you start passing out the money that you consider that you really consider funding organic food for schools and for reference there is a school in California who has gone all organic and GMO free and the superintendent of that school gives testimony to an overall behavior for the better change in the children as well as their health it's going to be a lot better too thank you thank you any further public comments in the it's I think it's an unlikely event but in the event that we see people coming in who thought the public comments section would be still open I'm gonna I'm gonna reserve with the committee's approval the right to offer additional public comment in a few minutes because although I don't want to you know somebody knew the agenda that otherwise but otherwise I want to move on and still be productive subcommittee updates I know budget men right yes do you have anything you want to talk about around the update we just basically informed of a number of issues with an update any particular fund ones fees the fiduciary for investment funds capital planning and a policy a definite a list of definitions to be included in procedure manual it was basically an update that sounds like a great meeting I asked it over an hour and it must have been a great meeting are there other other subcommittees that have met would like to update us on the meetings thank you so the school equity task force met justice past week and we're actually going to be hearing from some of the students tonight who are in the restorative justice program here at the high school and we also have been talking to the co-principals at the middle school to hear more about their thinking and planning around restorative justice and perhaps bringing that as a curriculum to the school so you know I don't want to take up too much time with that because we will be hearing more about that later but I just wanted to kind of give a little forecast for the committee on that and then I've also had a few meetings with Amherst media as a representative to Amherst media who has been they have been working on their capital campaign at this point to build a new building on Main Street and Gray Street so they are underway on that campaign and also looking for support from the community for all the work that they do so if any of you feel so inclined they can always use both letters of support and also just you know sharing information about their capital campaign and the work that they do here in the community so other other committees see back man and we'll we'll move on the you know it's fine I remember I remember like it last year something it seems like there was always like a dozen committees colliding with another like like a little meteors or something like that superintendents update share with the chair earlier that given that our end time is slated to be 1030 I'll defer the update other than the ones that come up in the agenda items specifically below because I do have updates in a number of those okay and actually for the to the chair I'd say the same thing because we're going to talk about the assessment formula and budget later I do think that precisely because there's a real I think it increased saliency around charter school expansion that I think we should talk about I mean we're not going to write the second but we should talk about when there is a recommendation from the commissioner we should talk about how we want to approach delegation from the area going to Boston and advocating and in my mind even though I hadn't done it previously I'm inclined actually to go and speak myself my recommendation to other chairs of other committees would be that they also go and represent their committees because I think having having we haven't done it before even with one we haven't done it before having that kind of presence of I'm assuming the superintendent intends to go and advocate that I think it would create even more of an impression that we took the time to defend and then we should think about what our comments are going to be and even discuss them in advance so I think again having that kind of solidity and weight behind what we're doing I think would be more impressive than than not doing that and so in thinking that the letter somehow speaks for itself so I'll leave it at that but I was just giving it's funny you're saying that's actually giving thought to that question over the last few days anyway anyone else want to make a public comment no okay now it's 7 20 so we're actually at the point where we're going to close public comment and we're actually on the new and continuing business we have we're running a half an hour ahead of time now so I was wondering if we need to move something else up in the agenda super does we certainly could I'm also sensitive that there are some folks here with little ones that if they could present early and there are some medium-sized ones so I was thinking that we could start with perhaps well-being and learning about the bright program as the first thing I know some people are coming back 10 minutes for the restorative practices piece but if we could perhaps start with that and then running a half an hour ahead of time yeah so my guess is we can we can we can be very respectful to the well-being group and still be really respectful to the sort of practices group right yeah let's do that everyone is okay with that so we look any introduction yeah I would so we talked about well-being what was the topic I'd like to come back to certainly Dr. Grimackin I've spent quite a bit time actually this week talking about this more generally but what we thought given the feedback was for the school committee to learn more about the bright program so there was original presentation a couple years ago but think most of the members were not on the regional school committee maybe two or three were at most when hearing about it so there's a longer slide deck I know Karen Peters is here is going to describe just a couple the pages because we're trying to keep these to five minutes so that there's time for a question and answer to describe what the bright program is what it does and what services it supports students and I know Dr. Grimackin and Dr. Brady are here also as integral players in that program and you will not be allowed to sit there and do it we have a microphone and cameras though I apologize in advance but y'all look very comfortable that's why I was going to say my name's Karen Peters I'm the social worker in the bright program and I've been here for five years and the bright program has also been here for five years so I wanted to just spend a few minutes sharing a little bit about some of the work that we do here at the high school and the students that we serve and make sure I leave a few minutes for questions I do as Dr. Moore said that we do have a longer slide presentation for you that is there and if there are questions that come up after you read that I'd be happy to answer them as well so I'm just going to highlight a few things from our presentation like I said this is the fifth year of the bright program and we are a part of a network of programs that began in 2004 at the Brookline with the Brookline Center and Brookline High School as a response to a growing population of students who were dropping out of school after a mental health crisis or a medical crisis and so now in 2019 my understanding is there's 140 programs in the state of Massachusetts 102 programs in the state of Massachusetts and we were the first program in Western Mass and we often serve as a place where student programs in the state in this part of the state who are interested in starting a bright program come and learn about what we do a few years ago we held a regional meeting and I think there was representatives from about 10 area schools and so that's something that we feel really proud of being a part of doing I want to move to keep going sorry okay so I just want to move through this part quickly where we talk a little bit about how we are some of the those services that we provide we are what we would call through that multi-tiered system of support the bright the bright model is a general education tier 3 support for students at the highest need and we offer four key supports and those are academic supports clinical support family support and care coordination there are two full-time staff in the bright program I'm one of them and I'm a licensed social worker we also have a para educator who serves as our academic coordinator and she does a lot of the liaison work with teachers when students come back from an extended absence they're often faced with an enormous amount of makeup work and some of the things that we really work closely with teachers to do is identify what are the key learning objectives let's not bog students down with a bunch of work let's help them identify the key things they need to learn and get them back in the classroom and get them back feeling like they're a part of the school community and I think just to back up a minute the the need that this program really responds to is when a life issue like a mental health crisis or a medical issue comes up we really want to keep students connected to their education and we don't want them to feel like they have to make a choice between healing and recovering and being a student and so having a home base in the building that teachers and resources come to them until they're ready to be back in the classroom has been just I think a very meaningful on-ramp for them to get back into the classroom and feel like they belong here in this community which is what we really want them to feel themselves and their families okay so I'm gonna move to some of the I just highlighted a few pieces of data that I thought might be meaningful to you all like I said we've been here since this 2014 2015 school year and we've enrolled 124 students in bright 36 of those students have been enrolled for more than one admission and what that means is that they've had more than one mental health or medical crisis or they've had a relapse and their symptoms that have caused an extended absence the types of students that are referred to us are students that have experienced a suicide attempt students who have persistent and consistent depressive symptoms that keep them stuck or out of school and their their functioning is really impaired students with significant anxiety we've have students with chronic medical issues like we had a student a few years ago with Crohn's disease who really hadn't been in school for more six months before he came to this district and bright supported him and being able to graduate and I saw him in the community working recently which was wonderful so we also have students with post concussive syndrome and after our third year when we figured out what we were doing a little bit more successfully the recommendation and I think the big response from guidance counselors and other folks in the school was can you take students earlier can we work to prevent some of these crises so that students aren't in that situation before we know what they're dealing with and struggling with so we started taking students what we would call a preventative referral and our the data I compiled suggest that 45 percent of our students from 2004 2016 to this current year are the preventative support referrals and these are students that have growing absences that oftentimes are identified with an emerging mental health issue a medical issue or some sort of circumstances in life that is causing their functioning and their family's functioning to be incredibly impaired there's some other demographic data around some of our students that might be helpful for you to see and then I really highlighted there's the net two slides from now I highlighted some of the data from last year that I thought was pretty meaningful so we supported 29 students nine of those students had stayed with us for the part of the of last year due to continued struggles we had a few students that had second and third concussions unfortunately and 100 percent of those students were general education students we had about 34 percent of the students refer for special education evaluation because some of the things that they were struggling really rose to the level that we felt like they needed longer term support or at least an evaluation to be supported okay and then there's a few other pieces of data from last year that I thought were important to highlight 100 percent of our students participate in regular counseling support where we really work to build their distress tolerance skills emotion regulation skills and coping skills so that when they experience some of the things that have kept them home or increase their level of distress they're able to put some things in place so that they can be in class and be in school and participating in their life we had 83 percent of our students demonstrate improvement in attendance 79 percent demonstrates stability or improvement in grades 95 percent of students reported learning new coping strategies and 83 percent of those students reported using those skills regularly I thought that was interesting that those two numbers were different and 79 percent of the students demonstrated more stability in the presenting symptoms and that data comes from parents from teachers and from our staff and we had one senior last year and so I wanted to make sure I highlighted that that was a little misleading one student 100 but she did graduate okay and a few things that you know we really are committed to continuously improving our program and making sure that we're meeting the needs of our student by collecting data from students from teachers from our parents from the community providers that we work with in 2016 we started working with Smith College to bring a graduate student intern into the program under my supervision and what that really does is increase our capacity to provide support at the tier three level but also it trickles to the the other clinical supports the school is able to provide so having intern support really is not only for bright but for the tier one and tier two supports that we offer we collect data from our students and families at the end of the year with a survey and last year through parent leadership we had a small parent leadership team