 This program is brought to you by Cable Franchise Vs and generous donations from viewers like you. Presence of a quorum in a full committee at that, so I call this meeting of the Amherst School Committee to order at 6.04 p.m. Our first order of business tonight is to review and approve the minutes of March 26th, which I believe was our first virtual meeting. Does anybody have comments, corrections? The one I mentioned a couple minor things that I spotted, so I'm listed as being there twice. So I probably could be removed from the second one. And then in this under item one, the second line, it says recorder. I think it should be recorded. Are there any other comments? Seeing none. Anybody want to make a motion? Mr. Denley. I moved to approve the minutes of March. Second 2020. I'm sorry. Strike that I moved to approve the minutes of March 26th, 2020. I second that. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none. Beginning with Mr. Harrington. Mr. Denley. I. Ms. Spitzer. Spitzer I. McDonald I. Ms. Lord. I. Approved unanimously. I should actually go back and comment that this meeting is being is being recorded and live stream. Thank you. Amherst media for your support in this. You can watch on channel 15 on Amherst media and it will be posted afterwards on Amherst media. Thank you. Moving on public comment. We always accept emails at school committee at arts.org. And for the purposes of public comment, we ask that community members email their public comment to us. At my email address McDonald's a at a rps.org. By 3pm on the day of our meetings. And if any comment that we receive, we will, we will share on screen and and or read allowed during the public comment period at our meetings. And as of today, actually, even as of 6 o'clock, I had not received any public comment. So we will move on to item three and our agenda, which is the superintendent's update. I'll be very brief, because much of my update will be in the agenda items that are below. I'll say briefly that I had the opportunity a week or two ago to connect with the architects working on the Crocker farm feasibility study that there was a voter petition and probably the language wrong. I apologize last year that got added to the town budget. Unfortunately, Mr Harrington and his other in his day job has taken on a lot of that role. As Mr Shea and I have been tied up with the COVID piece. You know, I did offer to the architects that if they wanted to push the timeline back from the contract given the situation, that'd be okay they feel like they're okay plowing forward. And that's probably my only non only update that's not connected to the agenda items as as the agenda items of budget and distance learning and COVID response have taken the lion share of everybody's time energy and focus of late. So I'll be speaking in much more depth later on those topics but figured there was no good way to introduce this one. So this was the superintendent update seems like it made the most sense to imagine it there. There any questions or comments from the committee. Seeing none will move on to our new and continuing business. And the first item here is our dual language lottery presentation with a potential vote. You're muted Dr Morris. Sorry about that. Not only you but I had a little message from Google telling me the same thing. There's miss Richardson perfect timing. So this was one of the things that we talked about multiple times this winter and before we got to a vote life changed. I wanted to bring it back in terms of life change part and I'll let miss Richardson jump in if she'd like but one of the notice things you'll notice is that the dates of the timeline that dates of the lottery got pushed back a bit. We do have kindergarten registration up and running. But we also are cognizant that it's a different process and many families are dealing with many, many challenges right now so we thought since we didn't have our typical process which is three days of pretty intensive registration work that's in person. So we're pushing things back a couple weeks made sense, both from the staff and but also from the family and community and otherwise I think the feedback that you received of the winner is integrated but I'll turn it over to miss Richardson. Thank you for being here miss Richardson. If she has anything she'd like to add before we have discussion. Hi everyone. Thanks for having me. I'm not sure that I have a whole lot of updates. As as Dr Morris noted this has been discussed a few times. We did feel like moving the lottery the original date was May 4 and considering that we opened enrollment. So much later and that it's you know slower process with electronic registration. We're going to plan for a June 1 lottery. And then in terms of the opening of the additional seats. We put a proposal in for July 15 and August 15 for those two additional seats I believe that that was the conversation at the last school committee meeting was how long do we hold open the seats for that are being held for Spanish speakers beyond the cap. And when do we offer them to English speakers. So I'll run through that it's been talked about a bunch but it's, it was in the past so I'll just explain that piece because it's a little confusing. So essentially, the way it was proposed is that we would hold their 40 total seats and we would hold 24 of them for Spanish speakers in the beginning. And then if by the, the long term cut point would be that there are no more than 20 English speakers that are enrolled in the program. So there's this four seat kind of difference there. And of those four seats. And then we would open those little by little if we didn't have the Spanish speakers to fill them. So I think if I'm capturing and correctly that was the last discussion and Dr Mars if you have anything to add. I think that was what, what was under discussion. I believe that we had resolved the piece about the school choice Spanish speakers as well and that's included in the document draft that you have as well. So I'm happy to answer any questions and clarify where what I'm thinking is. Just, I want to just, if I could take that was a great description, Mr Richardson I just want to take a step back particularly as we have a new member on maybe to summarize see if I can summarize the couple meetings that we had in the winter so that Miss Lord is up to date if that's okay if you give me 90 seconds I'll try to do it quickly, which is that last year we had multiple discussions about enrollment policy and one of the things that we were committed to is learning from this year's experience to see how we could expand it I think from the district both staff and committee. We had a firm commitment that to maintain at least half the program or strive for half the program to be reserved for students with Spanish language background. Because that's as we thought about why the program was implemented in the first place that was at the core of the plan so one of the discussions that we've had this winner is what's the right number and how long do we make folks wait for the lottery if you don't get more than 20 because ideally more than 20 would be great in terms of students with Spanish language background and, and so I, in my opinion, I'm able to say this I think we had some really good dialogue and pushed, you know, Mr Richardson of my thinking on this thing and things that we'd bandied around internally. It was good to hear from elected officials on that topic and we tried to take what we heard, which wasn't trying to build consensus it wasn't necessarily agreement that everybody had the same opinion and that's a good thing with a plan that the committee could be comfortable voting so that we could start implementing because we do have families asking about it and we are feeling I would say some level of urgency to be able to publish this get it out if you remember we were supposed to have a school committee meeting the week we closed that Tuesday and then there was going to be a registration event that Wednesday. We were hoping to vote earlier. It was really good discussion it got pushed to March and unfortunately got pushed to the wrong week in March. And so that's where we are right now. So, 90 seconds ish. But I just want to make sure much Lord had had the background on that. Any questions or comments from the committee. Mr dimley. Yeah, so I want to thank Mr Richardson for updating this with. What I think is a pretty good reflection of what our discussion was. I mean, so at this point, the policy as described is something I'm comfortable going forward with. I would like us to continue to to revisit this next year though because there's two parts of this that I think could be improved. One is how long we hold open the 24 spots for Spanish speakers. And the other is is dealing with school choice. The question of how long we keep open the 24 slots for Spanish speakers. I mean, for my own personal view, I think it's it's simpler to just keep those open until that final date. So in this case, it would be August 15, as opposed to keeping 24 open until July 15 and then 22 open until August 15. So I think it's, I think it's more confusing. And I do want to acknowledge it's, it is a balance right between keeping that eligibility open for students that might be moving into our district in those four weeks and we do get families that move in at that time, versus having parents wait and so that is a balance. That's the simple change I would prefer. If everybody is wants to do that tonight that's great but I don't, I think we've had enough discussion that I don't feel like we need to have some huge back and forth on this. Yeah, the other point I want to make was on school choice. I would again for simplicity and so looking at the list of the groups there on the first page which is page six of our packet. So we have group two as Spanish speakers bilingual students zone to attend Crocker Farmer Wildwood and then group to a as Spanish speakers accepted through school choice. My preference would be just to have my preference would be just to have one group to do away with group to a and call them Spanish speakers bilingual students, not zoned to Fort River, which essentially would put choice students who are Spanish speakers on the same lottery position as Spanish speakers attending Crocker Farmer Wildwood. And again, not to belabor the point that we've I think I've made before but I just think that given the primacy of wanting to get English language learners into the program at that max cap of 24 that we've decided is educationally appropriate. I think we'd be a good thing. But I understand it's different points of view on the committee so again that's not something that I feel like we need to completely get into again but those are my two thoughts on that. Thank you. Are there any other comments or questions. Dr Morris. It's not a direct response to Mr. Demling's comment but it's a more generalized comment which is there's a lot of unknowns in terms of enrollment for next year given the current situation and it's one of the things that we're going to have to continue to have conversations. I think the one thing we know is that there'll be enrollment shifts just based on the economy, the health needs of students and families. And we can't predict that, you know, the summer not to get ahead of ourselves we're talking about MSA MSBA enrollment. When superintendents get together what we know is that it's really hard to predict five months from now let alone five years from now and and and it may be hard to predict five weeks from now where we are in terms of kindergarten enrollment. Right now our numbers are lower than typical but we've also following a different pathway and folks have many more pressing things in some ways than than they might if this situation wasn't happening so we are sort of planning for the unknown. And I think that does add a variable or an element of uncertainty this process so I think it's just one of these things that as we go later in the spring will want to continue to have conversations with the committee. So again that wasn't a direct response to anything Mr. Denling said but it is sort of, you know, we're all wondering as superintendents as we feel make planning for how many classes per grade level and at the secondary level of course, you know courses, how much transiency will there be in different communities, and it's really an open question now and, you know, folks are anticipating we don't know what the delta will be whether go up or down but folks are anticipating a higher level of transiency to see the normal, given what's happening in the world right now. Okay. Thank