 This program is brought to you by Cable Franchise V's and generous donations from viewers like you So as seeing the presence of a quorum, I'm calling to order this meeting of the regional school committee at 631 p.m. And we'll start with a roll call attendance Mr. Demling Mr. Harrington Here I'm come present Miss Kenny Kenny present Miss Lord Lord present Miss Seager Seager present Miss Spitzer Spitzer present Miss dancer dancer present Mcdonald present Sullivan absent or not present So before we get started we are being live streamed on the Amherst media website and in Amherst on channel 15 Thank you to Amherst media for helping us out with that as always Our first item is public comment and we have two voice messages that I'll play right now and then a little bit of Written content for those that are watching from home The written the email public comment is posted on on the regional school committee agendas web page For this evening's meeting. So if it's easier for you to follow along at home, that's you can go grab it there I'm Miss Jennifer Page, I live in Amherst, and I'm the parent of an ARPS 6th grader A lot has been said about the metrics that the district and the APEA jointly agreed to regarding in-person cooling It seems like no one was local about the metric being too low when the agreement was made It's only now that the threshold has been met that it feels like it's too low But I hope you will consider that maybe the fact that the threshold was met soon after beginning in-person schooling Does not mean that the threshold is too low And maybe it means that things are getting pretty bad faster than anyone thought Maybe the metric is not the problem, but the reality of the pandemic is the problem changing the metric will not fix the problem In addition, I would like to strongly urge the school committee to agree to open bargaining with APEA when it comes to renegotiating the agreement There are many reasons that open bargaining is a good idea when it comes to labor relations But speaking as an ARPS parent, one of the best ways to get families and community members on board with whatever Agreements or decisions you jointly make is to allow them access to understanding how you got there If you want to prevent what happens this time from happening again That is you find an agreement then get pressure from the public to renegotiate and please agree to open bargaining so that the public can be informed Thank you The school committee is called to potentially rethink the thresholds for putting kids to the school buildings and pulling them out And if that's true, I'm deeply disappointed. I agree with Dr. Peter Everett's idea shared in his life through the editor in Mondays He said that in addition to our current green light red light options We need a yellow light that affords amorous school leaders and help leaders some discretion and discernment and determine whether or not kids should be in school buildings Right now our agreement allows no flexibility and it packs the threshold at a rate that's simply too restrictive The most restrictive in Massachusetts as I understand it and not a lot of recommended guidelines from the state I thought for a second that this would expose my kids and making teachers undue threats I wouldn't support it but our nation has months into the time wanted to experiment with kids including my nieces and nephews In other states having been in school since early august I'm surprised but encouraged by the fund that's published in the New York Times the Atlantic NPR And I have a trustworthy outlet that elementary schools simply aren't super spreaders I don't blame either the union art school committee for putting us in this spot These were incredibly tough decisions to make at the time when the facts on the ground were changing daily But now that we've seen a practical impact compared with the experiences of other schools around the country I'm struggling to find a good reason that the union full of teachers who are working at least twice as hard as they would in any normal here It's not at least open to discussing a new option of well result and our young children being pulled into and out of school time after time Our window for the near term may already be practically closed with cases on the rise as I speak today Regardless we should use this time Planning for more flexibility and informed discretion in the winter months if our community can keep numbers at a manageable level And we should have with a cycle of small concepts furnishes in favor of focusing on the bigger picture Thanks for hearing me out. Thank you. Are folks able to see my uh my screen? Thank you Um, I will say that the um this first comment um was received before last week's meeting It was received on thursday and I neglected to include it in thursday's public comment So as mentioned that um that all of the written public comment is available on the arps.org website on the regional school committee agendas page We are now going to um move on to our next item. Um And I will make a motion to that we enter into executive session to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining with the APEA if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining position of the public public body And the chair so declares and I do declare with no intention of returning to open session Is there a second lord second? Move by mcdonald seconded by lord. We'll take a roll call vote mr. Demling Demling I Mr. Harrington Harrington can I miss kenny Kenny I Miss lord lord I Miss seager Seager I Miss spitzer Mr. I Miss stancer Stancer I Mr. Sullivan Sullivan a mcdonald I The motion passes eight to one So we will now adjourn to executive session