 Good evening to all. I'm going to get started with our script as people come in. It is March 25, 2021. This open meeting of the Arlington School Committee is being conducted remotely consistent with Governor Baker's executive order of March 12, 2020 due to the current state of emergency and the Commonwealth due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus. In order to mitigate transmission of the virus, we have been advised and directed to suspend public gatherings. And as such, the governor's orders suspend the requirement of the open meeting law to have all meetings in a publicly accessible physical location. Further, all members of public bodies are allowed and encouraged to participate remotely. The order which you can find posted with agenda materials for this meeting allows public bodies to meet entirely remotely, so long as reasonable public access is afforded so the public can follow along with deliberation of the meeting. Ensuring public access does not ensure public participation unless such participation is required by law. This meeting will feature public comment. For this meeting, the Arlington School Committee is convening by Zoom as posted on the town's website identifying how the public may join. Please note the meeting is being recorded. Some attendees are participating by a video conference. Please be aware that others may be able to see you. Take care not to screen share your computer. Anything you broadcast may be captured by the recording. All of the materials for this meeting except any executive session materials are available in the Novus Agenda dashboard. We recommend members of the public follow the agenda as posted in Novus unless I note otherwise I will introduce each speaker for any response. Please wait until the floor is yielded to you. Every vote taken in this meeting will be conducted by a roll call vote. I think that we have a lot of, got a lot of people here with us already, which is great. I'm going to go ahead and check the people who I know are always here and then we'll go from there. So Ms. Exton here, Mr. Cardin, Dr. Allison Ampey. Dr. Allison Ampey is not going to be here this evening. Mr. Thielman waiting for him. Mr. Schlickman. Good evening. Mr. Heiner. Okay, Dr. Bodie. I'm here. Dr. McNeil. Here. Ms. Mason. Here. Elmer. Here. Mr. Spiegel. Here. The keys. Hello. I see Mr. Thielman. Okay. So we're going to go ahead and get started. As always, our agendas are long and we have lots of things to do. So the first item on the agenda is public comment this evening, but nobody signed up in advance for public comment. So we will go ahead and move to the next item on the agenda, which is the safe routes to school report. This is something that was brought to us by Mr. Schlickman after attending a transportation advisory committee meeting. And so we are excited to welcome Ms. Crocker here this evening to talk to us about safe routes to school. So Ms. Crocker, can you hear me okay? Oh, perfectly. Thank you. Good evening. Thank you. Welcome. We're glad that you're here. So you can go ahead and you can go ahead and get started. Okay. Good evening everyone. Thank you for this opportunity. I'm just going to share my screen. So please bear with me. Share. All right. Can everyone see my screen? It looks great. Thank you. Okay. Terrific. All right. We're in business. Good evening. Thank you for this opportunity. My name is Judy Crocker. I am the Massachusetts Department of Transportation Safe Route to School Outreach Coordinator that serves Arlington. So tonight we're just going to give an overview of the program and maybe some next steps about what we'd like to see the program do in Arlington. So Mass.Safe Route to School Program is a free, federally funded public K-8 program. And we work to increase safety for walking and biking by using a collaborative community centered approach that bridges the gap between health and transportation. The program originated in Denmark. It's in about 45 countries. It's in all 50 states. The parent company or organization, as it says, Department of Transportation, thus we are Mass.DOT here in Massachusetts. Mass.DOT participates in about 65% of Massachusetts communities. At the end of the day, it's all about safety. Everyone here, we just want the kiddos to be safe. So no matter what transportation mode the students use, we just want safety at the bottom line. So Safe Route is not a one size fits all program. Every school has its own challenges and successes. And we have a very large toolbox. And what we try to do is customize what your needs are and how we can best benefit your students based on our programming. And these are some of the ways that people use our program. So Safe Route has a public health foundation based on what is commonly known as the six E's, which I listed here. I'm going to review these very briefly tonight. Oftentimes though, it is kind of the chicken and the egg. I think so many times all of us have heard parents say, I don't want my child walking to school because it's too much traffic and the car goes fast and yeah, yeah, yeah. And then what do they do? They get in the car and they're part of the traffic. So we try to break those cycles of behavior. We are also not a stay in your lane program. So as much as we work with schools, we equally work with municipalities and the community at large. So let's dig right in. So when we talk about evaluation, we have various ways of making different block shed and bike shed maps here in the office. And we use those maps to actually develop what we call a route map. The safest, what we think between where the students live and how to get to school, we actually make out routes. We use those route maps for a couple of different purposes. One of them is called park and walk locations. We are trying to lessen parent traffic in and around a school campus. So we suggest different satellite areas around the community, the neighborhoods around that school. And we're all counting our steps these days. So it's just one way of parents to park, maybe collectively, and then walk the kiddos to school. The other way we use these route maps is we create what we call walking school buses or bike trains. So many of us growing up, we walked to school, picked up a friend, went to another house, picked up another friend. Today, they give everything a name. It's called the walking school bus. The same for bikes would be a bike train. So what we can do on these route maps is that we can actually identify different meeting spots with approximate times. We actually have a stencil kit that's available. You can mark it on the sidewalk or side of the road. And that just helps kind of the group mentality. It's always more fun with a friend. And then, particularly this year with given current events, we have many different ways to celebrate how the students are getting to school, whether they are at home or they are in-person learning this year. Basically, there's so much screen time, we're trying to get everyone to move. So we do applaud Arlington on your school website. You do have your maps of each of the individual schools. They usually list major intersections, the sidewalks, crosswalks, that type of thing. So they're not so much route maps, it's just neighborhood maps. Engineering. So we do some engineering in the office. And full disclosure, principals didn't go to school and get all their degrees to be a traffic engineer. And quite honestly, we do what we call soft engineering in our office, which is working on best practices. And what we typically do, two different avenues, we do arrival dismissal observations. So that would be, for example, in the upper left corner. We're looking at the school property itself and how it's managed. How do you use your front door? Do you separate modes of traffic? What type of sign is your use? Things like that. Then, from there, we can, you know, school day is really home to school. So you have to walk through the neighborhood. And that's the lower left picture. So with the red circles where the school is, you have to transfer some neighborhood in order to get there. That's what we call a walk audit. So we're looking at the infrastructure, you know, the sideways sidewalks covered with the visitation, what are the crosswalks look like, conditions in general. And this is, you know, so we deal with the school properties, much as municipal property. Another avenue that we've done, and this is something that we've been doing this year at the Dalen and the Thompson schools, is that we can actually do some arrival dismissal planning or circulation planning. You know, if you speak to principals, so many people say that, you know, I wish people would just follow the rules. So sometimes when you ask, so what are your rules? They tend to be car centric. That's why we try to call this arrival dismissal and not drop off and pick up. And also where do you find it? Are they on your website? Are they in your handbook? Are they just in principal newsletters, etc. So that's usually we do that for planning a two page document, and that's in the lower right. For an example, we try to include a map on one side, which just separates the modes of transportation, tells people where they should go. And this is an example of the text, which would be the reverse side. So this is translatable. Again, we tried to include all forms of transportation. Some folks like to put their bell schedule on there just to really, you know, drive that home for the parents. Next, we have education. We focus on pedestrian and bicycle safety. For pedestrian safety, it is skills based. So it is desi approved. We focus on grades two, three. However, we can elevate the program to grades K through eight. For example, with the Merrimack gas explosions, we were doing everybody. So we also offer professional development for both of these curriculums. And particularly for the bike safety, we often will ask parents to help us. So we have each have a smaller group. We can do peer to peer learning. For example, in neighboring Winchester, the middle school student council helps out with the neighboring elementary school, etc. So this is a 30 minute outdoor lesson on school property. Then we have bike safety. So bike safety, we do not have a bike for every child. So it is not skills based. So desi does call this enrichment. This is usually assembly style. It's 30 to 45 minutes. We deal with personal safety, bike safety and rules of the road. It tends to be two for the older grades, usually grades four, five, and then middle school. And again, depending on the age is depending exactly what we might have included. For this, we do have videos online. We have written curriculum materials as we do for pedestrian safety. And we also have virtual learning options. I have one colleague she's done many times. It looks like a Brady bunch of everyone trying on the helmet. And we do helmet fits online. So again, just trying to get everyone moving and be flexible in our programming. Another big aspect of our education is for the parents. We do try to educate parents that you're not in traffic, they are the traffic. So in many neighborhoods, we see the, you know, the green men or signage, you know, please slow down, you know, my child lives here. And how often do we have students that are getting off in the roadways? We have parents parking on both sides of the road in both direction, using the middle of the road to load and unload, parking and fire lanes. So these are all pictures actually that I took doing my observations at the Dailin and Thompson schools this year. So for the parents, we have two different fliers. One discusses school zone driving and the other is arrival dismissal. These are both available in 10 languages. So we'll come to encouragement. Encouragement is the fun part. That's what we celebrate how we get to school. Most Ellington schools do participate in two out of our three flagship events. We have one in October for International Walk Day. Upcoming in May is Massachusetts Walk to School Day and in February, we have a winter walk. We have a whole library of no-cost, low-cost themes to try to make this even more fun. Pictured here is Crazy Sock Day. It doesn't get more basic than that. We do have a lot of forms of communication to try to encourage, you know, behavior change does take baby steps to get there. So if principals need help with language, we can help with that for newsletters and such. And we do recommend forming some type of task force, just so Seafoods has some place to live. It could be a PTO subcommittee. It could be town-wide, school-wide, you know, in some communities it's the Y, some communities it's the police station, et cetera. In March, we actually have a lot going on for the public and we just closed our crossing guard appreciation nominations, but we have extended our long-time contest. I think a lot of people have things going on with the new DESI directive, so we pushed this up to just before April vacation. And the theme this year is be seen. And engagement. Engagement formally known as enforcement. Again, we have a lot of training for crossing guards. Officer Rattu is on this. He's very well-versed on this material. We do a lot of communication. Pictured here is actually a bike assembly. It's from a neighboring community where the police and the school nurse called me in. They were having issues and a couple intersections with the kiddos. And so I invited the police to come in and speak for a few minutes. I mean, it's their backyard type thing. So what's the barrier? So equity is the last E. And in most culture, this is our overarching umbrella that transfers all our E's. We have actually been fortunate enough to partner with the MASC and we've created wellness policies, wellness amendments, I should say, for that policy. Every school has a wellness policy so we on our website, we have some examples to use to add active transportation to your policies. We offer things in multiple languages and we do include students of all abilities. But the the icons that I have here, the diagram is actually, you know, any most communities have multiple elementary schools and then to middle to high school. So it's nice if you have uniform communication and expectations across the way, whether it be for circulation plans or even safe for pedestrian safety instruction. It's one thing if one or two schools volunteer and they raise their hands to do it, but it's just nice to have the curriculum embedded so that it's offered for every student. We do have a COVID document that we came out with last summer, and this has been extremely popular. Again, trying to, you know, there's so much going on, we fully understand one more thing, but the kiddos still have to get to school. So trying just to streamline the process a little bit for many communities. So here we are with Arlington. So Arlington was one of the first three pilot programs for safety school program in the U.S. to the federal DOT program. Again, most schools participate in our fall and spring walk-in school event. You guys have great use of your crossing guards and really good infrastructure. Please treat us with a little bit of a touch policy. And the lower right picture that is from the ribbon cutting from the Dailin infrastructure grant that was received, and I think that's even Jay Coffman in the picture on the left. And I think they've already started on the grant that you guys received for the Stratton School in 2019. So these are almost under $2 million, but, you know, considerable grants collectively. And again, we've done arrival dismissal reports and circulation planning for the Dailin and the Thompson School this calendar year, or the school year. So my appreciation to Dr. Brody who has helped me work with the planning department. I've worked with Daniel Amstutz and he has, he reached out to Saferoots because they were trying to, for a sustainability program, trying to work on a like a ped bike master plan. They were interested in how many students actually walked and biked to school. So with Dr. Brody's permission, we did our parent travel survey for all schools. And this is what you have listed here. Unfortunately, we started this the second week of March a year ago. And so we did extend the survey period into April. But I think overall we had less participation than we would have from Arlington on a regular day. So I do want to give a shout out to the Hardy School because they still pulled off, you know, more than 25%. So as you can see from this, an average was about 52% of Arlington students do walk and bike to school. But we still, and more students tend to walk in the morning and more people tend to use the cars and the for afternoon pickup, probably all those after school activities. So looking at the rival dismissal reports that I just did, the Dailin I did in I want to say November, October, November, so it was really nice weather. And the Thompson was December, January. So let's just say it was chilly and then snowy. We hadn't averaged every day am and pm of 600 to 131 cars. So it's still disconcerting because you have one third of your school population in school approximately. And you still have that many cars. So what going on. So what we suggest for next steps. So we would love to work with Arlington to make your program more sustainable. We actually have sustainability document, which I can forward to you after this meeting. And on this, we're like to focus on the schools itself, break it out to the district, break it out to the municipality, and then any statewide help that we can get. The first one you'd like to do is form a safe routes task force. Again, a year ago, January, I tried this, and we had a few people from the municipal side, a few people from some schools. But it wasn't the robust Arlington