and they brought the idea together of why don't we create a parent orientation program to really support the families when they're entering the bright program because we know that mental health or medical crisis isn't just in the student the whole family is affected so we had 11 out of 12 new families participate in that last year and we're continuing that this year and we also another thing that we started doing this year really in response to what I know that a lot of our students are working on in outpatient therapy and in what I think is effective practice we introduce dbt and other coping skills every week in the milieu and share those with families so that those skills are translatable at home and families can practice those things as well so how am I doing on time you're doing fine actually just dbt is probably not a term that everybody is thank you dialectical behavior therapy and there's four key components of that it's really working on distress tolerance regulating emotions managing interpersonal conflict and mindfulness and there's a lot of skills that we can practice in quick two to three minute increments with students that we can really help them repeat repeat repeat and another thing that's exciting this year is the middle school is exploring the possibility of starting a bright type model to support their students I just want to highlight a few other things if that's okay like I said before we were the first bright program in western mass and we're very proud of that and it's been wonderful to get a lot of feedback from other regional schools asking for our input asking to come and visit and sharing our resources with them we had a student invited to speak at the state house two years ago with legislators to share her story about mental health and the support she received in school two of our families were invited to speak on a symposium with the bright network a few years ago so I think that our students and families are doing a lot of advocacy for the work that and are very proud of the work that their families have been able to participate in through bright we have some very clearly established referral protocols entrance and exit criteria that we've worked really closely with our administration and guidance counselors to really streamline so that people in school including teachers know what to do if they're the ones that identify a student first and very often a teacher or guidance counselor may know about something before i do or before somebody else does so having these clear protocols is really helpful so that we can get students and families connected as soon as possible so those are highlighted there and then I think the last thing I put on there was just a few testimonials from some parents and students that we got from our survey last year that I thought really highlighted some of the things that were important to students and families and I'd be happy to answer any questions that you might have I know I ran through that quickly so I hope that was some questions what's on the mind yes thank you thank you so much for presenting this tonight oh my pleasure this is an issue that I've been very interested in I know other committee members have also expressed an interest in it's really great to hear more about the bright program and to learn the work that you're doing on a daily basis and also just historically so thank you for doing that I had a couple of questions and it's mostly around resources so you mentioned or at least in the slide it says that since 2014-15 we've enrolled approximately 124 students and right is that correct yeah so I mean on average I guess it works at about 30 students or so in any given year is that yeah so the 124 number there's 36 of them that were readmissions and so it's actually 88 people and yeah it's from between 19 and 30 over the five years have been connected in some capacity are you the only staff person working with these students on a regular basis or do you have a team I do so I there's two of us full time I'm the social worker and I have a pair educator in this particular pair educator has been with me for three years she is incredible and I also have a graduate student intern so we really make sure that there's always that room is always staffed we have students that come before school students that come for lunch students that come after school so and we also have a private space so that our milieu is always running and then if a student needs a meeting with a teacher or we have a family meeting or there's a crisis we have another place to work with students question so I guess I'm also wondering you know do you see a trend or any trends that you could share with the committee is this something that is in need increasing is it sort of seeing stable is it decreasing like you know how does this great question yeah so I would say my numbers have increased our first year we had 19 and we're we have 25 and I have three referrals right now I would say that the the trends I'm seeing are increased anxiety that lead to more extended absences from school so students feeling paralyzed with these these symptoms and don't have skills or capacity to come in and so we're we're seeing a lot more of that I've had I think a pretty stable four four to six students every year hospitalized for a suicide attempt so I don't see that number decreasing at all but I think that the trend that I'm seeing the most concerning to me is how many students with these sort of symptoms just stop coming to school and so that is why I feel really great about being able to catch some of those students early so when we're seeing those absentee numbers slowly rise we want to get those families in for an intake early so that we can disrupt these extended absences that lead to the crisis okay thank you I was looking through some of your slides and maybe it kind of dovetails a little bit I was looking at the referral protocols and you said there's a as I read it there's a cap on the number of students that you have there which I assume is so that you can manage it and my question was has that cap been an issue are we turning people away that we really should be providing some services to you yes we don't ever turn anyone away and I'm so grateful that we have graduate student intern support and that partnership has has increased our capacity so while that number is still there because we we want to be able to manage and we want to make sure the meal you feel safe and that we want to be able to take these students with significant issues so that's sort of our our our bar but we know like right now we're over that number but I feel that we're able to do that because we have intern support and we have just incredible support from our guidance counselors and from other personnel in the building yeah and I had a kind of a follow-up on the next slide you had some of your criteria to accept students and you know one of them is that they're you know have had outside services and I'm just wondering if we are able to reach out and and make sure we're identifying those students that may not have access for whatever reason insurance family care transportation to get those services outside that would trigger you to be engaged here absolutely and I think this is such an important issue and something that I try to advocate for as much as possible and making sure students do have access and I think that there are many students that don't aren't connected and that's something that we provide support in making sure that they get connected so whether that's bringing somebody in to do an intake with them getting them connected over the phone making sure they know how to get places really making those links is something that we feel is really really important thank you you're welcome I guess I have two questions one is our students when they enter into right is there are they typically how long are they typically involved in a program good question so it's on an individual basis and I have some students that six weeks and they feel like they're ready to get back to class and they might just drop in every once in a while I would say an average student is with me for about a semester maybe three or four weeks into the semester to support that transition but I think that the the criteria for exit really is that they're demonstrating stability in their attendance their grades that their symptoms aren't relapsing and that they do have that source of support within their family and community so some students we keep a little bit longer and then we also try to decrease the the dosage I would say so if a student for example is coming down every day saying I'm so overwhelmed and I can't get here for this amount of time we're really working to them to to to rely on us less and to be able to use things more independently or on their own so maybe now they're just coming down for lunch or maybe they're just coming a couple times a week to check in or maybe they're just doing a little hello I'm doing well I did great on my test and that's really what we're we're trying to do is is increase their independence increase their awareness and predict when they're going to struggle and then be available if that happens that need arises again so the the other question I had I mean thank you that's real sure the other question I had was a lot of the coping mechanism skills and things that help these many students who are in some crisis to be able to cope with their stress or whatever circumstances they're in are analogous probably to what other students in the broader population of the community could also benefit from absolutely particularly because the I mean I'm not saying you shouldn't but this may sound perverse but like the bar of entry into your program is is a student who's pretty far along and evidencing significant stress and so the natural question for me is and this is partially just out of curiosity but then also theoretically be a resource related question is what do we do to try to extend ankle cake create experiential opportunities for the broader student body to also get access to some of these skills and as a related question which is not sort of related is I'm assuming we we have ways that we try to ensure that there's no stigmatization and it seems to me there's a positive relationship between the more all kids are made aware of the positive nature of learning these skills and experiences the more it takes away any possibility of stigma for those students who need a little bit more assistance and adopting them I'm just wondering what what are we doing yeah so as far as that broader question like this is this is such an important thing that we've been talking about so often recently and I agree with you we just talked just was talking to Dr. Kumaki about promoting and offering some more just general education skills groups next semester piloting that we've done that over the past few years I'm just really trying to recruit students to be able to to want to participate we have students coming to us all the time saying I'm so anxious I'm overwhelmed and then we try to offer these groups and we must not be doing it at the right time to get their their buy-in so we're going to try again this semester and offer some life stress groups we're going to offer some some other coping skills groups during just the day for six to eight weeks to try to get more students involved in these things early we also last year that one of the guidance counselors and I are doing a night for all the ninth grade advisories we're doing a less on stress reduction so helping them identify what the stress response is in their body giving them more awareness of what's happening for them as well as introducing them to the idea of some coping strategies and I'll say that that idea actually came from upper class students saying why aren't we talking about this stuff earlier why aren't you teaching these things to ninth and tenth graders so that was excellent and when I say that to students in the ninth grade advisory I think they pay a little bit more attention to me when I say this came from your peers as opposed to a bunch of adults saying you need to learn some stress response strategies so that is something that's going I think pretty well for the second year and I think the other the other thing that you talked about in terms of stigma my the students in bright talk about this all the time and I have worked in four different school districts in in my career and I have been so proud of the students and the teachers here who really have welcomed the the bright program and just the the need for something like this we give students this laminated pink pass where so they can walk out of the room without having to say I'm having a panic attack can I please go to the bright room so they can slide this or just show this to their teacher and sort of walk out the amount of students that I that I have talked to who aren't in bright say oh yeah my friend goes to bright that that's cool you know or I'm going to walk them down there it just feels very supportive and there's more we can do there's more we can there's more we can educate people about students and families and teachers and I feel like that's something that's a real priority for us to continue doing um I have students that that refer their friends to say I think my student could my friend could really benefit from talking to you but she's not in a crisis yet and so I think that that um that's that's really a promising sign to me that students are supportive I don't I have students whose friends come by to say hello students don't feel like oh I'm in that room and I can't go there so that that those are such positive signs for me and um I think there's more we can do one of my students a few years ago wrote an article in the graphic about her experience in the bright program and um we should share it because it was it was a lovely article and um I was really touched that she wanted to share her personal story with the whole school community right um so yeah so thank you very much as soon as I think I know everything that's amazing it's offered at our high school for so many so many things you know it's another amazing program thank you that means a lot thank you talking about this um so um you know it's really intrigued by this the industry nakajima's bringing up about how you