 Good evening. Welcome to the Allington School Committee meeting. It is Thursday, November 13th, 2014. Before we begin the regular meeting, I would like to recognize Ms. Saracen, our AEA representative. And at this time, I would like to turn it over to Dr. Bode. Thank you very much, Mr. Hayner. This evening, we are beginning the School Committee meeting with a very special ceremony and award. This last year, as everyone knows, we had our first year at Thompson Elementary School. And as a community, we are very proud of this school. It represents the efforts of many people to make this a reality. But one of the things that I don't think that people do know is that as part of this project, we work very closely with the MSBA in making a green school. And this evening, we are receiving an award from CHIPS, which is the organization that actually set the green standards for the MSBA. So a little bit of background. CHIPS, actually, it's Massachusetts CHIPS, it stands for Collaborative for High Performance Schools. And this company began in California in 1999 with the goal of improving the quality of educational facilities for children. It quickly gained momentum, and many states recognized its value for providing criteria for high performance green designs. CHIPS is a point-based program with required prerequisites. There are seven categories of integration, innovation, indoor environmental quality, energy, water, site, materials and waste management, and lastly, operations and maintenance. To achieve the mass CHIPS verify status, you need 40 points minimum. To achieve the Massachusetts CHIPS verified leader, you need 50 points. Thompson achieved mass CHIPS verified leader the highest level by achieving 53 points. Verified leader is very hard to achieve. Thompson was the second in the state to achieve this level and third in the nation. So the committee that some of the members of the committee are here this evening, and I want to introduce a few of the people before we move forward with our speakers this evening. First of all, let me just start with the members of the committee that are here this evening. From the school committee, we have Jeff Thielman, Adam Chapelein, who is our Tom manager and who will be speaking as well tonight, Dominic Lanzalotti, and I think that's all that's here right now from the actual committee. Oh, and Karen Tessone, absolutely. And Diane Johnson. And Diane Johnson. Thank you very much. So this committee worked hard for several years to achieve this beautiful building, and we also have here tonight our new principal of Thompson Elementary School, Karen Donato. We also have our esteemed selectman, Joe Curell, who was on the school committee a number of years ago, and we have Mr. Fanning from the finance committee, as well as our architects from HMFH, who were just very wonderful to work with. They had terrific ideas about how we could achieve our vision. And tonight for me to introduce you, Susan Elmore, and we also have Chris Vance. And Chris is going to speak tonight a little bit about what the actual green initiatives were in the school. So at this end, then, very important person tonight, is Carolyn Sarno, who is the vice president of the CHIPS Board of Directors, and she is here tonight to present the award to us and talk a little bit more about what the award means. So I think I have everybody that is here tonight that has played an important part in this reality. And of course, this is the school committee itself, who has been cheering us along through the whole process and certainly a staunch supporter of having this new and wonderful building. So I'm going to right now introduce our town manager, Adam Chapelein. He's going to say a few words, and then we'll follow with Chris and then Carolyn Sarno. Thank you, Superintendent. Good evening, members of the school committee. I'll be very brief. I really just wanted to come tonight to say congratulations to the committee on this accomplishment. Congratulations to the Thompson School Building Committee. I think I'm so happy that we achieved this and that the school committee achieved this because it fits in with the town's real larger organizational goals to promote sustainability and energy efficiency. It fits in in line with the Highland Fire Station, which is LEED Silver certified. The Central Fire Station, which we're trying to achieve, LEED Silver may be LEED Gold. And it's just great that as we renew our portfolio, we're building it sustainably, we're designing it sustainably, and we're, in this instance, we're helping create a space where the students that are in the building can be in a sustainable building and learn what that means. And I think that's great for our future generations to gain an understanding of the importance of sustainability and how you can do it economically effectively as well. And I think the Thompson School is a great example of all of that. So again, congratulations. Thank you for all of your efforts to make this happen. Thank you. So I have to come up, but I also want to acknowledge Charlie Foskett, who is chairman of the Capital Committee, as well as vice chair of the Finance Committee, who was very instrumental in working with us in achieving this beautiful building. Chris? Thank you, Dr. Bode. So I just wanted to say it was wonderful working with the town of Arlington and the school building committee to achieve this really prestigious award. To get CHIPS leader, verified leaders, actually very difficult, and not a lot of schools can meet this criteria. And as Dr. Bode said, that we're the second in Massachusetts. And we missed getting the first by a month from another building actually in that our firm designed. And, you know, third in the nation. So it's a great accomplishment. And so I can speak, you know, briefly to some of the green initiatives that we took to achieve this. And I don't know if you guys have been to the school, but this plaque here that's printed in black and white, unfortunately, I apologize that our color plotter decided not to work today. But if you walk in at the main entrance here on North Avenue, you'll actually see this plaque. And there's various numbers throughout that explain some of the green initiatives that we took to achieve some of the points to get verified leader. And as Dr. Bode said, there are seven categories. And you had to get 50 points to get the verified leader. And we achieved we were on the onset, we were looking to get 55. We ended up getting 53. So it was a pretty good, a good goal. And, you know, we achieved it. We missed two points, which wasn't wasn't bad. So one of the big pieces that went into the green design was really citing the building. And as you can see that the main academic wing here was cited or was cited parallel on the east west axis. And what that helps do is really control day light. And it allows you to harvest the day light. So we have sunscreens that are on the south side and light shelves that allow natural light to bounce deeper into the space, which reduces your electrical demand. So you can turn down the lights. And we have sensors that are in the ceiling that actually reads the light levels and can dim the light as necessary. So during the day, your electric demand is really reduced. So that was one of the big pieces. And we also work to install all low flow toilets and low flow fixtures. So we had a huge water reduction for this school. And one of the goals was to also not have any landscape irrigation and using any sort of potable water for irrigation. So that was a big initiative there. Another one is the life cycle cost analysis. So we really analyzed the different mechanical equipment that went into the building to see what was going to have the longest life span and for the cost and energy consumption. And so we did a lot of extensive energy modeling to achieve some of these points. We also used a lot of renewable materials, rapidly renewable and recyclable materials. So a lot of the concrete block that is on the exterior walls is actually made from a highly recycled content CMU. So we achieved points for that. And all the flooring in the building is a linoleum, which is a rapidly renewable resource. So we received a lot of points for that for using this rapidly renewable resource within the building. We also used low VOC paints. So there's not a lot of off-gassing. And we also did an extensive flush out of the building. There's a seven day flush out where no construction's happening and basically turn all the the air handlers on at full. And it just sucks everything out of the building so that when the students enter, they're not going to be exposed to any of those toxins that are off-gassing from the materials. And let's see if there are a few of the other ones. We use a lot of native plant species that wouldn't require a lot of irrigation. I want to be extensive for landscaping. We also worked really with the community for public transit. So providing a lot of bike racks so that students that are commuting there can utilize that space. And we also, because this school is in a dense urban neighborhood, there really isn't a front door. So we have two access points. So we worked at siting it with the park and within the neighborhood context to be transit commuter oriented. And we also have achieved some points for shared facilities working with the park and the school to share some of those facilities. So overall, there are a lot of great green initiatives that went into the project. And as George Metzger, the principal of our company says that, you know, with great clients come great buildings. And I think that this is a culmination of that. And it was great working with the Thompson School Building Committee. Well, one of the other benefits besides having this prestigious award is that when you have additional points, you also get a higher level of reimbursement from the state. And we were able to get over close to 52 percent, which is an increase in where we started, which was in the high 40. So that was an added benefit. But I think there's mixed motivation. One was, of course, being able to do that. But I think that everyone in the committee was very committed to having a school that was green, sustainable, and a beautiful environment for our students. So I'd like to welcome right now, Carol and Sarno, who is, as I said, the vice president of CHIP's board of directors. Thank you, Superintendent Bode and members of the school committee. It's my honor to be here tonight on behalf of the collaborative for high performance schools to recognize you for this great accomplishment. Not only am I here on behalf of CHIP's, but I also work, I'm wearing two hats tonight. I work for Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships, which is a regional entity that's in Luxington. And we work throughout the 12 states in the Northeast in Atlantic. And we're funded in part by the Department of Energy to help provide technical guidance and support to municipalities and state agencies. And one thing that we helped to do was to help create the Masterchips criteria. And so I was part of that stakeholder process. So it's truly an honor for me to sit and help develop that criteria and then to see these school buildings through fruition. So it's truly an honor to be here tonight. And most importantly for us and what we really feel is that our schools matter, our students matter, the staff that are in the schools, principal matter, and your dedication to building Thompson Elementary School as the Masterchips School in creating a healthy and energy efficient school building shows that you recognize and value that the built environment matters and it matters to our learning process and how, you know, to create the best possible learning environment that we can. So on behalf of the Cloudified Performance Schools, we acknowledge your contribution and welcome Thompson Elementary School to the distinguished ranks of facilities across the nation who are leading the movement and how students will learn in these amazing facilities. And we join you and thank you for joining Chip's mission to make ideal places to learn. So thank you on behalf of Bill Orr, the Executive Director, and the Collaborator for High Performance Schools. A little bit, all right? Get the pictures. Get the pictures. Everybody, get out of your cameras. This is it. And Adam, would you like to come up to me? Where's Mr. Sprague when you need him? I take cameras. Mm hmm. You share this honor with everybody who contributed in any way to this project. Yes, for this generation of the next. And we will be putting this plaque up. All right. Well, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to everyone who came and shared this with us. And you want you want to take your even though it's black and white. All right, well, we're moving on to another topic of energy this evening. Seems to be at this time, I'd like to invite Mr. Chaplain come up to the table. Soul panel town of Allington solar solar go solar. Oh, I'm fine. I'm good. Person that's who these other people are who I didn't know. So I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'm like, there's two women sit on either side of what she looks like. So if I ran her over right now, and I would ask the people at this table that when you talk, bring the mic as close to you can. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think the Board of Selectment might be getting jealous. I've been here so often recently. I know we're saying a lot of you. I'm just going to give a brief introduction and then allow the team from Amoresco to give a brief overview of the work that they've been doing for the town and then answer questions that the committee has. So starting earlier this year, really under the leadership of Ruthie Bennett, the town's shared energy manager with Bedford. We pursued an owner's agent technical assistance grant through the state to help us hire an outside group to start considering solar projects on the roofs of town buildings. We were awarded that grant and we started working with the Cadmus group. And what they helped us do is take a look at several proposals that had been performed through joint procurements that the town was a part of for solar developers. That review resulted in the town selecting Amoresco, who's here tonight to work with as a solar developer. What they've done or started to do is assess a number of school buildings and town buildings for their suitability for the placement of solar panels for energy generation. So I'll let them talk about that. Where we go from here after they talk is they make some recommendations about what's possible based on our roof space. We negotiate a power purchase agreement whereby they place the solar panels on the school roofs and then we buy energy from them at a rate lower than what we would buy from the grid and that would really be the goal of that. And lost my train of thought. And the details within that would work out what would happen if solar panels, if the panels were removed to do a roof replacement. There's obviously still a lot of questions to be answered about what we would be doing here for this building, whether or not it would be practical given the questions that are up in the air about a potential construction project here. So that's what I wanted to add. Before we finalize that, I presume we'll be back before the school committee asking for the committee's actual execution of a licensing agreement for the use of school buildings. That would be included in this project. So this is sort of presentation, question and answer, and then we most likely would be back again in the future. So with that, Ruthie, did you want to say anything? No, thank you. I'm here to answer questions. So we have Ed LaPore from Amoresco and I'll let him introduce his team. Hi, good evening, Mr. Chairman, Superintendent, committee members. My name is Ed LaPore and I'm a senior count executive with Amoresco's Business Development Group. Amoresco is one of the largest independent energy services and renewable energy companies in North America. Also representing Amoresco to my right, Jerry Cantor. Jerry is a project development manager with a solar PV grid-tide group. And also John Berman to my right, who is a senior project manager also with that solar group. So Amoresco was incorporated in 2000. And in 2010, we became publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. In 2013, we did about $630 million in revenue. And we've completed over $3 billion worth of energy solutions. Our corporate office is located in Framingham, Massachusetts. However, we do have approximately 66 offices in North America. There's 34 offices, there's 66 offices in 34 states, and also five offices in Canadian provinces. So I wanted to just talk briefly about the Metropolitan Area Planning Council's regional energy procurement. In 2011, Metropolitan Area Planning Council issued this regional procurement. And 14 cities and towns, including Allington, participated in it. The request for qualifications was issued in July of 2011. The MAPC group received eight proposals. There was a selection committee that was made up of different participating cities and towns. And the selection committee shortlisted or picked three companies to interview as finalists. And subsequently, Amoresco was selected as the energy services provider for the town and 13 other cities and towns. So we're really excited about this renewable energy project. I am especially. I grew up in Allington. I attended the Stratton Elementary School, the Addison Middle School, and Allington High School. So a lot of good old memories here. Thank you. So Jerry is prepared to talk a little bit more about the details specific to the solar projects townwide. And then John and our construction group can answer any construction related questions. So Jerry. So as Adam noted, one of the first things we did was look at all of the schools within Arlington to decide which ones were actually good candidates for solar. I'll direct your attention to the slide up here and you'll see the six we selected. Now we did look at all of them. And when I say which ones are good candidates, what I mean is a few things. So first, is there actually physically space for the solar panels on top of the rooftop? Second, if there is, will the panels be too shaded to make it worthwhile, whether by rooftop equipment, nearby buildings, trees, etc. So some of the other schools within the school district, it was determined there was either too much shading or not enough space for panels. Once we completed that initial screen and selected these six schools, we then had to do a structural review to make sure there was sufficient reserve capacity for the solar on these schools. And those results have come in and they are. To let you know the system size in kilowatts here and then the production in kilowatt hours on the column on the right. Those are preliminary numbers from our initial screening. We expect to have our 30% engineering design, which is our next phase of design come in next week. So those numbers might change a little bit. We'll find out next week. Just to give you some context on what this means. So for the Eileenton High School, for instance, 206,000 kilowatt hours a year, that would be roughly 1314% of the high school's annual production. For the other schools, it's going to range from about a third to maybe 45% of the annual production of the schools. I want to let you know these are ballasted systems, which means they are weighted down on the rooftop by blocks and separated from the rooftop by a membrane. We do not penetrate the roof. And I will have John to my left speak a little bit more about what that means in the construction process. But before I do that, I wanted to point out that we also have an educational offering that goes along with our solar array. And you can think of it as being in three parts. The first is a website. Ruthie has some samples. She can pass her out a screenshot of a live website. And it shows in real time the data from the production of the system, weather data, as well as greenhouse gas reduction and some of the environmental benefits of the system for each rooftop. The data can also be downloaded, which will feed into our curriculum, which I'll mention in a moment. Part two is a kiosk or a monitor. The school district can select a school or as many as you like to have an LCD screen mounted in the school or some other building, if you prefer, the town hall, whatever you like. So everyone walking by can see the production as an ongoing basis. Finally, we have developed a curriculum to go along with the solar, the renewable energy and it's in 15 phases. Everything from what is renewable energy to how to analyze the data that comes out of the data acquisition system, which is what appears on the website. And the curriculum is segregated by grade level, so the different curriculum for middle school, elementary school and high school as well. I'd like to pass this off to John right now and he will give you a little bit of an overview of the construction process. We have worked with many schools in Massachusetts and other states and are very cognizant of some of the requirements of not disturbing the students. Good evening all. Thank you for having us here. I don't want to spend a lot of time talking about the nuts and bolts of the construction process. For me, it's exciting for you, it probably be boring. But in the large scope is really that we bring all of our equipment to the particular site, each one of these schools, probably on a Friday, Friday afternoon, we try to space it in between drop off in the morning and pick up in the afternoon, cognizant of traffic with the buses and so forth, stage that on a Friday, lift everything to the roof on a Saturday when the school, the building is empty. And then we're kind of out of sight and out of mind. A typical crew will be about six to eight electricians who will access the roof from the outside of the building. Generally, some buildings lend themselves to access within the building. But with security concerns these days, we either set up an exterior scaffolding with a stair ladder or access via extension ladders so we can get to the roof and down without going inside the school. Obviously, significant security issues around quarry and fingerprinting these days, all of our crews go through that process before they then enter the school grounds. Installation takes, depending on the size of the system, six weeks, six to eight weeks. If we can schedule that during the summer, that's great. If it happens during school, school time, that's not an issue. As Jerry mentioned, these modules are weighted down on the roof. They're not physically attached. So there's no drilling or screwing or bolting. Everything gets carried and placed on the deck and the weight is what holds the system in place. At the end of the project, we'll bring our crane in again on a Saturday or if it happens to be a holiday, we'll be lifting actually the day after Thanksgiving. We did some work and oftentimes we'll work on holidays as well because many of these schools are busy 24, seven, seven days a week, especially high schools. At the tail end of the project, we'll bring our crane in again and offload crates and pallets and tools and that sort of thing and then commission the system and start making electricity. So I'd like to open the floor to questions. So what happens if something were to happen to the panel? So we've had a couple storms have happened, no tree falls. I know no trees will be directly above it, but from far away. Is Arlington-Liebel at all? Is there any certain circumstance in which Arlington would be responsible for costs for fixing? I think you would call it negligence if there was a right, but not the normal stuff. Other than that, Amoresco installs, owns and operates and maintains the system for the duration of the contract. So that really is our responsibility. These modules, by definition, are modular. They're units roughly five feet wide, three feet tall. So if one breaks or becomes faulty, that one's lifted out and another one's just plugged in. It's a very flexible system that way. And it allows us to design around obstructions on the roof to design our arrays to take the best utilization of available space. So I have one more. So do we have any idea of the projected cost savings and where do those cost savings go? Yeah, that would be for Jerry. Do we pay for our own electricity? Thank you back to the schools. So we are at the point actually right now where Amoresco is finishing the analysis, the 30% design, and we'll come up with the price based on how many roofs and how much it costs to put them on. And so we are about 10 days away from that conversation. Actually, we have a conference call scheduled. So we don't know yet the exact price. The savings will be able to figure out once we understand our price. In terms of the savings, that's money that's sort of not spent in the school budgets. I will not even begin to discuss how that gets worked out. But we will know in the beginning of each year what we think it will be and we also be able to say we'll be able to true up at the end of each year to figure out what the savings were. We have that already now in some of the schools in terms of other upgrades that we've done. You can see the budget for the utilities is not being spent as fast or as much as it has been in previous years. So mine are similar. I was wondering, do we pay for our own electricity currently that comes out of our budget? So that was my question as well. The savings comes back to us. My other question was, as Adam alluded to, we are planning on probably tearing this building down and rebuilding it. So I wonder how, I mean, obviously they're mobile and movable and modular. How much and is that included in all of this? Should that occur? How do we wait? Do we install it and hope that we get five years and then move it? I would like to... I can speak to that as well as I'm a resco. So there's sort of two issues. One is with a regular school that's not being torn down. There might be need to redo the roof or there's a repair. And so they are modular. We can take them down, fix the roof, put them back. With the high school, it's a bigger issue because it'll be a number of years that the building won't be utilized. We can find another place to put the panels for that time. We could have them not working for that time. So there's ways to handle this school and any other school. The other question that we're going to work out is, if we don't get electricity from the panels because it won't fulfill all of our needs, we still will be buying from the grid. So if the panels are down, we will have to budget to buy from the grid. It'll affect the price of the Amoresco. With the high school, it'll be a bigger issue. It's a number of years. With the roof, it's two to three weeks, so it's a smaller issue. So we're having that concept in the contract. It's hard to say exactly what the effect will be because we don't know when this building will be taken down and we don't know which roofs will need to be repaired. So conceptually, we know, but specifically, we don't have details. Just to note that we have dealt with both a temporary roof repair or a full building removal of the system in place at Elsewhere with other school districts. And so we'll work out the details in the contract. We're used to this. 20 years is the long time. And one last, is there any other buildings in town that are going to have these or just the schools? We looked at every building in town. The schools are the best. Well, because they have the flattest roofs and, you know, slayed. ABGC comes to mind. They have that big flat roof right on the pond. I think they actually are pursuing it on their own. I remember hearing Derek Curran make some mention of that. I'm not positive of that, but that rings a bell. But this is as far as town buildings, these are the only ones in town. We're also looking at two potential parking lots and one side of a DPW garage roof. So we're looking everywhere, but these were. Sure. Yeah. All my questions have been asked. I've got questions. She's she's the solar was here. I've got a 5.2 system on my roof. And so one question that comes up after having gone through this is, are there SRACs available from these and how are those handled? So the system will generate SRACs, but as Amoresco is the owner of the system, the SRACs go to Amoresco. And then the power is sold back to Arlington through what's called a power purchase agreement. Okay. So the SRACs are something for people who aren't aware the SRACs are a certificate that the power companies have to buy if they don't generate their own renewable energy. And it's a commodity and the prices go up and down. But it's another thing. It's another benefit that comes from having solar panels. This questions more for the town manager. I'm just wondering if we've looked hard at the economics of buying versus, I don't know if this is leasing or what you'd call what we're what this is. But if there's any chance, I mean, I'd be wondering about the payback just for the town potentially buying as opposed to. So the Board of Selectmen actually asked for the same analysis. So Ruthie and I have discussed about putting together the analysis. Without having that prepared yet, I'm fairly confident in the strength of that analysis that it would be a better deal for us to go in this manner. And frankly, knowing what we all know about our already strained capital budgets, coming up with the upfront capital can be a strain upon itself. So the sooner you start generating renewable energy, the sooner you start saving. And I felt like there's another part of your question there. That was mostly one thing to that. Also, so since Amoresco owns it, they also operate and maintain