 this meeting of the regional school committee to order. And before approving minutes, I wanna officially welcome our two new members. We have Heather Lord from Amherst, welcome. I neglected to welcome you last week, which was actually your attendance at the Amherst school committee meeting was your first meeting, but welcome to the region. And also to our new representative from the Leverett School Committee, Bethany Seeger. Thank you for joining us. And I think before we call to order the other two committees, we have approval of our minutes from April 7th as our first order for the region. And Sasha emailed that to all of us this earlier today. I don't know if folks have had a chance to review that. And thank you, Mike, for projecting it. Did anybody have corrections, comments? Mr. Harrington. I just have a name thing again, in the third section on the new and continuing business, it has me as HA Harrington, twice back to back. I actually, oh, I'm sorry, Ben. Oh, sorry. No, I can't see you. So, my bad. The last sentence as well, right there. Motion carried, five, zero, one, yep. That's all I had. So, I just wanna jump in, because I'm going back and forth. I should say the regional school committee, not the Amherst school committee at the top, I believe. Oh, yep. That's all I had. Any other comments or edits from the committee? Mr. Demling. I moved to approve the minutes of April 7th, 2020. Moved by Demling. I second. Oh, seconded by Lord. Thank you. Thanks for stepping up to make a motion. Are there any further discussion? Seeing none, we'll take a real call vote. Mr. Demling. Demling, aye. Mr. Harrington. Harrington, aye. Ms. Lord. Lord, aye. Ms. Spitzer. Spitzer, aye. Ms. Stanser. I think you're still muted, Mark. Stanser, aye. I was having trouble getting the icon to show up. Sorry. Yep, thank you. And Mr. Sullivan. Sullivan abstain. Mr. Benino is not present, so that carries 701. And I should make notes to myself, but I believe because we're on a virtual meeting, we need to take a real call attendance. So we'll start with McDonald's present. Mr. Demling. Demling present. Mr. Harrington. Harrington present. Ms. Lord. Lord, present. Ms. Spitzer. Spitzer present. Ms. Stanser. Stanser present. And Mr. Sullivan. Sullivan present. Mr. Benino absent. Thank you. Sorry. You need to include me as well. Oops. I'm a seager. Seager present. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry. There's so many faces on the screen that I'm trying to keep track of who's region and who's not. Thank you. And I apologize. Okay. Since moving on, seeing a presence of a quorum of the Amherst School Committee, I now call this meeting of the Amherst School Committee to order at 6.35 p.m. And we'll take roll call for that McDonald present. Mr. Harrington. Harrington present. Mr. Demling. Demling present. Ms. Lord. Lord, present. And Ms. Spitzer. Spitzer present. Thank you. Now turn it over to Sarah Hall. Sarah says she's having microphone problems. And so, just thinking if it continues, the vice chair of Pellum currently, currently, I need to be reminded of that. I believe it used to be Mr. Monino and I don't know if it still is. I know, Ms. Jess, did you become the vice chair? I was short for a short amount of time, but I'm not anymore. I believe it went back to wrong. Just Google me. Okay. I don't know how to do it. The secretary then is Ms. Stanser. So then it would defer to her to call the meeting to order if Ms. Hall is not able to resolve the technical challenges. I call to order this meeting of the Pellum School Committee on Tuesday, April 28th at 6.35 p.m. Stanser present. John Lee present. Who else do we have here? It looks like Sarah may have left the meeting and maybe is trying to call in, right? Because until she can acknowledge it, I'm looking at Ms. McDonald a little bit. No, and I have an email, I'm distracted because I have an email from Mr. Monino saying he's trying to get in. I don't know if there is a call in, someone trying to call in right now, a 617 number, but I'm not sure who that is. That might be Sarah. Yeah, that was my guess. The link that Mr. Dimling sent earlier is what I just forwarded to Mr. Monino. He said he's on video, but can't see us, so. That is not Ms. Hall, I don't believe in terms of the call in, unless I have the numbers wrong. Well, I don't know, Ms. McDonald, if you want, we could at least go on to public comment and see if by that point we could call the Pellum School Committee to order. Let's do that, so we'll move on to item number four. And just as a reminder, we've asked for, we're enabling public comment by email and members of the public may always reach the school committee at schoolcommittee at arps.org and share the comments, and for public comments to our regularly scheduled meetings, and we ask it to email them to myself at McDonald's A at arps.org by 3 p.m. on the day of the meeting, and I believe we have two public comments that we've received today, so we will share those on screen briefly so that members watching may read them on their own. Okay, would you like me to bring them up now? Yes, please. Okay, sure. All right, can folks see that? Does that feel like a sufficient amount of time, Ms. McDonald? Does anybody need more time to read the comments? Seeing shaking heads, so I think we're good. Thank you very much. Okay. And those have been sent to CLO for the record, so they can be integrated into the minutes of the meeting. I believe Ms. Hall on the phone now. And I haven't heard back from Mr. Manino to understand if he's been able to get on yet. He said he could see us, but I'm sorry, just to revisit that. Yeah, his email says I'm on video, but can't find anyone, so I'm wondering if he's using a different link. Yeah, I was gonna, I was gonna, Oh, there he is. Oh, there he is. Perfect. Welcome. Good timing. Mr. Manino, would the Pellum committee like to call to order? Sarah just got on the, Go ahead, Ron, I'm sorry. Sarah just got on a link to me, the one that emailed him, are there only the two of us in the meeting? So she's having trouble getting through too. So we now have one, two, three, four. Do we need four or three enough? Three is enough. Okay, so now seeing the presence of the quorum, I call to order the Pellum school committee on Tuesday, April 28th, that's 642 p.m. Stancer present. John-Louis present. Nino present. Okay. So now three committees have been called to order. So we'll move on to our new, our superintendent's update. And as noted, there's two specific updates. The first one, Ms. Cunningham, who's on the call, will give, which is about the middle school and the Pellum principal search update. And I'll give a very brief update on COVID since