know that just the idea of um being overwhelmed at some point and having some level of anxiety is such a universal experience and that anxiety is such a spectrum of intensity and and even per individual even for individual per day or week and how this is such a universal thing and and and there is some some emerging talk in educational literature in the in the recent years about how just in general anxiety is increasing for students um and so I love the idea of uh you're talking about piloting these coping mechanisms talking to non-created advisories yeah um and I mean this is more of a question for Dr. Morse or Dr. Grimaki but um I'm wondering about you know what what could we potentially incorporate into our standard health curriculum you talk about health you know what was health for me you know back decades ago is probably fundamentally different than what we could be offering today and so I'm wondering if just as part of you know right next to sex ed and all the other you know juicy topics that are in a health curriculum you know let's talk about anxiety because it's a necessary skill and we don't explicitly teach it then we're just assuming that students have it I can I can say one thing um we I talked a little bit about dbt the dialectical behavior therapy then has that those four pillars um we've been very interested in bringing this more to the mainstream um just the general high school um environment um jamie knocks what the social worker from Summit Academy and I did a a workshop on dbt skills for teachers this year we got some really good feedback and I think that in part is leading us to bring Dr Brady is bringing some folks in to do dbt training with many of the high school personnel who work with students in February we're going to do two sessions on it and I think the idea really is how do we exactly what you're saying how do we incorporate this more across the board in the guidance office in the nurses office in the aac in the library everywhere so that we're really bringing awareness to this so it doesn't take a crisis to be able to learn these skills um so I think we're very excited about what what this is going to bring to us I think I'll just add quickly that Dr Grimacky and I and Mr Sheen actually had an interesting conversation with someone who works in a lot of schools around you know issues around well-being uh just yesterday actually feels like a while ago and one of the things they noted in their work and particularly in high schools is an increase in anxiety you know across the board and one of the best interventions that can happen is actually just raising the topic and helping both staff and students and families understand that this is occurring right there's a lot of like steps after it but one of the things that what what's getting noted is that well this is going on and talked about in loose ways it actually doesn't get to the place where people actually the voices of students actually come to the forefront of explaining what their experience is actually like there was a high school in western massachusetts um Mr Mangado shared it with me earlier where there's a valedictory speech last year that was basically saying this very thing that we need to actually start talking about this and and the whole perfection kind of as the goal of perfection and getting into xcop right all those things are having a significant life impact on our young people so I think more to comment that question I appreciate that answer but it's something that Dr Gamaki and I and others are actively thinking about working on but it's interesting that the kind of just raising the topic whether it's through survey person-person interaction or both which is the ideal is itself an intervention of highlighting how students are actually feeling because there can still be some methodology of like oh well you know it's a competitive world right you can have you can imagine a lot of sort of cliches that get thrown out around it and you know what our students are telling us is a very different story I also just I completely agree with that Dr Morris and I would also say that and I had mentioned this I think in one of our last meetings for me the interest in maintaining a focus on well-being generally among the student population is multifaceted you know not least of which on you know some of the unfortunate acts of violence that we've seen committed in in schools but also just a lot of students you know inflicting self-harm a lot of the drug abuse that we've seen you know all of it is connected and so I think the more opportunities that we have as a district to be able to pay attention to what's happening to our kids on a daily basis and to provide support and taking you know take care of them when they need us the better off we all are as a community and just as a future generation so I'm also really heartened to you know again hear about this program learn what's going on and hopefully find ways to strengthen and support it thank you so I'm going to throw a question out that may not be able to be answered tonight sure I know we need to move forward but you mentioned that there was talk about extending this program or adopting it at the middle school level which begs the question because it's like middle school I think we had we were talking casually a few weeks ago about how like middle school can actually often be the most intensely challenging period for a kid emotionally even though high school has its own challenges that are pretty significant as well what if we're not doing this at that age I'm curious as to what we are doing if we need to do this at that age what are the gating what do you know you know I'm saying I do I'm not really going to ask a question I'm going to throw that little thing at you sure and you can answer tonight or tell me let's deal with it in a future meeting I think I'll do the letter but let's do that because we honestly also I think I mean is it obviously what you're doing is very impressive and I'm I think we're all the committee has expressed their deep appreciation thank you very much you're very welcome it's wonderful but I also think though that if we're going to have a full secondary conversation about this then we got to dig in a little bit on the middle school absolutely okay thank you thank you very much okay then I think our next okay I'm looking intense because I'm I'm teeing you up okay sure a really good a really productive and a really engaged conversation right that's what we're going to practices yeah we're going to do restorative practices and I think we're going to literally move to a different space so we get to experience for those who haven't been in circle um and our we're going to have student leaders we're going to lead us but before we do that I just want to she walked away to get them right up but I just want to introduce the committee to Evelyn Aquino so Evelyn's back there you can just wave there's Evelyn so Evelyn is supported the high school program since this inception she's been working with the W and then as recently as today maybe was it today today was Evelyn's first day as the climate coordinator that we spoke about in a prior meeting at the middle school so that application process ended and we're thrilled to have her on board in a more formal role congratulations the middle school so and I think Evelyn would like us to join the students on the couches right okay so I'm going to start by reading one of the okay my name is Petra I'm a sophomore at the school and I'm going to start by reading a journal that one of the students in our class her name's Rachida was a junior she wrote on the 11th a couple days ago and so yeah when I'm asked to and when I'm asked what impact the restorative justice program had on me honestly my mind draws to a blank not because of the lack of information but because it simply is too much to organize into a clear cut explanation so I'll just start with the facts every other g-period I go to our rj room not dw's room not the next the room next to the aac not the not the plain old plain old room 135 I go to our rj room we sit down in a circle like we are today and we see each other's faces feeling the energy flow through the room and do check check-ins normally we check in to unleash everything that we have suppressed all day in every other class that we go to and so that way we're in a clean state for new information to come and some in in some days we receive a lesson for miss eveline or if we're lucky to have a chance for miss dw who's out with the injury right now a new piece of restorative justice is learned another piece to grow our confidence in our knowledge in the experience of restorative justice is done every day um we normally check out and sometimes if we don't have time we do one word check out here are some of the most common words used peaceful mindful excited hopeful calm refreshed and hungry hungry for more I have been taking this class for five months now and here is my overall experience with it change is slow especially self change you get used to yourself that other people notice the change for you which allows you to acknowledge it from learning power structures cycles of oppression and his and the history of racism I have unknowingly grown so much three months into the program my friend my friend noticed how articulate I became and how neutralized could stay in a conflict between my two friends I found myself understanding the importance of restorative justice in all situations all this from simply learning and from participating in the circle process the other day during a discussion during about during the saga club which is the sexuality and gender alliance I found myself ranting about the motivations behind hate like racism and homophobia I found myself inviting circle and circle elements in my life outside the restorative justice room I advised people to think to think about why others think and behave the certain ways they do and simply preaching at them will never promote provoke any change after the meeting my friend told me she has seen me change mentally so much since the starting the start of the class even if I don't recognize it myself my other friend chimed in and said that my words were presented and showed so much knowledge that they have never heard or thought of it before that is why restorative justice is so important it provokes a slow but necessary change in people to really understand each other and recognize each other's humanity I think twice about every situation and the people involved we need this sort of justice class to spread the this philosophy um this exciting and necessary philosophy it is not just a class it's an experience so I'm also going to follow up with the reading of one of our co-workers in this class but I also want to say I'm like my personal experience with RJ following after it but so you are introduced myself so I am jumping the gun a little bit I'm Brendan I am a sophomore just like that's what you might have noted not noticed because you know I look a little bit older than I am a sophomore so through RJ I knew for a fact that I changed on how I viewed the world and dealing with people around me I learned to pay more close attention to how I speak and what others feel also through circle process I became more comfortable opening up about myself before I am pretty extrovert so I feel okay with people but I usually understand I usually listened but now I pay attention to myself as well as listening just like I learned to respect others more if students at schools are exposed to the program I am certain that there will be growth and change in arts and I do a deeply agree with David when this like when he said that because RJ for me has given me a place where like I feel open to like share what I want to share but also hear others out and like the main theme of RJ is to really like let everyone be heard no matter how like uncensored they are saying like we want to understand where they're coming from and then be able to share what you're coming from and so not to like argue but more so to know why like you're in that kind of mood or situation and for me it's really given me that because when like I'm in a circle like this I really get the opportunity to like just look at everyone and see them as like a person and know that whatever I'm going to say next is going to affect them on like three different levels instead of just seeing them through like a glass or like as a high authority and feeling like afraid to say something because they have more power and a certain in that situation it gives us like an equal standpoint for everyone to like you know just feel comfortable with what they have to say and that just like makes it a whole lot better for me to want to say things and then apply that kind of humanitarian like treatment of other people and like any situation and be able to like kind of break that kind of power scaling or just power complexion between everyone like I see um yes um good evening good evening everybody um my name is Omar and I am an actual senior here in the High School in Amherst as my partners and classmates uh shared um in the restarted justice we have learned how to be more in uh connection as a community and um in that connection more of like as a human being rather than just seeing one person as a speaker and just letting their words go away as we mostly often do um I always say that at the beginning we didn't know how it was going to work out because it was a new program for us and also for the school but at the same time while we kept like going on throughout the different classes and sessions we became more close with each other and we became more confident within ourselves and also within within the community um and that really allowed us to open up and understand more how are we feeling and how will other people be feeling with whatever you had to say as an opinion or as a statement um as a community that we are uh you really get to feel really confident and able to share whatever you're feeling at any moment um and that that really feels different because you you don't often have that opportunity to have a space where you can share what are you feeling towards a specific situation or how are you feeling about yourself or how can you approach a community situation such as something that's going on in school that