it. So another sort of cost to us would be personnel to be trained and maintaining and operating. And so I think they can speak to it. And I actually also have a system on my roof. And I think there's very few municipalities that have actually invested up front. Because A, it's very expensive, but B, also over time, you have to create a whole cadre of people who manage it, where we can just call them and say, it broke, can you fix it? And they actually incentivize to fix it because if it doesn't produce energy, we're not buying it from them. So it's a mutually beneficial arrangement and we don't have to watch. You know, I mean, there's one on the Odyssey right now, but does anybody really remember that or watch it? I mean, we know how much energy it's creating, but we don't have to watch it because Amoresco will be watching it with us. Okay. Then is it possible to add additional panels? If we expand the roof in the high school as it's renovated, can we add another chunk? Yeah, yes. Of course, yep. Okay. And then the other questions are about the stratum. I know in the past there's been concerns about the snow accumulating and that the stratum was one of the schools that had the roof was old enough that there was concern that there was too much snow and we had to shovel it. And I'm wondering, is that the same section that we're talking about putting the solar panels on or is that the other part? My understanding is that the panels are going on the new roof. Okay. That's the new roof. Yeah. Okay. And that part was okay. Yes. Okay. Yeah, those are my questions. Thank you. We were to put these on the high school. You see, a proposal would be to put these in the high school and if we renovate the high school or rebuild it, would they be taken down and then put in the new high school? How does that, and that's cost effective? I think ultimately it becomes an economic question. Yeah. Once the further engineering, once we received that further engineering information that was mentioned earlier and we get a better understanding of what MResco's price proposal will be, they'll have built into that proposal some assumption of what would happen to the panels that could be on this building and then we'll have to make a decision of whether or not it economically makes sense. Thank you. You following the previous presentations on energy saving and stuff like this, do we get points with MSBA for having a system already? I'm looking for money points. I think the answer that would be with Thompson, I think we do receive a chips point for making it solar ready. Okay. So there was that benefit which had the sort of indirect, sort of direct MSBA benefit and then a future design and construction of this high school would certainly benefit from making it solar ready. The other question I have, being a teacher of flat roofs in New England with all the snow and everything, eventually they have to, the snow has to be removed. The, does this keep snow off the roof? Is there a spacing or something? I'm just concerned about our staff doing damage and the liability aspects to it. I don't know if you want to take a shot. That would be my answer. The modules are self-cleaning. We don't recommend they be shoveled off or the snow removed. In fact, in the part of the calculations of these kilowatt hour production takes into account historical weather data including snowfall. And so we anticipate and expect that these modules will be fully covered with snow for periods of time during the winter. By design, they're facing south. They're dark in color, either dark blue or black. So they tend, and they generate a slight bit of heat themselves when they're operating. So the snow on them tends to melt really quickly. But no, there's no cleaning. There's no shoveling necessary. Now, these have to be all designed and engineered according to Massachusetts Building Code which requires that the first 45 pounds per square foot of that roof structure has got to be assigned to snow support. So if there's only 45 pounds available capacity on the roof, we can't put panels there. So that's the process of what the building has got to hold for the snow load. My other question is the integration between the solar system and the regular power system, that piece of equipment that integrates the two, whose responsibility is that? Yours are together. We own everything up to what the utility calls the PCC, the point of the two coupling. So anything from that point to the modules is all ours and we're tying in right at the transformer that the utility owns so that it's either the utility or us, it's not you. Sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. Just to explain that the energy we're getting is coming from the grid and the panels and then it comes in at one location point. So we're always going to be getting energy from the grid because we're producing a third to 25 percent so it's both coming in at the same time at this meter and that's the end star meter. They both come through that meter. Thank you. One more question, sorry. What's the wind load that your panels are designed for? I understand they're weighed down but how strong winds can happen before they start lifting up? Massachusetts building code has wind zones built into it and I'm not sure what zone Arlington is situated in but generally it's around 110 miles an hour, 120 miles an hour depending on the zone. All these panels and racking systems are all wind tunnel tested and engineers have to stamp these drawings and make sure that these are going to stay on the roof in those conditions. What about the microburst that happened not that long ago? The whole project, every single building will be permitted through the town of Arlington so it isn't just their engineers we actually will have to issue permits so that conversation will happen between our building department and their engineers. Okay, thank you. Cool. Thank you very much. That's great. Thank you. Sounds exciting. The school committee will take a roll call to enter executive session to discuss a complaint or charges brought against the public officer or officials no open meeting law complaint against the school committee. I'll now call the roll. Yes. Yes. We are now entering the executive session. Two returns for the regular meeting. Welcome back to the Arlington school committee. At this time, the committee will address an open meeting law complaint filed by Dr. Stephen Harrington against this body. In sum, the complaint alleges that a school committee member violated the open meeting law by writing an email to the chair and copying the rest of the board to request removal of the community preservation act discussion from an agenda. Subsequently, the chair did remove the community preservation act discussion from the agenda. After examination of the complaint I believe the subject email as well as an email response from the chair should not have been transmitted as they were and the CPA discussion should have either been removed by the chair based on an individual or separate member objections or tabled at an open meeting by a member of motion. A committee member may individually write or speak with the chair regarding addition or removal of an item from an agenda under the open meeting law. However, a member including the chair may not address a quorum of members by email or otherwise on any public business under our jurisdiction outside of an open meeting or executive session unless it is purely administrative communication. The school committee is committed to following the rules of the open meeting law and acknowledges the errors made in this instance. It can be a close difficult question at times between what is administrative and what is substantive, even on matters such as what should or should not be on an agenda. Therefore, this committee's members will endeavor to make sure that any future objections to an agenda item even upon administrative grounds are solely expressed from one member to the chair and not amongst a quorum. And further, to examine its agenda setting process generally to ensure both efficient and transparent governance. At this time we will are going monthly financial report. Did you want to say anything? Did you take a call? I'm sorry. You're moving a little faster than I expected. Sorry. It's booting. It'll be there. That's right. I just need to boot it up. Thank you very much. There isn't really much to report. Not much has changed in the one month since the last time I reported. Special ed tuition is still tracking where it was. It's still under budget. It's too soon in the year to talk about energy and everything else is proceeding as normal. Questions? Anything from the board before I ask my end? Mr. Schlickman. We're under $591,000 that's going to teach you salary. We're over. Okay. What are we going to do about that? We have more than sufficient reserves to cover that. That's going to come out of reserve account. That presumes, as we do at this time of the year, that every single line will be fully expended, which is not historically the case. Depending on how the winter turns out or whatever, we would presumably use less of our reserves than that full amount. That's a worst case scenario. Anyone else? The when you said special ed tuition, do we have a line for in-house special education, don't we? Not just one. All of special education is tracked under various programmatic codes. None of these reports actually reflect that in a way that's easy to see because we've elected to do this by object code so you can see salaries all together and electrical all together. I do other reports, as you've seen for the budget and when we report on the end of the fiscal year that shows it aggregated by other content areas like special ed. On the first sheet of the budget tracking, it had, I think you just addressed it, the teacher salary and wages at $650,000 over. But down below, full-time teacher aids and salaries, $78,000 over. On the backside, it said $591,000. But there's some that are under budget as well. Administrative is under, custodial is under, clerical is under, other full-time is under. The aids correspond to the added teachers? No, the aids correspond to the added aids that we did over the summer to address class size or building subs or other educational needs. Okay. And on the second page, the computer supplies $17,000 and computer equipment $64,000. Is that expected to track at that loss for the rest of the year? If not more. I mean those are areas that are flexible. When we allocate the budgets to the principals, we give them a certain amount of money to work with for supplies. And it's up to their discretion on whether they want to spend that on textbooks, instructional material, computer equipment, computer supplies. And so it's not uncommon to see overages and underages as principals make decisions with their money. But, okay. So this aggregates, this view of the reports for the district pulls together all the computer supplies for the district. And so if one teacher elected to instead of buying instructional, one principal elected instead of buying instructional materials to buy computer supplies. But shouldn't I see an offset not at this point in the year because I'm still projecting that everybody's going to fully spend their budgets on those lines? So this is like worst case. That was when my original question came from that they should average out at the end of the year. But does that apply to the computer equipment and hardware as well? The bottom line will average out. Line by line. But we budgeted right at $20,000 and right now we've expended $84,000. So we're $64,000 on a negative. Did something happen for computer equipment between when we set the budget? Did we buy something new? Well, we needed more computers because we added more teachers. And we needed more computers than the capital budget gave us room to buy. We were planning on $20,000 worth for the existing staff. We've spent $84,000. I'm sorry. Folks always have the answer for me. I just don't understand. We bought a lot more computers than we were thinking back last March because we certainly weren't looking to have as many FTEs as we added. And when we did the capital requests we thought we needed help me out here with numbers. We needed $400,000. They gave us enough for $380,000. We actually needed $420,000. So we bought what we needed to get everybody beefed up. Going along with your statement of the budget. It's really unlikely that all of these lines are going to be fully expended. It could come instructional supplies. It could come from textbooks. Printing and reproduction is a line that I don't think we've ever come close to fully expending. You know, there are lines throughout the budget that vary from year to year based on our needs. I mean typically when we buy furniture to give you another example of how this works say a typical elementary school has a $5,000 supply budget and a principal elects to buy some new furniture. Say they spend $6,000 on furniture. This report would show that we spent $6,000 of unbudgeted furniture. And then at the end of the year we'd show a savings in something else. But right now I'm not starting to show savings yet. So we're seeing the worst now. My last question. The foreign visa account. Is there a lot of extra money in that? We seem to be able to for our expenses. We receive tuition from students who come from abroad to study here. And it's paid by their parents in foreign countries to us. And that money isn't restricted from being carried year to year like most municipal money. So if we do not fully expend in one fiscal year it rolls to the next. And we're not limited to where we can expend the extra money. Any other questions? Yeah, I just have a question about in a couple places where things were moved to different places. Is this a a change in reporting structure? Or is this typical that things get reported one place at the beginning of the year and then get moved? So this is what happens every year. This is not a change in the way. Yeah, no, there's no change in methodology. Well said. Thank you, Ms. Johnson. We will be doing something we do annually. It's superintendent's evaluation. Slightly different. Before we begin I've had a request that if any member would like to make an opening statement or a comment at the beginning, this is your opportunity at the beginning. Oh, okay. So I just wanted to make a general comment about sort of how I'm approaching this. Since I'm so new to the committee I didn't answer some of the criteria. I just sort of left it blank. I don't have enough basis for evaluation. So in terms of what I'll be doing tonight. I do have a suggestion though going forward, which is I'd like to sort of have a better understanding about the kinds of evidence that we'd be receiving. So one of the things that I noticed, and I know this is all very new to us. It's new to everybody. But as you look at each sort of thing to be evaluated