drive that I was really hoping for. And then current events. So hoping to jump start this again, trying to did not put my foot on the gas on this one, the share given everything else going on. But for example, because I've been working at the day and when the Thompson, both of the principles are very excited to get this going. We do recommend professional development for our pedestrian and bike curriculum. It is being performed at some schools, and then even speaking to some principles, you know, oh, I think we used to do that type of thing. So just to make this a regular event. It's almost like civics. It's bringing back that every day education. We also looking to the school committee suggests that you adopt the wellness policy amendments. Again, just to put active transportation into your what you do. And even, you know, and then looking forward, I think we all want to give a jump start to what next fall is going to look like. And we have time working with the principles and the PTOs to really try to get people I think everyone's coming at the fall with eyes wide open. So it's a great opportunity to really start a back to school campaign of walking and biking. So in closing, I always like to bring it back to the kiddos. We just try to again, when everyone to be safe, when everyone to be happy, but we'd love to get everyone out walking and biking. So any questions? I spoke fast because I was told I only have 15 minutes. Good. Very well. Thank you so much. So questions or comments from the committee? Mr. Sikman. Thank you, Madam Chair. First, I want to point out that down was one of the very, very first safe routes to school projects that the state did. We piloted this thing. And I think it's what it's got to be like 15 years later, we're coming back to the same place. And the reason why I was interested in bringing some discussion to this back is that Ms. Crocker was appearing before the before the TAC, the Transportation Advisory Committee talking about traffic pattern and routing. And I thought it was important that we know what is happening out there as well and that we can support safe travel to school through this program. So thank you for coming by and please keep us in touch as suggestions to put on the table for changing traffic patterns around our schools. Because I know that if that happens, parents are going to be talking to us about it. Thanks. Thank you for attending so that I can attend this. So anybody else? Mr. Heiner. I just want to say that I think educating children in the safety of transportation will increase their awareness so as they become adults, it will become a lot easier to make sure cars are appropriately coming to school and not stopping in the middle and causing potential hazards. So thank you again for all the work you've done and hopefully we'll be able to continue it here in town. Thank you. Anybody else? Dr. Bodie. Thank you, Ms. Crocker. You had some great suggestions here. We'll follow up. And I know that this is one of the things that is very attractive for Arlington as a community, that it is a district where students pretty much walk to school. And I can tell you then the new high school we're actually putting in more bike racks to encourage that. I will add to that comment though that I hope that drivers in Arlington are careful. I just was driving today and I saw something that was not safe if a child had been on a bike. So I think that's something that we all need to be conscious of that as we encourage more biking that puts more responsibility on the adults. We did have a safe bike curriculum and let me look into that. I think that certainly what happened last March and this year has sort of put that to the side, but I think it's something we need to bring back next year. So thank you very much and thank you for your partnership with us. Thank you. And if I could be so bold, congratulations on your new chapters ahead of you. I understand. So thank you. Great. So if you could send us the materials that you talked about, especially any language around the wellness policy amendments, and we can get that to the right place, that would be great. So thank you so much. Thank you and all thank you so much for the opportunity and happy spring. Thank you. So the next item on the agenda is listed as an update from the AEA. And I think I will leave it at that as I turn it over to Ms. Keys. Thank you. This is a super happy update. So I'm really happy to share this with all of you. Many of you know Susan Suarez. She has been a paraprofessional teaching assistant at the Stratton School for over a decade now. And she was one of the leaders informing the paraprofessionals union here in Arlington a few years ago when Jason Levy was the AEA president. And in recognition for the work that she has done at the school and in organizing and elevating the role of our paraprofessionals here in town, she has been recognized as MTA's education support professional of the year. She's the one in the state and who's getting this honor. So we are so proud of Susan. We are all better for the work that she did here. Our paraprofessionals are pulled from their roles much less often to be covering. So they're able to serve students in the roles that they've been hired to do. She has worked to get we have consistent job descriptions. We got a pay raise for our parents. So we're able to attract more people and keep more people. It's still not where we all want it to be, but we're going to keep working on that as time goes on. And really, like this year, we've seen how important these paraprofessionals are to our schools and to keeping them going. And we have some great talent here because of Susan's work. So I just wanted to make sure the whole community knows that Susan has been honored by the MTA and given this award. We went to Stratton school and took some pictures this morning. So the news story is going out there. She's going to be working with other communities around the state to help them elevate the role of their powers just like we've done here in Arlington. And I just wanted you to introduce you all to her and let you let her say hello. She says she's much more comfortable working behind the scenes. So I'm not going to call on her to like make a speech. But I wanted to make sure that the school committee and our administration and everybody got to recognize Susan for her great achievement. Thank you so much. Thank you. Congratulations to Ms. Torres. Dr. Bode, did you want to add anything? I would. I thank you for that introduction. And I want my heartfelt congratulations. I can't think of a somebody who supports education who deserve this honor more. So Susan, thank you so much. And all of the students who have benefited from your support, I know if they were here tonight, they would be also cheering you on. You certainly have given so much to Arlington. And truly without your leadership, we would not be where we are today with our contract for our paraprofessionals, which they have so richly deserved over the years. So thank you so much. And I hope there's another decade that you'll be with us. Thank you, Dr. Bode. Thank you very much. It's my pleasure. Great. Thank you, Dr. Bode. Anybody else on this one? I can certainly speak on behalf of the school committee that we are so honored to have you here with us this evening to share in a small part of this award with you. And I'm so glad that you're being so richly celebrated across all areas of your professional life. I'm sure that your family must be so proud of you. And I know that your Stratton family and your Arlington family are as well. So on behalf of the school committee, we are so glad that you came tonight. We're grateful that Ms. Keys brought this here to us. And we wish you many, many congratulations and look forward to what's to come for you. So congratulations. Thank you so much. All right. So the next item on the agenda is an update on the travel policy and quarantine protocols from Dr. Bode. Thank you, Ms. Morgan. Well, the travel protocols have been disseminated to everyone. So I don't know if you really want me to go through each part of that. But I will tell everyone that what motivated this change was multi-pronged. One, we are certainly, as you know, we're going to talk more about this this evening. Our students are coming back full-time in person. And when we look at what had been our policy prior to this, that one of the outcomes when students came back from travel and they had to remain at home for the 10 days. And later it was five days, tests, and be back on day eight. But even with that, the number of days that you'd be out of school were considerably less than they would be when we returned full-time. That's one of the issues. But also other issues is that the governor changed the regulations on travel. It changed from a order to a advisory. But even before that happened, which was a surprise to us on Friday, we had already begun looking at the policy primarily for the reason that I just gave, is that what the impact would be. And we also know from our surveillance pool testing program that the incidence of positive cases in our schools was very low. So that contributed also to a change in the policy. And in general, our number of cases, whether identified from an outside testing company, was also very low. So the conditions in which we could relax some of these restrictions just make sense. And I will give a lot of credit to our nurses who were certainly unanimously behind having some kind of less restrictive policy. Now, one of the things actually we talked about yesterday in the policy subcommittee meeting was whether pool testing would be something that we would really strongly encourage our families to travel out of Massachusetts to consent to be part of. And I think that that is something that we certainly can't add to this protocol that we have. And it certainly is something that we encourage our families. I know our principals are encouraging families to participate. And this is something that we will have been doing as a district as well. Right now, our participation rate is 87% on average from K to the eighth grade. Our high school right now is in the process of developing a protocol. And as you are aware, our athletes have a mandatory testing requirement, which is something that we can put in place for our students. So I'm happy to answer any questions about this. I know another part of this agenda item is talking about quarantine protocols, but maybe before we get into that part of this agenda topic, we can talk a little bit more, see if the same questions or concerns about the travel protocol. Great. That sounds good. I put this on the agenda. Lots can change in two weeks. So when we were here two weeks ago, we were in a different place. And there were some questions from the committee about where we were at at that point. And then policy met on Monday. And the governor changed his mind the Friday before. And so, anyway, here we are. And it's just different than it was two weeks ago. But I don't like pulling things off the agenda that I say that we're going to talk about. So here we are. So questions from the committee around. So Dr. Bodie, it also just to specify, you sort of got into the pool testing piece here. So I know that that's something that I have a couple of questions about. So I think let's talk about travel and then let's talk about student pool testing and then quarantine protocols, if that's all right with you. So questions from the committee about the travel policy as it is now. Mr. Schlickman. Yeah, thank you. I want to thank the superintendent for bringing up the pool testing with regard to the travel. Because if we are going to be successfully opening our schools and keeping everybody safe, the pool testing program is an essential part of it. So I asked that it be included in the travel documents. And I once again reiterate that people who are traveling out of state should also be participating in the pool testing program. And that we should have that in bold letters on this document. And basically anything else we're sending out to people with regards to having students attending school once we go to a full reopening. All right. Anybody else? So I did when so talking about pool testing because it came up here, I did put in the in novice a couple of policies one from Watertown and one for Somerville. Not necessarily advocating that this is the way to go from in Arlington. But I thought it was important for the committee to see that there are we do have some neighboring districts who are moving towards a mandatory pool testing program for students. I think you know they're we currently are in an opt in situation. There could also be an opt out situation. But I would you know at some point not necessarily tonight because we're not prepared for it but would like to have a conversation about what that what student testing looks like in Arlington moving forward. There's no reason to believe that we're going to see a vaccine for kids 11 and under this calendar year. So this is not just a this school year thing. This is going to be a next school year thing as well especially and particularly in our elementary schools. So I think a lot of what we do now will be how we carry on and I am I you know I like 87% I think that that's really good. I like 95% or 98% participation better and I also recognize that the 87% is not consistent across all schools right. So if we average 87 there are some that are are you know quite a bit but lower than that and then there are some that are higher than that right. That's how averages work. So I want to make sure that as we move towards April 5th for our elementary schools and then after April vacation for our 6th through 8th graders that we're really thinking about what and how we want to talk about pool testing how we want to prioritize it in communication from principals and how we can drive that participation rate up because it just seems to me to be such a critical piece of how we keep this as safe as possible you know as we finish out this school year and as we think about next year. So I wanted to bring that up. I'm not sure if it's something that we the committee wants to have a conversation about here in two weeks time if we want to talk about it in a subcommittee. So I did want to bring it up and see what people had to say about that this evening. Mr. Heiner and then Ms. Exton. I think it's important for this conversation began to happen but I also think there's a lot of information that we don't have at this point with regard to mandatory testing of students and potentially staff and things of that nature. So in the interim I think we need to find this information out. I'm talking about the idea of mandating testing and then the question comes up if a child shows positive responsibility of the school as far as providing education while the child is quarantined or being dealt with with regard to that. These are questions that need answering. Ms. Exton and then Mr. Schlickman. I would just echo Ms. Morgan's comments around looking into it further. I've also I'm not seeing it here I know with tonight but I've seen the Somerville and the Watertown policies. I would add Martha's Vineyard also has a mandatory testing policy and I think as we're bringing more and more students back we need to continue to have that conversation to make sure that we're keeping all of our students safe and our teachers. Not every single teacher can be vaccinated and so we need to continue to be vigilant for the adults in the building as well. Thanks. Mr. Schlickman. Yeah thank you. We talked about whether this should be an advisor or you're mandated. The question is do we have the authority to mandate participation in the pool testing program and if we are I would strongly support making it a mandate. So I think that if the chair who has the access to our attorney can inquire as to whether that's permissible to mandate participation in pool testing I think that would make it make our decision a lot easier going forward. Dr. Bodie and then Mr. Schlickman. I refer to Mr. Schlickman if you'd like to speak first. Okay so you know my question is I thought we've been getting reports that participation in pool testing has been pretty good. I mean are we concerned that we're not going to have people participate in pool testing and that's why we have to go to something that's mandatory? I'm not concerned but I think that if I could I would say our participation increases all the time so I think that's very good. There are two parts of this question whether you can legally mandate pool testing. There is the mandate in the pool testing itself which that is an issue in which I actually planning to talk to Tom Consul about but the second part is this. When we have a positive vial our next step in our protocol is that we have students and staff, anybody that was represented in that positive vial have a by next now test which is a diagnostic test and if in the case which has only happened really twice where the by next now was not diagnostic then we've gone to a PCR which is definitely another diagnostic test and we've been able to determine the positivity. I'm not sure but this is something we can look into whether the diagnostic test is something that a school can be demanding so I mean these are questions that I'm happy to research and will but if we can't follow through on our protocol then it's going to be difficult to actually identify when we potentially would have a positive case. So right now fortunately our incidence is very low and I echo what the section said. We want to make sure that we have the safest working and learning environment that we possibly can and while many may or teachers will be vaccinated by time we open full time on April 5th not everyone will