you. So seeing no other comments or questions from the committee. Are we. Do we want to vote on this or it's more of a question of like procedural do we, does this need to be approved voted on by the committee. So, technically, you know, it's one of the gray areas in terms of superintendent school committee my preferences that we does get voted on, because I think it shows a good faith collaboration between elected officials and staff. The technical question probably could be argued either way but I think more importantly, we'd like to show, you know, that we've worked through a process and we have that so my preferences that it would be voted on, you know, whatever the version is I'm not jumping into that decision piece that's for you all to to consider but I do think a vote would be something that we could then bring back to the community. And if people have concerns about the policy I think from an enrollment perspective that does mostly fall in the elected officials daily way. Okay. So does anyone want to make a motion. So I'll make a motion. But please don't make me make all the motions tonight. I move to approve the Fort River come out as dual language enrollment policy for 2020 2021 moved by McDonald's seconded by Mr Harrington. Is there any further discussion. Seeing none will move to a vote. Mr. Demling. Demling I. Mr. Harrington. Herrington I. Ms. Lord. Lord I. Ms. Donald I. Ms. Spitzer. I. Spitzer I passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And now our next item on the agenda is our COVID-19 in school update from Dr. Morris. I don't have slides tonight I'm going to go. Just oral but I do have a short video that I'd like to show in a little bit. It's five minutes long so it's not that short but I think it does kind of especially the elementary level show some of the dilemma that we have. So in general, starting with the piece that on Monday or excuse me on. The day of the week it is it's crazy a couple of days ago Tuesday the governor opted to close schools for the rest of the year I think it's no surprise we've talked about it here and in my opinion it was the right decision. The public health information was showing that that and I think it wasn't just the public health information but the public confidence of returning that soon even if the public health information improves dramatically would have been its own challenge for families and for staff and for everyone. And I think it's really important, you know, that he made that decision now because it helps us start planning for the potential for what summer look like and the potential for what fall will look like and the candor that I want to share is that the fall won't look like a normal fall of school. I don't know I don't have an answer exactly what it will look like, but I am confident that it will not look like a normal fall in school. And I say that for a couple reasons one is our students will not have been in school for the better part of five months. Our staff will not have been in school for the better part of five months and the socialization process that happens when you're in groups, physically in groups with people for a large group for most of the people in our organization will not have happened and. And so we need to do some real thinking about that there's obviously the academic and social emotional piece that has to be managed. Additionally, we're going to receive guidance the next couple weeks of what that looks like in terms of some precautionary measures from a public health perspective. I'm not going to get ahead of myself by predicting what those will be or talking about what they might be. When they come out it will certainly be a topic that needs to be at the school committee and we'll need to discuss. But I imagine the one thing I'll say is I'll imagine there'll be real clear guidance about students being in large groups, right? And so you think about assemblies things like that I would be shocked if there's not some guidance around that. I think it'll be much more significant than where I'm just starting with the one thing I feel really certain about. And as we get more guidance will bring into the committee because I think what I continue to say to folks not to be a downer is I think there'll be challenges academically. There's going to be challenges operationally and there'll be challenges fiscally and we'll get to that a little later on the agenda. So as challenging as we are now, I think planning for next year is really important. And the way we're working on it is we work in three week bunches. So we talk about what are we doing in three weeks from now? What are we doing six weeks from now? What are we doing nine weeks from now? That seems to be the right green size for us to be working on things. So certainly where we are now is distance learning 2.0 and talking about that and then getting into budget. We're starting to have those conversations about summer three weeks from now. We'll be heavily into talking about summer and probably six weeks from now will be heavily into talking about fall. The amount of work that we have just a sheer quantity of transitioning from schooling as we know it to what we're doing now to what we might do in the fall is high enough where we have to chunk things. Otherwise, folks can really feel overwhelmed. So that's sort of the at the meta level, something that I'm really proud of our staff and our partnership with UMass is we got word that this yesterday that we've served our 20,000th meal since March 17, which is just, it's kind of shocked, even though I get daily updates from our food service director when you think of 20,000 it's sort of to me just a wild number. So, you know, it's bittersweet because on one hand I'm really proud of what what the district and what staff members have volunteered and our staff members who are drivers or staff members in food service have been able to do. On the other hand, it shows the need and the food scarcity in our community that that folks are that that's where people are and that's what the needs are and and so I want to celebrate our staff for stepping up celebrate UMass for partnering with us. But, but I think it has to be that celebration has to be tempered a bit with the needs in our community. And that's not slowing down, if anything it's picking up. And so I just wanted to note that we had our third round of Chromebook pickups, I believe we're over 400 Chromebooks that have been delivered or handed out to students at the elementary school. This is only K to six things does include Pellum so but that's a much smaller percentage of our students than the Amherst elementary school. We also have handed out hotspots we are third round of pickups today on those. So at the elementary level we're down to we believe in the neighborhood of 10 families that we're having trouble connecting with to figure out a hotspot drop off or pick up, which from where we started with we've made tremendous progress on that and the family center has been critical and reaching out and continue to reach out with those families. We are actively working on six grade graduations. I think pretty soon you'll serve six grade families and we'll see a survey that goes out to them to try to figure out. It's a pretty big right of passage and to try to get family and student feedback on what makes sense. I'm including Pellum and this are four elementary principals are working in collaboration on that and to try to figure out what's the best vehicle given the age of the students in the event for students to be how should they be managing that and how to celebrate our sixth graders who very sadly will not be coming back to school as sixth graders again at their elementary schools and I should actually mention that. What I'm excited at the beginning and probably was going too quickly is the school closure I meant everything I said it was the right decision and like many things right now is bittersweet. The amount of sadness and students the amount of sadness and staff that they won't be able to be together again in the same way. I'm not just talking about sixth graders or at the secondary level 12th graders or eighth graders is really significant that there was relief that the decision was made on Tuesday. And then there really was the sadness and I heard from a lot of families a lot of students frankly just even in my neighborhood. A lot of a lot of students who were not you know, even if their first moment because of some social inertia is to say oh schools cancel for the rest of your in person school. And four later they were really, you know, quite sad about that and I'm sad about that. You know, nothing replaces in person education, both from a social perspective but also from an academic and learning perspective and I think it's worth noting that despite what you might see in a cartoon or something like that. There's real sadness for everyone around that the situation is such that our hallways are really empty and really quiet and that's not how we want our schools. You know, it's, yeah, it is very sad. We made a transition a week and a half ago to distance learning 2.0 we're going to survey families and staff tomorrow about how that's going for them at the elementary level as well as secondary but the Amherst meeting I'll speak to Amherst. We're also going to include a question for families about just what other stressors and staff but it's differently worded what other stressors are going on in their lives because we want to, we want to know how it's going but not just an academic level and how the school's doing but how our families experiencing this and what are other ways we can be supportive of families as this is happening. This phenomenon right now. And so we're really looking back forward to seeing the feedback and figuring out how we can improve what both what we're delivering to students and families in this unusual environment, as well as what other needs to be addressed and how can we help families manage those. I think it's a particular challenge at the elementary level one of the things that I hear is, you know, when you have very young kids kind of the online learning piece is is significantly harder because they're not at an age developmentally where they can work independently for long stretches, whether it's online or whether it's even just activities that are sent or lessons by teachers. The capacity of six or seven year olds is really different than when you're talking about 16 year olds at a high school level, and it's put a significant strain on many many families and I want to both acknowledge that it's going on across the country there's tons of literature New York Times many article and other other newspapers are writing about it and it's really hard and if the chair will be gracious enough there's there's a video that I thought someone at the MIT teaching lab put together that I think highlights both the challenges we have as well and I know perhaps how we should be thinking about this moving forward so let me see if I can once again get my screen going how to approach remote learning and think about those states that we can form consortium with or borrow materials from or those can people hear that just so I can before I play for five minutes so make sure it's not silent for five minutes. I'm sorry. Yeah, okay, now I see it. Thanks. I think another thing that is evoked by this sort of divergence is what is the purpose of schooling during a pandemic. What is it that we're trying to to make something happen. I think it's good to pause in that work and say what is it that we're trying to accomplish what is the purpose of schooling in a pandemic and from our answers to that question can we help gain alignment on what it is that we're trying to accomplish when I on March 13 I didn't we have a podcast that's called teach lab and I did an interview with a great New York City teacher named Michael Prashan. And I said to Michael, who was one of the earliest teachers in the United States to pivot to the distance learning I said Michael I think you should really focus. You're not going to be able to do everything that you did before so focus on the most important material. And he said Justin, I think that's half right. I think I should focus on things that important but I also have to figure out what is achievable at a distance. I think there are some things that we do in the mathematics curriculum that are really well aligned that I can imagine myself doing at a distance and there are other things that seem much harder to do if I'm not right there with a whiteboard shoulder to shoulder with my students. Obviously, you know, so that