there's a list of say 9 to 14 pieces of evidence you could receive. And I know I'd like to sort of maybe think about what we'd like to see in the future for the next, for the years coming forward. You know, five of those things or something. Great. Anyone else that would like to Okay. What we are doing is using the department of elementary and secondary education form. I have decided to take things out of the order it's done. The summative evaluation report rating will be done last. I will now read each of the superintendent's performance goals and the ratings that were given. These ratings normally will add up to seven. But as Dr. Seuss just said a moment ago several members have for whatever reason that may not have given a rating. So do not, if they don't have to say, if it adds to more than seven please let me know. As it did on one, I had to correct it. Professional practice goal from September 2013 to May 2014, the focus of three visits to each school will be on quality, beyond the quality of educator practice followed by a meeting with the principal to debrief our joint observation in order to improve the quality of feedback to teachers for the purpose of positively impacting student learning and achievement. One significant progress, three met the goal, three exceeded the goal. Student learning student performance on MCAS 2014 in the aggregate at all levels and at each grade tested will improve from MCAS baseline in 2013 to some progress five significant progress. District improvement taken from the district goals 2.1, teaches in order to demonstrate proficiency under the new educator evaluation system which will be implemented in the district during the 2013 2014 school year will be provided with professional development to implement the new system and to improve their instructional practice one some progress six met met the goal. Number four taken from the district goals 3.3 programs developed by the special education department will have to integrate general education and special education through the use of student support teams team teaching embedded teaching push in models and conferencing consultation opportunities that will include at least three new connections interventions at each school by June 2014. Three needs improvement and four I'm sorry I'm reading these wrong I lost it three significant progress and four met the goal. Five taken from the district goals 4.4 a projection model for long range multi-year planning will be developed by October 13 for some progress and two met the goal at this time I will invite any comments from any members if they so choose can I ask a question it's more procedural so my understanding is that you as chair are required to fill out something online reflecting our evaluation is this correct? What Jesse said that I am to compile and at our previous meeting we agree that I would compile the ratings but not the comments. Okay so you don't have I'm just wondering you're not going to sit down a computer and have to pick one of the categories you know met or didn't okay okay thank you the numbers that I've just read one of those reflected my rating only the rest were reflecting the groups I added them together each one of the categories right no I just I had thought that you had to go in and actually fill out one of these kind of as the committee not at this time don't give many ideas either I agree I will now read each item in the superintendent's performance rating for standard one instructional leadership giving the ratings for each one a curriculum ensures that all instructional staff design effective and rigorous standards based units of instruction consisting of well-structured lessons with measurable outcomes six profession one exemplary one B instruction ensures that practices in all settings expectations regarding content and quality of effort and work engage all students and are personalized to accommodate diverse learning styles needs interest and levels of readiness six profession profession C assessment ensures that all principals and administrators facilitate practice propel personnel to use a variety of formal and informal methods and assessments to measure student learning growth and understanding and make necessary adjustments to their practice when students are not learning six proficient evaluation ensures effective and timely supervision and evaluation of all staff in alignment with state regulations and contract provisions one unsatisfactory for proficient data informed decisions making uses multiple sources of evidence related to student learning including state district and school assessment results and growth data to inform school and district goals and improve organizational performance educator effectiveness and student learning six proficient one exemplary and the overall rating for this first part was seven proficient this time I would invite any comment Mr. Pierce I believe Dr. Bote makes her decisions with use of data and I think Dr. Chesson and her team helped her in this regard I'm unsure whether all staff have been effectively and timely supervised and evaluated I'm sure this is going to be an ongoing process and there will be some kinks in the system to work out for example I do not believe all the principals feel they have enough time in their day to get their work done and properly evaluate and supervise more work needs to be done here Mr. Schlickman Based on the evidence before the committee the development and implementation of curriculum consistent with the common core standards has been done in a strategic manner the district uses assessment data to align resources both financial and staff time to the perceived needs of the district in a relationship with the school committee the superintendent has made a considerable effort in providing the committee with actionable data there's no evidence available to rate the superintendent on 1D evaluations as evaluations are not made available to the committee which is why I did not rate that item I recommend in the coming year that we hear more about curriculum instruction assessment and evaluations as they are described here I recommend more emphasis on evaluation of any pilot programs and reporting out of results evaluation systems need to be built into the roll out of new programs they need to involve teachers who are not involved in the pilot but who will be involved if the program is expanded an example of this would be the tools of the mind and I feel some improvements could have been made with that finally I recommend that the Arlington public schools create and maintain better data that capture in numbers various aspects of our students life especially in middle and high schools not just supplying them at the school committee request examples of these include class sizes number of students addressed by the number of students that each teacher is responsible for and just numerics that help us when we're talking about what resources are needed at the school and what improvements need to be made that's all I commend the superintendent and the entire staff for the diligence in dealing with the state mandates regarding assessment I'm impressed with the leadership and staff in using their assessments and developing programs I recommend that all information regarding evaluations of teachers and all administrators be reported to the department of elementary secondary education in a timely manner is there anyone else okay this time I will be reading a superintendent's performance for standard two management and operations environment develops and executes effective plans procedures routines and operational systems to address a full range of safety health and emotional and social needs for needs improvement three proficient human resources management and development implements a cohesive approach to recruiting hiring induction development and career growth that promotes high quality and effective practice one needs improvement for proficient one exemplary scheduling and management information systems uses systems to ensure optimal use of data and time for teaching learning and collaboration minimizing disruptions and distractions for school level staff five proficient law ethics and policies understands and compiles excuse me and complies with state and federal laws mandates school committee policies collective bargaining agreements and ethical guidelines one needs improvement five proficient one exemplary fiscal systems develops a budget that supports the district's visions missions and goals allocates and manages expenditures consistent with district and school level goals and available resources six proficient one exemplary overall rating one needs improvement six proficient this time I will invite members of the committee to make any comment I get the superintendent proficient in all but one I gave her exemplary under law ethics and policies so I wanted to point that out that her experience with superintendent bode over the past six years has been that she has an exemplary understanding of state and federal laws and mandates school committee policies collective bargaining agreements and ethical guidelines 15 years of experience on the Winchester school committee coupled with 15 years in administrative roles in our district makes her one of the more experienced superintendents in the state in terms of law ethics and policies Mr. Biss Mr. Chair I just noticed that there was no comment to the cohesive one is on 2e fiscal systems I actually rated these improvement not proficient not exemplary so okay I will make I'll make that change so it should come out or on is this 2e 2e 2e so it would read oh yeah we don't know if this was the exemplary or one of the proposals I'd just like to explain that okay because I did rate Dr. Bode proficient every other category under this standard with regard to the fiscal systems I'm disappointed obviously as we all probably argued the district went over budget last year by over $800,000 and while I understand the volatility of special education spending more must be done during the year to control costs or budget more appropriately also we're not allocating appropriately for the huge spikes in enrollment growth we've been seeing our reserve teachers deployed even before the summer months come along having said that and I concur with Mr. Thielman Dr. Bode impresses me with her ability to set a proper tone and environment for continuous learning in the district she regularly addresses new state law topics with the school committee and keeps us informed about human resources hiring and operational decisions Mr. Schlickman yes thank you the district's operations are viewed with respect by the community and observing the annual school budget presentation before the finance committee is obvious the FINCOM has respect for the operations of the system the clarity of our budget presentation to the FINCOM in the background work to make the case for our expanded needs to increase enrollment led to an adjustment to the formula used to determine the town's appropriation to the schools the lack of direct communication following the Stratton gun license incident was a significant lapse in the routines and systems standard 2A and the committee has been working with the superintendent to identify the problem it's essential that the school committee members parents and other stakeholders are alerted of items of concern before reading about them in the local media overall proficient yes I commend the superintendent on fostering an environment where our teacher mentor program is cited in the state is number one I commend the superintendent on recruitment of a new special education director our new principals and the diverse staff to my exemplary rating in 2B I commend the superintendent on her suggestion last year at long range planning of giving the Arlington public schools a larger amount in 2014 in addition to changing the formula for growth in the student enrollment I think that was kind of a breakthrough thought that didn't come from anywhere else I recommend improvements be continued to be made in communication systems such as those needed during the incident in Stratton last year I recommend that more I recommend that more attention be paid to facilities management and facilities issues such as the hearty playground especially safety issues so that concerns raised are always checked out and corrected if necessary recommend better collection of ongoing problems analysis and presentation of information and both of those items led me to needs improvement under 2A and then finally I commend the creation of a long range projection tool and recommend that it be used more during discussions during budget discussions with the town and offhand I note that it was actually used this morning so that was great and then I had inadequate information to respond to to see going on to superintendent's performance rating for standard three family and community engagement actively ensures that all families are welcome members of the classroom and school community and can contribute to the effectiveness of the classroom school district community seven proficient sharing responsibility continuously collaborates with families and community stakeholders to support student learning and development at home school and in the community three needs improvement for proficient communication engages in regular two-way culturally proficient with families and community stakeholders about student learning and performance one needs improvement six proficient family concerns addresses family and community concerns and inequitable effective and efficient manner four needs improvement three proficient overall seven proficient this time any members so this is an area that had been more of a problem and I think there's been a lot of improvement in recent years the monthly newsletter is clearly a valuable source of information for many families where I think improvement is needed is in creating sort of a regular forum whereby families can communicate their thoughts and concerns and in a way that doesn't necessarily need to be just to the superintendent there could be layers of structures of you know at the principal level at the school level or to an administrator that handles this particular kind of problem but just sort of creating pathways that parents can express concerns as I think needed especially as our district becomes larger it's would be unfair for one person to handle sort of all inquiries anyone else I have Mr. Slickman. Yeah, as chair of the community relations subcommittee I know that superintendent Bodie is committed to a high level of communication with the parents and community members of Arlington the superintendent spends considerable time and energy in the communication process including a very extensive newsletter and a plethora of email lists for parents and community members Arlington has a substantial population of second language learners with more than 