 All right, seeing the presence of the court, I'm calling this meeting of the Amherst School Committee to order at 6.01. I'll just note that we are being recorded, but not live broadcast by Amherst media. So a couple of administrative notes at the top here. So I'm chairing this meeting today as vice chair with our chair, Sir Johnius, not available. And we are here to go immediately into update the MSBA statement of interest vote. So to explain why we are back here after having already approved this. So after our unanimous approval of the statement of interest, Superintendent Morris and the chair presented the results of the vote and the listening sessions to the town council on the 18th, I believe it was. Very well received. A lot of appreciation expressed for that work. And there were some, a few friendly edits that were submitted to help strengthen the sense of urgency in the applications and clarify some items. And so in order to consider those changes, we need to review that and revoke statement of interest. So that's what this is for. In addition, statement of interest requires approved minutes of the vote. And so we also have approving the minutes for this item. And so because we are going to be approving the updated MSBA vote, but not the full meeting, there's particular language that Ms. Westmoreland has provided to me so that we can do that. And so the plan is is that after we have our discussion and vote, Ms. Westmoreland will display the minutes. We'll be able to review them and then we'll vote a test that those are an accurate reflection of our vote. So procedurally that's where we're at. So in terms of the changes, so Dr. Morris sent us the electronic copy of three or four minor changes that he worked on along with Mr. Roy Clark, I would imagine. And so we've had a chance to review that. So I'll just go through those quickly, identify what those are, then have a brief statement from Ms. Arjunius that she wanted me to read and then we'll open it up for comments and questions. Any procedural questions there? All right, so there was a typo on one of the pages for a minor that was fixed. There's a revised description of the capital process that was based on some feedback from the town council. Some revised language to focus on the urgency and the consensus that has been built also from the town council. And also some added language of the building envelope from a school committee member. Before I read Ms. Arjunius' statement, Superintendent Morris, is there anything you wanted to add in terms of framing or context? I think the only thing I'll share is that I appreciate the feedback we received and I think it strengthens the document and also shows how I experienced it as a partnership and that's how Mr. Arjunius, Chair Arjunius framed it and partners sometimes can say, hey, this could be better, this strengthens it and so I appreciate the level of detail and feedback and commentary that we received at the town council. All right, so it's the brief statement from Mr. Arjunius reads, I appreciate the time and effort that Dr. Morris and Mr. Roy Clark have put into preparing and revising these statements of interest and that the committee has put into reviewing them once again. I also appreciate the friendly edits recommended by the town council last week made in the spirit of cooperation. Our acceptance of these edits tonight will provide further evidence of our district's good faith efforts to engage the council and the community in this process now and in the future. I'm optimistic that our final vote on these SOIs tonight will set us on a positive path forward that ends with a successful application to the state. I couldn't have said it better myself so I personally have nothing to add. Open up for any questions or comments from the committee. Okay, seeing none then, I would entertain a motion, the full text of which, so we'll have two motions. One for Irvin Wildwood, text of which is before you. Yes, Mr. Nakajima. I move that the Amherst School Committee approve the following for River Resolve having convened an open meeting on March 26, 2019 prior to the closing date, the Amherst School Committee in accordance with its charter bylaws and ordinances has voted to authorize the superintendent to submit to the Massachusetts School Building Authority. The statement of interest dated March 26, 2019 for the Fort River School located at 70 Southeast Street, which describes and explains the following deficiencies and the priority categories for which an application will be submitted to the Massachusetts School Building Authority in the future. Priority one, replacement or renovation of a building which is structurally unsound or otherwise in a condition to seriously jeopardizing the health and safety of school children where no alternative exists. Priority five, replacement or renovation or modernization of school facility systems such as roofs, windows, boilers, heating and ventilation systems to increase energy conservation and decrease energy related costs in the school facility. Priority seven, replacement of or addition to obsolete buildings in order to provide for a full range of programs consistent with state and improve local requirements. And hereby further specifically acknowledges that by submitting the statement of interest form the Massachusetts School Building Authority in no way guarantees the acceptance of the approval of an application, the awarding of a grant or any other funding commitments from the Massachusetts School Building Authority or commence the Amherst Public School District to filing an application for funding with the Massachusetts School Building Authority. The motion is there a second? Second. Seconded by Ms. McDonald. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor of the motion has read raise your hand signifying aye and it is four zero unanimous. Okay, is there a second motion? Ms. Fitzgerald? Sure. I move that the Amherst School Committee approve the following, resolved having convened in an open meeting on March 26th, 2019 prior to the closing date that the Amherst School Committee in accordance with its charter, bylaws and ordinances has voted to authorize the superintendent to submit to the Massachusetts School Building Authority. The statement of interest dated March 26th, 2019 for the Wildwood School located at 20, excuse me, located at 71 Strong Street, which describes and explains the following deficiencies and the priority categories for which an application may be submitted to the Massachusetts School Building Authority in the future. Priority one, replacement or renovation of a building which is structurally unsound or otherwise in a condition seriously jeopardizing the health and safety of school children where no alternative exists. Priority five, replacement, renovation or modernization of school facility systems such as roofs, windows, boilers, heating and ventilation systems to increase energy conservation and decrease energy related costs in a school facility. Priority seven, replacement of or addition to obsolete buildings in order to provide for a full range of programs consistent with state and approved local requirements. And hereby further specifically acknowledges that by submitting the statement of interest for the Massachusetts School Building Authority in no way guarantees the acceptance or the approval of an application, the awarding of a grant or any other funding commitment from the Massachusetts School Building Authority or commits the Amherst Public School District to filing an application for funding with the Massachusetts School Building Authority. There's a motion, is there a second? Second. Is McDonald's second? Any discussion or questions on the motion? Against seeing none. All those in favor please raise your hand signifying aye. And we are unanimous again for a zero. Okay, so that, those are the motions. In terms of approving the item for the motions that we have just had, Ms. Westmoreland, do you need some time or if you're furious fast fingers to blaze away there? Okay, so the recording of our motion into the draft minutes will be displayed on our screens presently. Bricks across two pages. I'll put it down in the MSP, I'll put it on the screen since that's what you're taking a motion on tonight. And folks can tell me when you're ready for it. Okay, it's also behind us if you're straining to read. Oh, sure. If we're good to scroll on, please scroll away, sir. Ms. Westmoreland, I'm assuming that for the core text of the motion that was provided to us in the printing is identical to- It is, yes. What you read was copied and pasted. Thank you. Okay, so I have the motion to approve this item. If anyone would like to- Did you get Mr. Nakajima? Okay. I move that the motions as shown in the draft minutes are a true record of the votes taken by the Amherst School Committee to approve the MSBA SOIs for Fort River and Walden Elementary Schools and accurately reflect the meeting of March 26, 2019 until 6.09 p.m. Is there a motion? Is there a second? Second. Ms. McDonald, with the trifecta of seconds this evening. Yes, it's a hatchback. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none. All those in favor of the motion, please raise your hand signifying aye and it passes unanimously 4-0. Okay. So our meeting with the Joint Meeting with Parliament and Region will commence at 6.30. And so I would say we could either sit in here and discuss the motions that we just did or we could recess until 6.30. I'm imagining recessing would be appropriate. All right, seeing nodding heads, we stand recessed at 6.12. Thank you everybody. So the new one. Seeing the presence of a quorum, I call to order this meeting of the Amherst Parliament Regional School Committee and I'd invite the other chairs to do so as well. Seeing the presence of a quorum, I'll call the Pellum School Committee to order. Seeing the presence of a quorum, I will call the Amherst School Committee back to order. Wonderful. And so we have two items on our agenda, both Regional Facility Master's Planning presentation as well as also an update on changes to the math curriculum at the secondary level and the sixth grade. And one thing I would like to offer if the other committees and the members of the Regional Committee are in agreement is to offer an opportunity for public comment at the beginning as well because for those people who came, I guess I'll say specifically for the Regional Facilities Master's Use presentation because there's gonna be a while and it's possible that people might not wanna be staying all the way through math if they came for the first. Is that agreeable? It is agreeable, okay. So what we'd like to do is open up for public comment. You have up to three minutes. If there's a public comment, please come in forward to the microphone and identify yourself. I should also mention that this meeting is being filmed by Amherst Media for future broadcasts. Seeing none, we will close public comment but luckily there'll be an opportunity at the end if people have ideas that come to them during this process. And just at the beginning, one of the things we've been trying to do with the Regional Committee anyway is try to outline what our expectations are for items which help frame the discussion in the sense of what we're trying to accomplish and what we're gonna ask ourselves to do as a committee. And so for the Regional Facility Master's Use planning presentation, we're gonna get essentially a final presentation from the consultants who've been developing the facilities plan for the district. I think we could assume that at the end of the presentation we might hear from the superintendent his thoughts on what next steps might look like. But if also if I'm correct, you were planning and handling this, you have other presentations recently where you want tonight to be about the consultants work but you look forward to sharing recommendations in the future. That's exactly correct. Yeah, so that limits hopefully in frames of the discussion we're gonna have tonight that it'll be mostly on what the consultants are doing and less on what our next steps are as a district. And we'll talk about math when we get there. So would you like to offer any introductory comments? Yes, I'll be brief because again, as Chair said, I'll speak more at the end of the presentation but I really just want to offer some thank yous and then queue up our folks from JCJ. So the first thank you is the committee, I think the advisory board concept that was talked about at the Regional Committee really worked, worked with a nice diverse group of people and families to staff members at the elementary level, staff members at the secondary level and that was a really helpful process. I want to thank a number of advisory board members are here tonight. So they really did, the reason that first thank you is important is because it really did shape the process and certainly Ms. Cassinson can add if she'd like on that but that every meeting we had, we went back including last Thursday, we went back and there was significant feedback. So the 500 some odd page document that was sent to you last Thursday morning is gonna be different than the 500 some odd page document that's the final version because the feedback is recently as last Thursday. And I really want to thank the consultants as well for doing significant amounts of work and very condensed timeframe as we requested. So I want to thank them and as the chair said at the end I want to share some initial comments about next steps based on some consensus that I heard from the advisory board. It wasn't a voting body but certainly it was very robust discussion. Perhaps they come back for a more full discussion of next steps at a future meeting. Ms. Cassinson, anything you'd like to add? Yeah, well I'd like to say thank you to everybody, to the folks from JCJ and to the advisory board. I wanted to say this was the first time I'd done anything like this on a school committee. I was really impressed particularly with the level of community participation and with the incitfulness and knowledge and intelligence a lot of people on the advisory board. I mean it was a really organic process. I feel like what happened and there was a lot of good give and take. So it was a great thing to be a part of. Thank you. So with it tonight is Jim Hogan and Doug Roberts from JCJ and they're welcome and you're welcome to come up and I'll just cue me when you want me to click the slides forward. I'll be happy to do so. Again, I'm Doug Roberts, JCJ architecture, principal with our firm. Thank you for having us here this evening. We are gonna bring everybody up the speed of why we were working on the study and the steps that we've covered since we were last in front of you back in January. Again, Jim Hogan is with us as well. He's our senior designer. He'll be leading you through the design discussion. So Mike, if you wanna move forward. Next slide if you could, please. Again, I think when we were before this board in January we had 10 meetings planned as Dr. Morrison indicated and Mrs. Castinson is an organic process. Things changed, it evolved. So ultimately we were going to have a total of 12 meetings to complete our work here. And again, we talked about the advisory board as well as the working group that was representatives of the school committee, the district, faculty. The feedback was very, very much gave shape to the project and was very much valued by us to help us pull together the report. As things changed through the course of the process when we were before you in January we were using demographic data or enrollment projections from Nestec that we use as the basis of design. We were looking for the peak period of student enrollment which at the time based on the data that was available was academic year 21-22. March 11th, they published an updated report. We worked through that. What you notice on the screen in front of you is highlighted to the right in red are the numbers that changed in that report from the report that we had in January to what we received in March. Analyzing those numbers while they changed they did not have an impact on any of the planning. So again, we wanted to incorporate the information because it is current. We don't know when these projects if they'll be moving forward at any time soon. We want to make sure the final report has the most up to date information in it when it goes to press. And at this time I'll turn it over to Jim Hogan and talk you through the design. Thank you, everyone. I have a couple of options we're gonna run through and this was part of that organic process through the advisory board. We received a lot of feedback on the diagrams that we had originally put in front of you. I believe when we're in front of you in January we had some hand sketch drawings and it was kind of big picture thinking as we really kind of drilled down into the options and tried to understand how the buildings would accommodate the different programs. Everything seemed to come into focus. So we ultimately looked at, I don't even know how many options for each of the buildings. I'm gonna run through five options that we looked at. We thought were very realistic for the middle school and then three options for the seven through 12 grade configuration fitting into the high school. Just to orient everybody, the site plan, the building of the site obviously go hand in hand and many of the options that we looked at pulling sixth graders into the middle school we talked about things like how would we accommodate the sixth graders? Do they have more of an elementary school recess? So that was the level of discussion that we really got into. So as part of the exercise we tried to identify a number of line items that we could attach cost to as well. So this site plan really just applies to all the different options that we looked at for the middle school building, taking into account some of the security protocols that we're talking about at the main entry, improving upon possibly accommodating or providing an outdoor play area an additional play area on the hill up behind the school as well as some of the options actually moved central office around and did some renovations. So we looked at what that new entry would look like. So what would you have the next one? So what I'm gonna do is I have five options here for the middle school. I'm gonna try to get through them pretty quickly and we can certainly come back to them if we have specific questions. Option one pulls all of the sixth graders into the existing middle school. And from a design standpoint, we had some discussions about trying to isolate them a little bit from the seventh and eighth graders. So we tried to find some space on the first floor of the middle school where the existing art rooms are, the business office, as well as the existing main office for the middle school. So in this scenario, we propose moving the central offices back to where the existing wood shop is, which is a somewhat underutilized space within the building. That would facilitate their own main entry off down that end of the building. But it freed up enough space in the first floor where we felt we could accommodate all those sixth grade classrooms along with the special ed programs that needed to be integrated with that. And then it would facilitate renovating the existing superintendent's central office to the new main office for the middle school and a new secure entry down at that end of the building. Why don't you go to the second floor? The second floor really became kind of a relabeling exercise. So we reconfigured the seventh and eighth grade teams on the second floor, trying to group them all so that we could get the English, social studies, math and science rooms together and working as a true middle school team. So you can see how some of the special ed programs were sprinkled in with the seventh grade and the eighth grade. And the other big move here was moving the art classrooms which are currently on the first floor