makes me think of this kind of two by two. What's important and what's achievable. Obviously, things that are high importance high achievable those are desirable things that we really want to work on. And in the middle we have all these trade offs where we've got to think about there may be some things that are really important to us but are just hard to do at a distance. And we also want to be careful of potentially of things that are maybe easiest to do the difference but not the things that are most closely aligned with our values. I think I'll pass on this too so I can turn it over. Let me just say a few final thoughts and then turn it over to Marty. We have some some guidance and some recommendations in the paper. Here's a slightly different twist on those things. One is, I think there's a ton of great work happening in the United States happening around the world. And I hope folks will borrow liberally from those good ideas particularly sort of concrete examples of the most common thorneous problems and clever solutions to those problems. I hope that everyone tackling this challenge recognizes the constraints and challenges of home based schooling, particularly this challenge of having K 12 teachers training parents to run home schools during a pandemic. I mean the more I sort of say that idea allowed to myself. It just strikes me as a really substantial challenge and certainly one that I think educators all across the United States across the world are going to step up and meet. But I think if we're realistic about what that challenge looks like that'll help us meet it appropriately. My penultimate story will be that when I was in college I used to run a search and rescue group in the state of Virginia called the Blue Ridge Mountain Rescue Group. And so kids and elderly people with dementia would get lost in the woods and I would organize these teams to go find them. And I learned about the system called the incident command system which was developed in the American West to fight forest fires. And one theme of the incident command system is that when things become difficult when emergencies arise, one of the first things to do is to assign a couple of people to think about and plan for the future. So in moments that feel like an all hands on deck kind of moment, it can often be good to design them as most hands on deck. So when we ran searches and did search and rescue work, right when we got on scene we would take two smart people and we would put them in the church basement and say don't worry about what's going on right now. Imagine what this is going to look like in 24 hours. Imagine what this is going to look like in a week. And I think that kind of medium to long term planning now can, it seems like a cost of resources but I think it can pay dividends in the future. One of the things that I think would be helpful right now is to start to get some sort of straw men sacrificial drafts of what should school look like when we get back. What are a couple of models that are floating out there, so that schools and districts and states can start gravitating towards a couple of those models, and we can begin planning backwards and saying okay, we know we want to emphasize this in the fall so maybe actually we can do a little bit less of that right now or build toward that and creative way right now. And then I would especially just say to our to our colleagues in state education agencies. So, sorry about that. Realize the limitations of the bandwidth of my computer and my wi fi. I'm just going to interrupt I think we just lost CLO. Okay. And, and Peter. I'm not going to run another video now. I learned my lesson. So what I'll say, the couple things that I took from the video and I'm sorry about the technology problems. One was that this is a really hard situation and that we have to just be continuously learning. And that, you know, again what's desirable and what's achievable aren't always matching particularly with the given the age of elementary age students again. It's a little easier we're talking about middle school and high school students for those of you who are parents with with ages, you know, you can imagine what this would look like five, six years ago or 10 years ago, whatever it is and just that the parents have to play a larger role with the age of children and many of those families that parents caregivers are working as well as trying to do this and it is a significant strain on everyone involved and we're trying to right size it and what we're learning and I think the survey will show is that there are families for which they want and more more things sent home and there are families who feel overwhelmed by what we are sending home. And so we're trying to build in choice and options into that but I just want to stress that I'm aware of the strain this is causing on everyone. I also want to emphasize as well that are many of our staff members and teachers are also parents with their own kids at home. And so they're trying to do this like everybody else with their own children at home with someone who is doing more asynchronous stuff because of her family situation she said yeah I take all my lessons between nine, nine o'clock at midnight nine o'clock at night and midnight because the rest of the day I'm managing my own stuff right and so there really is significant challenges in this context and to the last point, we are starting to think about summer and fall we don't have enough people for a church basement to send people to a church basement. That's not in the cards for us but we actively are working on drafts of what that will look like and we'll be working on that a little more we're going to, I think the state guidance some state guidance will come out in the next week or two, but we're already thinking of multiple scenarios, so that we can make the best choices of spring by thinking about what things may look like in the summer and fall. I just have a couple more things and we can certainly open up for conversation. One of the things that we are actively working on and thinking about very definitively is summer. I think it's likely that at least some of our summer programs will be done virtually. I don't think we'll have everybody, you know, if you've ever been to Crocker farm in the summer. It's a pretty full place because that's where the elementary programs are but the special ed title one ELL. So we are trying to look at that and one of the things that we're doing actively is the federal government allowed us to usually can only take 50 if you don't spend all the money that you receive in an entitlement grant it you can only move 15% off to the next school year and they relax that rule so anything that we don't spend this year we can spend starting in the fiscal year that starts your life first. So we're being very conservative what we're spending particularly from a title one perspective title one are funds that go to students who maybe struggling and reading your math and it has to be given to students who receive their income eligible for supported to have produce lunch and so we're actively thinking if we have to be online of ways to have really small groups online and kind of a tutoring model that can be much more kind of beneficial than a large group 20 student class model at an elementary level because we know some students are having differential experiences now based on a whole range of contextual factors. So that's one example of trying to think think about our current context and what we can do with resources that we can stack pile and use in the summer so that when fall starts where we're when we think about equity and we think about social justice we're responding to that and really defined and creative ways. We're also thinking because we have a grant for the dual language program of coming on days. There's no way to simulate having three hours of Spanish or three hours of English every day for many families some families are able to do that and simulate that but for most of our students. They're hearing either Spanish or English. The vast majority of their day right now and they're kindergarteners we don't want them online all day long but we are thinking of a similar model where we can break. If we have to be virtual this summer. How do we provide resources for students were actually working with you mass right now there are some students who are going to volunteer this spring that didn't happen. But even providing students with more or language development even the spring because they're volunteers so it's not a financial impact so we are trying to think about who gets impacted who gets impacted the most. If we are able to have some students attend live summer school we're going to start with students with intensive needs from a special ed perspective. Then move on to students special ed students who are in an intensive needs program and if things are really better than we can open up for title one and allow but we're trying to think of students again whose needs are most difficult. Most difficult to serve in a virtual environment and prioritizing their needs first as we as we potentially look at what that looks like. The planning for fall will take a lot of time again that's probably three weeks away from being started in earnest we do have some people thinking about that as the presenter from MIT said but we sort of have to wait for a little guidance there are some helpful tools there's a helpful website that's got started by some former educators and physicians in the New York City area. Thinking ahead about a checklist so I should have with Rupert from the facilities office as well as Jill Consolino our nurse manager today. So we're still trying to work through the operational side the academic side but the public confidence side is going to be huge. Even if all those things are played out having everything published having real clarity having people be able to ask questions is going to be really critical for people to feel comfortable and confident coming back in whatever way that we are able to come back. In the fall it has to be really public and people are going to have tremendous number of questions rightfully so and we need to be able to respond to them and they're already starting to come in. In terms of questions about the fall and and for right now everyone's been incredibly patient and understanding in the community that we're you know our foot is heavily in this year and we are starting to think about it but we need to wait for expert guidance from the state. Last thing I want to say and then I will stop talking I apologize this was long winded was that tomorrow we are having a two more things excuse me. Tomorrow we're having a session we have a counselor from the elementary middle school and second and high school level. And I'm just going to be the facilitator but they're each going to share common kind of mental health or emotional well being challenges that are our students are typically or many students are facing. Offer tips for families we've had a number of families email saying can I watch this with my middle school or watch this with can I watch it with my high school or we said absolutely. We're going to live stream that onto YouTube so it's really accessible and we'll record it as well. That will also have a 15 to 20 minute question and answer period at the end so families can ask some common questions that their challenges they're experiencing get some feedback from a group of mental health experts in our district. So we appreciate their time for that and hopefully people tune in for that. I'm really looking forward to it. We're also going to have a town hall next week for staff a town staff town hall to talk both about you know where we are with the closure but also some of the budgetary pieces that this group will talk about a little later on the agenda because we want to make sure our staff stand as informed as possible and that seems to be the best way to do it and in the current physical distancing environment. So Mr slaughter and I will be the primary kind of facilitators of that meeting. So that was that was a mouthful. I apologize for that. And I'm open for any questions comments that anyone might have. Miss. First off I just want to say thank you for everything you're doing and I know there are probably hundreds or at least dozens of people behind you so thank you so much for everything everybody's doing. I guess excuse me one of the things I'm thinking about as we talk about the planning for the year ahead and how complex it's going to be is to what extent we're looking kind of outside of the folks who are. Employed by the