be so we will certainly going to maintain all of the safety protocols we currently have in place but I do think there's some legal questions around this that need to be explored a little bit more before we can talk about this further about mandating. Great just so one thing in the interim Dr. Bodie I think it would go a long way if you could really work with your your principal teams I know that the signups and this has been largely delegated to the principals as is appropriate at each school but you know really work with them over the next week or so to really let's really push this let's you know get it out even you know let's really over communicate about this really big press to do this and see because you know I um you know having having looked at the participation you know and to answer Mr. Thielman's question a little bit you know it it it varies by school a little bit right so I mean if if there's you know where we see very very high participation 98% right it's like no there's there's there are no concerns right but if we're in the 70s or 80s you know I personally you know it it it would be nice to drive those numbers up and if we can do it in an opt-in you know encourage people to participate make it really easy to sign up if I you know we have no staffing capability to handle this at all but if we have anybody you know anybody who can can work on this and and try and drive those numbers up I you know the the librarians at my kids' school are extraordinary at sending me notifications about my kids' late library books but if we can we got it you know just really push that testing just over the next week or so when people are really paying attention I think we could get to a place where we're testing so many kids that we don't need to explore other options but I hope that that's something that you can work on with your team Dr. Bodie just over the next week or so and and see where we're at as we explore what our other choices are so I saw Ms. Exton's hand so Ms. Exton go ahead just in addition to a response to Mr. Thielman the other piece that I think about in increasing the participation rate is that we're about to double the density of all the classrooms and reduce the distance between students and I think it's going to be really really important to really carefully surveil has this affected the transmission of the virus or our schools you know still all the other mitigation that tools that are in effect you know the masking the ventilation going outside as much as possible are those things enough and I just the more that we participate the more people who participate in the testing the better information we have about what's happening inside the schools as we bring all of the students back fully in person. Mr. Thielman and then I just want to say I agree that the more people we test the better I'm not trying to say we not test that saying I'm concerned about I'd be curious to hear what town council says about a mandate and anytime you go down the path of a mandate you do invite some opposition so I I think the way we're doing it now we're we're we're trying to we're persuading people and we're advocating for and we're telling people it's in everyone's best interest and it's the everyone's benefit seems like the right way to go but so I that's the only point I want to make is that a mandate is a tricky thing but I'm interested in hearing what an attorney says. Dr. Bodie just one last comment for parents who may be listening this evening I know there was some concern perhaps of taking away from time and learning but I have to say this has become we've become so efficient at this an elementary classroom it takes five minutes yes we're going to double the numbers but the the nurses and principals said they don't expect of this to really change very much because the children self administer the swabs and we have our middle school principals and assistant principals here tonight and I know that they can talk about how efficient it is in the middle schools as well so we're finding that you know there is no there's minimal minimal impact on learning time with our program great so I think what I'll plan to do is have this on the agenda in two weeks time you can let your team know that you know this is something that we're you know that we're looking at and we're you know really want to see encouragement of people to sign up over the next week or so so we can you know get to a place where we're seeing you know higher let's just say higher than 80 I mean 87 percent is great but sort of an average participation rate above 87 percent and see if we can drive that up but you know also concurrently explore what options we have you know if if there comes a time where we don't feel that that's sufficient and just you know I think it's important to understand what our what our options are so um all right any uh so Dr. Boody do you want to talk about quarantine protocols as well sort of secondarily um nothing really is changing uh as we move into a full-time in-person instruction than what has been in place all year um when we have a positive case in a classroom as you all know um some of you've experienced this that that cold that is considered cohort the classroom and they will be um learning from home for 10 days some of you've also experienced learning communities where that becomes a positive case impacts the learning community none of that is going to change in terms of how we are going to operate with respect to um a positive case I think that my guess is one of the things you're wondering about is you know how this is going to work with lunches as we go forward and the middle schools have been very successful in how they have organized lunches to make sure that we are very careful about having cohorts um learning communities having lunch together and in the planning for the elementary schools again the same idea that we're going to have a cohorting of classrooms as as uh as much as possible even if we have to have two grades in the in the cafeteria rainy day there's there's going to be full awareness that we're not trying to have for example students from a couple of different fifth grade classes eating a different you know mixed together in the cafeteria because um because of that having said that that having talked with the our director of health department and that the when students are in a cafeteria environment for the short amount of time that they are spaced six feet apart that the impact for identifying a much larger cohort really is not there so while we're also trying to manage this there's also not the concern that in the time period that they would be there having lunch six feet apart that we would identify um any other students other than the existing cohorts classrooms that they're in so I do want to reassure people that just because we're coming back full time in person does not mean we're changing how we are um addressing positive cases great any questions for Dr. Bodie on the quarantine protocols okay um so return to school full return to school planning Dr. Bodie and then we there was a motion for this that was sent out earlier as well so we want to make sure that we take care of that but let's let's get the update first well I will talk about elementary and the high school later but we have our our principal manager and principal here maxbalt here today as well as our system principals who will get introduced when they speak so I'm really I'm going to have them talk more about some of the issues in their schools and some of the work they're doing and for in planning as you know from the last school committee meeting both gibbs and us and presented their working plans some of the issues that they have to address and they're different now from both schools and that that work has been going on and will continue um as you know from the state middle schools must return in person full time by April 28th a decision has been made on that we are in the amazon is that both middle schools will actually start full time on Tuesday April 27th and we're asking the school committee tonight to approve a planning day from Monday April 26th so these these both of these are after April vacation and the reason why we're recommending starting on Tuesday is that the fourth quarter begins on Monday now that's different for the middle schools and the high school but we can talk more about that um one actually a little bit today but more the next school committee me so i'm i'm here tonight um as they said principal marringer and principal p.r maxwell and mr marringer is going to start uh presenting um where they are and some of their in their working plans for opening great thanks everyone um also with me is mr rubino who is the seventh grade assistant principal and miss mcqueen who is the eighth grade assistant principal so rachel and julia if i miss any talking points help me out here tonight um i just wanted to give you an update um so we were here last week and we kind of ruled out some of the challenges that we were going to have at the oddison middle school i think we've made some progress this week so i did meet with the director of facilities great walters and furglough brian this um this week we went through some of the unused rooms just to make sure that the ventilation is good they're getting a report back to me they went through the building with some text just making sure that the ventilation system is uh up to par so i will be getting some information we will be having 17 teachers who have been teaching remotely this year back in the building the day after april break so we do have a good amount of teachers coming back to the building we did finish the survey to find out how many students wanted to come back from the full remote academy back to in-person learning we had 33 families reach out so we have 33 students coming back we had two students that chose to be all remote so we're having 31 students kind of as a net gain coming back to in-person learning from a logistical standpoint this is good news for us because we're able to accommodate all 31 students in our present learning community structure so the three learning teams that we will have right now that have been remote right along they will stay remote the schedules for those children will not change so they're relatively not impacted by 31 of their classmates coming in for in-person learning for the five days i have met with members of the it department and they're going over just how to load some new classes we're going to have to make sure that we have a new schedule because as i said last time we're moving from six periods to our more traditional seven periods which is what the remote academy has been on right along so our next step for scheduling wise is now that we know how many learning communities we're having how many kids that we're going to have in the building is to make sure that we're moving kids around so that they get all the classes that they need we we are very fortunate um i know we've talked about lunch before we are pretty fortunate at the autism to have two large gyms so we will be able to have lunch inside when needed we also have some space out there so we were fortunate this week to be Monday Tuesday and Thursday we had lunches outside we will be eating outside pretty much any time it's 50 degrees or above we're outside and that's kind of our our make or break point and so hopefully we're out there consistent lunch is going to switch from 40 minutes to about 23 minutes in the schedule kids will notice that right away but it's also kind of less time for the kids to be in all together eating lunch which i think is safer we are looking at various things i know kevin Cummings who is our lead PE teacher has gotten touched with the town we're going to use some town fields for PE so we can also have classrooms out a little bit more often at the odyssey so one of the things that dr. Bodie did say is getting that Monday when we come back from April vacation as a professional day and there's i'm a big proponent on it for many reasons so first of all one of the things the custodians are going to be really doing during April break is they're going to be moving a lot of desks we have 12 desks in most all of our rooms we're going to need to have anywhere between 20 and 24 we do have community ed that's in the building at that time so the custodians are going to have to kind of work around them but also make sure that all the rooms are set up and ready to go we definitely want to give time for those 17 teachers who are coming back in the building to be able to set up their rooms it is a new start it's the first day of the fourth quarter so all specials classes has changed which means in itself all schedules have changed we have 30 students who are new to the building we'd like to offer them some time to get in on that monday i believe we have 16 students who are in seventh grade who have never been in a day for the oddison we would like them to be able to come in and hopefully decrease their anxiety of coming in from a purely teachers perspective they're going to have to recreate all their google classrooms they're also going to have to make sure that all of their grades transfer because grades are due right before april vacation and when you switch classes a lot of times you have to make sure that in your system you've also transferred those kids so there's some tech work that needs to be done as well i guess i'm looking at this as like a reopening and at the beginning of the year you have two days in which teachers are back in the building preparing and i think we might need some of that as well i want to make sure all the schedules are all set we've copied off the schedules it's not uncharacteristic that you have kids the first day of school usually right after labor day who have a glitch in their schedule or might need some help finding somewhere we don't want that to happen like we want this to be as professional and as as just locked up as possible for the safety of our staff and our students and that's why i think that one day after april break teachers in the rooms setting up meeting planning changing their google classrooms making sure that everything is all set administratively it allows us to have some time and have kids in the building so that is that is why i'm hoping that we'll be able to have that monday and then it means that we don't have a monday tuesday cohort a cohort b starting wednesday i'm thinking that we just have have that day and then tuesday we're we're in the go any questions questions from mr mariner mr heiner first off i'd like to say thank you for all your work and your team's work i don't envy you it's really easy to say do something and then walk away and have every you folks have to do it you've done a great job a couple quick questions you mentioned the idea of using the gym uh the gyms for lunch is that going to mess up the pe schedule if you have a if you have a rainy day or something like that no we're because we're fortunate that we have both the wood gym and the blue gym and the cafeteria we're not going to have to use the blue gym to have students eat we currently do right now but we will be able to reconfigure lunch so right now we have a seventh grade and an eighth grade lunch we're actually going to have three lunches now and because we can divide the blue the wood gym there's a huge divider in there we can make two rooms with the cafeteria so if it is raining all three teachers will be able to use the blue gym and as luck would have it for the pe teachers it can be divided into three different rooms with wood dividers so we've actually gotten i mean i know a lot of schools lunches is challenging one of the real benefits about the odyssey is having two very large gymnasiums in which we can have kids for lunch and pee my other question is uh lunch uh you've always got the student that does more like me too much talking and not enough chewing you're now almost cutting the the lunch period in half you've got a large facility getting children from point eight to to lunch is this going to cause a major problem i don't think so so they're going back to their regular lunch time julie will tell you i think that you know it's from from most of us we've enjoyed a longer lunch if you're the faculty but we're going back to our usual schedule and we the custodians have done a great job they set up little tables outside so the kids just go outside grab their lunch and are ready to go i actually think some of the kids we have 40 minute lunches i think it's actually five or ten minutes too long i think the kids kind of get antsy and i think it will be better actually when you have the the shorter lunches i think the staff has enjoyed the longer lunches as someone who does lunch duty i'm looking forward to the shorter lunches um but overall i think it's plenty of time thank you i'm mr. kevin first of all mr. mary and your congratulations on all the trophies behind you there that is that from like mensley basketball it's that is none that is all my kids i i have some like small little plaque in the corner like i saw that i said you know if i won trophies in mens league i'd put them i'd put them up too no no those are all those are all my kids all right cool cool but thank you for noticing so i i just want to say uh congratulate you know i like your energy how positive you are and it seems to me like you have a very sound plan to get the school back to to to in person so the only thing i want to say is my compliments for the work you're doing and your leadership i read some of the communications they're very clear very concise so congratulations well you know thank you for the compliments i appreciate that i have two great assistant principals who are in the building and marine murphy also helps