up to the second floor. So some of the bigger spaces at the front of the building on the second floor are currently science labs. We felt it would be a good fit to move some of those art spaces in because they really do need a little bit more space. There's also plumbing that exists in those rooms and we think it would be a much more efficient, a cost effective renovation to move art classrooms into those spaces. So option two looked a little bit differently. Some of the people on the, some of the folks on the advisory board were trying to push the idea of how can we make this a better building? How can we better support a middle school framework of learning? So in this scenario, we actually started to carve out some small areas from corridors and spaces we were trying to find within the building so that we could create more of a breakout space for each and every one of the teams. So you can see here there's a couple of open spaces between the sixth grade teams and the cafeteria which would act as pull out spaces as students could actually go out there work on projects. Specialists could come and work with students in something that was more than just a hallway. And the rest of the floor is essentially the way I described option one. You can also see the difference on the second floor where at each of the corners of the building we're starting to develop those breakout spaces. It necessitated a lot more renovation to the building and that actually drove some of the costs up. Doug's gonna highlight some of the costs. But we felt it was worth exploring just from an educational philosophy. We thought it was appropriate for middle school learning. So the third option actually backed up quite a few steps and we said, well, what if we got away with as little renovation as possible? And option three, we actually kind of ran through and it's truly a relabeling exercise. There's almost no renovation work. We're not taking walls down. You could almost get away with doing all this renovation at a zero cost. There are implications with some of the ADA reports that are out there, but we think maybe we can deal with those capital improvement projects. So the big thing here is it keeps LSSE in place where it is currently in the building. It keeps the main office where it is, the central office where it is. So the first floor essentially remains exactly the way it is. What's that? It's in the center. Oh yes, and the one move on the first floor would be the professional development space would be turned into the theater room, which is currently up on the second floor, but once again, essentially a relabeling exercise. So the second floor, you can see now we have relabelled that whole back wing to accommodate the sixth grade. Just by the function and organization of the building, it actually isolates them into their own wing and there would essentially be no reason for the seventh and eighth graders to have to travel back to that part of the building and cut back in across. So we think it's a nice way to use the building organization to isolate those sixth graders would be a nice transition to their middle school experience, but this relabeling exercise proved to us that we could accommodate all of the classrooms necessary for the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade at this level. Can I jump in for just a quick second? I think it's worth noting from a process perspective that at the second advisory board meeting, there was a lot of feedback from members of the advisory board about noting could we better optimize space? And they couldn't be here tonight, but met the next morning with the two, middle school co-principals and actually Wendy Kohler, who was the principal of the middle school in the 1990s when the school had well more, many more students than would be in this model and was a three grade level model because until the 1998 expansion here, there was a time where this was, the middle school was a seven, eight, nine, junior high school. I'm looking at Audra just today. I was here. Okay, that was good. And so I wanna thank Ms. Kohler, who retired in 2008 for getting a cold call on a Thursday night and saying, sure, I'd love to think about this with you and really being able to work through it, but really the origin of that came from the advisory board feedback and then we added that advisory board meeting as we shared earlier. And I think that iterative process is how we got to multiple options for consideration. So sorry to interrupt, but I think the process piece is worth sharing. Yep, that's great. And I think right around that time, we also did a tour of the building. So the advisory group walked through the building much like Mike said he did. And they saw a lot of the same things that were observed and had conversations. So I think for the advisory group to be able to walk into those certain rooms and see how they were being used and how we were anticipating using them, relabeling them, I think everybody was able to visualize how it would work. So the fourth option I'm gonna show you is really just a variation on option three. There were a number of different program elements that the advisory board spent quite a bit of time discussing. We had originally identified a number of spaces that we felt were underutilized within the building and we kind of targeted those. What kind of programs could we move into those spaces? How could we make them work a little more efficiently? So option four, we began to break some of these options out, there were essentially three items that we almost turned into line items. So option four takes into account the secure entry and it would just be a renovation at the front door which would provide a new vestibule, a new access point into the main office as well as secure cross-corridor doors within the hallway and also some consideration to the stair that currently goes directly up to the second floor. So we'll highlight some of the budget items and what we think that may cost as a single line item. So option four is really option three plus the secure entry. Then option four, the second floor is exactly like option three. So if we jump ahead to option five, the only difference here is taking advantage of that underutilized existing wood shop and turning that or part of it into a maker space. That's one of the program elements that we heard was lacking at the middle school right now. We think that's a good use of the space. In that space, there's more than substantial power space in the area. We think that's a fairly easy renovation. So option five does that. And the second floor remains exactly as it did in option three and four. I think all the sixth, seventh and eighth grade. We did have some pictures that we ran through that we shared with the advisory board as to what that renovation could look like in the maker space. You can probably just run all three of them through three of them fairly quickly. These are all spaces that JCJ has done recently, wood maker spaces. And you can see the connectivity between different spaces and the programs that you could accommodate within there. Then the next space, we spent quite a bit of time talking about the internal classrooms. On the second floor at the middle school, there's about six classrooms right now that currently do not have windows. So as we walk through, the advisory group said, how can we get natural light into these? And I think I can think of only one project that JCJ has worked on where we've actually put light tubes into classrooms, internal classrooms. But this is a classroom where they've introduced at least nine of these light tubes, which would bring natural light into those internal classrooms. What's a light tube? It is actually, it is literally a light tube. It almost looks like a piece of duct work that gets attached to the ceiling. There's a big lens that sits within the ceiling. And then there's a reflective piece of duct work that runs all the way up to the roof above the roof. And then there's a very small domed lens on top of the roofs to allow that natural light in. And we think because one of the capital improvement projects is under roof at the middle school, we thought it was wise to have the discussion now. So if it is something that might be desired to the school, I think we need to incorporate it now and incorporate it into the thinking of the re-roofing job, just be a little ahead of the thought process there. Yeah, and we did look at a couple of different options. Some bigger skylights, which would actually bring in a lot more daylight. But with the existing structure, as it is in that roof, you have joists that are awfully close together. And I don't think that we'd be able to incorporate large expanses of skylights. We think this is a cost effective solution. And we've created line items within budget. So I think it'll give everybody an idea as to the expense for that. So at this point, I think Doug wants to run through some of the costs for each of the options. Just to have a clarifying question. So option five, is that option three plus the maker space or option four plus the maker space? It would be option three plus the maker space. So minus the secure entry. Yeah, you can look at the secure entry and the maker space as single line items. You could combine those two, we could call option six you could add. So, and we've set up the budgeting that way, the estimating so you could actually have those together come up with an option six and do the maker space and the secure entry. Okay, thank you. I think the budgets are making their way around. Oh, yeah. Right, so if you're reading along. And also if it doesn't, it's a good moment to bring up that, do you want to take questions when you're done with one building before you move to the next building? I think we should. If that doesn't impact the time. That makes sense to me. Yeah, it makes sense to me as well. But again, I think part of the confusion is I see a number of you are reading the 500 page document or excerpts from the document. And as this project process has evolved, the option descriptions that are in the 500 page draft do not align with what we're presenting tonight because again, we have received commentary from the advisory board as of last Thursday. So we have tweaked the presentation. So that is why we have distributed the updated budgets that have been prepared by AM Fogarty Associates. They're in Dartmouth, Massachusetts and independent cost estimated. We've worked with them on a number of school projects. So they're very familiar with the cost of school construction and the Commonwealth. I want to focus the primary discussion of the left two columns because what our planning to date is very conceptual. So we really haven't designed so much as we planned. So at this level of estimating, estimators typically look at the cost per square foot of a described level of construction. So that's how these estimates were developed for this study. And you'll note that there are categories on the left hand column that start with minor renovation, paint, ceiling tiles, just minimal impacts, major renovations, you're tearing down walls, you're putting in new ceilings, you might be relocating some plumbing. New construction, it'd be ground up. Includes foundations, it includes structural members, it'd be new mechanical systems. You'll also align items for a new sprinkler system. We know that the existing middle school has about 2,000 square feet of the facility as a sprinkler system. The balance of the school does not. Tied with that is a new fire alarm system. So again, some of the scenarios based on what the Massachusetts State Building Code would require. If you have renovations that total more than 7,500 square feet, that's gonna trigger the requirement to bring the building up to full code, fire alarm and sprinkler system. So we wanted to capture those as cost items so that we evaluated these different design options. You then total all of that and you get a total direct cost. So essentially that's the cost of the materials, the cost of the labor to install those materials, put them in place. Then you add to that design contingency. As I said, we're planning right now. We know that, for example, in a major renovation we'd have to improve the building envelope so that the building would meet the energy code. We haven't yet designed what those systems are, but at this level of estimating we assign a certain percentage, 15% design contingency accounts for those design items that we don't have not as yet defined. In addition to that, we assume a project of this nature would have a construction manager in it involved in terms of the complexity of it, phasing, tight schedules. That's something that we would recommend. Again, worst case scenario, you could have a general contractor execute the work as well. So there may be some savings there, but again, if we're trying to paint a realistic picture we wanted to provide, dare I say a worst case option but a conservative estimate as to what the realistic cost might be. The next line item, typically when you're budgeting projects like this because they're going to be built in the future, you want to add a level of escalation. Material costs do go up over time because we don't know when these projects, if and when they'll ever be executed. We've only allocated one year of escalation for this discussion. On top of that, you then have the cost of the construction, which are the general conditions, the general requirements, building permit fees, bonds, insurance, and oh yes, the profit for the contractor. So that arrives at your total construction costs. We also realize that there are costs to the town or the region to actually facilitate these projects. So we have owner soft costs. That includes things like the architectural fee if you have an owner project manager involved, their fee, the professional fees that would be involved. There are often legal costs that are assigned to these projects. There are testings and inspections. So again, early conceptual design, we recommend carrying about a 25% markup to cover those costs, to deliver a realistic budget for each of these different design scenarios. So again, looking at the screen, option one that Jim described, we were integrating the grade six on the first floor. Had some modifications there. Again, it was greater than 7,500 square feet, so it included the full sprinkler system, full fire alarm. And it derived a total project cost, the construction cost just under 15 million with the total project cost of 18.6. Option two, which was essentially the first floor planning, we were relocating some toilet rooms that were closer to the cafeteria. We were creating those next generation learning spaces, those breakout spaces that Jim described. Again, wanted to make a better school, make it more relevant to current teaching methods. In addition to that, we're looking at ways to minimize the windowless classrooms and better purpose those spaces on the second floor, as well as creating the breakout spaces there. So again, the costs that are estimated are about 16.3 million for construction, total project cost of 20.5. Option three that Jim described, that was the exercise when we were challenged because option one and two actually had some unassigned spaces. And as Dr. Morris indicated, it really challenged the educators to look at how they're currently using those spaces and it's a better way to utilize them. So as Jim mentioned, that really is a no cost option. We can, there's the opportunity to integrate the sixth grade in the existing middle school facility and essentially just relabel the rooms. Know the infrastructure in place that you have basically a room to room assignment of space and it will function well for you and your students. And then as Jim described, we started layering on these, wouldn't these nice to be have interventions, the secure entrance. Again, that's about a $771,000 total construction cost, just under a million dollar project. Then you do the, add the maker space only, again, that room itself would be about $300,000, total project about $363,000. Now again, that's assuming level of finish. We went through the images quickly, but there's a variety of options in terms of finishes and equipping that space that are available to the district. So again, we wanted to create a budget that gave you some options, some flexibility to decide really what you wanted to do in that space. So that's high in technology, that's reusing the existing electrical, redefining that room, you'll have to adjust the mechanical system. So again, that addresses those costs as well. And then option six, it's the summation of options four and five. So if you were to decide that you wanted to pursue the secure entrance and create that maker space in the existing wood shop, again, about a million dollar construction cost, about a million three in terms of total project costs. Jim mentioned in his discussion that there is an accessibility upgrade report on the Strait KMA prepared that for the region and they identified costs. They identified the material costs. We also know that they are working with the region to identify a certain number of those items that the district can self perform. So what we did is we took, that's averaging about 18% of the costs from the different estimates. So we took 72% of their identified costs for the middle school, material costs, and then we added a labor cost to that to arrive at the, I can't read my own numbers, but I think it says $246,000 of direct costs. Okay, that's the material labor cost. There will be overhead costs, but again, if you're self reforming it, might be a smaller contractor. It would be unfair to say that you're gonna have the full burden of what we were forecasting for the larger projects on these individual light items, likewise with the owner's soft costs. There will be some, but to define them, not knowing when they're gonna be deployed or if they're gonna be deployed with other work, we wanted to at least provide you a baseline that we knew we were confident with, which is the direct costs. In addition, we touched on the roofing project. I know that Gale Associates has prepared an estimate about 2.4 million. There's a conversation about making it a solar ready roof, and again, when we touched on, the advisory board said, well, if we're gonna do the roof, wouldn't it be nice to get some natural light into those windowless classrooms? So that number is being carried at $3 million. Part of our effort of going through the existing facility was to have our mechanical engineers study your existing systems, as well as us going through looking at the general conditions of the facilities. We observed that there are a number of existing systems that are at or near the end of their useful life. They don't have to be updated to integrate the sixth graders into the middle school. However, given where they are and their life expectancy, we're recommending that those be considered as capital improvement projects that the district can plan for in the future. So again, we identified a number of those items. The water heaters, for example, are at near the end of the useful life need to be replaced. Likewise, with the 100 kilowatt generator, emergency generator, proper life size to meet today's code and meet the needs of the facility that would need to be replaced with a 300 kilowatt generator. That's the sprinkler system and fire alarm. Again, that is if you don't do any of the other work and that's a standalone project. So you're looking at putting a sprinkler system in 195,000 square feet of space and a fire alarm system for 197 square feet of space. The electrical switch gear. We know that it is a federal Pacific switch gear at the end of its life. It should be replaced. I understand that the district is, or town of Amherst, elementary schools, right, are replacing some of those panels. So it's something that the region is familiar with. In addition, there's a bi-directional application system is recommended. Again, with