might be wrong but others like can't speak about it so being able to speak about specifics really makes you see how importantly it is for us to be uh in connection as a community rather than just anybody walking down the street like oh i know you but i don't care and i see you and i don't want to like talk to you or whatsoever and um throughout the the months that we've been in the in the Reserve Justice uh courses um i have really became more confident though of myself on how to talk about what i'm thinking what i'm feeling towards a situation and how to understand why i'm feeling like that and how will others get it and understand my approach within it and um i really consider that without it i don't know if my ear will have felt the same way as as as how it feels right now because last year as a junior i was like yeah whatever let's get college stuff done and let's just like keep the friendships that i have and whatsoever but right now is when i realize that thank you to myself and also thank you to on the Reserve Justice structure and all the learning that we've gotten from it i can personally say that when you are more closer to who you have to see every day you can actually be able to work better rather than just being like oh yeah um let's just do these but i'm not really confident to talk about whatever i'm feeling and that's like an obstacle in between allowing you to be able to move forward uh and better in any kind of situation so um it has been really really interesting and really really special being able to learn a lot about a different system and a different program to be more connected in a community rather than just being a single person and moving on hi i'm mckenzie and i'm a sophomore and i'm just gonna read my thoughts um last year my advisor came up to me and she told me about an alps class that is being offered to take next year when i learned that this course would teach me how to be a leader and make a difference in my community i got excited my excitement hadn't faded since every day i walk into a classroom filled with people i trust and i also come as myself i walk into a classroom without judgment i am not seen as another grade i am seen as a person and i have learned to see others as people and honor their humanity everyone has a story and after listening to my classmates stories i can see how restorative justice is a practice that our schools and community need restorative justice class has opened my eyes and exposed me to so many new ideas i learned about circle process and how to solve conflicts and build and repair relationships i feel as if people especially teachers are starting to be inspired and interested in this during a training workshop with teachers i felt a shift in think start i felt like for once teachers didn't see me as just another student in their class i was seen as a person with the need to make a change and help our community grow i feel like i finally had a voice and i know that other young people like me also have voices that need to be heard we need more classes like this so people learn that they are valued in this community this class has taught me so much and made me realize the flaws and problems in our school all the unfairness in school and the non-helpful punishments were exposed it really helps to know that there are teachers that support this class and want to see a change as well there's still so much more i feel i need to learn and this is just the beginning there needs to be a change and grow up in our schools and it starts here with us because if people can't change nothing will hi my name is mozaya i am a junior and uh my classmates here more just talked about how the class goes but i um actually went through circle process with uh misty w last year as a sophomore because in my aac class i i met misty w one day and we asked her what she did in the school like me and my classmates and she basically just set up a circle and then every friday from there on we just held a circle at the end of the day in g period aac in uh the room that is now our rj room so i'm we're going to talk about the circle experience and rj and how it's kind of influenced me personally um pretty much my whole school career i would say i wasn't a troublemaker but i didn't exactly help the flow of the class go by well either i would distract students and i wasn't exactly interested in listening to anything teachers had to say to me if it wasn't already what i was thinking and so that didn't really help me very much but i wasn't trying to change it either because that's kind of how i liked it but after going through circles and kind of meeting the people in my class for a real honest first time i would say it definitely it deep well first it deepened all my relationships with everyone in the class and kind of going into the class felt like even though it was just an aac class when it wasn't friday it still felt like i could see people in the hallways or if i needed i could pull someone aside from the circle just like in class and talk to them and i felt like they really heard me and they understood how to hear and interact with me in a way that would kind of help everybody and i would definitely say that i've probably changed a lot my parents and my family they noticed last year my friends noticed this year and i would just say it just keeps on going and going and and uh just kind of i don't think there's any negative way you can be influenced by this because being able to kind of understand yourself especially at this age or in middle school is i think it's incredibly important and it could help in so many different ways and the first part of rj is to understand yourself and then using yourself and others to help others so i would definitely say that how rj is now is amazing but it can only get better and being allowed to increase its use throughout the school throughout the community is just gonna really bring the community together and it can help kind of prevent so many different things there've been lots of uh like fights in the school recently more than i've ever seen before my freshman year there was one fight it's been four in like the last like two months and so i would say that now more than ever i think it's an incredibly important time to implement the tools that we use in rj and implement all the teachings that we get and even though it's unfortunate that uh miss dw hasn't been able to be here because she's a amazing just person amazing everything i can't say anything better about her but just amazing and uh miss evaline has actually helped us a ton as well and uh they've both been just great a ton of support in every just kind of facet of our lives anything you need i just know i can talk to them and uh i feel even even like right now i would say that i can still whenever i get like nervous or anything if i see any of them in the hallway i just like instantly can feel better can just kind of like lock eyes see each other know like oh okay i see you or if you can tell something's wrong we know okay well i'll know to bring that up in rj and kind of just help everybody's life go by easier and yeah i would just say that rj and circle process has been just truly amazing and i would say that the increase in use or the prolonged use of this will just mend the small rifts that are kind of opening up throughout the community and just bring into a solid and like stable place um i would like to connect to what masaya just shared about and add a little bit something else um as he said there's been a lot of situations going on in school lately and we've learned in restorative justice that restorative justice is a program or a system to help you understand why you are in a certain situation and why that situation went off and um we have been thinking and like analyzing um how can we help with what we've learned in rjc towards the situations that are going on in the school community and um it is it is how we say since we know that restorative justice is a way to restore and like go far beyond from just like oh there was this fight let's suspend both of the people and let's wait until they come back and hopefully nothing else will happen um it is more of like uh going in going deeper and trying to analyze more more um and better why both sides were in a disagreement and see what can we do as a human being and as a community to help them alleviate that if they can and if they want um and also understand why were they feeling like that and as human beings we know that we all have um we all commit mistakes a lot of times and i really feel that um being part of rjc has empowered that of the knowledge of knowing more about that you as a human being cannot be perfect and that situations happen and as i always say everything has a reason behind it and um restorative justice has teached us a lot about how that um differentiates from just like suspending somebody or just like oh you you don't like me i'm not gonna like you anymore no it has teached us about going further and knowing why is that happening and understanding it better and i really consider that it is really special being able to know all of that rather than just like having all of that kind of feelings and not being able to like express them out and understand them at all and i am pretty sure that my partners agree on that as well so yeah um before we go into questions i want to um so my english for my english class we had to write a speech about something we would like to change in the world and for mine i would like to for my speech i did it about restorative justice and how that should be implemented in schools and like the criminal justice system and like society in general and um for schools specifically i was thinking about my middle school experience and i was a very quiet i'm still a very quiet person who doesn't like to rock the bow and on anything or like disturb class like i'm like the opposite of messiah like i i'm there to get the class get the a and get out and that's what i want to do and when i was in middle school i was half in an english class and um there there were kids that would talk out and like make comments that were funny and would distract the class but they were like it was they were comments that happened because things happened and um the teacher would um discipline the kids with the students of color more often than the kids students that weren't that white students or white males especially they would be able to talk and the teacher would laugh along with the student and it didn't sit well with me but because i didn't want to rock the bow i didn't say anything and um so in my speech i talked about the school to prison pipeline which i think is important to understand the sort of justice work and the school to prison pipeline if you're not familiar to that it's like it's just a concept i think is the best way to put it as how students of color or uh minority groups it does not even have to be like students color it can be like LGBTQ communities i did a lot of research on this but it's all lost right now and they all they're more likely to be suspended and put into disciplinary positions than their white peers or their other peers who do the same things that they do at the same rates but they're disciplined more and when you're put into suspensions you're more likely to end up in prison and if you're in prison it's not a good place so you don't want to end up there but if you're more likely to be ending up there it's not fair and so we need to change the system how we do get to there how do we avoid getting there and the sort of justice is the way to do that and so when i think back to my middle school years i think about how i felt even like i didn't get um sent to the qlc which is where the kids who got disciplined would go they would go to the quiet learning center where they would just sit there they weren't allowed to do their work apparently some one of the students in my class in our class who left unfortunately his name is kemei he was in that he got sent to the qlc often when he was in middle school and he wasn't even allowed to do work he was just had to sit there and like think about what he did but he wasn't even told what he was supposed to think about so he doesn't know what he needs to do to be a better student unless he does exactly what the people the authority people say and you don't want to do that because i mean you're a teen you're you're rebelling but also you don't understand and no one's telling you how to understand and so you're more likely to end up in the qlc and then the school the prison pipeline is gonna happen again so and for me who wasn't in there just to see kids of color especially black boys being sent out again and again it like took a toll on me like why is that happening or like is that supposed to be happening and then you start to rethink things and i'm not allowed like it's not like i'm not allowed to talk about it but i don't feel empowered to talk about these kind of things to my teachers to my peers to anyone really and so um restorative justice has let me like think about that and come to conclusions myself and then the answer is restorative justice so it's like a loop and it's like so we need restorative justice in conclusion um but like then i'm like i also take all honors classes and in my classes i'm sometimes the only black female in my class sometimes they're only like a couple other students of color in those higher classes and higher classes set you up to do higher sets of work for your higher levels of learning and if you aren't set up to do that in the system that we live in because we live in a lot of systems and if we set ourselves up to succeed we'll be able to succeed but if we set kids up to fail then what how do we expect them to succeed and i think if you if we were to talk to those kids in the qlc who were there in the middle school before they even got to the high school we were to talk to them in a circle like this and let them share their stories let them understand what they need to know and how they would um like how they can make changes into their own life like every one of the students here have like how to make changes and be better students then they might have been able to take higher classes in the high school because it's not even just about their learning like their educational things like their personal