me with the remote i would say they are fantastic in editing and writing half the stuff that i put out there so they've done a great job and the staff has been fantastic as well you know i was real happy when we did some of the vaccinations to see the teachers support each other and go around the building and help each other i mean i think that the teachers are tired i think they have done a tremendous job but i think they've been like the backbone and it's been nice going into the building this year because the staff has just worked so hard so um i i think you know the staff and the assistants have done a real great job and made us all you know as good as we can great thank you very much and congrats on all the trophies yeah i'll tell my kids great anybody else for mr marringer we definitely you know i i have an eighth grader at the oddison and uh you know there was definitely times when i was in elementary school where the narrative about the oddison was that people were worried and they didn't know and and how it was going to be and and now i feel like the oddison has been sort of become like the darling of the arlington public schools a little bit like especially in coven times and uh and i think it's really just um the communication has been outstanding we appreciate um the messaging we appreciate you coming here to share with us um and we know that if you know if we have questions they will be um they will be answered so um i think the the other piece so um can we have a motion on the i got to pull it up here mr Fitzgerald typed it up so maybe somebody typed it so um to approve the planning day on monday april 26 for the gibbs and oddison staff and for the return of all students for full-time in-person learning on tuesday april 27 2021 so moved i just okay i have a question i have a question also let's see let's see if there's a second and then you second okay uh motion by mr schlickman second by mr heiner mr thielman discussion well it was actually a point of order i was wondering aren't we going to hear from the gibbs principal first then vote on this motion hi you know we should actually i am sorry madame pierre maxwell that was harsh um i yes we absolutely should so let mr schlickman are you okay with with um tabling your motion so that we can hear from madame pierre maxwell and miss salvator and then take it up madame pierre maxwell is certainly within the scope of the motion so i don't see a need to withdraw it i think we can just enjoy the presentation great all right um madame pierre maxwell tell us about the gibbs please good evening everyone i i did thank dr bodie and mr marringer did a great job i i didn't need to speak for you to pass the motion but i will present so thank you everyone for giving us an opportunity to give you an update to where we are i'm here tonight with miss salvator our assistant principal at the gibbs and we're happy to fill you in so like the otterson we also sent out a survey and it was closed this afternoon at five p.m we have a total of 26 parents who've selected to move from the remote program to the in person program and currently three parents from the hybrid program would like to go to the remote program that said we also have a few other duplicates and several answers that we need to check to make sure that we are clear decide the actual numbers but the clear numbers are 26 remote to in person and three hybrid to remote hopefully when i see you in two weeks the numbers do not change but we do need to check in with some of our parents the building is ready based on those numbers it would not create any challenges to sit all of our students because in fact it would be a total of 23 students moving in if you subtract the three that would be moving from hybrid to remote the last time we presented we had a chair issues desk looking at being able to sit everyone if we were at maximum if we had a big transition from the remote to the hybrid program that issue is resolved we did receive an extra 139 desk from one of the elementary schools that we will be using so on the second of april our head custodian plan to we measure all the classroom and add all the desk based on the number we will have in every classroom so we will know if we'll still be able to have the children have enough desk for the cafeteria in the gymnasium but that said we have purchased yoga mat for every student for sitting inside or outdoor when weather is nice for them to be able to eat outside so whichever way it turns out we'll be able to accommodate the children to eat indoor or outdoor it looks like the gymnasium will be available to be used for PE first second block and then a fifth and sixth block but not third and fourth which is the time we'll get ready to serve lunch so the children will be in there at that time we're not able to not use both location the cafeteria and the gymnasium to serve we need both location to be able to serve three lunches for for the period of time we have not enjoyed a 40 or 45 minutes lunch it's been 25 minutes at the give so and it will remain the same the facilities look great we also had a a a walk with mr mason and mr walters we're still waiting just on to classroom to confirm that it's safe to transition mr ham our music teacher back to the music room and we have a dml classroom that's at the bottom of the mezzanine from the media center it's just two rooms we need to clear otherwise we're all set and ready to go from a bit building a perspective uh ben chorus and orchestra is remaining in the afternoon uh really uh allowing us to be able to continue to service the students and receive their lessons for the end of the school year um today we had uh this week we had two very productive productive conversation uh planning for the reopening one with our special education teacher liaison and and all the service providers yesterday we spent some quality time looking at services for students what would that look like within our schedules so there's still some challenges but it's clear what we need to do so we have all hands on deck everyone is working on that uh we are very hopeful that it will be smoothed out and every student will be able to get most of their classes without having to remove too many things from their schedules such as uh them missing their ELC classes etc today we had a great conversation with our social emotional learning staff looking at things such as transition for the students preparation for when they come together as a team having a forum for parents anticipating all the peace that will make the students feel at ease and removing any kind of SEL issues we need to be mindful of before we bring the students together so um we're going to continue to do the work and then plan for it but I am very hopeful uh Ms. Salvatore is all hands on deck looking at our schedule from what was presented what were the challenges yesterday I don't know if she wants to speak to that a little bit but we are in a good place overall we're looking forward to uh fielding some questions from parents also before we return so when we meet with them we've selected a date for the parents it's going to be April 8th we'll be meeting with parents and then after that we will share what did we'll do a greet and meet for our students from the remote program who's never been in the building so they'll have a tour and then we can get them acquainted a little bit with the building before they return uh they join us um for the in-person program thank you for listening questions for madam uh pierre Maxwell I'm going to let Dr. Bodie go first and then take questions from the committee so Dr. Bodie it's not a question I just want to compliment both our principals and teams on this I will say that um there's sort of underplaying how much work I would say underplaying but there's a lot of work yet to be done um one of the things as was mentioned last meeting is that it's it's it's going to be necessary to do a lot of hand scheduling particularly us and we certainly um worked with um they they have worked with IT have tried to look at every which way they can do a proxy schedule dummy schedule to in order that release can get a schedule in place but then after that there's still hand scheduling so they have a lot of work yet to do but I think that you can see from the last meeting how much progress has been made and um we'll give you if there's any updates we need to give to you we'll certainly do that before they begin um on April 27th so I want to thank them all for this and the teaming that's going on between the two schools is is very high and that's also important for people to know as well great uh questions for Madame Pierre Maxwell about the Gibbs Mr. Thielman thank you very much uh thank you Madame Pierre Maxwell for the presentation it was very helpful I just want to clarify I heard I want to make sure I heard this correctly I saw your presentation this the PowerPoint beforehand so the remote the number of students studying remotely is going to stay roughly the same 150 or so that is that correct yes about 125 right now okay yes okay so it's going okay on all right there I'm going to ask this question several parents a few parents have have inquired as to whether or not the middle school can open the the Gibbs Gibbs middle school can open uh on April 5th along with the K through five school and I just want to know what your response would be to that question we do have a lot of paperwork to do in in regard to looking at our students who receive services to make sure that it's well taught out and that some of them have at least three or four different type of services throughout the day so that's still in the making I'm not sure if we could get all this done effectively and then whole parent forums and do an orientation for our students we don't have 17 staff who's moving from the remote to in person but we do have 10 staff coming in so at some degree the same movement and tasks that's happening at Otterson is happening at Gibbs we have the advantage of a schedule that falls in better but it doesn't really remove the same steps that we're taking at Otterson is happening at Gibbs it's just from a different perspective okay all right thank you very much you're welcome and I would just concur with sorry the Salvatore go ahead I would just concur with Madame Pierre Maxwell that while it's not as much there's still quite a bit that we need to do and to say that we'd be ready in a week is is not fair I don't think at this point okay thanks um other questions about the Gibbs great okay um so more discussion on Mr. Schliffman's motion around April 26th for a planning day so I just want to clarify um this a planning day for the Gibbs and Otterson staff means not a school day for students right so let's like we I want to make that really I'm fine with the motion as is but you know to those who are watching um you know that it would not be a school day for students the Monday after April vacation and then all students would return to school um would return to full in-person school on Tuesday April 26th um which is one day earlier than has been than had been communicated previously so um I guess my the discussion that I would want to have on this motion is I would just want to know that um should this be approved by the committee this evening that communication would go out to families about it tomorrow on Monday I don't know sometime very soon so that people understand and can be ready to plan for that so that's my only um discussion on that Mr. Heiner and then Dr. Bodie I just want to make sure everyone's clear this is a planning day for the Otterson and Gibbs only the LMA it'll be a regular school day for the K-5 I don't want to miscommunicate that it will be and yep I hope we as somebody who has kids at a lot of levels I'm I'm on board for this for April 2021 and never ever again because this is total pandemonium for families who have kids at different levels it's not pleasant but I appreciate it's what we need to do right now but I hope we are never in a situation again where we are bifurcating professional development because it's terrible um all right Dr. Bodie um thank you to Mr. Heiner for for um clarifying that and I think that that needs to go out to the whole district on this I will do that the principals will also let their respective communities know but one additional thing about this is that we are still we are still being held to the 171 days this year so that means that our middle school students like our elementary students will have their last day of school back on we're buying any new snowstorms on uh Thursday June 24th great any more uh discussion on this motion uh Mr. Schlickman and then Ms. Keys of course we're not going to have any more snowstorms uh I just think that the planning on the part of our two principals and their staff has been extraordinary is this an easy thing to do and I congratulate them on on making this progress and hope if they need anything else we've got another meeting uh in the beginning of April please come talk to us if you need anything Ms. Keys I'm only making this comment to save you a thousand emails later you are returning all in-person students to full-time learning not all students our remote academies are going to continue exist through the end of the school year thank you indeed for those students participating in in-person learning okay any more on this all right uh motion by Mr. Schlickman uh seconded by Mr. Heiner Ms. Eksten yeah sorry sorry sorry Mr. Cardin go ahead yeah so that you're down there at gallon school at the bottom of the screen and it's hard to see you sorry um you know just just to clarify that you're you're even though Ms. Keys is uh not a member you're accepting that as a friendly amendment to the motion right I have accepted that as a friendly amendment to the motion it's the motion that's miss it's the motion that's misworded right great thank you um Ms. Eksten yes Mr. Cardin yes Ms. Dr. Allison Ampey oh she's not here um Mr. Theolman yes Mr. Schlickman yes Mr. Heiner yes and I am also yes good night um okay any more uh conversations about full return about uh full return planning Ms. Eksten go ahead I have a I have a question that has come up in our school committee chats and from other parents and I'm just wondering if we can get some clarification what are the um the expectations for students who are quarantined but are not with their but not with their cohort so for example my son this week was a close contact from something outside of school so he didn't go to school this week what um what are that because that's going to become five six seven days for kids as opposed to the two now what should families expect students to receive during that time um that's an excellent question um our students all have um access to google classroom and just as if they were sick themselves um which happens during the winter they will receive assignments um through google classroom um yes that is one of the uh combining with returning for the students are going to be returning um with our quarantine yes that is going to be an issue for some of our students that that unless their cohort is also in in a remote for 10 days in that situation they will be getting remote instruction we can and will shift to remote in those situations if it's a if it's a child that uh has had been a close contact from actually even in school or from an outside yes that is going to be an issue in terms of getting assignments and that's how we're we're going to be able to do it they are not going to be able to join a remote academy class those are classrooms with you with a defined group of kids so that is one of the disadvantages and that's one of the reasons we want to also keep our students as safe as possible to avoid that as much as possible so so then there was the other piece of the question um is should families be concerned about about attendance and my my understanding is that this year there's sort of some um leeway with the attendance um because of these kinds of issues like it's not necessarily a truancy thing that in other years would be considered thank you it's it's not at all you know if the student is um out of school due to a contact in school it's very clear you know that that's an excused absence not an issue the same thing would be true in the situation where um a student has identified the close contact from another in another venue the same thing um no we're not going to do that but what is important is that the parents communicate with the um the principal the school nurse um one or the other to make sure that everyone is aware of the situation and that way it can be um taken care of them in power school and I don't know if I know one of our principals would want to comment any further in terms of the technical pieces of this but um yes this is a different year and we are not going to have the same if you're out you know five days eight days that is not going to trigger anything thank you and Dr. Bodie I had just and then Mr. Carton one other question um what do you happen to have or if you don't have them right now if you could send to the committee I'm curious about the um the numbers of students so we have the the the net change at the Gibbs and the oddison that we got from um Madame Pierre Maxwell and Mr. Merringer do you know what the net change was or the out in numbers for K5 I do in fact I was going to uh as part of this planning remember I said we'll do the elementary oh yeah okay so I will I would like to hold my question because you're ahead of me so I'm going to call on Mr. Carton and we'll get to that when we get there thank you Mr. Carton my question is about the high school so I think she's getting to that so I'll hold my question okay anything else on six seven and eight only all right seeing