today's technology, first responders, their ability to communicate in a building that has a lot of steel, it is recommended. You currently don't have that, but it is something that our engineers recommend that you consider. Then there were the site items that Jim touched on. Again, those are nice to have. The parent loop was identified in the KMA report as from a safety standpoint, needing to be able to separate that, adding bollards. There's an opportunity here to integrate that as part of this work. So we created a lot on cost for that, about $264,000. We touched on the place scape area because that was something that the advisory board talked about. And given the natural terrain that is around the middle school, we're cutting into a hill. So to create about an 8,000 square foot place scape area, there would be a segmental landscape retaining wall. There'd be a variety of place surfaces, rubberized place surfaces, asphalt surfaces. Again, the direct cost of that is estimated to be about $700,000 for that size area. Also, as the advisory board was walking through the school, how can we make the existing middle school a better image of its 1965 or 69 self? A coat of paint might go a long way to brighten those hallways. So we had a line on them for that. That was about $600,000. And again, that might be something that the district itself performed during the summers. Again, don't know what the labor resources are available, but it's something that's out there that might have a significant impact at a very low cost. And then the sky tubes that Jim spoke about, again, that's about a $62,000 direct cost to have 57 of those introduced. That would be nine in each classroom. There are 19 windowless classrooms in the plan. And then lastly, the no cost solution does have a cost. That is new signage. And that's about, somebody with better eyes can tell me. Shade under 10,000. Shade under 10,000, okay, thank you. And again, all of these, some talking with Dr. Morris like the signage might come out of just the operating budget. There are allowances for those tech line items. And some of these other items could be planned as a capital improvement project. Before we move on, any questions? Like we're a lot of data at you. And just as a note for the different committees, I don't know how we did it, but unless I'm misreading the clock, we, in terms of the agenda as posted, we've moved through almost all the time we had for this item before even getting to the high school. So I'm just making a note of that. It means we're probably gonna be running late on this joint meeting. Are there, are there questions for the committee? Or any committee? Is it done? Can you explain what a parent loop is? That's what parent drop off. You have your buses that will drive, drive up and then for a parent to arrive at the school, drop off the student or pick that student up. Call out the parent loop. Mr. Menino, Mr. Menino. What class size were you assuming for the 6th grade? That was 21 students, Jim? Yeah, I think we're looking at a range of 20 to 21. Because I calculated 27, a total population divided by eight rooms. We'd actually have 10 rooms. Oh, I see. Yeah, some of those are special ed classrooms. Take back, I've got to go. Mr. Devin. I just wanted to appreciate the level of detail in an organization that you put into this. And really easy to compare. This is really a digestible. I feel like I'm on Amazon and I'm shopping and comparing, you know? Other users have bought. So thank you for that. So a big difference in the draft versus the final cost that I noted was on arm options four. I went from 8.1 down to one, which is nice. I just wanted to see where that may have come from. Well, we redefined the scope of work. If you drill into it, you'll see that we have less area in those options than we had previously. Again, this is an iterative process. Any time we look at it, we look to refine it and improve it. That's why there was, and we're, again, trying to make sure that we're making the best recommendation for the district, that's realistic. And that came out of the conversation again with the advisory board as well. Always pushing us to improve. All right. Mr. Devin. And then, so you had shown some of the locations of the special ed rooms. So in Amherst, we have three specialized special ed programs across the district that are, but those students, when they come to the middle school, go in some form to other programs. And so, and this might be a Dr. Moore's question, but I was just wondering how that was thought through in terms of the design of what the sixth grade needs versus the seventh. So at this level of detail, we added one space so that there'd be six classrooms with specialized program, because if we think about the sixth graders folding into those seventh and eighth grade specialized programs, we wanted to make sure we had the sufficient space to support those students. So the other thing we were really conscious of is to see where spaces were now, like the Ames program has some equipment that we didn't want to necessarily move, not just from a cost basis, but just why we do move. Right, if you don't have to, why would you? And also trying to assure that there wasn't like a block of six rooms in a row that was the specialized program spaces. They should be integrated into where the classroom spaces are. And some of this was just taking a look at our current infrastructure. Like the SSP program is currently where the computer labs are, but being that we're in a one-to-one computing environment. Those spaces wouldn't work for that, but in talking to the special ed admin team, they felt like actually it was really nice for SSP to have one large space and one smaller space so that there could be instruction in happening and a breakout for students who needed it. So Dr. Brady in particular was helpful in thinking about that as was the middle school administrators who are keen to that. Thank you. Keep rolling. All right, Jenny, you're out. It's okay. Oh, I'm sorry, I missed your... My only question was from the security standpoint on the front door. You said you reconfigured the stairs of it. Could you destroy it? Well, I mean, we really haven't designed a solution there. I think we've assigned some dollars that we are comfortable could solve the issue. But yeah, because that is a vertical area, the lobby is vertical, right now people, if they come in that front door, they actually have access to the stairs. So we just think that's a condition that needs to be corrected. Okay. So then we'll do this through design. No solution, but just an appropriate dollar figure. Correct, yeah. Thank you. Yeah, and I think we can be briefer with the high school. Just be, I think it'll become clearer. I'm not clear. Oh yeah, I just wanted to figure if we had any questions, we'd keep going. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So we did go through the same exact process with the high school, fitting the seventh through 12 in this building. Option one, and with the high school, there's a site plan that goes with the building plan. So you can see in this area, because we're adding two grades to the school, we're gonna have to add parking for staff. And we're also taking into consideration student parking at the high school, which is obviously different than the middle school. So you can see just to orient everybody play fields. We've actually labeled the culverted tan brook, which is underground. It actually passes under those play fields. So we had to consider some of the setbacks when it comes to building or expanding. So in this diagram, you can see we've expanded the parking loop on the left side of the building, which is the west side of the building. That's currently where some academy drops off. There is some staff parking on that side, but we've actually expanded the loop to accommodate possible middle school drop-off separate from the high school, and then continued the loop for emergency access all the way around and added some staff parking on the upper part of this drawing, which is the north part of the site. So the reorganization of this building, introducing the seventh and eighth graders to this building is somewhat of a complex problem. We started with option one, putting the seventh grade in the back wing of the high school, and then adding some space in a three-story addition off the north end of the building, which would accommodate at least one team of eighth graders, and then take over some of the tech ed spaces. You have the electronics lab, the wood shop, in that whole tech ed wing, and we would convert that to another eighth grade team, introduce some of the special ed programs, which then facilitates moving some of those tech ed spaces, relocating them. So essentially the high school remains as it is on this floor. Summit Academy stays where it is, but we have to relocate a bunch of world language classrooms and the tech ed spaces. So what we do is we move those to the second and third levels of that. So since it's a three-story addition, what you can see is we've now added some science labs, some classrooms on the second floor, which allows us to reorganize some of the departments we're able to, on the second floor, put math and science together, which are two departments that usually are kind of working together. And then the third floor, we've added some classrooms to that and we've located the social studies in English departments together. So isolating that seemed to work from an organizational standpoint. What we found was the middle school, the seventh and eighth grade, was lacking some of the program spaces and the extra space that they really needed. So the advisory board got into a discussion and administrators got into a discussion. How are we gonna accommodate lunch for the seventh and eighth graders? Would they go to the big cafeteria? So we talked a little bit about expanding that cafeteria, but option two actually looks at expanding the built addition and giving more of that new space to the seventh and eighth graders. So you can see the site plan is organized kind of the same as I described in option one. You can probably go right to the floor plan. So you can see here, there's a much bigger addition off the back of the building. And as part of the discussion and a reaction to the discussion, we're now providing the seventh and eighth graders with their own gym, their own music room, their own art room, their own cafeteria and their own library. So it's essentially building a middle school off the back of the high school because we really weren't sure how we could schedule the cafeteria and accommodate all those extra students, how the media center was gonna accommodate that as well as the gym. So a lot of the discussions drilled down to how are we gonna schedule these spaces? And since the high school is so close to capacity right now with their scheduling, we really couldn't get our head around how we're gonna make it work. Option two gives you all that extra space and the seventh and eighth graders, it becomes a much easier way to handle and also an easier way to keep the seventh and eighth graders separate from the older high school students. So the upper floor you can see, we've actually added more classroom space up above here, but we are able to group the science and math department for the high school on the second floor and the English and social studies departments on the third floor. So all the high school students take over the second and third floors here. So the third option that we looked at was actually flipping that entire back addition. Option two, we were proposing the main entry come in from the east side of the building, which would be the right side of this drawing. We're somewhat limited with the existing wetlands that's there. We had to deal with a 75-foot building setback and a 30-foot road setback, which really constricted that side of the building and it just didn't seem like a very welcoming, open entry to the building. It was very limiting. So we flipped the entire scenario here and the entry to the middle school would come in from the west side. So the left side of that addition would be dedicated to the seventh and eighth grade entry. So let's go to the floor plan. So you can see here, we're providing the same type of program. So the seventh and eighth graders get their own library, gymnasium, cafeteria, stage, but you can see the middle school administrative office is over on the west side. So that becomes the seventh and eighth grade entry. It works well with the bus loop off that side of the building by extending it. The buses could drop off the high school students at the front of the building, loop around and drop the seventh and eighth graders off at their entry point. They come right into the building and then they would live in that seventh and eighth grade wing and then right back out with very little reason to mix with the high schoolers up front. And then the second floor, you can see similar approach. Once again, it's a three-story addition. We're adding the classroom space that the high schools would need on the second and third floor. And then going hand in hand with that, we've run through the pricing scenarios. So if you flip your two-sided sheet, Doug can run through those for you. Same approach as we had with the middle school, so similar factors. Again, driven by the areas, you can see option one. It was about a 25,000-square-foot addition proposed that arrived at about a $27 million construction cost, $33.8 million total project cost. Option two, which was, and again, the reason we went to option two was the conversation from the advisory board that it felt like the middle school was jammed into the high school. It didn't have an identity. So we're challenged with providing a solution that did provide an identity for the middle school. That generated option two. Again, it's about a 72,000-square-foot facility, single-story addition for the middle school, second and third-story addition for the high school classrooms. Again, that arrived at about a $43.8 million construction project, about a $54.7 million total project cost. The last solution, again, this part of the evolution of the project, we're getting better at our planning. We were able to use the same program that we have for option two, flipping the entrance, and arrive at a 62,000-square-foot addition. So we're able to have a more compact, more efficient layout. And again, the cost there, about 36.9 million construction project and $46 million total project. Just like at the middle school, KMA has done a study of the high school, so there are accessibility upgrades that do need to happen. So again, the material and labor costs that are estimated for the high school are just north of a million dollars. Again, the water heaters need to be replaced, as does the emergency generator. And about, there's about 120,000-square-feet of the existing high school that is not currently sprinkler, so that would need to be brought up to code as well in the event of any one of these three options. So again, if that were to be a line item that the district wanted to do as a capital improvement project, we provided the cost for those two functions as well. That's correct. Any questions? Really? An obvious question. These are very good estimates and alternatives. What do we do now? How do we go about selecting an option? I think you're not there. Do you want to take that one out? You do! Why don't we run through the committees and see if there's any questions, and then we'd love to get on that, and then we'll go to the superintendent's comments. They bring some. It looks like the... You want to pass the mic? I'll make sure you pick that one up with any arms. It looks like the additional parking and the additional building push out into the JV soccer fields and also eliminate the snake pit, which is where the football team practices in the fall and lacrosse is in the spring. And right now, our fields are at a premium, and we really can't afford to lose those unless they've been magically moved someplace else. And early on, we were given the field study, so there were several recommendations done with a field reconfiguration study. The pros and cons of putting an addition on that building, we looked at all four sides of the building, and wherever you put an addition, it's going to displace something. So be it a practice field, be it parking, a bus loop, and at a very high level, we ran through the replacement. So whatever you displace, you need to replace somewhere, somehow, and the cost of that, I think has a number of different implications. So once we had that conversation with the advisory board, we kind of backed off, and we said what would be the least invasive place for an addition. And the early studies, we actually did identify that north side and the practice field, fully understanding the implication of the athletic program. But to displace parking in front of the building, I think would become an even bigger problem, especially from a vehicular circulation standpoint. So I think it was a catch 22, but we do recognize the fact that there is an impact, and we're hoping that the field study that was done ahead of this gives some recommendations that could hopefully solve the problem that you identified. Not at all. It's a tight site. I was on that. It's a tight site. Superintendant, do you have anything to add? Just very briefly, Mr. Ferro, the athletic director was on the advisory board, and he's highly cognizant of what you shared, Mr. Sullivan, and would certainly second that piece. Okay. So why don't we run through, see if there are other comments or questions. Okay, superintendent, you have a foot, oh. I just wanted to take, I felt like, or I didn't thank them enough earlier, so I just wanted to thank JCJ again for their professionalism and creativity. It was great to be on the board. Sure, so I'll just say a couple things. So as you know, the advisory board, or you may know advisory board wasn't a voting body, but I did check with them about before making these statements at the last meeting to make sure that I was reading the room right, that there was truly consensus on a couple things. So I got lots of nodding heads and hands up, so I think it's worth sharing that. So the consensus of the advisory board, and I agree with it, is it doesn't seem to that group or to me to worth continuing the exploration of seven through 12, putting the middle schools in the high school. And there's a couple reasons why. One is the high cost, right, of the slide that's up right now. If thinking about saving funds or being more efficient, adding essentially a middle school wing onto a high school seems to not result, not support that premise. Additionally, educationally, I did a quick survey of the 11 districts in Hampshire, Hampton and Franklin County that have either seven through 12 or six through 12 secondary schools. This is in that 500 page document, because it's in the notes. So if anyone read very closely, you might have seen it. But on average, there's schools that have that wide a grade span or about two thirds smaller than what this school would be. And the next largest one is only, I think, at 57% of what this school would be. One district that's similar sized us tried to do this and was voted down by a large measure in another community in Hampton County recently. So it really is an outlier if we were thinking about this in terms of the size of the school and the grade span. That between the cost make it seem like for me, I feel what I feel sometimes when you're saying not to pursue something, it has a negative feel. I get asked that question and my predecessors have at four or 10 meetings for many, many years. Could the middle schoolers fit in the high school? And now we have an answer to that and it's a complicated yes and here's what the cost would be and then we'd have a middle school building to figure out what to do with. So there was a lot of educational concerns expressed by the advisory