school system to for some guidance in terms in the collaboration that's going to need to happen. Between not only officials at the town level but the you know like our public health officials but also regionally and so it may be too early to comment on this but I'd appreciate any thoughts you have on how to. Draw in potentially members of the public because I think that's one way that we build public trust is potentially bringing them people from the public to the table but also you know experts who we have within our community. Yeah so I think it's a couple things so I agree with everything you said and thank you for your kind words at the beginning and it truly is a full team effort. I think our superintendents group of Hampshire and Franklin County typically gets together once a month at most. We're getting together weekly because we are trying to look at a regional approach because it does well we have autonomy of our district. It'd be really strange for instance of Shoot Spare and Leverett had a wildly different plan than we had given that we're going to share students and you know frankly with school choice and the number of amount of transparency we have. We don't have to have exactly the same plan but it does make sense for to have a regional approach to this and so there's been a lot more collaboration than I've ever experienced from our superintendents in Hampshire and Franklin County. You're absolutely right from the public health official in terms of Amherst and Julie Fetterman has been kind of looped into all of this and I think there has to be opportunities when we come back. Before we come back excuse me for the community to weigh in and I think this body is going to have a large role in facilitating a lot of that as well as I will as well because I think they're. My hunch is that there will be decisions that are mine to make and my hunch is there will be decisions that are the committees to make as we move forward that it's. The decisions are going to be large enough and impactful enough operationally where not that the committee just needs to be informed but the committee may you know want to weigh in more formally and some of the potential decisions that need to be made. You know and I'm not trying to be a little coy but if anyone wants to more you could look at the guidance that the state of Washington has given to its schools for fall. There are some states that are a little ahead of us. You'll get the state of Colorado the types of things that governors and commissioners of education are suggesting would would be a very different educational and school experience than what families are used to. I'm intentionally not getting ahead of the guidance we're supposed to receive from Massachusetts because we'll have that next couple weeks and and we'll be able to take take next steps and I don't want to have the public comp appreciate conversation before you know at least Massachusetts folks have weighed in. But we're going to need to meet a lot about that you know this body and we'll need to have some forums and gather some expertise from local folks as well I fully agree. Mr. Damley. So thank you very much for a very comprehensive presentation you answered most of my questions. So the thing that keeps I keep coming back to with with trying to get my head around potentially planning for the fall is that the resource need even just talking about financial resources is going to be so much higher on multiple levels than a normal year. And yet we're going to have significantly less resources than a normal year. I mean, way significantly less resources, if any indication from the federal and state levels are to be so it says double whammy right. And I look at you know our teachers in our town and I'm sure that we will do the best job we can possibly locally. But I keep coming back to this idea that if if there isn't a major movement at the state and federal level, then we are in for a world of hurt in our in our schools, and what we're able to provide that I don't think we really have a good sense of yet so I guess my question you and Doug, as well as are you getting a sense yet from your colleagues about about what needs to happen. Specifically or generally at the state or federal level for funding, because you know this the state budget is going to happen in a whirlwind, and we're going to have this small window to advocate for public school funding right. And if we don't have a really specific goal in mind it's just going to get swept away with with everything else. And I just think I just think the sooner that we focus on some guidance on that the potentially more effective we can be in minimizing the inevitable level of pain for the fall. Yeah, so I'm happy to jump in on that and Doug you're welcome to jump in as well this came up at the BCG this morning. So, it's hard to talk about this non politically. So, you know, I'm not elected official but I'm going to do my best. So the first couple stimulus packages have not included significant resources relative to in the whole of those. The stimulus packages for state and state government and municipal government, much of the consternation of many governors the governors have organized the head of the governor's association I think is from Maryland is Republican. And they're requesting the federal government provide funds so that they can support municipal governments in better ways because unlike the state government the federal government doesn't have to balance this budget as you know they don't balance their budget. State budgets don't have that option. The president seemed in a tweet which I'm not going to make a political comment about seemed to indicate that states and you know local governments might be next there's been advocacy for that. The Senate president or the Senate majority leader I should say made a comment yesterday that he was not interested in supporting or bailing out states or municipalities and he encouraged on the bankruptcy would be a better route than the federal government supporting them. So, I do think there's a lot of organization that's bipartisan of governor I know is bipartisan formally bipartisan of governors to request the federal government to support them as right now the support has all gone to specific items that hasn't gone to the operational deficits that the states are facing so the federal support that's gone to the states has gone to things like hospitals, you know like really important things there's not a judgment statement. So the real question in my opinion is whether the federal government will opt to support states to deal with the billions of dollars of deficit that they're going to be running next year. I mean our state is estimated between three and $5 billion. Other states are in worse shape because they don't have rainy day funds. It's the extent that Massachusetts does. So my personal opinion in terms of advocacy, and I think the MTA the Massachusetts Association has been on this as well. That's where I would direct it. I think given the state budget and their situation, their advocacy certainly help perhaps but but I do think the real help hopefully will come from the federal government in my personal opinion. So sorry that was a long answer but that's situation of you have more to add Doug. I just a little bit I think that I would I fully agree with you I think the federal government is absolutely where the resources exist to support schools and states for that matter and and you know one thing to keep in mind is while the rainy day fund for Massachusetts in pretty good shape. There's no way they're going to spend all of it down. I mean part of that exists for this circumstance and part of it exists to enhance the financial circumstance for bond ratings and borrowing the states going to need to do so they're not going to spend there. They're not going to spend the entirety of the rainy day fund this coming fiscal year. So I think that you know there is a significant need even in Massachusetts who's in pretty good financial shape to have support from the federal government so I think we'll do our local advocacy to our state reps to you know make our state budget as whole as possible and as saying and functional as possible and give us the latitude flexibility to do the things we need to do but really I think the primary leverage needs to be on the on the federal government as well. Sorry there's one more thing I wanted to add is that we've had some good dialogue with our state representatives. Well for Amherst I'll say state representative and then state senator and Dr Brady and I are going to get on a conference call with more state senators on Tuesday around some of how desi's managing the special ed Heather the funding for circuit breaker and some other special ed related items that we feel like at a local level there's real need for so I can certainly update the committee. Yeah we'll be together on Tuesday night I can update the committee more fully then about where the what we hear from the state senators and if there's places for advocacy after that conversation occurs. But relative to the federal government it's this is smaller scale kinds of things. But it's still important so we're still going to advocate and thank you to Senator Comerford and Representative Dom for for setting that up and and advocating on our behalf. And yes Peter to your point it is going to be a big mismatch between needs and an ability to meet them you know moving forward and we're even looking the spring if we do have any financial flexibility which we'll hear about a little later in the third quarter budget update. Trying to think forward about what do we need and are there things that we know we're going to need that we can purchase ahead of time if possible you know so River's involved in that conversation as well as Doug and and Jill and others. You know it's hard to forecast completely but there are some things that we can make some reasonable assumptions and see if we can take care of some things this spring. Any other comments or questions. And the committee. No. Mr. Spitzer. So just one more question last year when our Wildwood was closed for a very long time it was in wonderful condition. But it was a different situation that the building was closed for and so I'm just it would be nice to get some update on how we're making sure to if it's possible maybe it's not possible right now in which I think we have a totally good excuse for Yeah, so you know it's definitely in our minds and a big difference between that situation this situation is this situation every work day we do have custodial staff, not as many but we have custodial staff on site. So we're able to see when it when it was the Wildwood piece and because of the asbestos remediation. No one could actually be in the school for a long period of time that's not our situation right now. So I think you're right that it's a it's a concern that we have and we learned our experience and but you know I know that our past management company has been in we've allowed them in in certain ways because I last one last times I was in the office they were there and looking to get into the kitchen of the middle school. So I think it's a slightly better situation that we are able to have custodial maintenance staff actively working and looking to see if there are problems where Wildwood there was a very long stretch where they were not allowed in the building so problems were emerging they weren't they weren't visible to any of our staff. And I think that the last thing I'll say for closing up this topic is just, I think the thing I want to share with the community, and can emphasize enough about the fall is well we don't know what it'll look like. You know, I can't imagine a scenario where we come back and its business as usual, you know, both again educationally operationally. And I think the thing that that I want to stress is that will communicate will continue to communicate frequently about what's happening. And I know there's a lot of stress about at the elementary level as well as beyond I'll say the elementary is my child going to be ready for second grade. And I think what I'd like to say is that all the students are in the same boat. Everyone every first grader in the district is missing, you know, being in class missing that in person experience. And we're going to adjust the curriculum to make sure that the kids needs are met, and that's going to be true, moving forward across the country so a lot of our work once we sort of get out of this beginning of this implementation of this in 22.0 is actively thinking about what does the fall look like, because