none I am trying to be better about releasing our administrative team so Ms. Rubino and Ms. McEwen and Ms. Salvatore and Mr. Merringer and Madame Pierre Maxwell thank you so much for coming thank you for your excellent information um as always it's a pleasure uh to see you and uh thanks for thanks for everything so have a great night thanks for having us thank you thank you um so Dr. Bodie do you want to go on to do elementary and then the high school yes um at the elementary I know that you're interested as we we were too because the impact of how many students are going to be returning from the remote academy to in person is significant in all of our planning total there in all of our seven elementary there are 80 students that are returning from the remote academy to um to back to a full-time in person we have two students that are moving from the in person to remote now we also have um we had 24 students who could not be placed in the same in their home grade home school and they were offered a different um school same grade of course and we had only of the 24th three that agreed to be placed in another school now of the 80 and that incorporates that of the 80 it's pretty it's pretty distributed throughout all of our schools as well as grades um and I confirm that with um the people who kept all the spreadsheets and all of the different places that students were being placed so like if you if you think of this proportionally and we actually have fewer elementary students per school returning from remote than we even do at each of the middle schools which actually was a surprise to us be perfectly honest we thought that there would be a greater return um particularly our early grades and I will say that there was more at the early grades and and that's actually where we had some more space problems in terms of students being placed in the home school but we did make the offer there was a and so we're pretty pretty settled right now on this number so planning is going forward which the this affects of course class sizes but even more so our specialist schedules and number of sections we need to have and all of the things that go into scheduling as as madame here max will mention you know scheduling all the special education services ell that we we need to reschedule I will say that there's been a major effort to make sure that we disrupt those as little as possible so truthfully I'm not sure that that can be entirely accomplished um but certainly effort is being made to have that happen so all of those schedules are in the process of being done and as you know there's a planning day that's going to occur on April 1st for our elementary schools so that will go out as a reminder to everyone as well but I this has been helpful information for planning and that's where we are in that regard um we met well we meet every week actually but we this week we we have focused on um you know lunch planning there's just a lot of details uh to go into that but I will say that we are in good shape there are elementary schools in the planning and another thing that may not be as obvious in this return to um in person full-time is the you know the attention to curriculum and pacing guides that have to take place and so all that is going on as well um so that we're ready for the for April 5th now we do have some students that um that will be returning and individual schools are going to be able to you know work with these students who may have never stepped foot in a school um but they're very few in our numbers so it's uh can be handled on an individual basis so that's very broad view I don't know if you have any questions we can certainly if you do and there's things that I can't answer we'll we'll ask some of our elementary principals to come to the next meeting for updates on how how the transition uh how the transition went so if that there's any questions about elementary great I just wanted to clarify the number so 80 are coming in person three of three of the 80 are not coming to their their original sending school or presumably if they're kindergartners they're districted buffer you know whatever school right but but 104 or 101 of them 101 people were 101 students requested to come back but some number of them didn't because they weren't assigned they weren't going to be able to come to their sending school that's correct okay and we have two that are going from to the remote academy correct got it so just like the middle schools we are not going to need to change a remote academy uh which is something that was something that might be necessary I will say there is one additional section we've had to create at hearty those numbers in that classroom were already at max capacity and then some so there was only one class but we were able to um we had a teaching assistant who was certified and we were able to have a very smooth transition and that person had already been working with the fourth and fifth grade so we're in good shape in that regard as well great um so questions for Dr. Bodie on K5 uh high school Dr. Bodie um I have probably less to report on that we um the the Dr. Janger would like to come and present at the next school committee where he will have much more of a plan to give to all of you um right now it still remains uh the intent of the department of education that they will give districts two weeks notice and not in in in April that is not changing so that's really not a possibility to go with that kind of notice to changing your schedule in the high school um right now as you know we have the departmental shift but in having our students come back um across the board in in the current schedule it it means many things um some of which we've already heard from the middle school so that planning has already started and one of the things that we also need to know is something similar to the middle schools and the elementary is how many students um would choose to be um entirely remote right now some something like 300 students will not come in on the days that there's a departmental shift and that number of around 20 percent is remain pretty constant so the expectation is that's probably where the number will be and um but we but I think that the high school wants to get some surety about that the other thing that's complicated for the high school is how they do MCAS and how they're going to have that be sort of at the same time as the AP some of the AP exams are in the in the building and some are remote um they're not all remote which is another um issue in the all this planning so that's basically where we are and uh I know that they're they're thinking about you know studying perhaps their own date in which they come back and not wait for the department of education to only give them two weeks notice so I can tell you more about that um when we at the next school committee and certainly we can give as much information ahead of time so you're aware but I I think it's going to take these next couple of weeks to really um get a little bit more sure to where the high school is great questions for Dr. Bodie about the high school and Mr. Heiner and I understand you to say that yeah with the current uh schedule that they have right now if the state if desi turns around and says you've got to bring them back in for full time it won't they can't do it oh no that's how I'm saying they're planning let me be really clear the high school is planning to come back full time okay that's not the issue it's that they can't wait for the department of education in April okay thank you you're back in two weeks right now the earliest I think the department would say would be right after vacation uh just like the middle schools but superintendents asked that question this week of the commissioner and had nothing more they said nothing more than I've already said it will be in April the decision and yes it'll only give you two weeks notice so if it's in April two weeks notice probably means um it's possible that's right after vacation uh that that would occur but thank you please know the high school is planning around returning full time we are not thinking of applying for a waiver mr. coming that's the question I was going to ask and Dr. Bodie answered we're not planning on a waiver so in two weeks when Dr. Janger comes we'll hear a proposal we'll hear a plan to reopen and then we can respond to it okay exactly so yes thank you thank you for clarifying yep anybody else okay uh anything else generally about full return planning all right seeing none um excuse me the next item on the agenda is um is edco we uh are here at the um so the possible motion should somebody choose to make it is that the Arlington School Committee supports the vote of the edco board of directors to begin the termination process for the edco collaborative in order to dissolve the collaborative as of june 30th 2022 so move second all right discussion seeing none um all right let's vote uh miss exton yes mr. cardin abstain Dr. Allison ampia is not here mr. Thielman yes mr schlickman yes mr. hainer yes and i am also yes all right uh the next item on the agenda is the superintendent f y 22 budget for approval which we have discussed on several occasions and um the budget subcommittee met on tuesday it's been a bit of a blur um mr. cardin would you i'm putting you on the spot here now uh given that Dr. Allison ampia is here would you be not here would you be able to give us a brief recap of that meeting uh before we um vote on the budget uh sure although um i think for the purpose of the of the public it might be easier if i defer to mr mason to discuss the highlights of the changes um but there were some significant changes made in the budget which mr mason i hope you can you can walk us through there you're in there in your cover email but um just for the public um uh and i think the subcommittee was fine with those we now have a large number of reserve positions 10 which is good for the flexibility that we need with enrollments being so uncertain but um it was the will of the committee of the subcommittee to keep tabs on that very closely in the spring to make sure those resources are being utilized um appropriately and and with some oversight from the committee so i think that was the main takeaway on the budget thank you mr cardin um so dr body would you like to introduce um your budget and mr mason to talk about any changes um well i would ask mr mason if he could can you share the list of changes or just speak to them i know that you've had this in writing um the the bottom line number that we have we've presented has has shifted uh i'm sorry has not shifted uh what has changed i think this is one of the major drivers of the some of the revisions is is the amount of money that we're going to um fund for our district placements and you know mr mason could you talk a little bit about this and then we can talk about if there's any questions uh from everybody about the changes that we've we've made yes yes i can i can speak to it um so as mr lenn cardin has um spoke about previously we did increase the number of reserve positions um previously we had a total of six reserve positions three were uh general ed reserve positions and then the other were specifically going to be dedicated to three special education reserves positions now that we when we did the rollover back in january of the positions that were we were going to carry in our budget at that time we were not we were not a certain of some of our needs and what's um school was going to look like in september and so what was pointed out was that we did carry four additional positions from the gibb school we have now changed those four positions over to reserve positions that will be as as uh land stated earlier or mr cardin stated earlier that we will identify later in the spring and those will be now reserve positions making a total of 10 also we've made some changes into our special education out of district um tuition budgets in this in this proposed budget we're reducing the special education out of district tuition by uh 1.2 million dollars or a little bit above that um this was after uh the special education department met with the business office in regards to how we are watching particular students who are identified as likely uh our possibilities of students to be placed in a out of district placement and after doing a historical analysis it was determined that about 10 students per year are placed um from this watch list that we will call it and the watch list had several tiers to the watch list and previously we would fund the majority of tier one in a portion of tier two on the watch list so now it's been a change in practice um which then led to us the ability to reduce the special education out of district tuition but still have some some a little buffer in case there's unexpected changes um we also uh since we were able to reduce the out of district tuition that made other funds available in the budget which then was able to for us to increase the electric electricity and natural gas budgets to 260 by 260 thousand dollars um which should be able to fully support those expenses on the general fund appropriation and think about using other funds that are collected from different revolving which we normally would place some utility costs to be used for different projects to support our facilities um department budgets um were also were able to increase across the board using this additional money uh before we were level funding the other department budget so we'll now be able to uh uh increase department budgets over 700,000 dollars and then there was a minor adjustment uh that was uh a reallocation of of a grant which was a uh incorrect number that was put in due to a formula and that showed a reduction PD uh that uh in a PD program code uh that has been changed and uh corrected they're still reflecting a reduction but it's actually accurate and it's not uh the uh as great of a reduction as we were previously reflecting um that's all the changes to the budget um and I believe there was a motion uh provided to the school committee uh for the budget transfer categories uh to the vote on which is included in this budget document um and that will keep back to Dr. Bodie. This might be a good point to mention uh where we stand with the enrollment for next year because it does relate to the reserve positions so I know many of you are familiar that in some elementary schools it's it's pretty consistent you have three or you have four for great but there are also schools even with that consistency where you might have four in one grade and three another so when that grade moves forward you know you you're gonna move a teacher but if you then remain with an expanded number of kindergarten you have to add a teacher so we right now it's looking like we could have two or possibly three of schools in that situation um right now um we have three hundred and seventy students that have actually completed their application and I believe there's close to 80 um no it's more than that um no I'm sorry there's 400 students right now um three seventies where we were two weeks ago there's 400 students right now they have completed applications and we have 78 that are pending now we don't know we don't really analyze how many of those will um be completed but on the other hand what that's saying is we're tracking as in a regular school year um last last time we met we had three hundred seventy but at that same time the previous year we had 435 well that is that difference between last year and this year is rapidly starting to change so I can't tell you right now for sure but we had only three reserve positions just for elementary and I'm already starting to see that those are going to be necessary at least two of them probably are and and then we have to take a look at where we are certainly at our secondary level um as you know this year um we had students and and we have parents concerned about the fact that in our uh our four by four scares well we had a number of students who could not get the extra classes that they wanted that is that was certainly highlighted this year but that's not that's been something that's been an issue that students have not been able to necessarily get their elective classes at the high school we have you know been sort of behind pace in terms of what we need to do about elective courses uh staff for elective courses so um I I don't think I think increasing beyond the three for gen ed is absolutely the right thing to do as we still trying to figure out where we're going to be in the fall um I think that each month we go along we'll be able to refine that a little bit more and clearly if we don't need the positions there are plenty in the five-year plan that we have not funded yet and come come back to the table and talk about what some of those priorities might be great questions for Mr. Mason or Dr. Bode about the FY 22 budget Mr. Schickman um I I'm supporting these changes but I'm also aware that there's uh uh funding for COVID related uh expenses and I think that increasing enrollment and increasing needs for students moving forward would be there so my my core question is I guess philosophical rather than detail uh my assumption is that we will be coming back to think about additions to fulfill the needs that are directly related to the shutdown and return to school with supplemental money um yes and in fact one of the areas which we haven't figured out what the budget is yet is a summer summer programming and this week we got a little bit more clarity from the department of education their expectation which has changed from what we understood we always have an ESY program and this year um because we're ending the school year in a both an in-person and