board as well. Many people in the advisory board have sought educational advantages of moving to a seven through 12th grade model and a lot of concerns actually, educational concerns that were expressed. Conversely, on the advisory board, there was strong support for further exploration on the educational model side of a grade six through eight model for the middle school, both because of the reasonable potential costs and because of possible educational advantages. To support that point, I'll just say briefly, I want to come back in two weeks and do this more fully. It's a very common model. So as opposed to being sort of an outlier of what I just shared about the seven through 12, six through eight middle schools are the most common model, grade span model, both in Massachusetts and across the country. We'll hear about math in a minute. There was certainly a recommendation in the math report that people have seen to think about where six graders are educated, which is the frame that I have is what's developmentally appropriate for students in grades 11 through, ages 11 through 14. Because I think we get into middle school and junior high school and it's a bunch of nomenclature that gets confusing and means different things to different people. But for me, it's what's the middle level education that we want for our students entering out of lessons. And that's the large frame that I think is worth pursuing. I was in touch with many of my colleagues across Massachusetts about models and I'll share more in two weeks about that. But the short story is there was a lot of positivity for districts that either have six through eight middle schools or have in the last 10 years went to a six through eight middle school model. And so what I'd like to do is come back in two weeks and whether that is a joint meeting or a region meeting is up to the different committee, it's not my decision, but I'd like to actually flesh out a process and a timeline of how to further, so this was a really healthy process. Quick, I agree with Ms. Cassons' point. A very different process because it wouldn't be an architectural process, it would be an educational process of what would a sixth or eighth grade middle school look like? What are the educational implications? What are the social-emotional developmental implications? What are the special needs ELL implications? And I think we need to have that as a separate process from what just occurred to then bring back the committees and then towns to see how they felt about it, I feel. Because it doesn't cost money to put the sixth grade in the middle school, it's not a reason to put sixth graders in the middle school. I think we need to open that door and say, what would be some potential advantages, disadvantages, and really have a study that has community involvement with from parents, guardians, staff members, and perhaps school committee members. I appreciate Ms. Cassons' enroll in this one. To really have more answers along that dimension, to think about what do we want for our 11 through 14 year olds in the member towns. And then another process that would follow that for each town to consider its thoughts and all the logistics, which is probably the longest of the three processes in my prediction. My own prediction would be the longest. But I'd like to come back in two weeks and probably not go deeper than I have now. I can certainly answer any questions about what that process might look like, what a timeline might look like for that process, and for considerations for towns to be really clear. I'm not thinking of anything super soon in terms of outcome, in terms of process, that's really where I want to lay that out. So before we go to questions from the committee or the comments, I just put a fine. First off, actually, I want to thank the advisory board, JCJ, and everyone who was involved in the Facilities Use Planning Study. We've been talking about it for a long time and we were planning for it for a long time and it's something that our communities were really interested in. And it's a moment of work, right? We've gotten back over, I think, a really good and well-executed report and it's a starting point for a conversation. And it's good information that can ground what you're interested in going forward. The other thing I'd point out in your comments you just made, or A, you don't have a lot of tales, B, you're going to come back in two weeks to either any one of our committees or our committees jointly. And C, I think in my view at this point, I hope with the community have earned some trust that your model of approaching topics like this is to be very deliberate, have a very clear transparent process and be very engaged with different stakeholders, both professionally as well as in the community. And so I just, I'm saying this out loud now that it sounds like a really big thing to talk about and I think it will be in many ways, but don't get ahead of yourself. There's going to be lots of opportunity for you to put flesh on the bones of what you're talking about and what the process would be and many opportunities for mutual learning and engagement from staff in the community. That sounds perfect, thank you. Yeah, so why don't we just go around the table and if people have any questions or comments they can make it and then we'll move forward since we're way beyond our next topic and I want to be respectful to the committees and the public. Is there anything at all? Okay. I would. Mr. Dunlop? So just as a side sort of benefit from this, Dr. Morris, we don't have to address this now, but before we go on to the next step of the process of potentially sixth and sixth grade. One thing that this puts a fine point on is the general state of these two buildings and in Amherst, and I can say this because the Amherst School Committee is in session right now, there's high awareness of the state of our elementary buildings and the urgent need to address those. There's not as much of a level of awareness, I would say, about the urgent need to address some of the mid and long term maintenance issues with the middle school and the high school building and we talk about 50 years or so being the life of these buildings. These are not spring chicken buildings. And so when we talk about things that are at end of life and things that for the next decade plus where we do a major change like this, it gives me some serious pause about our long term capital health as a region and what that might mean. And so it's more of a long term food for thought but it's a pretty big variable on that big picture that I think should factor into our long term planning. I would just like to agree with, I think the consensus you heard which is there's no value in pursuing the high school from my opinion to add two grades to it seems to have a lot of disadvantages. And then from the middle school high, upgrades to the middle school to allow sixth grade, I think I like the thought process of what's the educational value and sort of as an aside, I see both the makerspace and the security entrance as things that are on our, even if we did nothing with a seventh and eighth grade we should be looking forward towards doing. And so I almost want to remove them as facility use. Like these are things that as a region we need to fix, right? We can't have a school that you can just walk in on into and makerspace is something that educationally, I think the high school has done some work to doing and I'd like to see that in the middle school. So I almost don't want to consider as part of facilities use study. That's really what we need to do anyway. Thank you very much. So our next topic is called very simply math update. A simple title for a big subject. And in speaking with the superintendent, I wanted to lay out that again, this is a topic where they're going to be laying out and we've seen the power panel play their thoughts, but this is not the last time we're going to be discussing this. In fact, the superintendent has assured the that for the regional committee and I'm having to be sure for the other committees who wants to have the sustaining item through the rest of the spring and into the early summer so that any decisions that are being made, any updates that are being made can be brought forward both to the public as well as also the committees. I'm going to say this, Dr. Morris and you can just pause me if you want to. You'd expressed to me the sense that you thought that within your purview of your duties as educational leader for our districts that you were not going to bring forward a vote on this math curriculum change, but rather you were looking for regular feedback from us, hence the commitment on your part to bringing this up, talking about it and updating and engaging our committees at every single meeting. I'm saying this one to frame out the process that you had said you were going to put forward at the beginning. Second also to sort of frame our discussion because if you thought you had like one shot at this conversation now and you had no idea when you'd talk about it again, then we could be here for the next three hours. Now that you know that your very next meeting will likely include a discussion of this topic, we could probably close the book on this thing at a reasonable point when we feel like we've exhausted the topic. Is there anything you want to add on that? Oh, I was introducing Mr. Shane on the topic. Yeah, just very briefly, just to second that thought that we're seeing this, this is happening live, right? And I mean literally this meeting but the work is happening live and so our goal and our objective is to keep the committees informed of that work and the only way we can do it is really bring up this topic at essentially every meeting this spring because the amount of work that's happening and the pace that it's happening at means that if we came back six weeks from now, a lot of things are going to happen in six weeks and that wouldn't be keeping the committees updated. So our hope is that tonight what Mr. Shane will do, our curriculum coordinator is share a bit of the response from the recent math update. It's nice to have all the committees here so we can't include sixth grade in the conversation from a curricular perspective. They were, that's why they would look down the report and from a curriculum tools and curriculum standards perspective, they're lumped together in the secondary schools. But that this would be one of many updates that we do this spring. So as the committee has questions or generates questions from the community, that there's multiple fora for those questions to be asked. As Mr. Nakajima said, this isn't the last time. If you wanted to be, it wouldn't be the last time that we're gonna talk about math this spring because it's gonna be a live interactive process and we're gonna model that at school meetings. And with that, I'll introduce Mr. Shane. Good evening, everyone. Good evening. And thank you. I also realize for those of you that wouldn't normally be here for this meeting, it's an extra committee meeting for you. But just to echo what Dr. Morris said, it's impossible to have this discussion without sixth grade. The state frameworks for mathematics and every other subject are six through eight and nine through 12. So it's while sixth grade is elementary school in our communities, in the larger world, the vast majority of school districts, its middle school. And so textbooks are written that way. The state looks at it that way. So it makes for an awkward conversation just to just look at seven through 12. I'm gonna click through. So in your packet, you received the presentation as well as a timeline document. And I designed the slides to sort of be a more human way of going through the timeline document. So I won't spend a lot of time on that unless you have specific questions on that with the hope that a lot of it is explained through the presentation. And I should also say, in addition to other committee meetings, that some of you have emailed me, feel free to email, get in contact with questions and things like that as time goes along too. So as far as immediate work, we got the consultant report. It was very detailed and very helpful. And Sue Looney and Heidi Sabnani, who you met, have both been very responsive as far as questions since then. They've been great at responding to emails, even some things like asking for certain things that they used, a list of the survey questions that they used and things like that that people were interested in seeing. So that's been very helpful to have that connection. I should also note that the work going forward in the timeline that you got is a plan to direct our work. There will be necessary adjustments made. Everybody knows all of us are gonna have to be flexible with that to make sure that as things come up that are unexpected or require a change, we'll adjust things in that timeline. The most immediate work is to develop a vision. And one of the things the consultants emphasized is you shouldn't go forward with making changes unless you know what your vision for mathematics learning is. And in fact, we had a working group made up of faculty and a parent representative, a math working group that was called that actually began this work before this all happened. And so we have a document that was a theory of action that they put together. And in fact, our elementary math specialists put together their own vision for elementary math. So we're not starting from scratch in doing that. We have actually quite a head start going. And that group is due to me at the beginning of next week to work on that. And I'll be meeting with the high school math faculty later this week. And that's part of what I want to discuss with them so that we know where we're going and what we're trying to do. In terms of course revisions, looking at textbooks, things like that, we are going to contract with Luni Math Consulting to guide us through that process. And I've already begun to have those discussions. And we'll have a textbook review process that it's defined by your policy, frankly. So there will be public input. We do plan to make materials available to gather input. And that wouldn't be any different if we were talking about science, if we were talking about kindergarten health and anything like that. And we'll be developing a process to evaluate our choices based on the vision, based on what we know are best practices. Let's see. The math curriculum specialist. This really is a key piece here. And one thing that teachers feel is necessary, the consultant thinks is a good idea. There's a lot of work going forward. So this would be a position that was in your proposed budget for next year. It's currently a one-year position. And it would be a faculty member who could support the implementation of this work and would be a natural link from grade six up through grade 12. Because one of the problems that we've encountered and is very easy to fall into is to have these giant gaps where students make transitions between grade six and seven, between grades eight and nine. For plenty of good reasons, geography being a primary one, teachers don't have the opportunities to communicate. They work in different buildings, on different schedules. And that can cause real problems. And so we wanna try to correct for those sorts of things. And having someone who is a math teacher who can get in there and help with implementation and work on communication really will be key. Let's say, I'm gonna talk more about the achievement gap later. So I think I'll just sort of hold that because there are some slides devoted to that. And let's go forward to the next one. All right, yeah. So as far as textbook selection, we'll really be looking at two parallel processes. One for grade six through eight and one for grades nine through 12. They're unique in a lot of ways and they're similar in other ways. So it'll be something that both middle school, including sixth grade and high school, will be examining, will be supported by Luni math consultants. I already mentioned the vision to guide that process. We wanna make sure we evaluate materials. One thing that is very important now also is looking at a balance between things that look like physical textbooks and technology. Most of the good curricula now are available in both formats and there are things to consider with regard to that. We have students who live in places where the internet has not effectively reached their homes yet. So we can't have something that's internet dependent that students would be working on at home. On the flip side, we have one-to-one Chromebooks in the schools so we wanna be able to use that resource and there's a lot of modeling and things that are used in teaching math now that would be very helpful for teachers and students to have access to. And ideally, we'll be able to have teachers test drive some of these materials during this evaluation. It's tough at this time of year. It's the very first thing teachers will say is we have MCAS coming up and it's difficult to fit in everything that needs to be taught without thinking about trying out something new and that's something that we're gonna be working on to see if we can fit that in so teachers can actually use some of the materials to get a real evaluation. You can only get so much from looking at them in front of yourself or hearing from a sales rep. I'm just gonna add one thing that was on a phone call with Mrs. Sheena, Ms. Looney. One of the things that was interesting is that I posed and Tim and I had both spoken about is there's some advantage to thinking about a six through 12 curriculum. So some of the publishers, they'll create a middle school series and high school series and same publisher and I made an assumption that yes, that that would actually be advantageous and the feedback we got was actually these books, the texts are written by different authors for the most part. A middle school model doesn't necessarily have the same author so the pages may look similar and some of the philosophy may be aligned but not necessarily and as evidence, they cited some of the external reviews of math curriculum that actually review it by grade level because there are some text series that have really different rankings and based on which grade level you're talking about, even through a six through eight grade span, three grade levels. So it was really helpful to hear that it was important that these two processes were talking to one another but not that they were the same or we would be locked into selecting the same curriculum six through 12 because even though, again, the books may have the similar covers that doesn't actually guarantee alignment and there's counter examples to that. So that was really helpful for us to talk through and hear from her and it's not that it can't work, it's not that it should be thrown out but she really saw no advantage to thinking about it. She said it was actually a danger to thinking about it through a six through 12 lenses and we should pick one curriculum across because the assumption I was making about the advantages were not accurate. Let me actually click. So then now getting a few weeks out now, the math working group, that group needs to continue to work and it's something that met for a while. It was established originally to look at access to our math courses for students with disabilities and sort of naturally grew and morphed into something that was looking at a larger topic and in fact now really needs to be a group that continues to be addressing the big issues now but then also meeting into next year and years beyond to check in on these things because there is, if anyone stands in front of you and says, I've solved the achievement gap problem, they're probably lying to you. There is always going to be a place where we need to be looking inward and figuring out where we're not doing the best service to students and unless we're continuously doing that, we're gonna miss those