11% of our students with a first language other than English this is a highly diverse population and our families speak a considerable range of languages and are for many diverse cultures it is not apparent from the evidence that's before us the communication with second language families meets the needs of these families I commend the superintendent on her newsletters which highlight the accomplishments of Arlington students and teachers I commend the superintendent on personally attending so many school events and meetings showing parents, students and teachers a high level of caring it is harder to hear the emotional content behind parent complaints and to respond to this content for example as seen in the tools of the mind concerns last year and that led me to that and other stuff led me to rate to 3D family concerns as needs improvement I recommend the superintendent better involves parents in wide reaching changes such as adopting the online park exam by providing more information and having better outreach and also that she solicit and respond to their concerns about testing and these items led me to rank to 3B as needs improvement and finally I recommend that the superintendent make available to parents in the public the new Arlington public schools curriculum map at least in some sort of summary form I'll say superintendent's performance rating for standard for professional culture commitment to high standards fosters a shared commitment to high standards of service teaching and learning with high expectations for achievement for all five proficient to exemplary cultural proficiency ensures that policies and practice enable staff members and students to interact effectively in a culturally diverse environment in which students backgrounds identity strengths and challenges are proficient communications demonstrates strong interpersonal written and verbal communication skills seven proficient continuous learning develops and nurtures a cultural culture in which staff members are reflective about their practice and use student data current research best practices and theory to continuously adapt practice and achieve improved results models these behaviors in his or her own practice five proficient to exemplary shared vision successfully continuously engages all stakeholders in the creation of a shared educational vision which every student is prepared to succeed in post-secondary education and become a responsible citizen and global contributor one needs improvement five proficient one exemplary managing conflict employee strategies for responding to disagreement and descent constructively resolving conflict and building consensus throughout a district and school community one needs improvement five proficient one exemplary I'll invite the committee to make any comments go ahead I commend the superintendent on the continued push on continuing to push for a more diverse of staff that better was that better represents a diverse student population I commend her on her collaborative approach I recommend the superintendent work to ensure that school committee are better informed of emerging issues that involve our schools such as the stratton incident so we may help address and perhaps assuage community's concerns and I recommend that the superintendent work with all stakeholders on the creation of a shared educational vision I feel we don't have this now and it would be very useful in building community support for the schools and I that's why I wrote needs improvement for for the and yes I rated 4A 4D 4E and 4F exemplary the superintendent is to be commended for adopting challenging goals for student performance using her goals and the district goals as the basis for encouraging the professional staff to reach for high standards it is evident that the superintendent is to develop a collaborative relationship with the EA leadership and the frequent and respectful communication has enabled us to implement the new evaluation system to transition to the common core and to have support for the transition to park superintendent body strength is in managing conflict in promoting a shared vision as she has been a calming and supportive leader for our schools yes I read 4A exemplary the superintendent or staff are committed to high standards throughout the district and they seek to be ahead of the curve on curriculum and instruction improvements the technology initiative the variety of professional development we offer and the superintendent's constant president classrooms and schools are indications of a district that has high standards an example of Dr. Bode's commitment to high standards that a year or so ago she was invited to present at the joint MASSE conference on the district's work on district determined measures which were in place for the state mandated them to be at among high performing districts we spend less for people than most which means the superintendent does a superior job of maximizing relatively limited resources to impact student learning based on my experience interacting with the superintendents around the state Erlingon has one of the states most qualified and competent superintendents I commend the superintendent for setting and demanding the highest standards in our teaching staff and students I recommend cultural proficiency needs to be made a very high priority at all levels I believe that it will increase the level of achievement with our minority students I recommend that all management staff become involved in evaluating how disagreement and dissent are dealt with when issues of curriculum are discussed and at this time I must confess I've lost a piece of the compiled it's the top cover sheet so I need to ask if you have a copy of it the compilation I'm sorry you have the thank you thank you at this time the final rating for the superintendent on professional practice goals was one significant progress four met and two exceeded student learning goals one some progress six significant progress district improvement goals four significant progress three met the overall rating from the school committee was seven proficient yes absolutely closing statements okay thank you Mr. Chair and I'm just going to relax now I've done one of the things that I don't like doing that much but I also honor and cherish having the opportunity to do and I want to thank you Dr. Bodey very much for your continued leadership here in our own team I find it strangely ironic that on our tables tonight we have this book that you were kind enough to bring back for us Mr. Chair Dr. Bodey thanks for the feedback when we're giving feedback and taking feedback tonight so I think just to quote from the first page in that book I thought it was very clever the author writes before you tell me how to do it better before you lay out your big plans for changing fixing and improving me before you teach me how to pick myself up and dust myself off so that I can be shiny and successful know this I've heard it before I've been graded rated and ranked coached screened and scored I've been picked first picked last and not picked at all and that was just kindergarten so Dr. Bodey again I want to just sum up to say thank you very much I appreciate what you've done for this district and I wrote here in one of my comments that I left for just now that I feel that you've grown in your leadership and management style since I've known you and been on this committee for four plus years I see that in the staff who seem pleased with the direction the district is going in and are happy that you've made trips into their classrooms so often to observe them and their practice and give feedback to them you know there are certain things that we've pointed around this table that we don't need to go or I don't need to go into or delve into again and I'm glad to talk with you about my report in more detail but I think you've been able to manage contentious issues and manage them indefinitely and I just again thank you for your leadership and hope to do this again next year or not I don't know I hope it goes easier for me next anyone else? just as a preface I want to note that in evaluating the professional practice student learning and district improvement goals I think the best grade is the goal the significant progress because if we meet the goals and we do it too easily we set a goal that was too easy and I think the goals that we set were challenging and I rated two of them significant progress and I think that that's probably the most commendable thing that you can do with these kind of goals I just wanted to give that context in general the leadership style has been a good match for the district she has developed excellent working relationships with the leadership of the teachers union as well as the leadership of the town to be a credible leader for strategic incremental change she has carefully crafted the argument for a new Arlington high school probably the largest challenge on the horizon she has successfully communicated the needs and challenges pertaining to the increasing enrollment in our schools and she has been able to help the town leaders to obtain funding to support the additional students in our schools the schools continue to have strengths beyond those measured by standardized tests the fine arts program including music is a source of excellence and pride in our schools our athletic program continues to have a high rate of participation despite the fees imposed upon it by the school committee with regard to the accountability measures and achievement there are also considerable signs of improvement and instruction at the middle school level there is concern about some significantly weak scores or high need students at some elementary schools and that requires urgent and strategic attention which I believe is happening the superintendent's ability to engage in open and honest communication in a common non-judgmental manner is an important part of her success she always endeavors to answer questions from the committee in a candid and thorough manner which greatly assists the committee's work as a part-time board of directors for the district I have confidence when I vote on a matter before the committee I have before me the full and impartial information required to cast a thoughtful vote I value her counsel and opinion and I am pleased to rate her as proficient I commend the superintendent on her continued work and on her collaborative approach I think that both of these have really contributed to our schools moving up a level I've mentioned things that I think need improving because I think our students deserve the best that we can give them and if we don't point out areas that need improvement they're not going to get fixed so I just wanted to echo again that I really appreciate your hard work and dedication I commend the superintendent to the school committee for having to deal with me for the past 7 months she's still alive and we don't always agree but I've always found the superintendent willing to talk and discuss and she's helped me keep my cool which I commend her for that as well thank you very much do you have anything you'd like to say at this time or do you want to move on just a couple comments first of all thank you for the kind words that you've offered I appreciate that because it is a hard job thank you as we have begun this new evaluation system in Arlington one of the things that we have talked about with all of our staff is that this is an opportunity for continuous improvement I get the jackpot of having to do it on camera but it is a process and there's things that clearly need to be improved but I think anybody listening to this list of competencies that you have to you know be good at everything realize that there are going to be areas that need to be improved so I appreciate and wrote some notes down of areas that I actually agree with in terms of things that need to improve but I have to say that you know a superintendent doesn't do this work by themselves and what is key to the great achievements that we're seeing and the progress is really such a strong team which is some of whom you are here but many that are not here tonight are principals, other administrators and teachers that we have Arlington I hope understands and appreciates what a great group of people that are taking care of their children and leading them to learning all that they need to learn and really making growing at their highest potential and it's a very caring group of people and very competent group of people and I just want to acknowledge that because it's not one person ever it's a whole team of people and that's the key and I feel that we have a good team in relationship here because how we model it is how it goes also you know throughout the whole system and that's really important so we will begin this process and I do agree we need to get a little bit more clarity how we're going to do evidence we've done it before in a different way and I just have a growing process and how we adapt to the way we want to do it for the state I would like to also remind the committee that any notes taking during this time are now part of the public record you need to turn those in if you've got them electronically get them to Karen Ms. Fitzgerald as soon as possible if you've got them handwritten I will personally give that correction that had to be made I'm sure she's already got it I sent you another question I sent you another correction on email okay fine I would also echo Dr. Buddy we're going to start the goals process and the next week she and I are going to meet and then we're going to have a subcommittee meeting probably right after Thanksgiving on superintendent evaluation to start that seeking from the subcommittee to the full board input on evidence so that we get a head start on it I'd ask the other members Ms. Jennifer you weren't with us we've come a long way in the past three years just in the system I think and I think tonight was process wise the best other than me screwing up the end moving on to the superintendent's report sorry is can we at some point talk about the this I mean not not our evaluation but the instrument and how we can adapt it for I mean how how people might like to have it adapted or clarified and things going with that I will inquire from desi if we have the option to adapt I think we do I think we do I don't want us to do any work and be told afterwards we can just verify superintendent evaluation subcommittee do we have a date December 1st yes that'll be the first meeting of that who's on it again me me and just Cindy anyone all welcome to come as usual five o'clock make sure I have it on my calendar we set this quite a while back yeah I think we begin to set up the process for this we all felt the need that we needed I appreciate that we all set now superintendent's report I have a couple of things but before I begin with the one that's actually bulleted on the