selves and like with the bright presentation they're like how do we prevent people from ending up into these places where they're like suicidal or missing school or in or even if it's like a mental illness they have an opportunity to just talk and share about everything they everything they're willing to share and being able to trust the people in the room around them i think that's so important and i think it's so necessary and i i'm i'm very thankful that i'm able to be in a room where i can share with multiple people and yeah so i think that's yeah that's all i wanted to say yeah please uh going back on to what you said i was one of those kids who got sent to the qoc a lot i probably got sent to the qoc and like at least every other class i would probably go to the qoc three maybe like four times a day and i had like six classes but it wasn't for really getting in trouble more it wasn't like real disciplinary actions it was more just that i didn't want to sit in my class and just listen to them talk and so i would talk back and then they didn't really want that either and i would definitely say that when i was in middle school i did not feel heard because once you go to the qoc nobody wants to ask you about going to the qoc because now you lost credibility for being a honest student because you're going to the qoc all the time so then nobody really sees what happens in the qoc because they only ask the students that don't go to the qoc or they just ask the teachers who are in the qoc who don't really always feel like there needs to be a change and so i would definitely say that also continuing with the um honors and not really being able to get into higher classes i definitely would say that now i'm in all honors classes as a junior but every year since like seventh grade i've just been told and like recommended to not take honors classes whenever i asked should i take this as an honors class it was always by guidance counselor or by teacher like i don't know i'm not sure if you could because i was getting in trouble all the time in missing class and so i believed that for a while but i would definitely say that it robbed me of great learning experiences and this year it was actually miss dw who told me that i should do the honors classes because she believed that i was capable of keeping up with the work and i would say that now i went from kind of disliking school and feeling bored in all my classes to getting excited to go to a lot of my classes my favorite class is my history class i love going to history class even though it's one of my hardest classes i just love all the information i gained from it and that's an experience that i'd never had previously in school i always thought in school that like i was basically going to school to do my thing and i'd leave and i'd figure out whatever i was going to do after school in life and i was just going to figure it out and in ninth grade i was actually very close to dropping out of school and i almost dropped out of school for good and i was basically just planning on waiting until i could work and then just working and i was just gonna work save up money and help my siblings go to college instead because all my life i'd basically just been told like you're like a solid bc student but you're always getting in trouble i don't know if you can do any better than how you're doing now wait till you get a's and then go up and so i never did any better and so i would definitely say that yeah continuing mistw all the rj people all the people who understand restorative justice just increases because each time you kind of touch one person with a little bit of information of the like rj information they then want to learn a bit more and then once you learn more they want to give it to someone else because you remember the experience of not having it feeling lost and now you feel in a place where you can explain to others how to find themselves too i would like to share about me being newish in this community since my family moved here from perico in 2016 i didn't go to the middle school here but my sister goes to the middle school right now and i always talk to her about how she feels in school and she only says my grades are perfect but the staff sometimes doesn't make me feel like it and i ask her why she feels that way and she says well even though i get good grades and i always do my job sometimes i feel that some teachers have a lot of bias in their like life or whatsoever and they don't listen to what i'm actually projecting and i don't feel confident or comfortable with that happening and me personally listening to my little sister say that and see how much she knows already about bias and stuff like that really touches me and i'm like i will really love to do something to help that change and like help people to be more open and more connected rather than just being one person and one person and there's a wall in between of like uh confidence or bias or restrictions and it it is it is really really interesting having a little sister that's been through a different system than what i went to school in perico and she she always shares how she feels with me and i appreciate that because it is important i think to know how different like schools and like different systems work and how different people feel about it and since i didn't experience major school or elementary school here i find it really really special so this um i feel personally uh honored for you having come and shared your experience with the program and i think also given the stories you share i think there's also a lot of courage and putting together your ideas and thoughts and be willing to come to do that um i think you already knew that this was actually being filmed and um i i a couple years ago had the startling experience of being like in stop and shop or something or big y and having somebody walk up who i don't know and be like oh i saw you on tv the other day on the school committee and they'll make some sort of comment to me and so i say that only because um i hope you'll be happy to know that they're actually off a lot of our neighbors who are going to watch this and are going to hear your stories and some of them to me are about the restorative justice program and circles and the value that's been created by doing this and then some of them are also your own stories and then some of them are also about as at the beat of drama that's because we talked about this a moment ago um uh the middle school too and thinking about holistically um how do we improve your experience or sister's experience uh how do we keep back doing that so i i'm just really i'm saying this also because i know that we both have respect for your time as well as all for the committee's time we don't have a lot of time for questions and i just wanted to say clearly that um well i'm glad you came but i think also the committee is honored by your presence and by your experience that you share we appreciate it so i just wanted to also say thank you to all of you for coming um there's a comment that i think you made earlier about not feeling like you were good enough or that you could succeed and i just want to say how incredibly impressed i am by all of you um you're so articulate and so thoughtful and not able to express yourselves in ways that quite honestly people two three times their age can't do but also about such sensitive topics right and to be able to bring that out to you know a group of of middle-aged adults who are learning about some of who are learning about this whole first time but also you know um need to hear this right and this is this is so critically important and uh i noticed when i first came into the building earlier i got here a little earlier before the meeting but there were a couple books about the sort of justice here in the library and i know those aren't the only two that are here um this is definitely a wave that's been sort of taking over and i hope spreads to other communities but i am so proud of of us for doing this i'm so proud of for all of you for being you know the leaders in getting this program up and running and you know forging a new path forward and hopefully we can find a way to continue this program expand it as uh mr. Nakajima said into the middle school and elsewhere because i'm convinced this is critically important just hearing your personal stories and the stories that you shared of your other classmates um just really really powerful so thank you one of the i mean there's we have multiple topics that we talk about around um social justice but also just supporting all of the students in our in our community and one of the things we've talked about is um how do we help improve access utilization enjoyment benefit of honors and AP courses and so one of the things that is we're moving as we as a committee as we sort of like a as an adult public face of talk about this kind of stuff as we continue on it i can't think of anything more valuable than the kind of reflections that experiences you're offering because um it's it i've only talked about this stuff before i've always feel like it's everything's put in a little box and you just deal with it in a little box and yet that life's not like that you can be in seventh grade and what happens to you in seventh grade could profound affect what you choose what you're both in a position to do but also internally how you feel about taking advantage of opportunities when you're in eleventh grade and that's just the complexity of things it's even like what we were talking earlier about the pride program your mention of fact their students are benefited from it they're benefiting from historic justice and in some ways you can see kind of as a full community um interlap in interconnecting ways in which we can improve the quality of our community in ways they're going to benefit throughout in many multiple ways the point is multiple ways and so i hope uh as we're thinking about this because i think the committee and if we're going to talk about this a little bit at least in the past the school committee has been deeply committed to supporting the sort of justice but also exploring ways in which we can really embrace a common agenda of advancing all students supporting all students in a very individual way sounds grandiose but we're talking with all of you your sister everyone um and i don't know how we can do it but i still think that whether it's you specifically or whether it's your colleagues and classmates in the future we should continue to hear from you because that's the only way we're going to get the feedback we need to be able to have conversations around what makes for effective practice and how do we do a better job dr was yeah i'll just brief so i'm not going to repeat the comments although i agree with them from other from committee members um such as three quick things one is sort of a personal note that two of you i have known since you were in first grade something like that and so it's just very affirming um to see the um the adults are becoming so i know that's true for all of you but since i've known some of you since you were six years old you have a little bit different so i want to acknowledge that that's this is a needed need for these are articulate one that we have petrol what do you think but but i do it is amazing to see you know that growth um and um so i just want to know that because i can't not do that the seconds i just want to thank miss akino um right so these students are here and involved in this because of the work that's ongoing i want to thank embers education foundation which supported a grant that made this uh this particular focus more possible so when we talk about grants and we talk about the community supporting our schools sometimes it's the conversations we have and sometimes it's our community partners who do that and i think the last thing i want to say that was most impressive to me is that from my perspective restorative justice is about empowerment and so i think there were a number of students coming on videotape as mr nakajima noted uh who are able to share some very deeply personal story experience about themselves about their family about how they've experienced the the school district in the past how they experience it now and for me that's the proof is in the putting that people that students feel empowered um to talk about and no one i don't know if anyone used that word but i felt like every single one of you who spoke talked in some way about feeling empowered and that you were able to advocate for yourselves and also for your community and how impressive that was for me to hear and so uh even though it wasn't explicit my take home from today one of my big take homes is that we have students who are willing and able to be leaders uh on this issue and have developed a skill set that's not just supported of themselves as learners and students but actually supported with the larger community so i really want to thank you for that in the sense of here is something that the rest of you aren't um consider this an invitation to come back if you want to so talk amongst yourselves with dw eveline um if you want to you can come back next year and continue to share your thoughts and ideas and experiences and if you don't want to come back that's okay do you know what to tell us who won't be insulted but of being really seriously i mean this is extremely valuable for us it's extremely valuable for us so really appreciate it and can i just say that you know rj is really a place where we ask let's questions and try to understand more answers so you you could quote that if you want it's on clip i also want to add that we have a newsletter me and mckenzie we have a newsletter for this class so if you i think it's already shared with most of you on the committee and anyone else in this room if you want information i think we could give that to you and that newsletter is like bi monthly so it will show the growth of the program in this year and hopefully years to come and i think if you also have questions you could also send it to miss eveline i don't know if we have contact information like you guys put to miss eveline and miss dw email questions to her or contact them and then we could answer them in the newsletter and then you could get more info if you want more of that