places. They'll need to be communication with parents and guardians and students in terms of changes, whether it's course names that change, the textbooks certainly, access to intervention and things like that that we'll be working on and I do have a couple slides on communication later on and the more immediate of course is incoming seventh graders and incoming ninth graders because there's an even higher level of newness and anxiety to things for those groups and so that we'll be paying close attention to as well. Let's see, professional development. There's both professional development that you wanna provide for faculty around instructional practices but there will also need to be professional development around any new tools. This is a very big change for teachers and frankly doesn't matter if you are an experienced veteran or a novice teacher, changing textbooks is huge and so the district will really need to devote time and resources to that to make sure that teachers feel like they're supported, they're confident they can do this rollout in their classrooms and there's a piece of that that's front-end loaded and a piece of that that's ongoing and where that math instructional specialist will come into play as well. And then there are other pieces that come into this, curriculum mapping, assessment development and how those assessments are used across courses Intervention supports, this is a big one, this goes to the achievement gap question, this goes to a lot of other questions. There'll be a new intervention teacher at the middle school which was also in your budget proposal. This is something that the math teachers at the middle school, when it came out in the consultant report the response was, I told you so, they've pointed this out as a need, they're very happy that this is gonna be happening and they're enthusiastic about participating and how that position functions and what it does. Because there are a lot of different ways to use an intervention teacher and we wanna make sure that we do it in the best possible ways. Let's see, the curriculum specialist is up there and again I've already mentioned quite a bit of that. So and then future work. Again I explain that the achievement gap is going to be something that we'll be looking at ongoing, there are gonna be early fixes, there are gonna be things that are more long term. In terms of professional development for other subject areas in which math plays a prominent role. When I was putting together the timeline that you have I had floated that by principles and math faculty and so forth and one of the principles brought that up. I said there's math going on in other classes, we wanna make sure that that fits well with what we're teaching students in math class. So it made a lot of sense and integration is another one. And the architects mentioned earlier science and math being near each other and working together and that's very true. So subjects where there's integration happening we need to make sure that there's effective support in that way in communication between faculty. And then sort of bigger things that come a little bit more in the future. At some point we're gonna need to take a look at arcade of five math curriculum and ask a lot of the same questions of that. It wasn't that isn't something as urgent as we were hearing at grade six through 12 but when you make a change at one level you need to then go back and look at the rest. I think in an ideal world you would look at K through 12 but you would need a lot more human resources and financial resources and so I think that's gonna be down the road and a next step sort of thing. In the consultant report there was recommendations about developing new STEAM personal finance and some other courses and that is something that in fact people have talked about before so it'll be a good thing to take a look at and bring to you in the future. And then of course this moving sixth grade to the middle school came up in the architect report it came up in our consultant report this is gonna be an ongoing question and for the reasons that I mentioned before the way sixth grade curriculum is linked is not a strong enough word it is part of middle school curriculum as far as most of the world views it and it makes for an awkward sort of place for sixth grade teachers when they're in the elementary school. So in terms of achievement gaps there's an emergency there you saw numbers you've had discussions about this this is not something that we can say we'll get to that in six months there are things we need to be doing now and in fact are doing now. In terms of decisions we make about textbook selection and redesign of courses that's gonna need to be at the forefront of that. That this is a group of students that we need to make sure that what we're teaching that it fits how they learn and how we can do a good job with that. We need to review our instructional model and there are some of these things that are already going on and I do wanna be cautious. I wanna make sure that you realize things that I say are not new things necessarily it's not to say teachers are not doing these things in fact there are a lot of these things happening but I think they're worth highlighting. So one example at grade six there's this constant sort of review in the elementary schools as far as the model that they use for teaching whether it's a elementary school self-contained classroom model whether it involves students switching between classes a lot of that has been determined in recent years by the numbers of sixth graders because there are certain things that you just simply can't make a decision if you don't have the right number of students. And in many ways it would be better if you had a team of three sixth grade teachers if only one of them was the math teacher rather than spreading it out across three people you have someone who could really hone their skills in that way and it would be easier to connect them to colleagues at the middle school as well. The use of intervention is part of the instructional model and this comes into play a lot of different ways and for those of you who are familiar with the elementary schools you've seen and know about some of that students are supported in the classroom with an intervention teacher who comes in sometimes it's small groups out of the classroom there are a lot of reasons to do it in very different ways there's co-teaching happening which we've had great success with at the elementary schools and at the middle and high school in places where that's been implemented. You hear about station teaching and so again the way that people teach is different than all of us remember when we were in school and we've tried to really move away from the model of teacher stands at the front of the class much like I'm doing right now and it is effective and instead the teacher does a smaller presentation or instruction to the class and then breaks the students up into groups and the teacher can work in stations where you have a group of students working independently of a group working closely with the teacher you may have some using technology it's a paradigm shift it's challenging there are other questions that come into play in terms of managing a class and it's a lot of work frankly it's easier to stand at the front of a classroom in a more traditional lecture style so it takes more time on the part of teachers to really figure out how to make station teaching and formats like that work. Tim, if I could jump in just one other thought I know you have other things to get on in the slide about achievement gap one of the things that I found interesting is we met with middle school math faculty last week and I think the other thing is engaging the faculty which is embedded in all the things you're saying but just as a larger frame in what they see and what they see as challenges and a couple of them were able to be very explicit about the current textbook selection and how they experience it contributing to different or how it affects different learners differently and perhaps not in the ways and definitely not in the ways that they or we would feel the direction we want to go in so I just think the conversations that we're having are ready to date are very generative about issues, you know it's one thing when you're Mooney and Associates and doing an external review and then when as the faculty are getting engaged they're coming up with not I mean you mentioned the intervention teacher that was mentioned but they were very clear about the particular textbook selection as were students who, you know we'll get to this a little later on the agenda about strategic planning we are able to be very clear on what works for them and what doesn't work for them and what works for their colleagues in class, their peers and what doesn't work for them so I do feel like the process that Mr. Sheehan's laying out where we're getting different levels of community input into the process the fact that the achievement gap is part of the conversation drives the decision-making and I think that's just a critical point I wasn't trying to rush it so I just wanted to make a connection helpful between that and also timed well because I needed to drink a water then the two points about numeracy screeners and explicit focus on conceptual understanding this has been something that we've been doing work on and it's something that the bulk of this work has been done at the earliest grades and you may have heard mentioned we've been putting a lot of teachers through this AVMR training that's a trademark, it's advantage, math, recovery and it helps teachers focus on students' numeracy skills and how to target instruction and intervention and how to do regular assessing that is not a test that takes an hour but quick assessments to gauge where students are there have been quite a number of elementary teachers who have gone through this training and it's taken some careful orchestration because it's a long train it's about 30 hours of training and our three elementary math specialists became trained as trainers a few years back and they've been incredibly dynamic in terms of generating interest from colleagues helping them through the training and then also the follow up because of course whenever you train someone on something you can't just sort of say okay, you know what you're doing now off you go they've really found ways to get in with teachers and help them work together and develop strategies it's something that is going to work its way up I believe and we're seeing that as teachers in kindergarten and first grade are using these strategies students are developing stronger conceptual understandings and those students have not gotten to middle school yet we're a few years in with that some of the training is not as applicable to teachers who teach higher levels but some of it is, we had a first group of staff go through a fractions training which I had several teachers email me out of the blue saying how wonderful it was which is a testament to that because the opposite is often true with professional development the other thing we've been doing and again this goes to the elementary schools but and achievement gap doesn't just occur all of a sudden in seventh and eighth grade it's something that develops as a result of things that have or have not happened prior to that and the elementary schools have been focusing on looking at data longitudinally and have been developing ways to store and look at this data and use it for instructional decisions and use it for professional development decisions and if you spoke to any of the elementary principals they could probably talk to you for hours on the things that they have been doing with their staff in terms of instructional strategies to try to focus on some of these things let's see another good example and I talked to a few of the elementary principals just to sort of get a sense of what's been going on and one of them was saying we a good example at sixth grade in their school teachers include a real life application question in every math lesson so that they're trying to bridge that gap between here's sort of the theory of mathematics and here's how it's used in real life which is important and especially with, I mean students this is just a school thing so that they can see especially heading into sixth grade adolescent years the importance of this learning let's see and then a lot of district and building led it PD around equity looking at instructional equity looking at language so teachers have had to go through a sheltered English immersion training and this has to do with instructional language you want to make sure it's that students can access the academic content and that's not something that is inhibiting their achievement and then the other key piece is to help administrators in that way so they know what to look for when they go into classrooms and how to support teachers doing that because that is an important component and then in addition communicating with families on how to support learning and in math this is a particular challenge because families will often say I didn't learn math this way I don't know how to help my child and that is an absolutely accurate comment and it's something that I think that we can get better at in terms of communication and resources for families because maybe you wouldn't be helpful wouldn't be confident helping your child with calculus either way but at least something to help families so that they see why something is being taught in a certain way and why it might look different than it did when you were in middle school or high school right so this is onto the communication portion so for families it's gonna be important going forward that we have clear descriptions of any new course titles and course content so that that information is out there for families and students pathways for acceleration that we currently have pathways so that students as they're heading through high school math can accelerate their math learning and that's not something that we're giving up that's something that needs to be articulated carefully and also looking at access to that there are challenges in that we wanna make sure that any student who is prepared and eager to do something like that has access to those pathways you wanna be very careful in math as with other subjects they don't create sort of gates that lock in front of them so that they can't ever move into something that they might be able to reach academically information about targeted intervention services so it's important for families to know what the resources are for their children and how they can get that assistance and then I already mentioned that parent and guardian resources to support math learning in terms of communication with all of you we wanna make sure we keep you in the loop on course revisions and textbook selection and interventions and practices and professional development because you all have asked good questions and prompted things along and frankly all of these things cost money and you have a very important role in that piece of it and so you need to be informed about where that comes into play so I'll just maybe if I could add absolutely this part and open up for questions is that our plan would be to come back to the committee in two weeks from now with in terms of select textbook selection process with dates of when groups are getting formed groups are meeting, public sessions that were referenced earlier so that'll be we feel like as this visioning work is completed by staff and we now are working with Looney and looking at dates on a calendar that we would have those ready for our meeting in two weeks so that we can share with the larger community as well as the committee kind of the process going forward in the next eight weeks of what that looks like where we are now is visioning work that kind of that math working group that existed before we'll take on but we know in short order we'll be in the world of textbook review. When do you estimate you will have made your decision on textbook selection? We would like to have a decision made so that materials can be in teachers' hands at the end of the school year so that we can do some professional development after the conclusion of the school year and teachers feel like they have time to become familiar with materials. So end of May I think we would want to have decisions finalized. So and that is also something that I've already started to speak with publishers and I've been very upfront about that and had a conversation with one today to get some information and I said our timeline is very aggressive and well what is it he said and I told him he said oh we can work with that that's he said school districts sometimes call us three weeks before the start of school and need materials so. Mr. Sheehan or the superintendent. So one of the things that and I know you know the stuff inside out in terms of the feedback from the community but something that we heard an awful lot over the last couple of years was a concern from parents and students but students usually through parents complaining to us that the curriculum at the high school in particular didn't necessarily fit how their child learned that there were elements and I mean structural elements like this problem of the weak business where like literally just the format of how topics were introduced to students became structurally sort of perceived as an impediment to learning or a source of frustration and what I'm wondering and I'm sure no one ever intended that to be the case when the curriculum was chosen so one thing I'm wondering is that while it is a good and laudable and I think probably many people would clap at the notion of changing between now and this fall I also sit here and I think to myself what are you doing and how confident you're going to be able to engage parents and students if you're reaching out to students at all so that when you're looking through textbooks and looking through curricula that you do two things one you actually get feedback that might be helpful in evaluating but also that for parents who are sitting out there saying and I don't mean this pejoratively I just mean it sort of descriptively the way our emails looked well that was a disaster and to people worry how do you make sure if you're making a decision fast that there aren't elements that end up causing the same problems and I'm not saying you will I'm sort of saying as an introduction to something we're needing to do going forward what's either your thoughts or Dr. Moore what are your thoughts on how you're trying to make sure that while we're moving fast why don't move so fast either we don't get that good information and feedback or be people feel like they weren't engaged yeah I think that's a great question and I mean frankly it's what like I have nightmares about now and I'm trying to be very deliberate with anything that I'm doing around this with communication with looking at dates and Dr. Morris and I were on the phone with Suluni recently and looking at dates and trying to sort of negotiate even with them saying well do you have any availability at this week or at this time and keeping in mind things like April vacation which falls right in the middle of this process so it's going to be a challenge but it's something that in terms of my work it's taking priority over just about everything else for better or worse and I think that that's that's what needs to be in order to make this work in this amount of time and interestingly enough I think you could take a whole year to do it and I'm not sure you wouldn't make the same mistakes over that time either Dr. Morris? Yeah if I could add I think just a couple things to add and one two things so if you look at the revision timeline you know I think it's worth noting the language that Mr. Shean used which is convenient faculty slash family slash student committees to look at the textbook so it's embedding