remote model for this year ESY which is our special education programming in the summer at all levels must offer both a remote and an in-person now we haven't figured out what that is going to what the staffing is that's going to be so that's one area where ESY money can can be used not to mention our special a special ed budget but we have as I mentioned in our in the playing document I gave you two weeks ago that we are planning on an expanded summer program for students we had one last summer we called an expansive expanded title one program and so we were able to fund some of it from title one funds but the rest of it was funded out of operating funds um the same thing as we're going to do this summer and the question is how expansive can we make it and of course that requires staffing to do that and that those plans are already begun um I can't answer right now um uh what that what that will look like what would be the process but I can say is that when we did it last summer we used the title one um not well we used the title one formula but we we we looked at the students who would have been receiving title one extra services and we looked at the students we thought um we recommended they could use the additional programming now one of the things that we have to look at I really I maybe I can put this on the agenda for next time but let me just say this um we thought a week or so ago that we were going to have to offer a summer a summer programming in both both models in person and remote just this week the department has said you do not need to offer remote however what we learned last summer was we had more participation when we had remote so we're working through all this right now but the short answer without getting much further in the weeds than this is that yeah the extra money will be used a good chunk of it how much of it will be used for summer programming to get kids ready for the fall I also think that there's a huge need for second language students to get back into the flow of learning English because that's something that really requires the interaction within schools and and to have a a robust summer program for English learners I think is going to also be essential and I hope that that's at the top of the list um yes as you know we've had that kind of programming in past years and for our our EL students and that was always at Bishop last summer we did not have it we certainly would like to bring that back because it was a very successful program it's more essential this year than ever so I hope that's a priority Mr. Heiner one of the things that's consistently come up in all the chats and a lot of emails parents concerned of what the their children have lost during this year I know it's a normal thing on a regular year pre-pandemic is to do annual assessment at the end of the year to make the determination of what each child has grown and pass that on to the the following year's teacher this is more more of a need this year than anywhere else there are students that that potentially have not gained what would be deemed normal and need tutoring or need extra help not a special ed not ELL not title one and there is federal money coming down and that money needs to be in my mind uh put in and invested in in what has happened to these children we need first off to find out what's happened and what needs to be done whether it's just tutoring during the summer way beyond what we've done in the past or additional support during the fall and uh we need to do this as soon as possible to make this determination this is something that parents are asking consistently across the board at all grade levels and all living groups um would you could I ask Dr. McNeil to talk about the assessment structure we have in place um but I do agree with you that we we it's not going to be just sufficient for the summer but for the fall as well um so we're working on those plans and we can get back to you and you can see the progress we have been making on them but um you want to hear a little bit what the kind of assessments we've been doing I I reckon I personally know that the teachers work very hard and do an annual assessment and and I know Dr. McNeil's on top of that I'm not questioning that I'm just want I guess it's more for the public for everyone to be aware that this is a unique year and we're going to have to be looking in the budget and stuff to uh expand the support for students and teachers going forward for what may have been lost we have to first assess if there has been a loss and if there has what are we going to do with it I'm just presenting this I'm not asking for any I don't need a response maybe someone else on the committee needs a response I'll just make one comment maybe Dr we use our own for our own assessments to actually identify the students and we did this last summer for the students that need that extra support and we had was a five-year five-week program I would call right um Dr. McNeil yeah I I guess my concern is not we have good programs in place to deal with with the kids that we have the special needs kids the title one ELL and stuff like I'm talking across the board taking the annual assessment we do for every student and what usually gets passed on to the next year's teacher to give a starting point for each of those students we need to find out if we have actually had academic losses and if we have what are we going to do one we are assessing whether we have academic loss and last year's program was not limited to special educate students with IEP ELL title one it was much more expansive than that so we would be using our assessments this year to identify those students who would benefit from a summer programming and that's our first approach to the summer programming and it is not it is is a general and and title one and yellow programming my concern is limited funding and my understanding I'll stand corrected there is federal money coming to deal with the pandemic and stuff and so I don't think we should be limited on a funding basis to handle these kids that's all all right anybody else Mr. Thielman um I kind of want to just pick up on what Mr. Hayner was saying but the uh so the stimulus money is specifically to help for reopening schools and remediation so is there I guess my question is to Dr. Vody is there a a group within your team that is talking about how specifically how to use this money if and when it becomes available um to do remediation with students and like are you think are you talking about thinking about the logistics of this who would teach what that what it would cost to teach how many people you need how many FTEs all that stuff that's kind of we are we are definitely doing that and we don't have the federal money yet in fact I don't even think it's I don't even think desi has it yet but what I can say is that the formula is about 2.2 times what we got for S or two which is just slightly over 500 000 so with the federal money I the money for the summer program is not going to be the issue certainly getting staff to do it after this year is going to be an issue but maybe we can also hire outside of our staff but our staff is certainly first priority on this um whether we're going to where we're going to have it whether it's going to be both remote and in person um I learned the other day from Mr. Mason that the down chiller has you know could be ready to go because I think it's going to be important if we do in person like we do for um our special education programs we we host that at Pearson Gibbs just to make sure that we have an air modulated environment for them so we are definitely working on that and we'll keep you apprised of where we are on the planning but to Mr. Hayner's point we're using our assessments that we're doing to identify those students who would be invited to this the summer programming okay okay I just I mean I just want to make I'm sure there's not is not going to be the case but I just want to make sure that when and if this money comes we have a plan in place ready to go we can execute on it and we're not scrambling at the last minute we at least have a framework for how we're going to do it can I can I interject here um Dr. Bodie um it's fine with me this fine mrs. Morgan mrs. Morgan can I interject Dr. McNeil so we have a core planning team that has already met this week and we are um actively planning right now we're also um talking with our reading specialists our math interventionists our principals our teachers in order to make sure that we're identifying those students who can benefit from such a program and really it we're going to replicate what we did last summer because we had a lot of success so we've met this week and we're going to meet again and so we've we're already on top of this and we realize that we need to make sure that we are identifying all students and not letting anyone slip through the cracks so we are utilizing there are assessments that we have in place that we give to all of our students and then we're also talking to our math interventionists our reading specialists and um in order to also make sure we have a comprehensive list so I anticipate that funding will also not be a problem um but as Dr. Bodie stated after this schooling year uh with our staff um staffing may be an issue but we're going to do everything we can to make sure that we have the necessary staff for the programs and I will also say that we all we have a program going on right now from our community block grant that we offer to students within the district and it's a tutoring a targeted uh tutoring program that where students are meeting with tutors after school and on the weekend for that targeted assistance so we are we have programs going on right now and I would love to utilize that federal money if possible to maintain something year-round so we can offer and replicate what we're doing with the community block grant right now so we have lots of ideas and we're already on top of it planning for the for the summer and beyond thank you uh Mr. Cardin I think you're yeah yeah go ahead sorry yes with the background uh you know I see me waving um so two points one was at the at the budget subcommittee meeting we we did mention that uh with the past Esther money we've been a little bit loose as far as a committee uh reviewing and approving the spending but for this next tranche uh and also maybe for the 500 000 that looks like you're you're planning to spend in the next fiscal year we do want to make sure that there's a spending plan reviewed in our normal in our normal fashion so we do expect the administration as as the money comes in to develop a plan uh and have that go through the budget subcommittee and and be reviewed by the full committee uh later in the spring I also just wanted to mention for uh Mr. Mason and the admin team that it's almost certain certainly true that the town's money can be used for some of these purposes and the town is getting you know 30 almost 37 million dollars so uh everything should be staffing should be finding the right staff should be the only issue not the amount that we're spending I mean obviously we have to get approval for that money but um we shouldn't be looking at 1.2 million as the ceiling um you know we we we should be able to access some of that other money if it's necessary and it's it's up to you to figure out what it what really is necessary for this for this summer and for the fall going forward thank you can I also interject one more thing Ms. Morgan I also want to say a large portion of that money we we invested heavily into online tools so the online tools are also available for the students over the summer all students over the summer so everything that we purchased last year uh work with uh Mr. Mason to make to ensure that the license or the licenses that we uh purchased will go from August to August so all students will have access to the online tools that we invested in for this past year so it would be something for everyone I guess my point is is that all students will have the benefit of some type of support over the summer and uh that's something that I think that we did a very good job at doing right anybody else okay uh seeing none I am looking for a motion to approve the budget transfer categories in the superintendent's proposed FY22 budget as follows administration three million five hundred and ninety two thousand two hundred and seventy one dollars curriculum instruction one million eight hundred and fifty five thousand nine hundred and nineteen dollars elementary twenty three million four hundred and twenty eight thousand two hundred and seventy two dollars secondary twenty three million seven hundred and thirty two thousand six hundred and eighty three dollars special education twenty four million two hundred and twenty nine thousand eight hundred and seventy four dollars other seven million five hundred and forty four thousand three hundred and sixty four dollars grants two million eight hundred ninety seven thousand six hundred and forty nine dollars so moved second uh any more discussion uh seeing none miss exton yes mr cardin yes mr thielman yes mr schlickman yes mr heiner yes and i am also yes uh anything else on the on your budget dr vody now thank you for your support um and from the committee great okay uh the next item on the agenda is the diversity equity and inclusion uh job description that is in novice uh mr cardin would you like to tell us about uh this from cia okay sure so um this was uh in in the budget draft that we've seen uh and at one point it was a manager now it's called director um but this is a similar position that other towns have adopted recently um the position description that was uh written by mr spiegel with a lot of assistance from the entire administrative team um includes some some language from some of these other towns um it you know it's there available uh in novice the committee reviewed it um our only comment was to um you know just give it some time for either the the diversity in inclusion groups at the schools or the superintendent's diversity advisory group to give any other additional input that they may have we did meet our meeting actually at cia was with um two representatives from the human rights commission uh and they uh did want to want everybody to know that they're very pleased that we are adding this position um but they didn't have any specific comments in the language so the description is here before us and um mr spiegel is uh available i assumed in our dr vody to answer any questions thanks great thank you mr cardin um dr vody is do you have anything else you'd like to tell us about this or mr spiegel before we have any kind of conversation about it mr spiegel might want to give a little bit of um uh feedback on what he has learned from uh when he's put this out to the diversity groups um and it basically they're also very pleased that we're doing this as well i think was really just um learning two issues and perhaps you could talk about that mr spiegel you're you're muted you can't hear you actually he's not muted which is weird we can't hear him he broke he doesn't have his yes just was on the i'm still on my headphone mic um and i'm not on my headphone so um they so we did get some feedback there were some questions about the the requirement for the licensure um and it was when we we met with the central office you know we thought that it was appropriate for the person who would hold this position because it's in an education in a school setting in the in the district to have an educator license um there were some questions about whether that would preclude certain applicants um so we did amend that a little bit to to say that you you know have a license or be eligible for licensure within the first year one of the concerns we've had in sort of some experience we've had in the past with the mass teachers retirement system is that when a job description doesn't require a license and someone has a license it could be um they might not be eligible to contribute to mass teachers and they could be coming from another district or they may have been in a position in a district where they have been contributing to mass teachers retirement and it would not be really they would not want to be the mass teachers retirement system if they've been in it and putting money into it they could if they couldn't go into mass teachers they go into the town retirement system and there are a few differences I mean they're but I think most people who are educators would prefer to be in the mass teachers retirement system so that's why um we have that in there I think we really um and I think the state this year the department of development during secondary education has made it um has opened up avenues toward licensure for people who don't have a license uh and it's good for the next year there's something called an emergency license where someone who has a bachelor's degree can apply for an educator license um under the emergency license and they can um they can get that and then they have that for another year it will be good until June of 2022 and then they would have to take mtels and get a regular license but I think that's a reasonable expectation for someone who works in a school district so um in this type of position that is really working with educators directly in educational programming so that was the um the biggest question that they had and then you know the the it was sent out to the dig the digs and the human rights commission as well great thank you mr spiegel uh comments from the committee on the job description mr heiner first off I'd like to commend mr spiegel uh I've been following all the uh emails going back and forth from the different groups and he responded very quickly and very