it's not going to look like we open up every day math book and we start chapter one and the second day of school a third day of school of second grade it's going to look really different and and how are we going to actively assess where students are both social emotionally, as well as academically is going to be a large part of that first month of school so you know it's there's been some sort of cliched social media posts about this and you know like anything else you see it too much and start to lose meaning but I do think it really matters for us to communicate we'll try to put this in the newsletter tomorrow a bit that we don't want families being anxious about it. We don't want students being anxious about it, and they're not going to return to a grade level above in the same way that they typically would have because we want to acknowledge that they haven't they won't have been in school for a long period of time and we're going to make that work for them. So at the elementary level that's more of a message for families directly but I do think it's really important to know that we are not planning business as usual on the educational or social emotional front. We'll know that a reentry and a rebuilding of community is going to be critical, and that from a curricular need where you're going to have to think differently about how next year, how next year functions for all students. You know the best example I tell of families who are anxious is and some of you may have seen this there was a really nice letter by I think it was someone at WPI, but Harvard University of Chicago all these major universities are sending letters out to prospective students, basically and their families telling them to relax that they know this pandemic is having a huge impact on families they know it's having a differential impact not every family is experiencing this the same way there are more challenges in some families and others based on a whole range of factors. And institutions that are I think worth their worth their weight are going to make that work and understand that things are going to have to look different because of this imposition into all of our lives so I just I want to end with that message because I think it's really important that families feel that because the longer this goes on especially with Tuesday's announcement, the level of, I think anxiety of one thing went away, and then anxiety different anxiety reemerged or was maybe magnified about that. And we're not holding anyone back right it's not there's no no retentions that are going to be delivered at the elementary level and second grade is going to start differently than it would have had we been in school all spring and so sorry again, I will be briefer in my comments the rest of the meeting but you know I do feel like this is a really critical important for families and for students critical topics I just want to state that more definitively. So thank you for that detailed update as always. And we're going to move on now to the next item on our agenda which is the fi 20 third quarter update. You're muted again. I will share my screen if it's okay with folks so people can see the update as Dr slaughters walking through it. I'll let him share that. And hopefully we can focus focus on the text as much if we can focus just on the sort of chart at the top I think that'll be the most attractive part to take you through tonight. First thing I'll say is this maybe as good a new that you'll get financially for a while. You know just, and it's not that there's still a lot of unknowns in in what I'm going to tell you today and so what I think that the short story is is that, you know, with not being in school there are a number of areas that we're putting money on which which affords us a little flexibility. And so you'll kind of see that in some respects and in this in this chart of sort of where things sit. Just to take you through one thing I did for in some ways for simplicity sake is in the salary line the very top line there the budget adjustments I put all of the changes that we we have into that budget adjustments column and so as not to have it split between adjustments and available budget. You know we've protected out with the encumbrances there is that column what we think we're going to spend through the rest of the year for salaries, you know, we're fairly fixed in what we're paying for at this point, relative to our staff and so it looks as though being in a circumstance where there's about $145,000 of available funds that were expected to be spent but didn't and part of that the biggest one is there was a position for river that wasn't filled. There are positions that that were delayed in being filled and or were hired at a rate lower than expected and so that's where that number comes from and that helps. You know, as far as other expenses that are above what we expected as we spoke in quarter to one of the big areas in which we had a higher level of expenditure and knew that we would through the rest of the year was in our district wide special education we have a couple of placements that were unanticipated. And they have, as you can see in the right most column under available budget of negative 287 or $288,000 that we're expecting there. And I will say around a lot of those encumbrance column numbers. In other words, those are expected expenses we will have through the rest of the of the year is what that's holding is there's a number of those where we don't know whether that'll really be the number or not so some of that is by the issue of. We're still negotiating quite frankly with with the number of vendors about what is an appropriate support level. And that's part of what what Dr Morris was talking about relative to his, his conversation he and, and Dr Brady are going to have with the state relative to how you know some of the accounting is going to get done. There are some some questions about, you know, one is a bus transportation large bus transportation. I've been working with other districts that have the same vendors we have, trying to, you know, accumulate information that we're all working from common ground on that and understanding that there are aspects of supporting those businesses to keep them viable. That's necessary so we're not going to spend zero on transportation through the end of the year but we will spend something. And we're trying to get to numbers that that makes sense for us and, and while at the same time remaining compliant with state law, because one of the concerns around a lot of things that that districts are paying for across the state is, are you paying for not receiving either good or service that you're not receiving and there are, there are nuances of the language that that people are using and interpreting how best to strike those balances. Because, you know, they're like bus companies I mean we're fortunate that we have, when we did our bid this year we had, you know, competitive bid process multiple vendors have been for the for the contract. There are a number of my colleagues in places nearby that had a single vendor and so if that vendor goes out of business they don't have buses to run so those conversations are ongoing around what we're what we're going to pay. What expenses will actually incur versus, you know, what we expected to incur the nature of some of how those services are delivered by virtue of being remote is very different. So, we're still sort of sorting that out so those encumbrance columns will probably change significantly. Most likely they'll go down a little bit but not not tremendously we've made some estimates on what we think we're going to spend relative to retirement incentives and, and that sort of thing utilities we know we're using less but we haven't got a firm grasp on that yet because quite frankly bill hasn't come in yet. So we can look at how our, our utilities vary from nobody being in the building for a month versus being in the building. So we're still sorting through that. But the fortunate thing is it when we spoke at the end of quarter to we thought that we were probably in a circumstance where we were going to use some of our special education stabilization money to to support our budget it looks like we may not need to do that we'll be making decisions and come back to you with those, those decisions and sort out how we're going to take the resources we have and apply them to the different areas of need within the budget. So, you know, we had when the budget was put together a year ago for fiscal 20 there was an expectation of about $50,000 going into special ed stabilization and another 42,000 that was going to be used for supporting, you know, contingency needs within the district. We may still be able to do it that way. In other words, earlier in the year we were thinking all 92,000 was going to be needed to help support the budget. You know the savings and I mean if you look quite frankly at substitutes alone there's there's $115,000 of substitutes we're not, we're not buying because they're not needing to come in and cover for teachers by, you know, so so there's some areas that have so freed up and helped us out in that regard. I think there's anything else. So I think that the key thing is that while this is where we're sitting right now and it looks pretty decent I think that, you know, there are many, you know, unknown still relative to the current fiscal year. We're not under pressure from a revenue side the way we will for fiscal 21. But on a spending side we're still sorting out what what we're going to spend for the rest year and what are those things that are coming up that will need in anticipation of the new year and to finish this year well I mean we've done a fair amount of purchasing for, you know, we're buying misters and things like that that help us, you know, sanitize the school in a way that's going to be necessary not only this year but it's going to be necessary into the future so we'll have to, you know, go through that process of understanding those those needs as we move forward and try to utilize some some potential resources from this year to help support that. If I could jump in for one second Doug. I think the other so I agree with everything that Dr slaughter said I think the only thing I'd add is will you know given this third quarter update which is looking more optimistic than where we're at the end of second quarter. Two other things to say is that we're looking as Dr slot about coven related items. I think the other thing when we're looking at the town and in the finance fiscal shape it's in, you know, being really conservative in general superintendents of municipal school districts don't like giving back money to the town at the end of the year for a host of reasons. And I'm one of them, you know, because there's always more needs and we can meet at the same time. I think being good stewards of finances. I think it's a little bit of a different conversation because anything that goes. If there are funds that we don't quote unquote need like for instance because of the substitute piece or because there's some transportation savings. I'm being really conscious that the town is going to have to support us support the schools in a time of great fiscal strain next year. And so it's a different conversation this year than perhaps it is in other years. And so just something else to keep in mind as we get to the fourth quarter and as some of these lines get tightened up and we're able to fill some of the needs that existed. It is something that we're going to have to think about the last thing I'll say is just from a special education perspective we're constantly thinking about students who are struggling to access the material because their accommodations modifications are harder to fulfill in a virtual environment and all the guidance we have from federal and state government is be creative and our teachers are doing a wonderful job with that. And yet, we're just very conscious of some needs that may emerge and we want to make sure that all of our students are supported and for if we really mean all that we're thinking about students who may be having a more challenging time accessing the content in a virtual environment so just want to add that to Doug's very coherent description I mean a very thorough description excuse me of third quarter budget. Sorry, I was muted. Mr. Demling. Yeah, thanks. So, so similar comment to to previously, which is so when I think about FY 20. I just look at the calendar and the clocks running out right so it's it's good that there are productive conversations going on between vendors