in the process that well we would have opportunities for public viewing and we want to actually Dr. Luni's going to come I think we have a date I think we're narrowing to a date where she has a public session that's solely for those communities right so that we really want to have well a lot of this will be staff staff will be doing a lot of carrying a lot of freight which makes sense as the instructors but we want to make sure that both students and families are integrated into the process of selection and that their voice is heard in actually a distinctly separate meeting that they can have with a consultant not just with staff but with a consultant to be able to go back and forth and learn I think the second thing I want to note is go back to the comment Mr. Shean made earlier which is around kind of those test drives so the test drives are for staff primarily but there's also a test drive element for students to gather feedback of how did this instructional model feel to you did it work, not work and that really both sides of that experience are going to be incredibly valuable feedback as we go towards that textbook adoption guys I want to go around the table and just see if people have questions or comments because also we're running way over our time so I just want to respect everyone I had a couple of comments that I wrote down and you don't need to answer them here you can come back at the next whenever you brief us again but just some thoughts that came to my mind you know again my initial thought was this timeline seems a bit aggressive and so I know you have a lot of work and I just wonder if there's anything the school committee can do in particular to support this aggressive timeline from what I'm hearing my biggest concern from somebody who's not involved at all is the professional development for teachers seems to be on an extremely tight timeline and I don't know if there's anything the school committee can do to help that or what sort of expectations we have over the summer months which normally are not used for direct teacher involvement but so I'm just curious if there's something we can do to help and what is the life expectancy of a curriculum like a textbook lasts typically 10 years and then we're finding something new is it a 15 year and that partially leads into a couple of my other thoughts which are my experience as a teacher or as a parent of an elementary student is I had to be taught how to teach math to my kid and I'm an engineer like the way math is taught today and the teachers were very helpful in teaching me that and I think I wouldn't be very successful helping my student if I didn't have that and so given the diversity of people we have in the region what sort of curriculum supports there are for people who maybe aren't English language as their primary language because the math is in my experience has a lot more language requirements than it did when I was a student and so there's the curriculum that we pick have appropriate supports for parents and families that may not speak English or read English fluently so I can start and that's okay so I think in terms of thank you for the offer of support and certainly summer we do have plans to do some of that it's not compulsory for staff but some of our title to weigh and some appropriation funds that this is going to be the priority at the region level so I think you're right to say that you know while the school year right now in student 14th Mr. Sullivan will assure me it will continue to do so right Ms. Steve okay Shootsbury Roles will stay clean one more live it actually offers us an opportunity frankly that we don't typically have given that most staff we're not planning on vacation on the 17th of June so we are actively actually talking about this tomorrow morning of our admin team how do we use funds in this year's budget as well as looking at next year but particularly that we have this particularly this extra week of time where most staff do not currently have plans to be elsewhere and how do we fund fun time for them to do PD so it's in addition to not having as many snow days and the obvious advantages of that there's some actually PD advantages that refer to it as given our timeline I think on the second front the life well I'll just say for the parent training this is something that you know Dr. Looney, Ms. Sheen and I and Dr. Cromack and middle school principals talk a lot about that it actually has to be in the calculus of curriculum selection that we have to be considering how do parents have access to know what their children are learning how do they have access not just the grades via power school which is one way to think about it but actually that they can support and support doesn't mean do the homework with them necessarily but to be able to have to know what questions to ask to understand the philosophy of education their students are receiving that has to be something that we're considering and frankly some programs do a better job of that than others particularly for the diverse range of of parent learners in our community you noted ELL you know I think we could go on even beyond that and then what kind of training can we offer families about not just a new curriculum like at a meta level but actually at a micro level what are ways that you can support your child in doing that that's critical and I think we've you know frankly our programs right now we see a variation between the different levels around that I think the other thing I want to say I'm sorry I hope it's okay the life expectancy of textbooks is a really interesting question so we went through a national phase of revising curriculum standards so it's a hard question to answer because it kept on changing sort of rapidly on us and I do think we're at a place now probably the last thing I should make this claim but it feels as if we have math standards that are going to be around for a little while and one of the things that's been nice at this point is that publishers have responded to that and the number of options that are consistent with the current standards are much more than they were four or five years ago just if you look at some of the programs we'll be considering a lot of our published 2016-2017 after that standards movement kind of had released its latest version and there's not a huge movement to review that right now so one of the reasons that textbooks fade isn't just because newer, better things come out it's literally the standards that are expected to be taught change and then you have to make adjustments I think that already went back to the comment is that one? Yeah so I'll send save most of my comments for next meeting because they're really about the detailed implementation I think I've spoken about the general issue before about how we support kids that are leaving the IMP curriculum to other math and if there's gaps how do we support them and not lose sight of that during this very busy time but I had a statement from our Chair who was unable to be with us tonight that she asked me to read Solider Shavita for you as Chair of the Amherst School Committee I think it's important Anastasia Ardenius forgot to mention her name as Chair of the Amherst School Committee I think it's important to state a few comments and questions for the superintendents and committees consideration it's great that the math working group is going to be meeting next week to begin developing a vision for the district and to examine the achievement gap identified by our consultants especially among our Latino students and high need students we cannot allow another academic year to pass without addressing the shortcoming honing in on why it's happening and taking steps to correct the problems I also think that the placement of a math intervention teacher at arms is a step in the right direction though I'm concerned that one educator is not enough to fill the very pressing need for increased math support among our students I hope we're critically assessing how many intervention teachers we need to add in order to be most effective I think it's imperative that we begin outreach to parents and caregivers about how the math working group is studying the problem more closely and making recommendations and that additional levels of support will be offered for students in the interim until new solutions are put in place all parents and caregivers should be informed of their options to help support their children the report also showed that by the time our students are in sixth grade there are already serious problems emerging we must ensure that all elementary schools have trained educators and math specialists on the impacts of uneven math skills among different groups of students and are poised to address the disparities early enough to reduce negative effects by the time students get to middle school and high school Finally, I am concerned when I hear that work has been done to date on math recovery because the consultants report points to a decline in the past few years I would like to hear how the district expects improvements in this area to be undertaken and what evaluation measures will be used to ensure improvement This last piece is critical if we cannot show if we cannot show that students are doing better in our math program and families and students continue to express such high degrees of frustration then we're missing the mark and I'm not referring to standardized testing per se but instead about a comprehensive approach to improving the math experience for students that involves added support as needed continued evaluation including individual and family check-ins and similar approaches So what steps are we taking to make sure that we are being successful on this front? Ms. Mayer Scope of work How many courses are you selecting a textbook for? I don't have the specific answer for you a lot Sixth grade through senior year in high school? Right And which gets more complex when you get to ninth grade Sixth, seven, eight it's a little bit more contained High school becomes significantly more complex And your timeline for achieving this goal is? The goal is the timeline that we provided So Yes Just a quick clarification The school committee will have a chance to sort of weigh in on the on the different textbook sort of options Like you're going to come back to us with Okay Right Yes Yes You Great Well, thank you Thank you Thank you so much So before the committees might we move to adjourn? Item four on our agenda is announcements and public comments Are there any announcements for the committee? Mr. Domeni I'll make this very brief because really our topic it's more appropriate to be unpacked later for advocacy But Ms. Kosenski and I were able to attend the hearing on the education bills at the State House on the Joint Committee of Education A lot that went on there a lot that's very interesting There's a rally planned on May 16th If people are thinking what's one date in the future that I can be a part of May 16th at the State House and also in Springfield will be a rally for the Promise Act which is one of the omnibus bills that addresses many of the issues Just the other comment I would say about just thematically is that there's a lot of discussion right now about which type of district would benefit the most urbans, rurals those hit by charter schools those hit by other issues and really I think the discussion underneath it all is about how big should this pie be because when we talk about supporting all districts talking about a lot of money and funds and there's a lot of subtext in positions about whether this pie should be as small as it is now or whether we really need something to make that pie bigger So it's really an interesting conversation that we can get into more in depth at the right time If I can add really quickly to that there's a rural school aid bill that's having a hearing on April 9th and while it might not have a large impact on the region it may have an impact on some of our community towns so that's something that might be worth reading and or if the school committee at some point feels it appropriate to provide some you know resolution that we like both of those bills Cool It's just I think what we experienced this year with the rural school it really depends on how it's calculated so as you know the region actually got some of the rural aid while our member towns that only had rural districts did not so I think it is worth including you know or at least having an assumption that it's possible that the region would be influenced because I don't think the other towns I don't think Leverton Shootsbury Leverton Shootsbury got received any of that rural aid whereas the region did because of those three towns Wealth Factor Yeah So go figure Wealth Factor Yeah So we still have a public care I'm grateful I was worried I saw it while we were going around our announcements I saw people walking out and I'm like don't all walk out you have a time to speak so we we'd love to open it up for public comments if there are any if there are please come forward to the microphone identify yourself you'd have up to three minutes to speak Thank you Hi I'm Marla Jamate I live in South Amherst I have one child at Crocker Farm I'm one at the high school Sorry that I wasn't here earlier for the facilities planning presentation I just wasn't able to get here early but I have been participating with the facilities use advisory board and I guess I just wanted to come tonight to say how exciting I think some of the information is that's coming out of those meetings I'm really very intrigued by some of the options for moving the sixth grade to the middle school which is something that I think would really enrich the middle school create a longer grade span and a more meaningful experience for our tweens tweens and young teens that I'm extremely excited about the idea of reuse of a portion of the old machine shop as a maker space I think that you know one of the areas in which many of our children are lacking is on hands-on skills you know that they are very proficient when it comes to using phones and you know but in terms of being able to build something repair something small those are not skills that that they're getting in their day-to-day lives and I think it could really enrich the middle school experience I'm also excited by the prospect of a larger and better drama classroom at the middle school which I think would be an asset and I guess I see a real opportunity there to you know for some improvements at the middle school that could be done in a cost-effective way and really augment programs and augment the culture and community at that school so thank you there are further public comments please come forward and just take your name and again you have up to three minutes Hi I'm Deb Leonard I'm a parent of two high school students and one elementary school student and I just want to say I'm so thrilled that we're working at this fast pace to to address the issues the huge need of the math curriculum I really appreciate the work that Dr. Morris has done and Mr. Sheehan and I whole-heartedly I can't I can't wait to my daughter's 10th grade math experience in the fall so thank you further Hi there I'm Dr. Sandy Madden I am a mathematics educator in the College of Education at UMass I'm speaking both as a professor but also as a parent of students here in the in the district I have a son who's a junior and I have another son who graduated in 2016 I have way too much for three minutes so maybe I'll have to come back but I wanted to say that as a mathematics educator I have some serious concerns about the nature of the evaluation report that was constructed and and delivered when I first received the survey as a parent I was surprised by some of the questions that were asked in the ways that they were constructed and the person who does research in the field there are obvious ramifications for my thinking about this I've been working in and around mathematics reform for the last well 20 years for sure arguably 10 years before that so programs like IMP that were developed under the auspices of MSF National Science Foundation funding have been remarkable in terms of the opportunities that they've offered to engage students in worthwhile mathematical thinking and reasoning and problem solving and one of the things that we know is that what kids learn about mathematics or anything for that matter is based on what they have an opportunity to learn so if you really want your kids to learn how to do mathematics to be mathematics reasoners and problem solvers and have independent ideas and argue and learn how excuse me learn how to critique the reasoning of others and all of the things that the standard suggests that we want we have to have curricula that give them the opportunity to do that IMP is not perfect but when students are engaged well and teachers do high quality work ambitious practices with students they're doing mathematics every day the kind of mathematics that's non-routine ill-structured for kids have to put everything that they know into making sense out of mathematical ideas and putting forward arguments and I'll just tell you a little bit because when I when I moved my family here in 2008 one of the reasons I did that as a mathematics educator was because at least on the website it looked like here was a school district who had some things figured out they were using investigations at the elementary school level and connected math at the middle school level and IMP at the high school level and I was like that's amazing we could see we could see reform in the elementary and middle schools but at the high school level that is a that is a tough nut crack and so over the course of the last 11 years since I've been here I kind of have stayed out of this conversation my kids are in schools I do triage at home as needed whatever but but I I work with pre-surface mathematics teachers I train them you have some amazing teachers that are so thoughtful and deliberate in their practice and I'm going to watch something just be swept out in a what seems to be a really hasty way to do this work and I just I guess I wanted to just say on behalf of the high school teachers who I've worked with and they've taught my children you I can't speak for all of them but the ones with whom I've worked and whom have mentored student teachers for me they are extraordinary in the thoughtful ways in which they approach mathematics and one of the things I would like this committee to consider is the fact that when when they move to all students having to experience a big deal for this community and it wasn't received very well and it might not have rolled out very well but I want to I want to suggest one thing that is an important consideration I talked to Tim Sheehan about this I met with him a couple weeks ago and I said you know one of the one of the reasons why there's such a culture shock at the high school is because what's going on in the middle school is almost diametrically opposed to what has been being asked of high school students that was not always the case but before you wholesale change everything around it's worth looking at a cohesive coherent mathematics experience that builds processes and content across the grade levels so to the extent that I can be a resource for this group for the teachers for whatever I offer I offer my services but I also don't I would be I would be sad beyond belief to see something just pushed in here and imposed even on the high school in the kind of what feels a little bit haphazard manner that's being suggested so thank you there are additional public comments Sarah Morton hi we went to high school today I want to say I lived in Virginia for a while before moving back here and they have the the elementary schools ending at fifth grade and then the the sixth through eighth from middle school and one of the reasons I was really happy to move back here was because the sixth grade was still in the elementary school because I think