clearly with them uh and all the questions I have only one comment to make on this um and I realize budgets are tight and everything but I think the salary range on this is on the low end and we want to get a quality person and I would recommend to uh change it up to uh at least $125,000 at the top end I'll leave the bottom end wherever they want it that's a recommendation that I would offer it as a friendly amendment to the uh passing of this uh discussion mr schlickman if that's an amendment I'd support it and if he made it formally I'd second it if I may uh madam chair I move that we approve the uh job description as presented with uh being amended on the on the salary range to go as high as $125,000 in my second that great uh discussion on uh the motion by mr heiner second by mr schlickman dr bodie I just want to comment that this was done with a lot of thought in terms of the context of where salaries are for administrators in the district and so the salary range uh was selected in that regard um if I were to make a suggestion I can't make an amendment that I thought maybe going up to 120 might be reasonable but um I think that going higher than that is not in line with other salaries mr heiner uh first off this is a brand new position it's a district-wide position and uh I made that suggestion to be uh uh competitive with other districts around uh we've we've been looking to do that across the board as as different salaries have come in this position is unique it is going to be highly sought after throughout many districts and uh I want us to be uh there to be competitive in the market uh I can appreciate that what Dr Bodie had just said but this is a brand new position and it's system-wide uh mr schlickman so uh I mean I I defer to the administration and this one I'll tell you why because there is a lot of thought that goes into a salary scale when you put it together you have to compare this to other uh salaries and the superintendent can come back to us if uh she goes to when she goes to the market and gets applicants and if she can't get someone at this salary range she can come back to us and say I have to change the range so I personally if I'm hearing from the school administration that done an analysis and this would impact other or impact the salary scale for other like positions I I can't support the amendment but if the superintendent said we could go to 120 based on her analysis then I would be comfortable with that mr schlickman if I may ask uh the proposer uh the proponent of the amendment on what basis does he state that the 125 is required to be competitive with other districts uh talent burlington and a couple other districts that have already hired people for this position they're starting at 120 that I've seen my research what I heard from the superintendent is a concern about how other members of the the staff and related um I understand that but at the same time I've said what I had to say um is exton so I I agree with mr heiner that from the perspective of other towns that the numbers are low um that the average that I found um from the the town manager 12 that have this position or are hiring for it right now um is 120 but I also appreciate the context within within the district um and I'm I was I was looking I don't have that um information in front of me of of the salaries within um within Arlington so um I'm inclined to support the motion um based on what is what other towns are doing to hire for this position right now and I know that it's a highly sought after position um and a lot of a lot of districts are looking for people to fill this position and so I think we should be competitive for that reason sir heiner the the rationale that dr bode gave is not something we have considered the cfo spot the assistant superintendent spot are for um in these these and uh the special education uh director these are all comparable positions this this position is going to be uh responsible directly to the superintendent um and the positions I just mentioned are uh their salaries are in excess of 125 000 i'm not suggesting that we but that's where the comparison should be made within the district all right further discussion on this um all right so we have a um do we want to vote separately on the amendment by mr heiner and then take up the job description so that's usually how it's done thanks uh so the amendment by mr heiner seconded by mr schlickman is there any more discussion on uh so mr heiner your amendment is to is to provide in the job description a salary range between 105 and 125 000 per year is that correct correct all right uh any more discussion on that um is exton yes mr cardin no uh mr thielman no mr schlickman yes mr heiner yes um and i am also yes so let's vote uh so next would be a motion on the uh job description as amended uh any more discussion is there a motion for that oh move second uh discussion all right um is exton yes mr cardin yes mr thielman yes mr schlickman yes mr heiner yes and i am also yes all right uh the next item on the agenda is the monthly financial report mr mason we've punted you for weeks at a time are we on to the next report at this point or okay we just we yeah perfect that's that's the way to do it outstanding all right mr mason tell us what you got um so i i i just want to basically um we we have the monthly reports that's not the month ending of january which was missed it was for the month ending of february uh 28th um this includes the the three normal reports that you would normally see which is the general fund um or town appropriation grants and special revenue and revolving accounts um on the general fund the town appropriation currently we're projecting um 672 thousand dollar um balance and uh you know we're getting closer to the end of the year where we'll get a better understanding of where our balance will be but there are still some spending and and you know as of that particular date that's occurred in march and that will possibly occur in april that will um lead to either for the reopening of schools and you know our normal spending routine is that departmental spending is stopped at some point or slowed down at some point in april um most of that uh once again that balance is driven by the out of district tuition which is what we did reduce in the fy 22 proposed budget and um you just be mindful that we did did prepay the 1.3 million dollars in fy 20 uh for fy 21 special education out of district tuition um we also did receive additional funds this year from the cover like the federal funds from the cvrf and esser um so that is also but if you think about that that means that we really did spend um more than what we normally have allocated at this point what we're projecting to do to do so um so i i hope that the next report will be give us a little bit more accurate picture of where we're going to end off and uh and uh we're going to have to definitely look at as dr mcneil spoke earlier about some of the the different licenses that we might have to look at where some of the licenses will end and whether we have to do any additional procurement at the end of this year uh to continue to support those the technology um and software that uh we need to provide for students throughout the summer i'll leave it at that um there's probably not much difference in the report than previous reports besides that the projection is showing that it's going showing a lower balance and i will open up for questions if anyone has any great questions for mr mason on his monthly report mr cardin you're doing great with the hand now thank you uh yeah jeff when you were drinking you were drinking from an invisible cup before it was very uh very cool yeah i worked out into my my my routine yeah new magic act i got uh okay so mr mason you mentioned the um the cbrf funding um uh so that funding has been spent on things that are not included in this report is that correct correct all right so at some point we should get a list of what that was spent on you may have given it to us before but um uh i don't know if you've shifted things around or what but um uh yes the additional yes so i i would like a report on that at some point thanks sure we'll do anybody else for mr mason mr schlickman you're saying that we'll get a better picture of this in about a month uh can you just give us a sense on a scale of surplus happiness to deficit nightmare how are you sleeping at night i'm sleeping fine so i i'm sure that will will be in a good spot i think there's some further conversations that the budget subcommittee needs to have in in regards to figuring out how we want to end the year and um in working with what we can actually turn back to the town um i think that that's where i was referring to a better picture i think that it's important that since we did carry over some funds um and prepaid that them for special education out of district tuition that we do consider um any possible turn back this year and so i do think that will be fine but i i'm i'll have to wait and see until that march april timeline where else get us see this final surge of spending come through my office i get a sense of where you're sitting right now thank you for that answer yeah yeah all right any more questions for mr mason okay thank you mr mason i'm glad we uh glad we got you on our agenda finally um good to hear from you as always um okay superintendent's report dr bodie and hey you um i have three things one of which is um the webinar and actually the public forum we had this last week with dr federally daniel tatum and i'm going to actually ask dr mcneal if he would be willing to talk about that and then just a quick update on the high school and athletics yes so yes thank you dr bodie hopefully many of our school committee members were able to attend on sunday i know it was a beautiful day outside um but i want to first start off by saying that i'd like to acknowledge andrea nicolay director of our libraries and a litten assistant director of the robbins library julie dunn director of communications grant and title one and julie and harvey director of diversity equity and inclusion for the town for their support and planning and their collaborative efforts to plan this event it was so exciting it was definitely a highlight of my career to have a conversation with one of the most premier experts on racial equity and racial identity um dr tatum's answers were clear um she gave a lot of uh concrete steps that i feel that people were listening could take back and incorporate in their conversations with their children from the community and educators uh could take the things that she um shared back to their classrooms immediately i also want to acknowledge the arlington education foundation for their support as always and um it was just a great event and i've heard nothing but positive feedback um from the community and then we were also able to have her back on monday the 21st uh for our arlington staff and um miss harvey moderated that conversation and so again that was from the support from the the libraries and our arlington education foundation and so we had about on sunday we had about 289 uh people attend and then on monday it was about 200 of 206 so we had quite a few people attend and you know just some of the highlights of the things that she talked about uh provided us with an overview how we can support our students of color and really understand um how students and people develop you know their racial identity and what kind of things uh add to that or take away from that if we are not very vigilant about making sure that there's representations of all cultures in our curriculum and in our public school environment and in the overall environment within the community of arlington one of the things she talked about were the abc's where you know we have to provide affirmation for everyone um and we have to take efforts to build community which includes all of our students of color and people of color within our arlington community and cultivating leadership um so those are some things that she also talked about the importance of affinity groups um and she talked about again a curriculum and making sure we have representations of all people and their cultures and so i i feel like she gave us a blueprint for how to move forward and we're also going to extend these conversations um i'm in talks with dr lyza tulucin who has come in and held parent forums within the community in the past and we're going to identify dates where we can have um we have some tentative dates planned right now but because of our bringing all the kids back k through five and at the middle school um we're going to push those dates out so we can have more participation so we're going to continue these conversations continue to have utilize the book dr tatum's book as a foundation for those conversations and i look forward to the learning that we'll have and the discussions that we'll have as well so any questions or comments um and again i want to extend the offer to any school committee member who doesn't have the book uh we have purchased it purchased the book for all arlington staff members and i have extra copies in my office so if you would like a book uh please reach out to me and i can make one available we'll have it delivered all right we'll have it delivered absolutely i would just add to your comments first of all uh thank thank you guys to reveal because you offered a lot of leadership in this um i thought that she was quite personal she's very personal and also at the same time quite profound in terms of her observations and um ideas for us that we can learn from and move forward with so we are also taking the audit study that was offered uh we have the report and that's going to be some foundation for all the curriculum work that will go on this summer so it was um an amazing time to meet with our wish um so i think everyone who attended really was impressed and learned a lot from her so thank you for thank you all you've done to make it possible sure dr bodie i just also want to add that uh the conversation both conversations were recorded and the conversation sunday's conversation is available on the acmi uh website right thank you dr mcneil i saw that mcneil wanted to make a comment or had a question so mcneil thank you no i just wanted to say thank you to dr mcneil for he essentially facilitated the conversation with um dr tatum on sunday um that i had the opportunity to attend and uh i thought you did a really nice job i was exciting to listen to both of you sort of engage in that dialogue um about real things that are happening here in arlington you know she she helps the community to dive into things that we're thinking about here and i i appreciated the role that you took in that as well so thank you thank you very much great dr bodie back to you all right back to me um i want at the high school we always do a little bit of an update um things are moving quite well um i wish you could be in the school committee room because you have a bird's eye view of all the progress that's going on so that is that's that's happening we're now starting to begin some of the work of the interior committee and that fact first of those many meetings are going to it's starting tomorrow so that's moving forward and the next um building committee meeting is tuesday april 6th one thing i would encourage people who anybody who's still listening here um to like look at the ahs building website because there's a wealth of information but i think what is very um interesting is to look at the videos that are there so um that's where we are at the high school unless you have any questions um and then the other is athletics one thing i because of the time last last mean i omitted mentioning the ski team this year they did they had a great season because the first season they represented arlington high school and um that they they just had a great season for the first one and look forward to many more seasons having a ski team um we currently we are in what the it's called the fall two so this year we're having four seasons for athletics and right now we have 250 students enrolled in fall two which includes um some of the sports that were you know outside looking in the football field but the fact that we have 250 students that is terrific it's a way for them to relate and be together and um i do appreciate that we are limiting expectators to two per athlete but many of these are live being live streams as well we will be moving into the last season of the year on April 26 and um i'm expecting there'll probably even be more students going out for the the spring season the one thing i will point out is we had a very interesting um event i think that one the first of the kind though gymnastics and some of this as well this this um in the winter is a virtual track meet and our first one was i think it was was writing and we had 110 students you know doing the various races and each each community or each uh team would put their scores into a third party and that's how you use you learn whether you won that particular race or not you know it was very very interesting and who knows maybe that'll be something that will continue it's hard to say uh in the future but at any rate the kids are doing well and um i commend the law for all the effort they put into the practices which i can see myself as i leave the building um last i guess that's it that's the last thing i want to mention we talked about enrollment already so um that's my report for tonight great thank you dr bodie questions or comments from the committee all right seeing none um consent agenda all items listed with some asterisks are considered to be routine will be enacted by one motion there will be no separate discussion of these items