and districts and desi and state lawmakers about who ought to pay what and to what percent for the rest of the fiscal year. But you know my concern from a school committee advocacy standpoint is that, you know, if we if we wait too long to potentially organize together with other organizations and others to school districts, if we can't come to an agreement. It's not going to be as effective if you know if it's if it's June 23 as opposed to May 23. So I guess, just just try and come back to us at the next meeting. You know, as as definitive as you can with with what you're seeing from your colleagues. You know, is Dr Morris with your superintendent colleagues and Dr slaughter with your financial colleagues across the state because I think we're only one town and so if we can pick specific things that we feel are going to resonate and be supported across multiple districts. Probably the best shot we have if if if we don't have the ideal situation which everybody agrees and comes to a consensus. Again, it will again be a very small advocacy window so I would look for an update for that for our next meeting. Yep. And so that next meeting is on Tuesday, which is a joint meeting because this topic spans the three districts and this is one of the topics so I think you'll get a much more thorough update and and I think, you know, I don't want to preview too much but I think we'll have very specific information next Tuesday about where there's no how does negotiations are going and and where we look to be able to land. Mr Spitzer. So thank you for this presentation and it's nice to get some positive news for. I guess I have just two questions related to the two big areas. We talked about in the COVID-19 update so are not big areas but two of the things you mentioned we're doing newly are delivering meals and that seems like it should be showing up somewhere in here but I don't necessarily see and I'd be curious to understand kind of how we're remaining to is it through donations for mass or like maybe it is here and I just don't see and then the other thing was all the tech expenses we've had in terms of perging that what the hot spots and additional folks for kids in the so are those going to be coming out of capital budget. Or am I just missing it. Doctors. Mr slaughter. I'll speak to it. Well preview a little bit on the last topic, but we'll speak with that a little bit more but but on the on the person relative to food service. We operate our own service and it's we try to have it be self supporting. That's generally not shown here in the sense that it has a revolving fund that sort of carries the burden there. I will say though that because we are in the fortunate circumstance of having last summer run the summer food service program. We were immediately able to start utilizing that exact same program. And so what's fortunate about that is we're able to sort of implement without worry about support. We they've they've definitely the federal government has definitely opened up some some latitude to deliver meals in more places and get supported in that way. So every meal we serve is is reimbursed. So that helps us we are not collecting any money from anybody that sort of thing. We've also been some grants from a variety of sources that have become available for us and we've we've gotten a couple of those. And so, you know, one of them was for things that you don't normally think about with food service but when you go mobile, you have to have either containers or paperbacks to put everything in. You know, paperbacks and that's helpful. And so and I think there will be more of those that will be, you know, applying for and getting and reaching out to help support that that food service program as it goes through. Really the rest of the summer but the federal government's been very clear and in its report and and it has also modified some of the rules around it to allow us to serve more kids in more places. And that's been helpful. I think we've taken advantage of that. I think we're partnering with with the university. They're providing some of that as well to help reduce the burden on us for purchasing, preparing and delivering. So that's really quite helpful for us. On the second topic of the tech. I will see. I can do that. I don't have the the documentation will need to into the meeting that will help this but I'll let more speak to that. Yes, the Chromebooks, the Chromebooks were Chromebooks that existed in our districts or grades three to six. All the classrooms have Chromebook cards so it's repurposing those so there was some purchasing of Chromebook cases because you know for our middle school high school is we have those cases ready to go. That's not true for the elementary level where the Chromebooks don't typically go home. But the Chromebooks themselves were Chromebooks that we had in the district that were repurposed and minimizing the amount of work that took from the IS department so I don't want to make it. This is a financial conversation so I'll keep it financial but it was incredible amount of work. So here at the end of the meeting our district PGOs initially reached out to me with what they could do to help but I'm an individual PGO and they thought in the district PGOs and they raised they in almost no time organized an incredibly successful fundraiser in terms of hot spots and so we could talk about that towards the end of the meeting I think Dr. Sorter can we talk about that when we talk about gifts. We can. Okay, so we'll do that then. The last thing I think the one piece that is a pure negative fiscally is at the preschool level. So our preschool students just the short story is students of special needs attend for free as is required by state law are students who don't have special needs have a have a payment and it's different like sliding scale, you know there's levels of it. But those students, like most other preschools we're not charging them because we're not providing the care that goes along with typical preschool. So that is something that is a net loss for the district. It's not a huge amount of money when you compare some of the other things that we're talking about here but it is something that is a concern and it's a concern across the state, particularly in districts that have non integrated preschools that are like exclusively on those funds to run preschools and that's played there are certain to see places where there's concerns about furloughs and layoffs in the current fiscal year for their preschool programs because if you if you're running it almost like a private preschool that's run in a public school and you're not getting any money that's hard to pull off we're not fortunately not in that scenario at all, but that is something to keep an eye on about what that loss is over time. And that that's the one area that's a pure loss. I think most of the things Google has graciously allowed K to 12 districts that don't pay them any money anyway to have expanded use of all their products like this one, you know, formerly we couldn't have that many Google Hangout like we're on now now it's up to 250 people which you would have to pay many, many, lots of money for and they recently extended it to September 1, you were supposed to run out I think sometime in June and they they now extended it. We are looking at other products more the secondary level that thinking about what the future of education looks like in the next year or two that we may want to think about but to date we've been doing most of it within our operating budget and repurposing things that we've already had. But you know I think the Chromebook key I'm looking at Dr slaughter but I think Chromebook cases is probably the one sort of on the expense side though one thing, technologically that we've done that the hotspots we spent money on but again we'll get to that because later in terms of gifts. We bought a lot of cases and I have a PO for more cases that I need to get signed the process. Oh, protect the Chromebook so it's a you know it's just it's sort of a good money investment type of thing. Yep. Any other questions. Can't see everybody for some reason but I'm not hearing any other questions either so I think we're safe to move on. Thank you, Doug for that for the date. Next on our agenda is the FY 21 budget discussion. Would you like me to start that. Sure, so I'll start it with the summary and both miss Spitzer miss McDonald read the board of budget coordinating group this morning. For the town of Amherst and essentially what we were told which is no surprise is the budgets that were passed earlier this spring, or even your role in that I think in the case of the library are not going to be the active budgets moving forward. We heard an overview of the incredibly challenging situation at the state level the local level, the deficits that are coming. And some real challenges and what I guess I'll talk about the challenges and then I'll get to the timeline I have the slide from this morning that talked about a revised timeline to pass a new revised budget. Like many districts were struggling with how to do that we are hard at work on that. You know the sort of the scenario that we're likely you see many districts under I saw Pittsfield was in this situation as well is looking at a level funded budget. That's not decision the town has made but we needed to start somewhere. So what level funding means is that you're spending exactly the same amount next year that we in FY 21 that you'd be spending in FY 20. For this district that's a pretty significant reduction in services, it's not a level service budget again a level funded budget, and we'll come back at our next not our next meeting next meeting is Tuesday and that'll be a couple specific topics, but we'll probably come back the week after that with some more thoughts and information on that. But it's it's a it'd be a more significant budget. Reduction than this district's had that I can remember. I mean I can't go back to my memory when I was a teacher in 2003 2004 and there was an override that that's a little beyond my recollection but it'd be the be the hardest budget we've had in fiscal terms in a great many years. And so our team is hard at work. Dr. Slaughter knows this trying to think of multiple scenarios. It's a moving target, but you have to start somewhere and that's the place at which we're starting. So Miss McDonald would is there miss bits or anything other than when we get into process anything else that we're summary things from BCG that you'd like to add. I would just like to add a point of clarification. I don't believe that we actually voted to approve the Amherst elementary schools. That's right. We got we got COVID it out. We were going to do that right before. Yeah, the regional schools and some of the other budgets were passed. Yeah. No, I think if I think the key takeaway from the meeting this morning was was the timeline and also the desire. Despite, you know, they the flexibility to be able to do it one month budget at a time and sort of delay both the town budget and therefore the schools budget. It's we don't want to do that because it becomes more and more expensive and Dr. Morris sort of express that in great terms during the meeting this morning. But so the plan is to proceed with a one month budget and not sort of be on that and just push out our timing one month in terms of securing the FY 21 budget. And I think you have the timeline. I just know before I bring it up, Ms. Spitzer, is there anything that you wanted to add for this morning? I guess the next time we're going to be meeting is May 11th. So that was the only other. Sure. So today is the 23rd. So there was a BCG meeting that we just talked about the finance committee of the town council met as well. They're going to meet originally we were supposed to pass our budget by April 1 then it turned into May 1 and as you can see as I eventually scroll down it's now going to look to June 1 to be the date that the Amherst school committee passes its budget. This obviously is up for discussion debate at the town council, but that's the general flow of things right now. The red is regional things which are still in flux so I would ignore those. And so on this schedule it has May 20th as school and library submit one month budgets. That's I'm going to say this differently. We don't incur some districts or some organizations incur significant costs right after the beginning of the fiscal year. That's Dr. Slaughter can correct me, but that's not true for schools. We don't generally the county fiscal year doesn't flip and all of a sudden we incur significant costs from a