that age group isn't they're not quite there yet they're not to the I mean they're they're tweens but they're not quite to that young teen level mentally they're not so I that was one reason why I really liked the fact that the sixth grade was still in the elementary school here so I was just hoping you guys would keep that in consideration when you're deciding what to do with them thank you thank you seeing no further public comments so we'll close public comment that exhausts the agenda for the joint meeting um uh interested in motion to adjourn so moved second all those in favor of the Amherst School Committee adjourning all right we adjourned I'll take a motion to adjourn to I'm going to adjourn the Pallin School Committee for a second with the regional committee like a five-minute recess yes please we have a five-minute recess by acclimation formation thank you both all right thanks for all uh the Amherst Public Regional School Committee is back in session on region-only topics the first item of the agenda is approval of the minutes of March 12th 2019 and if the committee has had an opportunity to review these minutes in advance if not take a moment to do so I'd entertain a motion Mr. Devlin I move to approve the minutes of March 12th 2019 is there a second the move and second of Ms. Kosensky are there any further edits seeing none all those improving the minutes of March 12th 2019 we're signified by raising your hand it passes unanimously seven to nine the second item on the agenda is subcommittee updates are there any subcommittee updates we've already heard obviously about what is used committee yes I'll speak about the policy subcommittee we're meeting next Thursday I believe it is the fourth of April so we received the last time we talked about policy at this meeting we've wanted a written sort of opinion from our attorneys on the student to student harassment policy so we have that we'll be reviewing that together at that committee meeting as well as there's been significant changes in regulations on student discipline which we'd already wanted to start looking at that policy again so we are getting some legal opinion on that as well that will not actually I don't think be on our agenda for for the fourth but just to update the committee that that's something that we're going to be looking at and bringing back later great yes superintendent evaluation subcommittee I think we have a consensus on a date for Thursday it's just whether you're going to be at five to thirty or six and mr. Sullivan is the only one who had not been able to weigh in on the time yet so oh you don't want to is there a preference lock it down lock it down now I hear five thirty five thirty take a difference see y'all are locked down everyone knows okay great feels like we've just exhausted item D on our agenda too then possibly okay seeing no other soups subcommittee updates superintendent update and there's a written update in our packet right there is I think it was a separate piece of paper yeah well I mean it's oh yeah the stack oh yeah no just in case people are looking for it so I'll be brief to stay with the goal but the first thing actually is the one I want to speak to the most which is and Dr. Brady left but I just she knows I'm going to acknowledge this that we had a comprehensive special education audit and you know I mean literally thousands of pages of documents and files were organized written collated organized specifically for a site visit that occurred over a few days and the last time we had this happen 2012 through 2013 we had four areas that we had to write directive action plans for there was a mid-cycle review three years ago where there was a positive response to that and that we did not in this one we have no next steps we have no corrective actions which is unusual for these reviews because they're looking at so many things so I want to acknowledge Dr. Brady in the work of all the special educators and she ends up doing the share of the organizing but this is really looking at the work of the all the special educators across the districts and I also want to note specifically that we had before the report becomes public which it is now they have a the end of the site visit they invited Ms. Cunningham and myself and Dr. Brady to a case conference just to share oral feedback and the level of positivity in that case conference was something I usually don't get from desi auditors just about yes miles to go but doing the right work and seeing steady progress along the way so I just want to thank all the special educators across the district for their work is there any I don't know if there's any comment from the committee in that because I mean it's I know I think you know my mom was a special director for decades and so weirdly enough I've actually heard about this process because it's the kind of thing you talk about when you're visiting for dinner and that is extraordinary and just and the disease are incredibly exhausting audits when they're done an enormous amount of work actually on the part of the district to to fulfill the requests and to meet and go over everything so I'd love to hear from the committee Mr. Dunley yeah so kind of related to what we were talking about before the advocacy day I was I was actually going to speak as part of a panel on special education funding that got delayed many hours and so I wasn't able to do it but the theme I was going to talk about is how all funding is education funding and how you know strictly from a maximizing academic performance and minimizing cost perspective it doesn't make sense for a district to fund special ed but we do it because it's the right thing to do and so when you get real hard exhaustive data that shows that a district is really doing it well across a broad area I mean like no areas for corrective action that it just speaks volumes and I mean sometimes we think about special education as like this best kept secret because if we broadcast it too much then they'll come flocking and it's a real estate therapy is this phrase of people moving to districts that offer special ed well and I just think it's it's great I think it's a it's a real testament to the dedication to our staff and and to the response to the previous audit and the continue evolution of our services for our students so it made me really happy to see these results yeah I was going to say congratulations that I could ready the entire staff CPAC the parents who've been absolutely super engaged it's just wonderful please oh please is there evidence of people coming to the to the district because for a well we're going to move on we're going to move on yeah please so I'm going to skip over the second one I'll just go to the third point which is the ADA audit update so back a couple months ago we had the auditors from KMA looking at all of our buildings they had three public meetings weather affected a couple of them but we did get three meetings in from the community we had broad representation of administrators and CPAC representatives and they are getting close to finishing a report which includes two things one a prioritized list based on the feedback they heard but also and this was referenced actually in the facilities use report because I shared an early draft because it was relevant when they were doing cost estimating of what projects could be done by our facilities maintenance staff so you're just paying for the cost of items example like a simple example is like signage that's accessible signage right that's something you wouldn't need a consultant to come in for it's working with a sign company but our staff could do it as opposed to filling in a well in a library where that's well beyond what our facility staff would be able to manage so they're both prioritizing but also categorizing which is going to be a helpful synthesis to be involved in and I believe they feel like they'll have that in the next month or so the timeline that some of the districts a little different than others based on the capital needs and capital projects but they are actively in contact with us and finishing that work the principal search updates so the interviews of the semifinalists identified by the screening committee have been completed I know Ms. Cunningham updated the committee at the last meeting I wasn't able to be at just about that search process the last semifinalist was actually today interviewed today I've been involved in the front end of those has been shared in the revised process so I think in the coming week we'll be able to announce finalists and dates for public engagement and community engagement on that topic super fun one some of these it's fun about the special ed but this was like authentically fun is that we had a visit from kind of gisaki and Ms. Cunningham and I were able to meet the superintendent who came isn't usually one of the visitors who comes but came this time because it was an anniversary year and it was just it was wonderful I want to thank D Boyd Denise Boyd our middle school guidance counselor who not just in the school side but actually for the town side she's on the town coordinating group and does a tremendous amount and they really like us someone to come you know it was wonderful that they appreciate the hospitality but they were saying if anyone comes we'll set you up we'll you know show you around you can visit the schools we'd love to have more of an exchange so something Ms. Cunningham and I actually I've been talking about how might we approach that task it's not close to here nor is it easily easy to get to kind of gisaki but even it's not like you're right in Tokyo like it's layers and layers and layers to get to that place I mean I know literally I wasn't the crow flies but no I just it's like you're making sure people are listening to you thank you but but we really value the partnership we had a nice conversation about just about the schools operate in kind of gisaki versus here and it was really nice to have the superintendent here that's a new experience that I've had and just two updates on Amherst media which is wonderful nice our friend could tell us she videotaped one of these earlier today but was a video on athletics in the middle school high school so it was athletic director rich ferro and zora dalman who's a multi-sport athlete at the high school and it was really quite able to describe the student experience of being a student athlete not just on the competitive wins law side but actually how it enhances her whole experience being a student and certainly how I experience things in my high school it's great to hear from her today we filmed an episode on restorative practices that was Evelina Kino and Petua Mokimba so you remember them and I think with the December school community meeting leading a circle and Petua was particularly strong leader for students and I think that'll be a fantastic episode as well so probably within a week I'll share it again with the committee because it's so relevant to topics have been discussed at the committee level as well as it'll become live do you think it was a good one? yeah I think it was a good one yeah thank you put you on the spot I suppose but really just talking in a different way than when you're in a circle but talking about the impact on students and future impact on how that can grow and affect the whole school community great are there any questions of the superintendent on these items? shall we? in honor of Rick Hood is the student survey going to be done this year? it is okay yes just check it yeah we need those we need that data yeah the comparative data absolutely cool uh all right so no chairs report maybe we we still have our regional assessment method done please do that so on the new and continuing business strategic planning update back and forth yeah and this is truly an update to think about how to frame this out let's see I think the update is in the packet yep it is so I just thought I would go over where we are in process and see if there's any questions we have three meetings left as a large strategic planning group of you know roughly 30 people that includes middle school and high school students middle high school faculty middle school and high school parents guardians and community members without parents guardians in the school as well as administrators so it's it's a big diverse group and that's worked incredibly well and there's been two phases of work that has taken significant amounts of our time we've met multiple times this winter for two and a half hours at each stretch we've gotten to know each other in deep ways which has been a kind of process benefit I would say and people wouldn't normally be in the same space talking about the future of our school so one phase of our work has been the administrative came up team came up with problems of practice that they're recognizing for instance one is about middle school and high school transitions what's the transition process from six to seven and eight to nine so the larger group vetted all of those and came up with what are underlying factors that are that might be contributing to those that was one phase of work that completed a couple meetings ago the last few meetings have been primarily focused on the survey results so if you remember that there's a survey that went out and is described here with three core questions and so it was an online survey but there was also members of the planning team literally went out to their communities whatever that was whether it was a student going out to a lunch table community members from different towns going out to their community and gathering feedback and so we had multiple I think in total for all three questions if you had up every response all the questions close to 600 responses for this large group to go through and we used a formal protocol in small groups to analyze responses to these three questions and I'll just say the questions out loud since not everyone's here so question one is projecting to the future 2024 imagine it's five years later what does the school district or school community look like sound like feel like today so it's asking you to pretend that it's literally the future not project it will be like it's it's imagining what that looks like and then describing what what's seen heard and felt the second question was from the vantage point of 2024 look back to the today which is the school year what did it look like in 2018 2019 and that's asking the people who did the survey or in discussion to really take a more critical look at our current school because sometimes if you're only staying where you are it's hard to be reflective in that mindset so it's trying to look at then the third question is from the vantage point of 2024 looking back how did the school community become where it is today so it's really trying to identify who do we want to become who are we now and what process what do we need to do to get from where we are now to this kind of more more fair just and idyllic future and so it was incredibly generative so we went through again 555 responses to these these questions these prompts and through a major coding activity by coding I don't mean like computer science coding what I mean is that coding responses are looking for themes in the data because the respondents range from age 12 to a lot older than 12 I'll put it that way we didn't ask for an age but range from adults to children and from different parts of our four communities so what we're trying to do is what themes could emerge from this work so I'm going to read the I'm not going to read all the descriptors but I think I'm going to read the 11 out loud so the first is physical infrastructure and facilities campuses I do want to just comment that someone I think Mr. Demling made a comment earlier tonight that there's been a lot of attention on some of the elementary schools in some of our communities it was very clear that people had concerns about the facilities at the secondary schools as well I was actually surprised how often it came up just personally surprised how I'm not speaking for the group how often it came up and particularly for students who are aware of some of the shortfalls the second is the whole student just thinking not just about the academic sphere the third is our community and it's really about you know how our community voices affecting our district the fourth is school climate and culture and really thinking about identity being honored throughout that process the fifth was curriculum opportunities and academics and there was a real focus on access to this question that we want our wide range of academic programs and opportunities to be available to all learners the sixth was mental health social emotional needs this came up frequently from all corners all participants just concerns about what that looks like and how do we support the development of adolescence through what can be a very challenging time period seven was this diversity for students, faculty and staff so just something we've talked a lot about this committee how do the student demographics how are they mirrored or matched at the adult level eight simply put was money because again the sort of themes that came up so it's not my terms but just to make sure that we're not in years where funding compromises the academic programs what we offer students or often hits programs against one another nine race and issues of race very clearly we spent a lot of time with this in the last meeting is what would it look like if issues of race were talked about openly and progress was made on that front 10th was seeking action and leadership that it's not just a plan that's developed that looks great on paper but that actually it's a guiding document that people would look in the future and say oh yeah that's when we decided to action not when we decided to write words so there's a big focus of that and the last one is that preparing students for the real world whether that's college or career readiness that there's some relevancy to what students are doing at the secondary level and what they will do after the secondary level so our work now is to take these 11 themes that came out of our work out of the feedback from the larger community take a look at the about 10 or 11 areas that we did that came from the administrators as core issues and really try to get a sense of what are three to five significant areas of focus that we can do then develop strategies and benchmarks along the way so we've sort of done the two core phases of the work which are gathering feedback from the community looking through themes understanding from the academic leaders the building leaders primarily in our district what are some of the issues they see and now we have to take those two data sets and work on them and merging them to be one coherent process one coherent product looking forward that takes into account our educational leaders our community members and really setting a vision for the district so with three meetings left we think we can get pretty close to that place and it may involve some work over the summer to fine tune but I'll say just anecdotally or qualitatively it's been an amazing process like a lot of strategic planning processes it feels a slog like a slog at certain points and that was some of the feedback we got because every session has feedback for all the participants where they ever share this is moving too slowly can we get to a product and then sort of somewhere along the line you forget that you're in a slog because you see that the action of the work occurring and this was one of them when you're going through 555 responses there's no way around it it's not the most enjoyable work to do but when the themes start emerging and you're talking between different groups who are looking at the same data it does feel very exciting and the last thing I'll say perhaps unless there's question I mean until questions having student voice has been incredible you know our consultant Dr. Rousad is doing work in