unless a member of the committee so requests in which event the item will be considered in its normal sequence warrant for approval warrant dated 3162021 warrant number 21203 total warrant amount 768404.22 minutes for approval school committee regular meeting march 11 2021 no move okay um is xin yes mr cardin yes mr fieldman yes mr schlickman yes mr heiner yes and i am also yes the next item on the agenda is policy b e db agenda format prep and dissemination and j k a a physical restraint of students and this is a first read on both policies is that correct mr schlickman that is correct b e db was brought forth at the uh policies meeting yesterday by mr heiner who will become our chair uh assuming we follow through an elective next month at his request to extend the deadline for getting things into novice for the committee four workdays proceeding the school committee meeting which would normally be the friday before the school committee meeting uh is a necessary provision to allow us to look over materials and understand them before the meeting he hopes that will shorten the meeting the other policy before us for first read is uh is j k a a physical restraint of students this is a technical correction to bring the policy in line with uh current state regulations uh both are before us for first read and for consideration at our next meeting mr heiner i'd just like to add on the agenda format uh i also requested that the as not only the materials be presented to the school committee but summaries of any reports and or media be provided to the members as well all right any other discussion on this okay um so i i mean i think my comments on uh the b e db the agenda format prep um i mean i will tell you that over the last nine months that i have been chair uh we have not had an agenda that has been fully ready on friday uh let alone all of the materials um but i you know i i wish i i you know it maybe in times when things are a little bit more stable and less unpredictable then maybe that will be possible um but it's i i've definitely found it hard in in covid times but uh you know certainly i i appreciate the intent of it so i think you know we just we just see where it goes i know that both mr heiner and mr schlickman have been i have had a lot of feedback for me on the length of our meetings which i have been grateful to receive over the last 10 months and i am grateful will be ending in two weeks time and i will no longer receive such feedback um but i am glad that uh i'm you know i think that this is i can certainly support this policy if it's what um you know if it's what people want to want to do so we can figure that out uh in two weeks time on our uh second read so uh other comments i see mr heiner and mr schlickman i mean we'll defer to jeff okay sorry thanks i mean we'll talk about this next week but um i certainly love the idea of trying to get information beforehand um i don't know i mean i'd like to hear from the the administration that the people are very busy within the administration i think uh if we force the two-day work to the 48 hour rule that would be a good thing um and help people that but i don't know we can talk more next week inside i i guess my my request is i'd love to see what the superintendent and her staff say to the suggestion i'd like to hear their thoughts on how practical it is uh mr heiner and then mr schlickman i just want to add that if something is an emergency that can be brought before the board five minutes before the meeting that i want to make that clear um and and i'm not going to dr bordian uh dr mcneil talk to the meeting but i'll let them give their opinion right now if they wish i can certainly wait till the next meeting but i will say that people have been working very hard to um get documents to people on time but it has been a challenging year to do that and certainly mr morgan and i have worked a lot of work on this and discussions to get the agenda is done i i the the as read in the policy if you don't have the documents on friday then that takes that agenda item and moves into the following school committee so one of the things i think that the committee will have to be also cognizant with this policy is that if you make a motion at school committee meeting to have a particular report at the next school committee in effect you're you're really only giving uh administration one week and so that needs to be carefully considered in terms of the scope of what you're asking people to do and abide by this mr schlickman and then mr heiner yeah i mean one of the things we're looking to do is set the table moving forward uh for the new administration in july uh that said uh as a central office employee for 19 years working in law which was very strict with the friday 4 p.m rule it can be done uh and if the deadline is wednesday or tuesday or friday uh no matter when that deadline is it seems just from the school department side from when i worked that we were always pushing to the last minute on that deadline day and a lot of the reports were receiving a routine and things that are scheduled far in advance so that it's not unreasonable to have the meeting sketched out uh and i think that we have to have a commitment too to be reasonable in terms of the reports we're asking for and the agenda items we're asking for a lot of it's predictable um and we do have provisions for emergencies for example when the uh commissioner goes and lays down a new directive 24 hours before the meeting or 48 hours before the meeting of course we have to get it on there and and put items into novice to inform folks of what's going on but so much of what we do is routine and predictable we deserve the opportunity to read and be thoughtful and understand what's happening uh before the meeting so that uh the the presentations and discussions we have are relative to folks being fully informed of the basics on the issues before we start talking rather than leading us through uh all the information within the context of the meeting uh it takes away our time to deliberate and as you're aware this is the only place where school committee members are allowed to talk to each other um i think it's uh an essential part of doing good business and it require a little more discipline on the part of the committee of our chair and the new administration but it's very traditional that other school committees operate in this manner and uh and i think that we need to tighten our procedures up uh mr. hainer and then mr. cardin i just want to add one thing i i also just need the time to uh understand the materials going forward and to be supportive of our administration i don't want to be uh learning something at the last minute and then reacting to it i'd rather have a reaction ahead of time talk to the administrator and make sure i'm clear more more than often a simple little conversation and clarify things mr. cardin yes i'm sorry i stepped away for a minute i i didn't hear was the rationale for this change because we want more time or because we weren't actually getting the documents the two days in advance which which has been was the case when i was chair as well so was there one or the other or or what mr. hainer uh i think it's both to be needed needing the time to be reflective on the materials being presented and not getting them at the last minute uh are getting them in a reasonable amount of time so that we're not learning about it that night i don't i hope i didn't muddy the water more no that's that's fine i mean from my perspective i think the two days is is sufficient if if we can be certain that the documents are always going to be there it's always a pain to have to keep checking on wednesday then on thursday morning and then waiting for care and to send something so that's that's been part of my challenge as chair part of the challenge was you know monday wednesday morning waking up finding things missing do you then cancel that agenda item because of the policy um was pretty draconian but but but obviously we probably should have done more of that because um now we've we've let let it slip so much that it's not really a rule anymore so i definitely support enforcing the existing role but i'm not sure i need more time thanks mr schlickman i think the time is also critical because if we get things uh at tuesday at four uh if you're busy on tuesday night and we're coming up to town meeting season uh be will be out eight to eleven on on the wednesday it's not a lot of time to stop and think and read and look over things the 48 hours isn't enough and back in the day when we were getting things on friday and you had a weekend to go and analyze and read and think about it and go through the budget documents and and respond with some email back if to administration to the superintendent of their questions that facilitates a better meeting because we're all on the same page and we understand where we're going uh the tuesday turnaround even if it's being obeyed religiously is is awfully fast during busy times of the year all right anybody else on either of these policies for first read all right seeing none uh some committee liaison reports and announcements uh we heard from mr cardin about budget and dr elton ampe isn't here community relations mr heiner uh we had the meeting the last monday to discuss the uh travel policy dr bodie already uh has shared that with everybody um we also discussed school committee chat there was a there was a consensus that it's going going well um there was a suggestion for the following year to maybe offer different times or different days as well so we can get a broader audience uh i would like to just uh share with the community the community uh school committee chat will be the saturday the focus will be grades six through twelve but uh all people are invited if you have any questions please feel free to email me uh thank you uh cia mr cardin uh so we did meet with the uh human rights commission representatives we went over uh with sarah bird and and dr mcneil the um the cultural uh the cultural awareness the cultural component of the panorama survey that was very helpful for them um we uh went over the position description which we approved tonight um and uh talked about a couple other things nothing nothing important for the full committee thank you uh facilities mr keelman uh policy mr schlickman we brought forth our two policies uh high school building committee mr keelman dr bodie gave the report we meet on april 6th uh liaison reports uh i sorry go ahead sorry mr cardin yeah now i'll just add um that from the aef that they were very excited over the program this weekend as well and very thankful for dr mcneil for for helping to organize it put together and bring bring our linkedin schools into into this um partnership with the library thank you uh any other liaison reports uh announcements and future agenda items uh mr schlickman uh thank you madam chair um as you're aware the election is april 10th um and i anticipate your glowing re-election uh along with mr steelman we look forward to that uh the unfortunately due to the schedule the first school committee meeting after the election isn't till april 29th and that's also after the start of town meeting so i would like to ask either tonight or to put on the agenda for next week to have the organizational meeting on monday april 12th at 7 p.m great just that piece though i assume just the organizational meeting it's a 15 minute meeting we go through we elect the officers we vote the committee i know i know what it is yeah yeah i'm saying that for the benefit of the rest of the world who's listening to this it's just a the a structural 15 minute meeting mr heiner do we want to do the norms that night or do we want to do that the first meeting of the uh of the season it would do that with the norm with the uh with the uh organizational meeting i think that's in the policy so sounds great seven it's 7 p.m right that's my proposal if the we can talk about that next week i think mr spiegel's talking to somebody else or no oh no he's talking to us okay sorry who else are you talking to at night no i'm just wondering about will you have are you going to decide that on the the next school committee meeting is what april 8th yep and then you would have wouldn't you have to post it by 7 p.m on april 8th to have it on monday night yeah so i i can as current chair just say that we're going to have a meeting on april 12th at 7 p.m why don't we just vote it now and i'm sorry miss x so miss exton can we make it 7 30 sure okay thank you okay i move that we hold our organizational meeting on april 12th at 7 30 p.m second great uh discussion miss exton yes mr cardin yes mr fieldman yes mr schickman yes sir heiner yes and i am also yes great okay anything else so that is no longer a future agenda item we have dispensed with it tonight which is great um anything else for the next meeting the two things that i had um and this is for dr mcneal uh sort of and miss elmer potentially was um the panoramas student and staff results we were looking for that for the full committee i believe that was something that was coming up um i don't know that it necessarily has to be on april 8th but it's the uh mercifully it's the last one that uh i need to do and if we don't do it then then we will pass that request on to mr heiner is that something you think you could do on april 8th dr mcneal or would you rather uh later in april meeting for that so it what is what is i guess what is well we were looking so i think there was a readout at um at ciaa right you guys looked at at the the um student and staff but there was a request from there that it be done for the full committee as well yes so i yes i can i can have it ready for april 8th so it would be sort of the condensed version the 15 minute presentation version and then whatever questions you know people had about sure okay so that's we're good for that for two weeks time yes okay awesome thank you and then uh the other thing that had been requested at one point by mid-extent but i share the request is um beginning the conversation about what summer school and esy would look like we heard a little bit about that from dr bodie tonight obviously there's no expectation that on april 8th there is any sort of fully flushed out plan um but it would be helpful to sort of start um you know obviously it's something of significant interest especially this summer um i think that i would add given mr schlickman's comments um i would say summer school ell and esy uh as the as um the as the topic and again this would be you know sort of a brief a brief presentation let us know where you're thinking is right now what you're looking at this was something that um i believe that that miss elmer did for us um actually i think she did an esy retrospective at the end of the summer or middle of the summer last year that was really helpful because she was sort of the first but they were sort of the first ones that um were you know doing doing some of this work with students last summer which was which was really helpful so is that something miss elmer that you think you could do for us in two weeks time like a very sort of preliminary sure um i thought that it was a cia agenda item previously but um sure i think esy i just want to make sure that everyone is aware is distinct from these other programs and it's an ongoing program we run it every summer it's only for eligible students that's determined throughout the school year so you know we don't have cut off dates we don't have invitations to join and whatnot so um you know it will be running pretty much as if it has run um in other summers with the addition of a remote option as well but sure we can have a well maybe we should separate it that would make it easier for the community to understand if we just if we did just esy and then we had something else for um sort of generally summer programming for summer programming and ell does that make sense i'm super flexible because this is it uh yeah i i i'm hearing dr rick meal for the other parts of it um as you mentioned the committee has been meeting um for the last several weeks to talk about the other summer programming um i've been a part of those meetings simply so we can talk about shared spaces but um dr mcneal i'm not sure your team will be ready for april 8th but april 8th sure i mean it doesn't need to be like we're not looking for anything i'm not looking for anything sort of final just sort of initial five or ten minutes this is what we we've we've met this is what we're talking about these are the things we're concerned about um um i don't know does that seem reasonable it's the new friday rule in place with that being the policy yet that's a joke i'm trying to provide some love no i can i i can definitely have a summary of what we're thinking about for the summer um yes mizak can i just sorry just to give some additional context to the esy um piece of it some of the feedback that um we got at the school committee chat um was about families feeling frustrated um about communication and so i just i think if we can have a conversation in april that the planning is happening and these are the steps that have to happen for it to take place and you know there's there's the hiring and there's transportation and just so the community knows that that it's being thought about and it's being planned um um as we move forward that was the esy piece um from my perspective great all right anything else great uh i think that's it super motion to adjourn i was just going to say you're getting really good at this maybe you should stay for another year go move second uh mizak sin yes mr cardin yes mr thielman yes mr schlickman yes mr heiner yes and i am also yes great have a good night be safe tonight all