and yeah wonderful thank you thank you so much miss spitzer miss spitzer hi great i'm very glad you can join us again um thank you it'll be available on tape at some point but in all honesty and sincerity you missed one heck of a circle um well in restorative practices it was very moving very worth catching up on in a big way but luckily you have not missed um item number three in our uh our wonderful triumvirate experience do you think you want to say something i do so i think um we'll just need to announce that one of our members is participating remotely publicly and make sure that everyone does that whole thing oh yeah yeah we're going to have to do all our votes by a roll call right um we're not in the executive session so we don't have to do all the rigamarov are you in a private location where no one else can hear you um but yes we have a we have a member participating by a phone do you want to say anything about i do um so welcome to john bechtold he's come before um we're happy to have him back i think telling that during some of the other parts of the meeting he just went and did more work down the hallway because uh john is here often he is known by custodians early and late um and we're deeply appreciative and being more serious of his deep work with students um you know we've talked about some of the theater performances before uh you came and shared a bit earlier this year and we appreciate um the update that you're about to offer us about the performing arts program and how many students are served and the ways in which they're served so great thank you thank you um and i agree i don't i don't think there's any you know second act after the the restorative justice circle that was that was really incredible stuff but um i was glad that i was also got to tend to that and also hear a little bit of caron's presentation because i think there is a through line across these three programs tonight and one of the themes that i hear a lot and also during the school days there's this very important need for students to not only feel like they go to a school that feels safe and supportive of them but they have a home within that school and that they have whether that's a physical home base of some kind or a sense of emotional space that's really there's that increasingly i i would say um is something that we see a lot of our students needing and wanting and we hope um for our part in the performing arts that we can be part of that equation as well so i've prepared just a couple of slides uh they're intended as an overview i kind of took some shots in the dark about things that might be of value to hear but i'll try to keep it short so that if there are questions i can tend to those more directly um so this kind of a current state of affairs um the current slide that's up we currently in the high school program uh for the performers have five separate programs band chorus dance orchestra and theater they subdued even further out so um we get down to a total of ten what we'll call performing ensembles these are groups that have concert series or performances in some ways these are all curricular groups that go out and perform at least once or more a year and then in addition to that we also have seven different elective offerings for students as well we would call those maybe closer to classroom classes so that's the overall offering at present that doesn't speak to the numbers sections of those classes or anything just the the titles themselves as far as current enrollment this school year across the both semesters we have 331 students currently enrolled so roughly a third of the school will take a performing arts class at some point this year uh 56 percent of those students are in what we'll call entry level classes i would define those as any class that does not require prerequisite so you can walk in or sign up from day one many of those classes which is another wonderful distinction in law of ways first are grades nine through 12 classes or at least 10 through 12 so there's a nice wonderful mix of students across grades and we find that that is a robust part of what we get to do is bring students together that might not see each other in the school otherwise and then finally um we have across the night of those performances 27 i i just read it on the calendar different concerts or productions schedule across this school year those are 27 distinct performances again not like say there's like the larry project that ran for three nights that's just kind of is one in that case to give a picture for that so very hardworking students and and a wonderful group of colleagues and staff to help run this program second slide and last slide um just kind of things on either ends of it recent additions or changes in our program many of which you know but are kind of some signatures for us right now in the past couple years we have added two new high school courses one very recently both of those are going to be added to that no prerequisite required we really want to find in high school more ways for students to have an on ramp into our work so all of our recent class offerings and the current curriculum have been focused on how can we create a more open door for more students to find us um even though it's high school and many students have had training by that point or maybe a dedication we don't want to cater only to those students we want to be able to create more options second we started last year started a program for dance at the middle school for a couple reasons one obviously what a wonderful place to be able to find kinetic space and explore that in a meaningful way than when you're a middle schooler but then also we want the dance program to line up more with what we get to do especially the music program and some degree the theater program in making course offerings that have this long line grade seven through 12 gets the students sooner so that we have more chance for more impact with them and help them really run through some new equipment with many things especially to the AEF most notably the digital music lab and the stage lighting console that have recently come into play have supported this work we're currently working with Sean and the business office to replace some much needed it sounds really mundane but stage and choral risers that have been around for decades and are starting to you know border on not usable any longer but we consider those almost part of our infrastructure when we get into our concert and performance season and then finally instrument purchases there have been several strong efforts with much support from the administration to replace old equipment as well our anticipated challenges and needs on the front end certainly this is not an exhaustive list but some key things that we're looking at right now we're going to have to continue to replace musical instruments and replace things they're just breaking down simply from their age and well used time we are looking to find a way to add some more music production computer stations for that music production class especially as we find more student interests building there we certainly have one chance we have space wise is storage for theater equipment props building and painting materials right now the arhs stage is also our scene shop and our prop storage and our lumber storage and our paint storage and we we do really well with what we got to be sure but i think it's also safe to say that the auditorium is is showing signs of wear and tear from those experiences which leads me the last one that hs the high school auditorium upkeep is still something that we can wrangle it gets more challenging every year as we figure out how to make things work and click so that's the broad overview but across those programs and across whatever questions you have i'm i'm happy to stick around as as long as you like wonderful are there questions from the committee i've i've won and i'm sure you've not prepared the the data hmm you i was like maybe i was speaking at a turn well you started speaking before you acknowledged so i was trying to like work on that while you were talking sharing apologies um when you mentioned that uh like a third of the students are participating in in the program which is fantastic i'm wondering also um if we know what the demographics of those students look like are they looking like a solid cross-section of our population or are we you know making sure we have opportunities for students um you mentioned musical instruments and you know i immediately think you know those are rather expensive and are we making sure that students have access to the things they need to be feel like they can participate sure i can answer to a little bit of that so i've looked at some of the disaggregated data i for what i can quote off the top my head of that uh 331 students about 40 percent of them are students of color the remainder are white students which is not quite in line with the demographics of the school i think one of our longer term aims is to match that demographic of our program to the school so right now it's about 60 40 of white students to students of color i haven't looked at the disaggregation for socioeconomic status but we find that that's another important thing um for the data and we do tend to look at that year to year i just don't know what it is this year but that is something in your absolutely right to name something like music equipment our school rental program we've been able to hold the rental prices for things at a certainly a comparative comparatively low level to other schools or to local businesses that rent out instruments we also have a tiered fee structure for that we try to use those kinds of models across our our program trembling um so yeah so thank you for this presentation you know one thing was interesting um so you're talking about the uh kids finding a home within the school and like there's sort of their tribes and um i've had an interesting experience where my my kids are apart just enough that i've seen over the course of the years they've each had different touch points with the musical and um on the outside of course the musical is amazing and everybody should go check that out because it's an incredible production for a high school um but there's like this parallel inside experience that happens too because it's such a remember principal jackson saying that outside of the with the exception of graduation it's the largest cohort activity that happens at the at the high school and it brings you have the dance kids you have the theater kids you have the music kids you have the acting you know it's like all sorts of in the the tech kids and um and such a high level of integration with students with special needs we just talk about that experience from as like from an educator standpoint how you've seen that evolve and and how kids all interact with each other when you have this like joyous chaos of a mix of different different types of students sure well i think joyous chaos is is a good description i i just came from before this mean a theater tech uh work which goes into the evenings and there are about 50 students around the stage um of all different walks of life and levels of experience in grades in the school all hammering and sawing away and assembling things and if you want to ever get a glimpse of that kind of creative chaos um peek in the auditorium some night on route to a school committee meeting and i mean that genuinely feel free to peek in any time and and see that work happen because i think we do have a story about process that we usually don't get to tell as often as we like we're we're glad that performances work and people receive them well but the experience students get on the through line of that really is i think the heart and soul of the work um i was reading you know out of the blue one those kind of articles about most looked for skills and young employees and they're mentioning things of course like creative skill making team leadership being able to solve problems on the fly and we think about in the performing arts as one of the departments that gets to focus a lot on what we call synthesis there's so much work of analysis and breaking things down in school and be able to see the pieces and working with that and we spend a lot of time trying to assemble pieces and put things together so across our program that process of synthesizing things in a sense of creative spirit is really big um the musical happens to be one of those vehicles um to do it and we've been really glad for that and we also um are trying to broaden the number of those vehicles because the musical is wonderful it's one thing of many we hope to keep adding miss spitzer do you i i'm calling on you only because it can't uh see you otherwise do you have any questions or comments you're welcome otherwise i'm just curious when we're thinking about some of this kind of equipment that you need um and obviously it has a longer usable life then it's not literally disposable in the sense to use it once it's gone it's also not the same thing as like paving a parking lot so um where does this fit in our in our budgeting process is it a line item in the operating budget where is it in the capital budget where so it depends on the items right so uh something that we'll actually want to bring to you perhaps in the 29th uh is some about the last bullet point in high school auditorium upkeep um there's some things that could be done kind of a bit at a time as mr beck told suggested and then there's other things in terms of like the seats at the auditorium that there's how many seats like say 800 yeah so so you sort of have to go all in on that um and so we want we actually have some thoughts to share that i think we'd be getting a little at our for ourselves now so some of it would be in the capital budget and some of these items have been if you look at the like the long-term capital budget some of these items high school auditorium for example is in that and other ones you know about instrument replacement those tend to be more line items within the operating budget okay speaking of supporting the financial health of the performing arts is is there any recently formed parent booster organization you want to give a plug to at this time well yes and then one of the members of it is is just over