cash flow basis. Our costs tend to go up when students arrive because of service delivery and additional activities contracts for teachers and things like that. So that's less of a concern from our perspective about like getting through the month of July from a cash flow perspective. We do agree with that Dr. Slaughter we haven't had this conversation. I would I think there are a couple of expenses that we pay you know you tend to think like software renewal license renewals and that sort of stuff. There's some things regarding our folks that are Hampshire County retiree. So there's a few things but not a lot and I think that you know vendors would probably be a little flexible with this if we need a little time on some of that stuff. The other thing I would say is that I think you know part of why a one month budget is I think that the picture at the state level relative to what their budget is going to look like and what state aid to local communities is going to look like is part of what's driving the idea of a one month budget because I think there's just going to put this data as quickly as they do it in the whirlwind in which they do it. I think it's still in a good year they don't get the budget until the 15th of July. So imagine this circumstance so the you know the give and take there at the legislative level will be different than it has been in past years but it will be no less complex or or difficult. And if I'm just scrolling down here so this one month budget again we wouldn't anticipate to be any different than especially for talking about a level funded budget. It's going to be sort of what you'd expect it to be in terms of level funding and then the June 1 state for the schools at the latest date to submit the school budgets to the town manager. An important note that I should have mentioned that was talked about this morning was the capital plan. There was comments made explicitly questioning in general the town of Amherst like to get to about 10% spent on capital a year. And there were some pretty explicit statements made that that likely wouldn't happen that there'll be some tradeoffs that have to be made between the operating budget and the capital budget which the town tries its best to ignore or to avoid excuse me not ignore but avoid and that's likely not possible in this year's budget given all the other constraints. And so in addition to looking at the the relooking at the operating budget for folks who are on the joint capital planning committee that that group's going to have to meet again and revisit where they were where they were in process but also under different assumptions than what they were working on before and that will flip to conversations for for this body and for me and for Dr. Slaughter as well as as well as Robert Roy Clark about what are things that we can't let go of from a capital need and what are things that given the current context, but we'd love to do and they're not going to happen at least for a year. And I don't know how Ms. McDonald, Ms. Spitzer sent felt but I felt like it was pretty explicitly stated in the meeting this morning that there's going to be after different different conversations about what percent can go to capital versus what is the in the town's goals in the past. So, you know, just timeline for us locally here in the school committee is that I imagine, you know, perhaps the week after next. It's not that week than the week after that we should get together at that point we'll have met with all staff will get some feedback and our administrative team is working on this pretty much constantly get texts and emails all the time with different ideas. And I think the thing to note again, not to be downer. This is going to be a multi year process. Right. This is, you know, the best economists are coming up with, you know, estimates I've seen from 17 to 22 months of economic impact. So this is round one. It's not it's not going to be the last round of budget challenges that the district faces. And we're trying to keep that in mind as we're thinking about what productions may need to be made or proposed. And, you know, while that's not good news. It's also we'd be foolish to think this is just a one time thing we'll get through this year and next year everything will be fine. So we're trying to be very intentional about understanding that and thinking both what we need to do in a very tight timeframe now as well as what are implications for future years where we may also be having a tough time with the funding piece that we really would love to have. So again, not to be a downer but I think it's important context for the conversation to come. So one question on talking going back to the capital question and you know the questions about what do we really need to hold on to as we as we get to that that point. The capital budget that we put in as as as an Amherst district was pre COVID. I'm wondering, are there going to be capital needs that arise with having to go back to school in in sort of this COVID world if we're assuming that we're still physically distancing and the like I'm thinking you know furniture or adjustments to room layouts. What are there going to be impacts and will we have that opportunity to sort of relook at that our capital requests. I think that's right. Yes is the is a short answer. I think the thing that that I worry about as we think about it is that particularly at Wildwood and Fort River. The quads are the usable spaces in quads are pretty small. So if there is any like, literal physical distancing that's required. It is something that that we actively are thinking about however capital need is going to be hard to address infrastructure deficiencies. Sorry to use that term but I think that, you know, I think Mr herrington would agree with me on that term. And and so we are actively thinking through what that looks like. We're going to wait again, I think within two weeks we'll get some at least initial guidance from the state. But I think one of the challenges will be how do we fit that guidance with our current infrastructure and and and make sense of it. But in terms of like the fogger those pieces we we're seeing what we can do out of this year's budget but that may end up being having more of those or having more cleaning facilities maintenance items that's related to disinfecting. That's likely to be an item that wasn't on the original list and we did some purchasing one already but we may, we may need more than what we currently purchased to make school work next year and those types of things I think, whether they end up in capital operational. That's some conversations need to have of the next couple weeks. Sorry to put you both hats on Mr herrington I try not to do that but it's hard not to talk about it when when you have certain expertise that then in your day dig questions. Not seeing any. So, thank you for that. Moving on to our next topic which is an update on MSBA. Sure. So, for MSBA it's this will be a brief one about two or three weeks ago the MSBA had a conference call with the town manager and myself, checking in. They're working remotely and they wanted to make sure we wanted to be able to start on May 1 and our answer was, yes, we still want to start on May 1. The, the, the full answer was we want to start on May 1, but we told you we were going to have our building committee ready to go May 1 we were told you we're going to have everything handed in. We would drive to Boston drop it off we're going to be the and so we've tempered our expectations of ourselves on that front because neither the town manager nor myself. It's more than the town manager side of this is going to have all of those things done in the current context in the beginning but since it is such a generous, I think 278 window it's a long window. We feel very confident we can get to summer and we can get building committee we can have enrollment studies done. There's some educational planning that we have to do and we feel very confident that we would like to stay on the timeline we're at. I think an additional note that is a cause of concern is that the construction industry is slowing down. And that's because some folks are not feeling like it's safe to continue the work that was happening. There was an email the MSP sent out to all districts in their pipeline in their program which doesn't affect us directly right now. There are districts who are in construction who are having significant delays in their projects and the note was along the lines of the MSP can increase the reimbursement even if it's going to cost more because of that delay. So it's really hard time for some districts. Just that this will backlog us. We're so far away from actual construction but it is just it was a cause of concern to receive the email to note the fact that districts are seeing significant delays in their projects right now because of COVID and how long that lasts hopefully for every for all sorts of reasons and MSP related that's a short one but it is just something to note that districts are reporting getting stuck in construction companies aren't feeling like they can continue to work in the current atmosphere and environment. And so, from our perspective we're moving forward they reached out again and I know time manager scheduling a meeting pretty soon. Dr. Slaughter's in it some of it's just like financial overview and more on the town side about funding a feasibility study and that sort of thing so they're actively communicating they're working remotely as well but they're actively communicating with us and I think things are proceeding as planned perhaps just at a slightly pace because of the attention that both the town and the schools are paying to the current crisis. But again both the time manager myself agreed wholeheartedly that we're going to stay on the timeline we set we're going to start on May 1. We'll be able to meet the expectations of MSBA. We may not just be the first ones to hand everything in months ahead of time. We may not be able to do that part of it. And we're looking forward to it. In terms of positivity like that's a really positive thing we're in the core program and we're actively starting to work on that and that's a really good thing given even my earlier comment that you couldn't predict this issue with Fort River and Wildwood. We talked a lot about other problems with Fort River and Wildwood. This is a novel one and even just the shared kind of hand washing stations and all that. We'll have to think through operational pieces but to think that on the horizon maybe more distant than we'd like. It would be improvements to our schools is critically important. Any questions? Mr. Demling. Yeah just a brief comment. I just wanted to thank you and the town manager for continuing to push this along. I think you hit the nail in the head there that this is going to be a very long. Slog painfully financially in many parts and if the community has. A major positive project that's real that we're looking at as a success down the line. That could be really positive experience for everyone involved very constructive experience so you know I think it's good I look forward to continuing updates on this you know at the pace that's appropriate during your state of emergency. I think it's good it's good to keep it in the public consciousness as we as we navigate through these difficult times. Thank you. Any other comments? No, not seeing any. Great. Thank you. And our last item and their new and continuing business is our future agenda agenda planning and as mentioned we have our joint meeting with the region and Pelham on Tuesday. We will be following up in a couple agenda items transportation. An update and a discussion about. Revising our timeline for the superintendent evaluation. And I believe in more sort of budget update. Budget process update are on our agenda for Tuesday. And I don't have my calendar in front of me about what our next meeting. So I can do that. I think if you give me one second, our next scheduled meeting is until the 19th of May, we're certainly going to have to meet sooner than that, just given the budget situation. You know, we don't have to do that here, but we can try to schedule something probably next probably not next week, probably the week after where we can get together and that'll have to be a primary topic of conversation. And I think so miss Spitzer mentioned earlier that there is a meeting on the 11th of May, which I thought that in May, I may have misunderstood, but I thought that that was a special town council meeting. At which the BCG isn't as anybody is invited to attend. But that is