agenda I didn't expect to have to be talking about snow on November 13 but I do we are going to have we're supposed to have snow overnight and I think it's important to say at the beginning of the season is that these decisions I don't expect a by the way I do not expect a snow day tomorrow but it's just the beginning of this process and who knows what we're going to see but these decisions are made at a very early time in the morning and sometimes we just simply can't predict exactly how things the weather could change at 7 30 and buddies walking out of their house so because the decisions need to be made as early as five because of buses but they also need to know if in their judgment it is too dangerous to be leaving they just need to let the school know that they're going to be delayed or if they can't feel they can get out at all that they need to let the school know so when we have those kind of really iffy difficult days it can be excused it's still an absence it's still an excused absence all right I don't know if we can zoom that a little bit better but what I wanted to do tonight is to give up a response to information that was talked about by Dr. Steven Harrington at the last meeting about our ratios of out of district out of school suspensions and in school suspensions but mainly focusing on out of school suspensions the concern was expressed is that we had a disproportionate number of black and black black to white ratio in terms of out of school suspensions so after that evening I asked for the report and went through it very carefully and did find what was an obvious error was pretty obvious that there was two different charts it's a fairly long report I might tell you it includes information about number of students taking algebra one and how it's distributed among students as well and this is AP courses it's a very involved and time consuming report but there is a chart that says number of out of district sorry out of district is just sort of one of those words it comes out so quickly with round special ed but it's out of school suspensions for students with disabilities and for students without disabilities and what I could see was I didn't know which of those two numbers were actually correct so we did look into the data for 1112 and that was a mistake it was just an oversight in terms of the data that was there so when we looked at the act taking a student by student looking at the number of out of school suspensions a slightly higher number than we had reported the report that had been submitted said there were 96 now one thing I do want to stress before I go into any more detail about this is that we're talking about a very small sample of students and when you have a small sample and those of you know statistics it's not very difficult for a change of a few to really change the ratios and proportions because it's super sensitive to small changes so when we looked at the actual numbers it does change the ratios of number of black students to white students that have been out on suspensions I look at the data a little bit differently than Dr. Harrington but it's a sort of lens to the same issue when I look at so for example and you have this in your packet but I hopefully people that are at home can see this the change was that with the 111 students 111 incidents there were 66 white students 19 black students in contrast to what was reported there was 45 white students and 23 black students which would almost suggest that that is a really disproportionate how I look at it is this in this total population in 1112 3.6% of our students or black students under the category that we use for the federal reporting if you were to take that percent of the 111 you would expect that if the number of out of school suspensions mimicked in the same proportion as the actual distribution of the population you would expect that same kind of distribution in the number of out of school so that would have us expect four black students being in out of school suspension in fact there were 19 so it was five times greater than what we would expect when the data had been reported it actually was more like 6.5 times greater so it was slightly improvement but still of concern and looking at that when you look at the number of white students in 1112 which was 77.2% of the total enrollment of the 111 you would expect 86 of the 111 to be the number of white students and in fact there were 66 so there were less so it was less than expected now to put this in context that was a time period where we were having a lot of concerns about students that were coming in from group homes and not only group homes but other students were coming in that were struggling with the transition into the high school because most of these suspensions are at the high school level doesn't mean that there aren't suspensions of the elementary or the middle school there are but the majority of them are at the high school and it was about that time that we began looking at programs and supports for these students in order to have a better transition into the high school and we did the same thing at the middle school as well or so even at the high school and so when I look at the data for 1314 this report is submitted every two years and so we'll be submitting it late December or early January so these are very preliminary numbers this is a very time consuming process but when I look at the 1314 data which you have also one of the things that is very notable is that we've gone from 111 to 55 total for one year and in looking at that the breakout was we're just talking about these two particular categories there were 36 white students and 10 black students our enrollment has grown over that period of time but the relative percentages haven't changed a lot but a little bit and so for example for black students it has changed to being 3.76% of the total enrollment so if you take that number times 55 you're going to have an expectation of four students we had 10 so what you're seeing is definitely a change in the ratios which is exactly what we wanted to see happen the same thing for white students when we look at we had 74.4% of the 55 the expected number would be 40 and we had 36 so we're now having, we're seeing more of a parity there but I think that what is very compelling and reassuring essentially is that the kind of programmatic supports that we're putting in is having the kind of effect that we want to have not only has the total number of out of school suspensions changed but the relative ratios are also changing so that's good news I have been in consultation with our town council about what's the process to resubmit the data and he has talked to the office of civil rights and they suggested that we just send in the corrected report when we send in the one for 1314 which is what we will do so I think that it also speaks to I think that we have to build in a process where none of these reports go out without at least another set of eyes looking at them just to see for obvious errors because that was an obvious error when you actually looked at the report so it was a good exercise to go through and I think it's definitely a concern and I appreciate Dr. Harrington bringing it to our attention it's certainly been a concern when I've talked to the high school principal about it and I know that this has been on their minds for quite some time and certainly on the deans which even precede Dr. Janger it has been on their minds in terms of how we support these students and also at the same time have a very appropriate consequences and have a smooth day at the high school and I think that is all improving so I'm hoping as we see the next report a few years out we're going to even see more improvement as we go forward. Any questions? Just for clarification I don't think you told the viewing audience at home where these reports are coming from you told us in the email it's the civil rights this is a report that we have to send to the office of the department of justice and it's their office of civil rights and it's a very long and involved report that is given it's probably why they do it every two years because it is so time consuming and for example this is the report there are categories for AP exams you go through your AP exams and you have to break it out by how many white students Asian students, black students, Hispanic are taking AP and what their scores are I mean it's very it's very involved report so this goes to the federal government and it is posted on their website and all school districts do this this is done nationally absolutely and so the data where we're talking about nationally what the number of that black students at three times more likely to be in an out of school suspension comes from this this database and it is that represents a national so when we're saying that ours is higher than that that is a concern and so we need to look at it but it is also it's also a situation where Arlington hosts a number of group homes and I think that we have done a better and better job every year of helping these students adjust to Arlington High School thank you do we keep records of the reason for suspension of course that's something that you look at oh yes, oh yes everything is logged and actually it was very complete data yes what if a student is of multi-racial background how is he or she that's actually an excellent question and that's one that has been increasingly of issue in terms of the categories right now you just sort of select one of the others but we don't have a multi-racial and people have talked about that needing to be more categories we go into the future and I know Mr. Schlickman probably has some thoughts on that one too and the other question I had real quickly in this preliminary data sheet of out of school suspension is only one or more than one do you mean only one day or more than one day? it says annual report for a whole school year okay so we had in the 13-14 school year our preliminary number said we had only 55 district-wide no no no just it says only one oh oh oh I see can you break it out that way how many students had only one suspension and not day suspension it's not the number of days you don't get that in the report at all so somebody might have a 2-day, 5-day, 10-day but the other one where it's more than one is students would get multiple in the same year and what you will see which is interesting in the data is that there's noticeably fewer students that have only one day I mean only one instance most of the time the majority of the students involved in out of school suspensions have more than one Mr. Schleckman just because I've been on the business end of compiling this report fortunately I haven't had to do the task of helping out and overseeing it this is a very complicated report to produce and it doesn't align to the way we report in Massachusetts because we do have 64 different racial categories we can do when reporting to the state because you are allowed to check multiple boxes and it's reported back that way but the feds bring it back down to a different category and a lot of things how we report in Massachusetts doesn't align to what we're doing and instead of reporting this electronically where we can go and hit a button and get a report for the most part there's a lot of hand labor in terms of doing the research and figuring out what's going on in order to fill into the category so there's a lot of cutting and pasting and a lot of room for error in this so it's totally understandable in preparing this report because we don't have a dedicated staff to comply with federal reports to take a lot of time people have to do that in addition to their regular duties it's an onerous process and I just wanted to make that comment I appreciate the fact that we looked into the data we've clarified it and it's such what the true data is we're not just factoring we're working towards aligning it to better reflect our student population I just wanted to say that as you all know this is a national issue which national attention is being put on to and I think that's a really good thing I mean I think it's a good thing that nationally we're asking these questions and and I have faith that Arlington is taking this seriously and we'll work towards making sure that the same kind of offenses get the same kind of consequence and it's not divisive I do actually the next two I wanted to ask Laura Cheson if she would just give a quick update on our professional day as well as evaluations on the DESI website on the election day we had a professional day for the entire staff including teacher assistance service providers as well as teaching staff the morning was a required session based on the individual needs of the departments and the grade levels so at the elementary level many of the staff and the lower levels attended workshops on math and math discourse and at the upper levels had professional learning time for them their PLC work in the later part of the morning and in the afternoon teachers were able to choose from a variety of 30 workshops the vast majority of which were offered by teachers their colleagues and other related service providers within the school and we have everything from things that had to do with the affective domain with cognitive behavioral therapy as well as dealing with students with stress to dealing with academic issues such as meeting the needs of all students utilizing assistive technology utilizing technology as a formative assessment and communicating with parents using social media and we have begun to look at the data from that and the vast majority of those who responded to the survey we got about 120 responses with some minor exceptions people stated that they strongly agreed or agreed that it was a meaningful day for them and the delivery method of the workshop was good for them so I want to thank everybody particularly the people that sort of stepped out to deliver the workshops because without that we would not have been able to have our day. I think one of the things that really should be noted and two things well anyway Laura did a great job of encouraging a lot of teachers to present. I think that this is one of the strengths of Arlington that is should not be just sort of taken granted. We have such competent teachers that their peers learn from them. Not that we are adverse to bringing them together. We have a lot of website experts we do. In fact we had come and give a workshop actually three different times during the day but all of these choice workshops were conducted by our own teachers and we are hearing that they really the teachers that attended them learned a lot and I have to say because they are willing to do it and they really offer such wonderful opportunities for their colleagues. The second thing that I just wanted to comment very briefly on was at this time the department of elementary and secondary education has released