other communities and she had an instance this winter where he was in one community the evening before and an Amherst you know working in the region the next morning and he said something feels so different and I can't figure out what it is he said this at the beginning of the session at the end of the session oh I forgot what it was it's that you know a quarter of the room are students from age 13 to 18 and how that changes the conversation the adults were having just because of the presence and energy that our students are bringing and I think it's a really nice model to think about other areas where we're doing active planning how can students be an active part of the active participants in the process not just because it feels goes that we're gathering their voice but actually it has an influence on all the adults because it reminds me I'll just say from in our for self of why we're doing what we're doing sometimes it can be a room like this and it's mostly adults and you know it but you're reminded of it it's in your face when a quarter of the student people there are young people who are strongly advocating for what they believe in so so when would this committee next engage with this work so our last meeting that scheduled just frankly because some people are graduating and then at the year is May 22nd I believe the date is and so I think at the school committee after that we should have a product at least the first round of product a draft product to share with the committee and then the larger community to gather feedback okay right are there questions from the committee seeing none thank you thank you so much fundraising policy second reading vote I have a question for you this might sound really stupid yes is this the same policy we talked about at our last meeting and we asked the question out loud whether it should go through the policy committee no that was the designer selection this did go through the policies I forgive me for doing it I'm just like I I didn't bother reading our own minutes to refresh my memory yeah so the goal of this item is a second reading and possible vote depending on the feedback from the committee I'm happy to go through the highlights of it or if you've read it just if you have feedback I have feedback so on the last page on item four the sale raffling or any form of distribution of alcoholic beverages for the purposes of fundraising is prohibited do we need to add any other substances to said list now that they are legal in massachusetts I'm presuming doesn't hurt I don't want to be raffling off edibles I would find that disturbing would you mind putting that in that's a friendly amendment no because I I do I mean at one point things do us to say tobacco and alcohol tobacco sort of have fallen out of phase the spirit of the enterprise would be such that we would be just thinking how to cover everything you think putting any substance prohibited on school grounds would sort of sort of I think so I was just looking at our policies to find I know there's a listing of prohibited that's not a bad way of handling it okay because that way it also for example prohibit the raffling off of firearms right yeah covers all those silly I mean seriously yeah I think that's a good idea you just answered my question firearms I was going to mention that it's already at the state level that certain substances are illegal on school grounds so we don't need to repeat that but if you wanted to cover that all as Mr. Knopp-Gena said you could just generically say those things that are already made by them yeah even if school grounds right even if the fundraising happens off of school property absolutely yeah exactly yes absolutely is there is there I mean do we want to come back for a vote on this or are you good looking to if if that's the only change and you're ready to vote that's you can vote if there's other thoughts or if you want to wait until next time that's fine too I'm ready to vote the yeah I think I'm you know the only thing that's interesting is I remember when I was reading through this earlier it just struck me that the question struck me as to whether or not any of these activities are whether we're setting in place a policy for things that might already be occurring or if it'll be something suddenly I'm just thinking you know yeah I mean most of crowdfunding for t-shirts for you know right yeah most of this is microphones working really well tonight um most of this is I not to prohibit any of the activities that are going on but just kind of put some guidelines in place as to how they'll operate you know for example you know the crowdfunding some of that happens already but we're very clear like we're not going to give our bank account information out to a you know website for crowdfunding sources not to me say that you can't do it if we work with you but the district won't do that same thing with the charitable fund raising some of the other thing so you know we try to craft it in a way that it didn't squash anything but does allow us to put some safeguards in place right are you looking for a motion sure I'll move to approve the fund raising policy with the addition of prohibited items on school property in addition to alcoholic beverages or instead of alcoholic beverages is there a second so moved in second by Mr. Manino any thirder discussion seeing none all those in favor of the motion please signify carries seven to zero thank you thank you superintendent goals update there is a as a reminder copy of the goals in here I think you were gonna I don't know refresher of memory as well as also discuss some of the work you're doing in preparation or anticipation of evaluation yeah so I'll keep this very brief one of the things that we've done in Pellum and I want to compliment Ms. Castinson I think it was her idea was just at each meeting try to pick a goal or two to have an update on so it doesn't feel like it all happens at the end of the year the reality is is I I thought there was a good idea put on the agenda and then I looked at the goals and I was like well you've heard a lot about some of those things tonight so I don't think I'm not sure it's worth spending more time on this tonight but I think more as a model or as a process just it might be worth for the subcommittee to think about moving forward how it can be integrated more regularly into the meeting structure I found this year at Pellum open to you know Mr. and you know Ms. Castinson's point of view that it's been helpful to have a small agenda item where just there's more routine and regular updates not a PowerPoint it's not a slide deck but just to update the committee along the way we haven't done that at Regent this year but I think it's worked well at in my experience at the Pellum School Committee so I just wanted to put those goals as at least a prompt to at least have a conversation start a conversation perhaps to be had at the subcommittee level about in the fall to not wait till May and June to be talking about them explicitly sure appreciate that other comments or thoughts from the committee it's interesting to me looking at the goals we we really I think but to some extent with the with the exception of a goal six we've we seem to regularly hit on a number of these topics I mean I appreciate the idea of structuring the meeting so that we have the item on there and that's an interesting suggestion but I'd also say we seem to hit on you would have to be really not paying attention you know at least most of these items being brought up in substance in our meetings okay but any out of anything else from the committee on that for the superintendent evaluation process I guess the question would be you already you just set a meeting time for yourself to meet are there any questions that subcommittee has for the rest of the committee on sort of your marching orders are you clear on it and if you are will it you go on your very way who's the chair of the committee we have to re-pick one do you want to do it the democratic way and vote yourselves or do you want me to pick one it doesn't matter it doesn't matter it doesn't matter you're the chair okay yes I just wanted to make sure it was on your radar so the Amherst members of this committee now roll over and every two years in the fall but we still have the other members of our committee coming up at various times during the spring yes and sometimes it may be that there's a member who's been on for almost all the year and then they come off right before we do the evaluation and so we've been through who you know the it's clear that you have to be on the committee in order to submit the evaluation but in terms of the idea of optimally is it possible to schedule it before those people you know just drop off we have a timeline we have a timeline we have a timeline we've looked at it and thanks to the charter it makes it significantly more challenging but there is a timeline excellent so uh is it is it I think this has to be on the agenda for the next meeting is that all right yes cool it's good because that well when's our next meeting two weeks from two weeks or no April 12 12 I won't be here and that might be my last meeting town meeting is April 27th I'm not running for re-election I move that Ms. Kacensky runs for re-election come on a second come on a second yeah the entire town so um I'm not dealing with that last conversation you made so our meeting isn't it the 9th could be I'll be out of town then I mean if it's if it's in terms of today it's in terms of today wouldn't that have to be like the 9th of the 8th yeah no that makes sense it's the 9th yeah okay sorry about that yeah you're right I'm out the 6th through the 18th too much for responsibility well we're I mean forgive me for saying this we're still gonna have to talk about this next week yep even in your absence and then otherwise we'll just have to like we'll have to do a crowd sourcing thing to create more comfortable chairs so that you want to stay something illegal let's continue on so at the 9th the the superintendent evaluation subcommittee is going to come and so have you are you going to have any work completed at that point are you are you we're going to be talking about the work you're going to be doing at that point what's that well I mean if they hopefully you tell us but hopefully if you've been developing a timeline we'll get that timeline for one thing okay let me see we'll know when we're going to be doing everything this spring and then I think that the superintendent has thoughts on when he's going to be able to deliver the packet of evidence or whatever you call it's review materials that you'll have a sense of when you're going to do that and yeah and the last question it was just going I guess I have some some thoughts on the superintendent evaluation process that I would love to so I don't know if maybe then would be the appropriate time to mention those or or now yeah or now for now like so this is not necessarily something you can address this time but I've talked about this appell into so one of your tasks is to select the so we you know evaluate on these goals and then you also select elements from the rubric right that sort of tie entities and sometimes that's the part that I find difficult because I can't just say yes this was great because XYZ I had I sort of have to use this language that has already been crafted to try to sync my own response with and so I always have trouble with this and I don't know how to I just think be great if over the years if that's something that the evaluation subcommittee could look at ways to address that sometimes I feel like to disconnect and the evaluation process you know or sort of understanding like what it what it physically looks like if it's a if it's a proficient or an exemplary or whatever you know so just throwing that out there as things that I think will be great if that could be considered yeah I think we talked about that at the beginning of this year about in an ideal situation when the superintendent works with the committee to set the goals at the beginning of the year we would have a discussion about what that expected output would look like right so that we have an under we can clearly articulate our expectation to the superintendent and the superintendent can then reach for the appropriate understanding of that of what success looks like and so that should really happen when you set the goal right like here's what I want you to do and if you do this really well this is what it looks like yeah that would be right and sometimes it's not even just that what is the output look like but sort of how do we use the instrument to harness that I guess or thoughts yeah which I think which I think would relate to what are we what are we doing that follows the specific structure that desi provides and then what are their opportunities for qualitative feedback on the goal that aren't don't negate the response to the specific rubric or whatever but but but simply supplement it in a way that that gives you a more fully dimensional exact yeah response I mean I think I think if you're to my mind the conversation we've had a lot about over the last couple of years has been that as imperfect as it is you're judging based on the goals that were set and so I wonder about the question of how we can create an instrument that allows us to be as fully responsive and helpful to the superintendent feedback as possible on the goals that are set and sort of the meaning in other words the bright line being around that versus picking whatever the heck we feel like giving feedback on regardless of whether it was a goal you know what I mean so Mr. Donald yeah I think that's a really good point the other complication that I had on that same theme when I was doing this last year was from the public's perception the discussion of the superintendent evaluation is really just what marks did he get you know and it's it's very high level general thing that I think really depending on how the year is going and how the relationship is between the school committee and the superintendent might be a very visible thing that happens that year and so even though we all understand the very technical wonkiness of of the rubric and the instrument and the I can't even remember the terms of like and the subdivision of terms I mean it's I think it's an over complicated thing that Desi produces so that's good for our internal objectivity but to sort of then extrapolate this this lumbering technical structure into expressing hey you did a great job this year or you were really terrible on this it's it feels too constricting you know and so I I find this tension point between it as it the practical sort of sometimes political instrument that it is and and the actual being faithful to the the technical requirements of it well that's food for thought okay thank you accept gifts I think we actually have a gift we'll take them of all sides we appreciate every gift we get this cast is in needle motion yes I will move to accept a gift from anonymous your cause number five six zero one seven three six seven nine eight to support the Amherst regional middle school at the principal discretion in the amount of ten dollars is there a second second it's been moved and seconded any debate seeing no debate all those in favor signify erasing your hand it's seven to nothing in favor and deeply appreciated and so the item the next thing on school committee planning there's simply that's a dump list of things we're going to get to and talk to it's they're not items we're discussed right now but there are things to let you know obviously we've had I mean it starts off with master facilities use and math follow-up and I'm sure we'll hear more about them the principal hire things like that so there's a known list of things I think what we're gonna there's been some discussion about having it this is gonna sound really convoluted a discussion about having a discussion about early start time and so I think in a near meeting we will have a discussion about a discussion on early start time what that to unpack that what that means is it would be welcome for the superintendent to help the committee think about if for the committee wishes to engage on this topic as a as a in other words this isn't a circle where we just this isn't a book club we read a book and we sit and talk about stuff ideally we talk about things so that we can act upon them or provide feedback for action so there are lots of really important topics we could talk about and they're very they're genuinely valuable they're like really important things to talk about but the question is do we want to talk about something to do something about it and certainly not to belabor it so the bottom line is what we want to do is we want to have an item on a near term I've been requested and I think this has been talked about a bit to get from the superintendent some sort of framing about what it would look like to address the topic and then have an item where the committee can talk about what it thinks one suggestion so this has been discussed before and there were some roadblocks that were discussed and I think it would be really helpful to understand what those roadblocks were to understand if any of them if time has allowed us to work around any of them if we're over or maybe they've dissolved like snow because if there's still really a true roadblock there then I well that's part I think that's part of the context that the superintendent would provide yeah is there any of that so my impression that Blosten has moved to the earlier start time is there any way we can find out the results of their experience more framing from the superintendent to look into yes that MASC is putting on a workshop a two-part workshop on specifically this topic and I actually signed up to go to the second part of it I forget I saw that notice when is that April 12th it's a Saturday after our meeting so we'll put this on the agenda after April 9th which will then allow you to speak to this item that's on the agenda sounds kind of cool feel like we're getting organized I know is there anything else you want to mention about school committee planning not about this item so yeah I won't comment on the item so what I thought I heard from Ms. Kaczynski is this potentially her last regional meeting so I just want to acknowledge I know other her colleagues as well really the last regional meeting really that's what I thought I heard yeah unless you know unless I don't show up to town meeting and they vote me back on and in my absence but I'm really planning on being there on the 27th to prevent that from happening again so I just want to share that just I've really appreciated the work and just talking about superintendent evaluation process not just a process piece but the feedback piece that I've received from you over the last few years it's been incredibly valuable and the number of phone calls while watching children and subsequent other meetings around the regional assessment methodology not just this year but in past years I'm taking out some highlights but I just I think they're worth noting the highlights because they've had a huge impact on our district so I just thank you for your service and wish you the best on your Tuesday nights to come yeah yeah and Monday what Tuesday nights Monday nights I think you made absolutely exceptional contributions as the committee that are that hopefully are well known to the people of Leverett and hopefully well known to the people of Amherst and Howam and Schuetzburg it's actually been very pleasurable and I you know it's really just a time commitment thing with with work and children at home it's challenging so we're going to maybe I'll be back someday maybe next month okay well that's that's a sad the end but we have to is there is there a move to adjourn I'll move to adjourn is there a second second Kaczynski moved to adjourn at her last meeting as McDonald seconded all those in favor it carries unanimously we are adjourned