that special meeting is specifically when the town manager and finance team will be giving their update and projections for FY 21. So I think that's what you were just suggesting. Dr Morris is that it's after that meeting that our group, the Amherst School Committee meet again. Yeah, I think, I think that makes sense. The week of the fourth. Sorry. I could go either way. I'll put it that way. It depends a little bit since you're currently the acting chair region as well. You could talk to yourself about how we want to structure because we are scheduled to have a region meeting on the on the 12th. So I was wondering if it made sense at least have some preliminary conversations. I mean I certainly during the FY 21 budget conversation set, you know, at least one way to think about approaching this. And that's not a final decision, but I think, you know, I also want to respect the autonomy of the school committee, which, you know, you get to hear what the town says and get to pass the budget that is both reasonable for the town and also something that you want to advocate for So I really could go either way. What do committee members think on that in terms of meeting I know we're all living in this in this remote work environment as well as remote environment and so it is, it can be fatiguing to spend all our time on zoom and Google but So one to be respectful of that do what are folks thoughts on meeting the week of the fourth versus the week of the 11th. And we don't have to solve it now but if anybody has sort of any sort of burning comments or thoughts on that. Well, I just want to be conscious of the fact that we're going to be trying to pass a budget by June 1. So, if we wait to meet, and if we can't meet, if the meeting is on the 11th and then the 12th is a region meeting. It's not going to leave us as much time to have enough time for discussion before actually having to make a vote so I think if we want to leave room to deliberate and have some time to go back to the drawing board and then come back to the meeting it doesn't make sense to meet earlier, but I'm similarly also experiencing. And on zoom meeting since about 8am this morning. Similarly, sensitive with which you also stated so I don't know I guess the only thought I have is if I know we're doing a little bit more joint meeting. So I don't know if there's a way to have sort of a joint meeting on the 12 family. I don't know what the agenda is looking like for that we don't have the, normally we have that nice agenda planning and no criticism here but I think you're absolutely right I was as you were as I was listening. My thoughts were going in the same direction is that I do think that given the volume of work in front of us from multiple perspectives, as well as, you know, juggling with the region, the region committee as well, that it makes sense to sort of maybe create a new map for potentially, you know, propose schedule for meetings that then we can come back and react to so that we can plan this out. Thoughtfully, to address all of the things that we have ahead of us. I think then the other point to I was talking. Dr Morrison I had a separate very very brief conversation about budget hearing, we, you know, we never finalized our approved we finalized the budget but we didn't approve it, the original one. So if we go through this we will want to have opportunity to to engage the community, the public on this and have another public hearing so I think, you know, in planning our meetings will want to keep that in mind as well as, you know, have to get all of that done in May. Dr Morris. Yeah, so why don't we see if we can try to find a week date on the week of the fourth and I think the couple things we could do at that meeting is one, you know, get a sense of what the financial numbers are for a level funded budget, you know, in terms of reduction I mean you could look at the past or the proposed budget and look at the delta and find that out right that's not it there's no secret there but also to have some conversations about are we going to look to use our choice reserves and at what time and I think I'll be ready to make a recommendation to the committee on that at least to get some some kind of scoping documents that would orient the committee so if we do come back a week or two later. There's that initial conversation about what's the lay of the land. What kind of numbers are we talking about how would we conceptualize a process to get to those numbers because I think when we try to do that and specific budget ads cuts in the same meeting. That's really hard for the committee. It's less hard for staff because we're living it and talking about all time but to the committee I think that's really hard and I think to your point about having a public hearing I think we probably want to have you know my sense is probably three meetings in May on the budget, you know that first one which is can scoping and giving an overview. A second one where we get pretty specific that we have a hearing and a third one for you to deliberate and vote before June 1. I mean I do think it'd be hard to make the level of reductions we're going to make in two meetings in May. It just it doesn't seem realistic from again from my standpoint it's it's fine because that's what that's what we're doing all the time but I really want to respect the committee and your time and that for you to be able to offer meaningful feedback and actually see it reflected in the public can't happen in two meetings. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Great. Anybody have any other thoughts on. I mean I think our agenda is pretty full and we're going to be talking about but Yeah, if I could comment on that briefly miss McDonald just I do think we have to get through budget and COVID in May. I do want to get back in June to thinking about some other things that have been sort of stopped, but I want to restart some of those. I think once that process is complete and it's not going to be the same as the flow that we had in February and March but I do think June might be an opportunity to do status updates more formally and get back to some of the reports like, you know, we talked about coming on days and a full report. That's now just about a completion page phase from Abe about how that's going right I don't want to forget those I do think if they get presented in the midst of budget. We're not going to be given the full do by you all or by the public but I do want to think about what we don't have to do it now and I'm not suggesting it but what topics in June do we want to come back to to make sure that the before the year closes. We've closed that loop. Yeah, and I think we'll also come back to this a little bit when we on our at our meeting on Tuesday in the context of the evaluation process. One thing we'll want to think about is is how far into June and and extend our meetings do we want to extend our meeting time a little bit further because of all the, the work that is, you know, to be able to give our focus right now to budget planning and and still tackle and not sort of leave hanging some of the other priorities that we had had through this year. So, I can include that also in our May 4 meeting. I see a quizzical face. Mr. Jenling. Yeah, I just so I like the three part conceptual description that the superintendent had between big picture scope and the specifics and public hearing and then deliberation and vote. A challenge in communicating this is going to be where is the budget train with the school committee what stop is it at where can I provide input and then what is it over so I think if we can overcome the meeting logistics early enough, which is not a small task but if we can, if we could set that as defined as we can and then communicate that you know we don't we normally don't communicate meeting agenda topics more than a week ahead of time. But if we had in like in this case, here's the May plan for the budget. And we were able to share and advertise that to the public that you know here here's how we're going about it. This is the big opportunity for the hearing, even though you know we're always available at school committee d'Arps. I think that would go a long way towards towards towards public understanding of how the process is working because it's going to be the similar thing happening at the town level. So there's going to be a lot of moving pieces that people are going to want to pay attention to that they don't have a lot of time to pay attention to so earlier we can sort of articulate what I think is a really good plan that our chair and superintendent just sort of define the better off will be. And you're bringing up another point and the. I also sense that there isn't as broad awareness because it's so different aren't what we're doing. We're meeting virtually with meeting online and it's on TV. It's not it is being recorded but you know it's not it's at the town hall every Tuesday evening or once a month on Tuesday evening that there is this uncertainty of, you know, whether we're meeting when we're meeting how do how do folks engage. And I think, you know, as we go into these difficult budget conversations that even publicizing the hearing may not be enough we may, you know, it'd be sort of over the next week and you know to be thinking about other ways that we can be both sharing the information hearing questions and hearing input beyond what beyond this meeting because I think that it's that thing it's a barrier I'm not sure that there's the awareness about sort of how to engage and so I think it's critical that we figure that out over the next couple weeks so that when we do get to the point that we're having that budget hearing that we're reaching as broad and as broad a segment of the community as as as possible is able and aware to to provide that input. So with that we'll move on to the next point which is accept gifts. So if I may. Yes. So, unfortunately, in, you know, by virtue of working virtually the ability to get the documentation together for you guys actually accept gifts tonight did not happen. Unfortunately, there are a couple of things we have. Notably, to our earlier conversation there's been a tremendous effort by the, the PGOs of of all the schools to do fundraising around the need for distance learning technology, whether it be Wi Fi hotspots or support for those Wi Fi hotspots or any of the related items to that and so they've done a fantastic job doing a pretty significant fundraiser. So those funds will be split, basically 5050 with the Amherst district the regional district by virtue of sort of how the equipment has gone out to kids and their families. And so I think it'll be alright I'll announce the amount for Amherst, we're looking at a gift of about $23,000 and a similar number for the region will be slightly different because it's not exactly, you know, 46 on the nose kind of thing so. But like I said, I didn't have the opportunity to get the sort of paperwork signed and and prepared for tonight's meeting I actually thought it was at 630 I almost thought we'd get it done but I didn't it was a six o'clock meeting so. But I'll have that for you next time. So that's Tuesday's meeting is at the joint meeting I presume we can can do that will last the superintendent and his clerical folks to put that on the agenda so you'll have that and and be able to accept that gift and that really is it's a it's a huge. Benefit to us to get that and to benefit to our, our, our families in the community and allow the kids access and participate in this situation we're in right now. So we'll wait fully get the official documentation and then, you know, talk about how we can offer thanks to our district PGO is further, not just how successful they were but their quick action and focus on equity, which is so consistent with what our district values are so I'll say it right now but I'll say it more fully then which is thank you to all about the district PGOs, but also to all the people who donated in the community, many of whom are disconnected from the school and just thought it was really important that the children in this community had full access to learning in this environment. So, you know, thank you to everyone and we'll, we'll, we'll talk more next Tuesday about that. Okay. Okay. So with that, Mr. Harrington do you have a motion. I move to adjourn. Second by Harrington seconded by Spitzer. There's no discussion. So we'll roll call vote. Mr. Demling. Aye. Mr. Harrington. Aye. Ms. Lord. Aye. McDonald I miss Spitzer. Aye. Move that we're adjourned. Oh five to zero. Sorry, we're adjourned. Thanks everyone. Have a good night.