some data regarding educator evaluation. I just want to clarify something that might be difficult to understand by looking at that report. We are not a race to the top district and therefore last year we were required to report to the state electronically at minimum of 50% of our teacher evaluations so when one would read the report one might assume that the teachers that are not reported and by the way we were higher than 50% but you might assume that they were not evaluated and nothing could be further from the truth. We had teachers in the teacher electronic teacher evaluation system and sent that up through what's called the EPIM system to the state but there were some teachers that were either out on maternity leave at the beginning of the year or the middle of the year or the end of the year those teachers were not within the system long enough to have in many cases to have an overall rating and so their evaluation although they did have observations and evaluations done in addition there was not a requirement to report administrators last year for non-race to the top districts we did not resolve what we call our AAA administrator contract until very late in the year and so the previous evaluation system was in place and so therefore many of them they were all evaluated but if they were required to by their contract but many of them did not have an electronic transmission of their evaluation so I just want to state that and one final thing I want to state to the public is that if you look at the data the DEC has made an acknowledgement that a teacher's individual evaluation rating is or an educator's evaluation rating is considered confidential so if there was an ability to determine what an individual person's evaluation rating would be by the data that is given to the public then that data is embargoed so if for example 100% of a school was to receive a proficient rating then you would know that everybody had a proficient rating so you would know in fact what people's rating was and so that information is embargoed so it's quite complex and I'm sure we'll be talking about it more but I just wanted to initially say that if you looked at the report you may conclude that some people were not evaluated and everyone that was required to be evaluated was evaluated last year when will the state require everyone to be up on the electronically this time this year we have to transmit everything so June by June 30th yeah they actually we submit the data I'm not saying it to be submitted but things would have to be completed and be ready to go absolutely and then they send us the information we double check at all levels yeah I do want to also mention one other thing is that our agreement with the AEA as we as we learning this new system is that we're not having anybody rated exemplary and that's not to say that we don't think that we have exemplary teachers we do but we're we're not doing that we're not going to do it again this year either and we're in for the discussions as to how we move forward so when you look at that you say the ones that we turn in there's no exemplary well that I just want you to know that was a very conscious thing if you go through that whole list I spent about an hour this afternoon very very few schools are actually bringing out exemplary most schools are doing very much what we're doing on this like this that's the top one alright I did think I had one more thing oh this is just important we have done a parent survey as you know and the it's going to close the end of the day on November 16th I will send out a reminder to parents so if anyone's listening at this point would you please complete the survey it's going to be helpful information to us you may complete the survey for each child actually what the request is if you have two children in the same school do it for the school but if you have a child in two different schools or even three different schools you can feel free to do three different surveys I managed to skip public participation I noticed we have some guests in the room I didn't know if you'd like to come up to the microphone introduce yourselves and why you're here I'm putting you on the spot are you gentlemen scouts are you working on a merit badge is it which one is it communications communications okay I don't know if any other members of the board have been scouts I was and I helped people get communication badges my emails they had anything I could do to help you and support you guys they happy to I know how exciting this is for you to be sitting you earn the badge just for sitting through one of these sessions like that we're now on the consent agenda excuse me all items listed with an asterisk are considered to be routine and will be enacted by one motion there will be no separate discussion of these items unless a member of the committee so requests in which event the item will be considered in its normal sequence approval of warrant number 15051 dated October 23rd 2014 in the amount of $769,464 and 96 cents approval of draft minutes September 4th and October 23rd 2014 we have a motion to approve is there a second any further discussion no discussion all those in favor thank you very much moving on we get back to we are now in subcommittee reports budget the Starks just going by what's listed I miss policy I'm sorry policy thank you Mr. Chair most important subcommittee does usually go first excuse me if you look at the agenda the thing the document does not even have you listed it's right there it's right here up at the top the old man can't see thank you we have a couple first readings that we would like to bring to your attention tonight we met most recently last evening the safety policies EB which I'm looking for I have no idea so on this safety program policy we have the final sentence in the policy and added to ensure a district wide standard of safety procedures every member of the faculty and staff will be provided a copy of the district's crisis communication and management which as you can see most of our classrooms have we have it here in the school committee room it's the red book at the front of the room so that's basically we've done this to keep up with the the change with the state law what's the next according to this EBCB fire drill what is these things for EB what are the final letters they're from the many districts adopt the letters actually it's a code book that comes from the national school board's association so that not all school districts use these codes but it is a common set of codes and they are classified by content area on fire drills we added the statement the district will follow current state regulations on the frequency of fire drills EBCB on emergency basically wordsmithing and crossing on principle to reflect the correct spelling of principles dismiss schools early in the event of hazardous weather and damage and the very bottom we crossed out that old sentence which doesn't apply anymore when schools are closed for emergency reasons staff members shall comply with the school committee policy and reporting for work there's no school committee I think the word ones should be deleted after principles following the principles ones relating including the following principles relating to so we should note that ones right after the principles and then this last one which I got in just very nick of time today thank you Karen we went over last night has to do with our agenda format and preparation and dissemination as you know we've gone to this new system through novice agenda where we can see it on our screens and we get the submissions electronically we'd like to have that same benefit go out to the public so as part of this change in this policy we've added on the second page that the public shall be able to access all the same documents we see at the meeting at six thirty p.m. right when the meeting starts and that's when everything will be released to the public the other additions we put on page one show that when we get the packets two work days no later than four p.m. will be when we get all the supporting materials question I don't know if I defer to the committee whether it belongs to the policy at what time our secretaries get the material in the past go ahead we discussed that we looked at Adam's three page description of what the protocol should be we determined that that would be best left as a protocol rather than a policy statement the only concern with it is that in the past even when we were dealing with paper Ms. Fitzgerald was getting things as late as the day of and what we've been trying to do over the past five six months and more going on electronic and I've been guilty of violating it myself she will agree of last minute emergency things are always going to happen and we will get things at last minute but it's important for the superintendent and the administrative staff and stuff that things don't have to be acted upon immediately if they don't reach Karen by a certain time they had deferred to a future meeting I'd be happy we're going to meet again in December 2nd we can wait to see how it works and just keep it within administrative working it but if it starts to fail and break down again I don't know how you folks want it should we come back to you at that time I have nothing to say about that but there's a typo in here it says shall be sent to committee members on two work days doesn't make sense two proceedings I think you're just missing a word two work days proceeding and then take out on that prior to prior to whatever that's why we do first reading yep and also I think the following shall be included as but not be limited to there's a lot of articles in there sure that's a good point that you brought up that paragraph we did cross out a lot of things that we don't typically do anymore like the secretary's report we don't typically have new business at our meeting so we tried to pair it down to what our school committee meetings currently look like and it shouldn't be teach regular meeting that's is that right or what is that each each I'll get on that but Bill, Mr. Heiner Mr. Chair Dr. Heiner I'll take up your suggestion because I think we owe it to Karen I think it's worked recently even if all you say is that everyone will endeavor to get you really want it on this agenda get it there on time all right that's all I have we're going to meet again on December 2nd and I thank my fellow committee members now budget Mr. Starks so budget subcommittee met last night to prepare for our presentation and then we attended this morning's long range planning committee meeting people need to know that at the last long range planning meeting there were several concerns brought forward about the size of the budget we'll call it a cliff I guess when this round of or when this agreement runs out basically which is about 2019 right now not bad for a three year plan budget is a town not the school budget right the town budget not the school budget the town budget yes I'm sorry I should have so the town budget so at the last long range planning meeting there were lots of scenarios all of which included cutting school cutting everybody's budget over the next couple of years some that cut our budget down to two and a half percent from the three and a half percent that we were getting anyway so what we did was we kind of rallied the troops we had great we had five speakers Dr. Ampey Dr. Seuss Dr. Bodie Diane Johnson and Linda Hansen all spoke and it was great because they had all done different kind of looks and information about the town and we went in and we just presented as much information as we could to the long range planning committee about why we thought this was not the time to cut the Arlington public schools Dr. Bodie spoke on unfunded mandates and kind of all of the we'll call it race to the top that we all have to do all this rushing to constantly improve that the state requires us Kiersey had done some work looking into per pupil costs and comparing ourselves to the town meeting 12 as well as the state Dr. Seuss had done some work looking at some new census data it was very interesting and showed how demographics in Arlington are changing Linda Hansen spoke about kind of what the last override agreement had been and kind of where she thought this one should go and then Diane of course wrapped us up with actual new enrollment numbers and kind of showing what would happen to the schools if in fact we had to cut our budget so I thought it was great I thought they asked some good questions I think in the end we had them thinking about the fact that that was not a good idea and I really want to thank everybody because we kind of had the last minute pull together a meeting and decide what we were going to say and I thought that it went very well and I just really want to thank everybody for doing that I think it's very important that sometimes for whatever reason we are students who speak up for the schools it's important that we do that and our next meeting is on Thursday December 11th at 3.30 and it will be here and we have a myriad of topics to discuss. Thanks. Thank you. Community relations Mr. Schlickman. We are charged with making an appointment to the Arlington Commission on Arts and Culture and this is not controversial because we've had an impact it's a very fine applicant. Leland Stein is the co-owner of the Regent Theatre and has a lifetime of involvement in arts and culture so I would move that we appoint Leland Stein to the Arlington Commission on Arts and Culture. Is that it? Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? One other thing which is sort of community relation-ish although it's sort of Winchester community relation-ish my colleague to the left Mr. Pierce is a thespian and he is going to play surge in the production of art with the Winchester players and it's not far to get to Winchester you can do it in 10 minutes and tickets are reasonable $20 each you can order them on their website winchesterplayers.org performances this Friday Saturday next Friday Saturday at 8 p.m. I'm going on Saturday so I'll be there tomorrow. Let's get a school committee contingent and support our beloved thespian who's on stage. You pay him for this? This commercial? You need an agent. I mean there he goes. Oh Do you want to mention 1290s? Curriculum instruction and assessment and accountability Nothing to report but I have a question to ask so I've been approached by a parent who's concerned about the Otis in middle school trips this year to going to Florida their concern is that there's a lack of funding for low income students the trips are voluntarily led by teachers my understanding is it's under the teacher initiative there were several concerns raised by this parent and my question is I think this should be brought up at a subcommittee and discussed but I wasn't actually sure which subcommittee it should go to should it go to budget or should it go to curriculum and I'm on both so it doesn't much matter to me. I just have one question for clarification and I'll answer the event. It's happening during a school vacation. A teacher is running it there'll be a permission process I wouldn't say that it was school run then it's it's not it did approve it but we did approve it because it's a teacher taking Arlington students but and I think that that is something that it is worth discussing. If we are going to discuss it I think it would make it a school event somewhat maybe quasi but my understanding is that any event that's in the public arena if someone cannot afford it there has to be a way for them to attend I mean I have no problem going to a subcommittee. It needs to go to the subcommittee because there's discussion and this is going to take place. It's not a question of whether or not the trip is it's April vacation. It's April vacation. So it's not time-sensitive. I think it should go to curriculum instruction I'll tell you why because it really has no implication for our budget. It is about money but it's not our budget. I think it's a curriculum. It could be. Yes it could be. But then you could kick it over. I think you're right it's about access to teachers it's about fairness there's lots of different things it could be about that's fine I'll take them. So Bill it's been brought to my attention 12th night is playing at the high school we have the dates it's this weekend Friday and Saturday 7 o'clock is it 7.30? 7 okay whenever it starts high school play well said facilities facility subcommittee met on October 30th we had three items on the agenda the monotony preschool which there were concerns about rodents down in there and it's been addressed the second issue was the hardy playground and so the outcome of that was that 200 cubic yards of chips wood chips have been placed at the hardy playground to make it safer and Diane Johnson is working with Mark Miano from the town to set up regular inspections of all of the playgrounds in the town so they're safer and the superintendent is trying to gather together some funds to make some emergency repairs there is that correct we have that right we're going to assess what we need to do there for sure did you have a chance on election day I noticed that that metal piece I haven't gone back I'll go back tomorrow and check it out one of the things they brought up there was a piece of metal sticking out it was very dangerous and they the wood chips were there the next day I want to tell you that and they were spreading them out but there was a piece of metal sticking out they had duct taped it but it was still very dangerous so I'll check it again tomorrow the third thing we talked about was the overall space planning needs of the district there were two things that we talked about one was a long term plan and Dr. Bode and the town manager are going to hire a consultant to do an analysis of our long term challenges and needs and then we're going to receive a short term a report on what will happen next year what are the implications of an increase in enrollment next year on space in the district we're going to receive it at a meeting on January 22nd and a subcommittee meeting on the 22nd of January before 5 p.m. I think it is which will be posted very soon I think that was a check-in and then the final report will be presented to the committee in February so we have a check-in and then a final report February we haven't actually gone to that next step of doing it but we're really seriously considering doing a space analysis because it's very complicated and this is long range in terms of what we need to be able to project in terms of cost we've talked about of course the high school and Stratton and there's been talk about Minuteman but we haven't really spent a lot of time talking about what are going to be our needs if we can even anticipate that that's one of the issues we knew we were growing but then we had this unexpected increase will this be a blip for 5 years and then level off do we need to school somewhere? do we need to have additions? we don't know so we need some help on this one I'll say the chair would like to report two things I attended the CPAC meeting and it went well the director was there it's very positive it's no longer a gripe session things are going forward and I'm very happy to report that I, Dr. Bode and Mr. Schlickman were you able to make it down to the conference? for a tiny bit you were second I didn't want to leave you up I think next year I'm going to look more carefully from my perspective I went to the ones I went to were very good I was trying to fill the schedule and I didn't quite have enough to fill the schedule I personally would like to see the conference move to probably Worcester more central I heard a lot of people complaining especially from the western part of the state how difficult it was for them to get down there you all have a book on your table they gave that to all the participants and as I walked out there was a big table full of books and I had already acquired 25 umbrellas from MASC the guy didn't want to go outside so I got them for some of the people here in town so I walked up and I said do you want to carry all those books back out and they said why I could use six or seven of those books take whatever you want the speaker was phenomenal from my perspective it was really good I would say this is it's tough for me to say I've been involved in this for so long but I did think it was probably the best conference they had a tremendous variety of sessions and the speakers were excellent the just as a side note when I was president in 2004 that was while we were at Wooster and we found that we had significant issues in terms of dealing with the folks in Wooster the Wooster Convention Authority who operates the Centrum wasn't perhaps the best host for a conference of our nature and we got a lot of feedback from the MASC membership overall that they prefer to be the cape than in Wooster but we're nearing the end of that contract I know the association is looking for venues that are large enough to handle the conference and reasonable enough in cost because Boston would be very expensive so we've got a more or less draw a circle around Boston and figure out where there's a facility large enough with a large enough exhibit space as well but it was well attended a lot of first time attendees there this year at one point they asked the people raise their hands their first time attendee and lots of hands went up this is very important professional development for school committee members it's how we interact with others to hear experts on topics that we're thinking about and it's very necessary and I'm really pleased to be associated with MASC. Several of the people raising their hands the majority of the committee had just been just got elected in cities and towns which astounded me to put that many people some were appointments because people had left but five new members of the 7th amendment committee and I just can't imagine how they could function right away cities do that I thought it was very well attended especially when you got to the major talks the place was packed they selected very well the major presenters and it is an interesting book in terms of as supervisors when you're giving feedback I think thinking about how it's received is the other part of that but probably in general don't do enough and so it was a very engaging speaker but I agree with you and particularly for people who are just new to a committee I thought it was an excellent conference to really get into some of the deeper understandings of some of these key topics the last one I went to was MSBA the gentleman that actually makes the decision who gets and he said the first priority is health and safety the second priority is growth and I said would it be would it bother you to get information on a daily or weekly basis and he says if it's different information he says I'll take it as often as you can give it to me so as it changes only if it goes up don't tell them it's going down but he said they were looking to approve 15 projects out of 200 applicants he said about 100 of those probably will get discarded right off the top because they don't meet the top two or three priorities and so I felt a little bit better for us to comment about committees having lack of experience or whatever in perspective when Mr. Pearson I joined the committee I think the collective experience of the entire of Mr. Thielman had more experience in himself than all of the rest of us added together no I'm serious so we've been there really matter no I think it's a really interesting thing because things happen when you're newer and bumps occur so it takes a long time to really understand all the workings of it it's at least it's like your third year you start saying oh I'm starting to understand this a little bit better yes I went to the session on the foundation budget review committee and they were really soliciting input from different districts about what people's challenges were they weren't looking at chapter 70 money right and they weren't going to say nobody's promising extra money but I think the goal is to get an honest accounting that's what we should push our legislators for push people that we know intellectual honesty about really what it costs to educate kids and run schools and run districts this time I actually want to mention I was being there I would bring up but I think it's important to put this out there I was actually part of a focus group with the department of education on a proposal that they have they're looking to change a lot of requirements around certification but one of them they have out there and they have it out there for public comment which is concerning to every single superintendent is linking evaluation to license we are just now in the beginning of this new shift in terms of how we're doing evaluations and we're in this district doing a lot of thinking about practice about interscore reliability it's been a focus of ours for a couple of years but you have inter-district reliability and you're having somebody's judgment in one other district making a decision about a teacher's license there was just a resounding no from the superintendents and it will be interesting to see when they go out to new focus groups whether they take this off the table because we said it should not even be there maybe five, six, ten years down the road when we got this well established that you have this kind of consistency but way too premature yes I attended the afternoon focus group which was for school committee members I won't mince words I thought that the department's initiative in this is ill-advised and really inappropriate let me tell you some of my thinking first of all every professional board in the state be it physicians or attorneys or barbers or phlebotomists anyone who holds a license or a certificate has that certificate governed by a board of people who are active in that profession except educators my friend to my left Ms. Stark's studied education very carefully very thoughtfully and up until a few years ago she would have been qualified to be a member of the state board of education which is the licensing authority until she got elected to this board which disqualified her by law and then a few months later she got a job teaching mathematics in a middle school which doubly disqualified her and it makes no sense that the people who are governed by a license do not have any say in what the license is or what the requirements are what the professional standards are and I am sorry but the department of elementary and secondary education and the bureaucracy over there really does not have the moral standing to be coming up with this sort of of a package that said the department has also proven itself not to be for granting a renewal licenses the lag time has been tremendous the person from the department said we've cleaned that up but they do not have the capacity to make evaluative judgment on teachers it is really up to us as school committees and superintendents and school systems to hire well to make professional judgments to use the education evaluation system in order to make decisions on who should be teaching within our public school system and the licensure process should not be a part of that because we know what is going in our classrooms we know the capacity of our teachers and we know how to make rational decisions about who is educating our children there is not a need to run unqualified teachers out of the system that is a minor problem that has enhanced provisions under the new regulations and evaluation system we can move an unsatisfactory teacher out of classrooms we do that districts across the state do that the challenge in terms of education of educator evaluation is to set a tone of continuous improvement of always having a goal of always having improvement in your sites and adjusting your practice based on what is going on with the students in the curriculum that is the purpose of the evaluation system and to have the state get in the middle of the licensure as we are trying to have a thoughtful evaluation is going to be interference in the relationships we need to build in order to be successful collaborative responsible evaluators and professional staff well said I attended it was in Boston at Suffolk University one of their breakout sessions on a Saturday with several teachers I was the only school committee member but there were a bunch of teachers and administrators there I found that they were listening I don't know how much they are going to respond because not only is every step of licensure tied to your evaluation but it's tied to standardized test scores or DDMs or some other thing that we also haven't yet really gotten very good at doing and so it was really kind of interesting one of the suggestions that came out of the group that I was working with was that what the DESE needs to do is focus more on those colleges and universities that are turning out teachers and making sure that they meet the standards and then making sure that districts all have some standardized mentor and way that they are training and helping teachers and they need to stop worrying about the licensure if I've gone through the correct program and I've done everything and I'm working in a district that is doing the right thing then you need to not worry about my license so much that I'm doing the right thing and it's very interesting the licensing process has not been static I think for more than three months since 1993 I mean they've continued every time it starts to work well they change it it's as if somebody says gee this is working how can we fix it so it doesn't and I mean it's just crazy and young people all the hassle that they can on that note I will let you take a motion to adjourn is there a second all those in favor it's been vivid