to my right here um we are looking for ways um for parents and community members to be able to be uh greater supports to us i think one of the challenges we have is not only money but also time and and for all those concerts and performances to come up and for all these things to get built and made um it helps to have that kind of infrastructure as well and we're also hoping that that serves as another kind of outreach i think one of our keen concerns is that we really can make ourselves as available to everyone as possible and those resources of time and money and curriculum all kind of need to come together to create that programming so um we're hoping that that is one piece of it for sure let me i i mean i i admire um deeply admire uh Amherst educational foundation but i also i just think that it's like the booster clubs for various sports the idea this is heretical i don't know if anyone's going to want to throw something at me who works in the district but um this is we've already been talking about how this is an integral part of the student experience their growth we've talked about that i mean you're sort of justice is supported by af um there has to be it's it's it's it can be a partnership and that's very healthy but the reality is there has to be also if you're especially looking for capital items looking out over 10 years we have to work these some of these some of these things into or some portion of these things into a capital budget as well it can't just be relied upon for you know the enormous generosity and commitment of our community i don't think i mean i'm pretty much saying this but i don't think it's appropriate i mean it's good we have a different subject of fees on our on our agenda as well and to me the the the notion of moving out of the core curriculum and essentially creating what might otherwise feel like luxury items out of things that are in fact integral to a high quality educational experience is is problematic by the way how many participate this year in the music lab we're still racking up numbers because we just finished it looks like we'll be around 150 or so and what is there a range of like projects that are coming out of it in terms of students just sort of learning and others who are going to record a hit album always um are you talking about the school musical or the music program just talking about the yeah oh the musical digital music lab oh that um that um the goal right now is to get more students in it's still a young course so we're trying to build up enough capacity to look towards maybe advancing to a next tier course if we can we might experiment with some alps next year that look at that kind of option we definitely want to invite students into that that is such a perfect example of how technology and curriculum and an invitation for new students to feel like they can be creators is really huge one of our big challenges i would say at the high school is how do we support students in the curricular day to have those experiences as young creators as wonderful as the things like the musical are they are extracurricular technically and that does limit certain kinds of student participation students that don't have that time or ability to make there so when we get to something like the digital music lab we can really kind of put our money where mouth is cool is there a donny as them mr manino thank you i didn't even know you noticed i paid attention the magic chair um i was just struck recently you know these kinds of comments are sometimes not helpful so please excuse me but um there was a video that was on social media just a couple months ago of a district in cape cod i believe that was it's doing a welcome back to school community and the students actually performed this incredible did you see this no i don't remember what the the song was but they did this incredible version of like a you know a pop song but it was basically the entire like you know theater you know student groups and their you know chorus groups and it was just a huge like all school process but it just struck me as mr nakajima was talking about the importance of incorporating your needs into our capital planning and you know and more formal budget process simultaneously i think and we've talked about this before is the need to really promote this you know the program that's going on here at the high school because it is so incredible and so many people get excited about it when they hear it and see it so i'm wondering if there if any thought has been given to promoting the you know the programs in in more formal ways and adding that to the budget so thinking about ways of you know whether it's promotional stuff that happens downtown i know that usually they sort of string the banner across you know main street or whatever but doing more things like that to sort of build excitement throughout the year help both students and families know what's going on and hear from day to day and if they're not already members of you know one of the groups that you preside over to consider it you know and to strongly encourage their participation and their involvement because again for so many different reasons you know both educational but also social emotional and you know mental well-being we were talking a lot about that just recently tonight you know it seems like theater and you know theater related activities help promote all of those things so so much that it's worth pursuing in a more promotional way i guess and maybe we are prone to do i think so too and i appreciate your your comments on that because there is something about the visibility of the program that's really integral to our success and by that i mean i think there are students that are very tapped in uh to that world it's almost like they can receive the information telepathically at this point about what's going to happen next and then there are students have no clue that there really even is a theater program or dance program and i would say that is something that we need to do more work on right now both within the school but also within the community so i i think that's a really pertinent point i think it also speaks back to one of our challenges which is feeling spread thin on the stuff we currently offer and where do you also bring that in but we recognize that if we're going to continue to grow and indeed kind of match that that longer term goal of our programs demographics mean the school demographics that's going to be integral to that so thank you for the second time this evening an acronym has been used what is else oh i'm very sorry um alternate learning alternative learning program do i get that right yeah okay so it's it's basically an independent study would be a shorthand for it it's a way for a student or a group of students to work with a teacher above and beyond the curricular classes on a study yeah and often for credit of some kind yeah wonderful thank you very much thank you very much thanks for being here by the way nine oh five in the evening as as to you thanks so much thanks so much great so the uh it looks like we have a uh a run through of a number of trauma and gano specials right that might that might be a slight um a slight dig at the uh agenda setting no no no we're always making a hang up tonight i learn a lot welcome so the item next item is school choice hearing i can yeah this one i can do so this is an opportunity for the varied members of the public who are here to share their thoughts and opinions so the uh every uh friend can certainly share his um so this is uh in massachusetts every district has to have a school choice hearing each year and then vote on school choice of the following meeting um so we have to reopen public comment to do so then i hereby uh reopen public comment for the purposes of hearing upon the adoption by our school district of school choice anyone who's interested in making a comment feel free to come to the microphone please identify yourself and you'll have three minutes to speak we welcome your comments now seeing that no presence of nobody speaking miss spitzer there's nobody here speaking to speak uh we hereby close the hearing um and uh i guess welcome any written comment somebody might have who sees us on television if they have it um item c on our agenda is assessment formula and budget people might have noticed in their packets a series of spreadsheets and information that's um fascinating mr mangano thank you uh so i'll just do a quick explanation of what's in your packet um so a core group an advisory group of sorts um matt i think two weeks ago now um mr nakajima's a superintendent morris and representatives from the other towns um matt to discuss the assessment method issue for this coming year and so out of that meeting a couple of we've put together a couple options from which this group is going to meet again next week i think and review those options so i'll go quickly over what those options are and then any questions you may have so option a that you're looking at um allocates 34 of the assessment based on eqv which is property values in each member town and the remaining 66 based on a five-year line average of enrollment the new concept we've rolled into sort of all of these options is having a floor built into the assessment method so that you know some of the issues we've had in the past is one town will go way up and one town will go way down and there's like this you know or if we could bring them both closer to the middle we might have a method that works better for everybody so we try to put in a floor that will help do that so in this case it's a one percent floor really implies that the smaller towns because amherst assessment never seems to go down just because of the the variables that play into it um so really it only applies to the smaller towns these are all alternative to the statutory method yes yep so can you explain what a floor is right so if if the way the assessment method worked out let's say pelham was going to go down five percent their assessment was going to go down five percent from the prior year we put in a floor of one percent so the most it could go down as one percent and that difference would then be reallocated to whatever town's assessment is going up the most so again the objective was to try to bring everyone to the middle and not have this huge sort of disparity so if uh we are following the bouncing ball on these pieces of paper the column loop we should be paying attention to is the middle one because that's been adjusted for that floor that you just spoke of right yeah for example shoots very minus three percent in the purple column but it goes to minus one percent in the middle column is that yep yeah so the way these are oriented is the blue is sort of the base that you're comparing it to the gray i'm not sure what it looks like in yours purple um is what the assessment would be with no adjustment or no floor um the green is if there is need require is there if there's an adjustment required based on whatever method it is that's what the adjust adjustment would look like and the assessment increases the way it's just informational to give you a sense of what the variables are that are in the assessment method and then there was a request to put in what the per pupil cost is uh for each method so that was option a option b um is just a straight allocation of the assessment based on a five-year rolling average of enrollment so this is sort of the method that's in our regional agreement currently um wanted to look at what that would what results that would look like if we had this floor in place which we haven't in the past so this is what the assessments would look like and it's illustrative it's not intended it's not expected anticipated that tells it a great amount right yeah it kind of gives up one baseline to look at are any of these alternatives the method currently use this year yeah yeah they all are meaning they're alternatives like none of these are the method we're using this year so the method we use this year is a 20 percent minimum contribution you don't have the method that we use no we try to look for other methods um that method is still on the table is sort of a fallback but we try to look at other methods that might be have more support and then the last one is sort of a a new concept that we're playing around with that might help might not help um one of the issues we've always had in the past is Amherst is so different from the smaller towns and so whenever we try to use any variable to sort of get the you know result that feels right it doesn't work because the the scale is just so different um so this option allocates Amherst's assessment based on one variable and then whatever's left over it allocates to the remaining towns based on a different variable so in this case Amherst is allocated based on enrollment and then the amount left over is is allocated based on I think it's one third minimum contribution which is the state's wealth formula and then two thirds enrollment and so you can see the increases this produces or the the assessment changes it produces which aren't bad compared to some of the options we've looked at in terms of are they manageable for the towns that's really are they manageable and is the logic or the rationale something they can support. Can you run me again with the guidance was from Amherst? For this year I think two and a half percent the assessment increased guidance. Yeah. Have the town representatives discussed any of these yet or they're going to? We're going to. They have it we sent it out for them to look at. Start to laugh. It looks like you're desperately wanting to raise your hands. I mean I think is it us? Yeah but it's I guess I thought you were pausing. No I was explaining that I was oh I'm sorry between hand raising you're all I'm sorry okay. Well that was very polite of you. Just keep the questions down. Please continue. So I'll hold my comment. So I'm trying to absorb this in the context of what is politically viable because obviously at the end of the day this is what can four towns agree to and so the reason why I was asking with the guidance was from Amherst for two and a half is I'm looking at the percentages for Amherst. So two seven one three point one three three point one four. They're all above two and a half but two seven one is the closest and yet that is the one that has the highest increase for I'll just say it directly the town that is at the most concerns about assessment methods recently and so I'm struggling to see which of these might be the most politically viable although you all have looked at these numbers a lot longer than I have seen something. Right yeah so we'll have to work with the town to see what they can support you know if it can go above the two and a half percent guidance or if it has to. I think this year in particular you know one of the things I always say is their assessment might go up no matter what assessment method we use and this is a good example of a year like that because their enrollment is going up Amherst's enrollment is going up and the statutory or the minimal contribution piece is going up for Amherst too because of their property values so really both measures that are sort of you know drive all most of the assessment methods it's going up for Amherst so there's really no way to there's not a way that is sort of logical to get that down to the two and a half percent if we're looking at level services. One of the challenges that we had coming out of the four town meeting was that and this is reiterated at the small group meeting we had that there was a general level of dissatisfaction at having an entirely ad hoc methodology meaning in other words just sort of saying let's pick percentages so this so just to remind the committee the really good news is all the towns are on board with a level funded budget for us so that's in my opinion and anyways I think it was in the committee's opinion that's exceptionally good news figuring out now how to get to an agreed upon formula that fulfills their state of commitment to try to get us level funded is the challenge right so we're starting from kind of a good place and one of the things that was expressed by the towns in at least our small group meeting was an opposition to having a wholly arbitrary kick percentages out of a hat and make them all sort of work out thing and so the challenge that we're faith and the state is also you think the committee knows this the state is also expressed their dissatisfaction of the the district being completely ad hoc with its formulas and wanting it to be based on something that also ideally leads to a permanent solution and so the challenge I think that Mr. Demling you're appropriately identifying is there they're part of the discussion is figuring out how do we get to the towns to agree on something that squares that circle if squaring that circle doesn't actually align with what their original guidance was and it may not and may land a different place yeah and just on that point I don't want to belabor the conversation to go deeper but I know I've heard from two towns now who are also asking you know so you see that mr. mongano has presented a floor and could there be a ceiling as well so the way so floors and ceilings work is they're a leveling mechanism that can be utilized effectively I'm not suggesting that we should or should do that but it's in other people are noticing the same thing that you're noting and trying to figure out common sense solutions of how we might be able to approach that so I think everyone's sort of on the same page of we got to get to a more permanent solution and what's a way to do that that perhaps levels some of the some of the differences yeah and without I mean without thinking that there is a solution right now just to put even finer point on that the the the question the point about floors and ceilings came up uh under the the topic of saying look we got to come up with finals you know final formula we're gonna agree to nothing really feels right everything causes years to your gyrations and one if one town's ox isn't getting gourd this year and then it's getting gourd next year the year after next what do we do about this and that led us to a place that actually a number of years ago I guess there had been a proposal have you know floors and ceilings in in these formulas to base is a backstop to say let's find a way to do something that no one really frankly it's unpalatable no one really likes to know no one likes living with it and people really don't like it when towns really don't like it when that the numbers change radically but we got to come up with something and so this is trying to respect that reality is that don't you say if you had something to say earlier I guess more of a question I mean I think you know obviously a lot of thinking and work went into preparing these and there's been a lot of conversations taking place with the towns in between you know the the four towns meeting and today I'm curious if there's any one preferred assessment method that seems to be coming out ahead of the others in in your mind given you know what you know about our finances and town finances and all of that or would you rather not say I think I'd really wait till the group meets one more time and we go through it and I kind of get the feedback from them I think these were sort of trials to see what the numbers came back see what numbers came back and if in the future years they look like they're manageable but I think I want to get sort of that feedback first before can I put the question in another way maybe so are there any is there any assessment method or any assessment methods that you just can't live with like that you know if it would happen it would be devastating right we've kind of teetered on that conversation before I mean I think truly this going to the full statutory method is the one where you know maybe headed there but when we look at the volatility from year to year that's where you get the the real volatility with the full statutory method so if we can all agree on something else that's probably where we're going to end up and that's the one where from a budgeting standpoint it's no good you know from projecting standpoint it's no good and most likely one or two towns are going to get hit really hard every year every other year so that's sort of for me the worst sort of the worst-case scenario so I mean and you know I it strikes me that we haven't we've sort of said that and we've said it the way that you've just said it now and it feels like maybe we need to say that a little more clearly and more strongly right that this is severely detrimental if we go to that method and I think you know the chair mentioned it in opening remarks you know the last at the four towns meeting that we had back in December but I feel like we can't state it enough we we kind of have to keep saying this over and over and over again because if we get to a point where the towns cannot agree on an assessment method and we end up in a place like you said where you know there's huge volatility from year to year it's actually not benefiting any of the communities it's not benefiting our students it's not benefiting our schools and it's certainly not benefiting the communities so you know can we say that and in in our meetings and have that become part of our our narrative and we should be leading with that you know we don't want to get there right like let's actually then try to find a conversation that makes sense you know anyway I just I feel like it's important enough for us to for us to we can't overstate that so a couple of follow-ins I I agree we need to state it and I think we need to I think we've had a tendency to state it in terms of why it's bad for our school as opposed to why it's bad for the towns and the taxpayers right not being able to to plan having to make big cuts on elementary schools or police departments or fire departments to try to balance that budget I don't think that message may be quite is as clear yeah it's easy for us to say it really wrecks our school budget it's a little bit you know more pointed to say what is it what's the impact on your town when that happens correspond real sure I think the hard part and I think you're right I think the hard part of that is sometimes the the first year savings that sometimes get is sort of tantalizing like look at everything we could do I think it's the out years where it's like all right well once you get that one-time savings then you're in this really unpredictable place going forward so I think that's the challenge that we have to sort of illustrate right and I think these charts go a long way to doing it and and I know why you don't have the statutory method in here but in terms of speaking to the to the public not just the leaders of the town I think it would be helpful to have a chart with the same assumptions that said if it were just the statutory method what's the swings that you're looking at just to complete the package how much more time do we have five more minutes so in five minutes dear people watching this broadcast we're going to run out of battery power which is we're not going to be recording anymore our meeting is going to continue because we have a lot of work to do I apologize for the technical snafu that leaves us short of being able to film the entire meeting there are going to be minutes for the full meeting that'll be approved by the committee and published and if there's a topic of particular and acute interest because it's further on the agenda in addition to looking at the minutes I would welcome you reaching out to obviously the superintendent to Douglas Moreland to have the minutes as well as also to myself if you want to discuss this any further I apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your tuning in and watching our meetings and participating as a member of the public thank you go ahead oh thanks I think the you know the one reason why I don't do the full statutory is for the very reason of it's really hard to project you know I could make some assumptions but with that the assumptions are truly sort of shots in the dark because you have to know reported income levels you have to know you know how the growth is gonna yeah yeah and we can do that and we have but we can we can put the historical data out there Mr. Manino and then I think Mr. Dillon you partially answered my question I understand why the adoption the statutory method would have adverse budget implications but why the volatility so when you're on the statutory method a huge portion of the about 60 percent of the assessment is based on a minimum contribution that the state calculates and that minimum contribution changes pretty significantly can change pretty significantly year to year for the four towns of our region so the reasons why it changes so enrollment if there's a big sixth grade that moves to seventh grade and a you know 12th grade that leaves it could it could result in a really large increase that happened for leverage last year their minimum contribution went up a hundred thousand dollars there can also every time eqv comes out which is every two or three years the new growth gets factored in that can result in a huge swing in the minimum contribution if you know one town have a lot of new growth and other town their their properties devalued that can shift the the relationship and then income levels is the other one so and there's probably eight other factors that play into it but those are the three big ones that create the volatility it might be helpful to look at it historically so if people could get a view of it it also helps make that case Mr. Dillon. So yeah so plus one on everything that Mr. Dillon is Mr. Kosensky said leading with this theme of volatility and I do really like that suggestion of using the back years you know to show what it would have been had had the statutory method been in full effect to prove that volatility then you don't have to defend assumptions then that's that's it is what would have been and it may be useful to show I mean you can play around with it but you know if you were showing the back years of some of these models that had ceilings and floors about oh but and but if we had had this then you would have had this monitor reduced volatility I also think the volatility conversation to that problem is something everyone's going to be keenly aware of particularly if they're not on like the school board they'll understand that the volatility impacted that and it sets up the conversation about using the ceiling and the floor really nicely and in fact I think you could introduce those two variables you know do whatever spreadsheet magic you want to do you know offline and play around with that because there could be some really interesting combinations of how you you know maybe maybe the floor is zero percent you know maybe that the ceiling is five percent and sort of tweak those and then see what comes out in terms of you know back testing what how it would have been I think I think it really sort of sets up that like if you could sort of guarantee a bounded volatility that's something people could live with more so and that might be able to get people to let go of that first analyzing year of ooh we saved three percent yeah everything makes sense and most of it is what we did we've done like the last two not the last working group the two prior I mean that's exactly what we did we looked at the statutory method we went backwards we went forwards we project you know everything you said is exactly what we did but we can pull that back out we can update it I think it's worth doing so miss spitzer do you have anything okay so I think our hope is that out of even possibly this Thursday I think it's next Thursday I think it's this Thursday that we're gonna we we you know obviously the groups that folks coming back together are going to have some guidance for us and what they've heard and talked about they're also going to have to go back out again this is not at a boil you know there's the sort of the vibe I thought we had going because that people were looking for a solution that would that we could both have in a point toward long term but also protect our budget this year so any other questions we'll move on I got plenty other stuff to do okay so I don't see an issue I don't see an enrollment on our yeah I think it was just included as part of the assessment piece because it drives some of the formulas yeah I'm sure it is there was so much of it though it was almost like another whole you know agenda item in preparation or something and so bring