there was a longer one that everyone had access by email to on Thursday, either in video or in person. But I'll turn it to Ms. Cunningham who's gonna share an update on the principal searches. Hello everyone, good evening. With Pellum, we have community forums that will take place on Thursday and Friday of this week from 1130 to 330. There are four individuals that have been moved forward. We sent out a request for questions from the community and from the staff and families from Pellum. And we did receive some questions from about six or seven families that they would like to see us during the forum. The same for ARMS. An email will be going out tonight or tomorrow morning to let all the middle school families know that the forums will take place next week, Wednesday and Thursday from 1130 to 330 also. This time with that search, there are three candidates, one with, they're started off being four, but one withdrew. And so there are now three candidates who are moved forward to meet the community next week. And so if anyone had any questions about the process, timeline kind of stuff as it's coming up pretty soon before I transitioned to COVID, just wanted to give the opportunity for anyone to jump in, okay. Thank you, Ms. Cunningham. I wanna publicly thank Ms. Cunningham leading these searches in the midst of both school being closed, a virtual environment as well as just challenging circumstances in general. There's no easy feat. I notice you may have seen that some other districts have sort of paused their searches for a long period of time. And I just am very proud and appreciative of the work of Doreen and the HR department and everyone who volunteered to be on the interview committees and screening committees that we're not wildly off schedule and that we're gonna be in a good place to find excellent principles for both Pelham and the middle school with sufficient time to onboard them because onboarding is gonna look a little different this year than it typically would, critically important, but doing it virtually at least to start is gonna have its own challenge. And I also just wanna appreciate people who are already making lists and thinking of how the principles can connect with families, students in the community once that person is hired and really try to be connected in this kind of awkward environment that we currently find ourselves in. So thank you Doreen, thanks for all your team's work and thanks for all the volunteers who found ways to juggle many of them, their own kids, distance learning for their kids, their own jobs to be on those committees was no easy feat. And thank you for shepherding through that Doreen. So transitioning to COVID, as I mentioned at the beginning I did a rather lengthy update at the Amherst School Committee meeting although there was nothing I said there that wouldn't apply to any of the other districts on Thursday night. I sent the video link with the timestamp when that started. So I'm not gonna repeat all of that. I'll do sort of just updates. So one update is on Friday we had a live streamed event where we had three counselors, one elementary, one middle school, one high school counselor talking about how to support your child's well-being and emotional health. I found it to be outstanding. I was like the easy job. I was just a facilitator and I was frankly in awe of the work of the counselors. We got excellent feedback. We had 130 some odd people on the live stream and I think they're over, I think it's over a thousand views now. So I know a number of people couldn't make it but if you can't watch it, I mean just with my educator hat off just really appreciated the feedback and advice with my parent hat on that the counselors were able to offer. So thank you to them. And we're actually trying to think if we can do this on a regular series, there were so many questions, so much parent interest that we wondered, is this something we could do every other week or something for the duration of this period because people have new questions emerge. That's the reality of being a parent anyway and particularly in this environment they seem like they're, at least I find them emerging at a faster rate than they typically did. We continue our hotspots and Chromebook process. Every time we think, okay, we've got everyone, someone else emails or calls or contacts us for someone. So we have another pick up later this week for the numbers aren't that many, but it matters to those individual families that they're getting internet and they're getting Chromebooks. We still feel like the numbers are very, very low but we're happy people are continuing to reach out and thank you to the IS staff for continuing to work on that. Last week we passed 20,000 meals supplied for families in our district, which was just an amazing number and actually Friday is school lunch hero day. So we're gonna do something to celebrate our folks who are making those incredible number of meals for our community. We are getting started with summer and fall planning, trying to figure out what summer programs will look like. We typically run at the high school credit recovery but also special ed K to 12 programs as well as ESL or ELL and Title I programs. So we are sort of bifurcating our approaches because one frankly outcome that looks more likely is a primarily online environment for summer. We're still not making that decision but we're planning around both of those. Our fall planning is a larger process. We expect to receive guidance from the state in the near future. We are reaching out to actually healthcare professionals in our area to get feedback from them. And I think there'll be some teams formed on a variety of topics and in the near future probably within two weeks. One about the educational piece and you know that there's a difference between distance learning and typical school-based learning. Some on a mental health approach, some on an operational approach which includes health and safety. Some on a governance approach and I'll be looking for some members from the committee to join on that because there's gonna be a different set decision tree on a lot of decisions. Frankly, we've never had to consider before. Districts have not had to consider before. So more soon on that we're probably, I think I said on the other night we're at a three, six, nine week kind of thought process and that's probably two weeks away to really getting deep into fall planning. We would like to see some guidance from the state before we dive in, but we won't wait much longer than that because I don't think we can. There were new DESI guidance. There was new DESI guidance that got shared over the weekend around distance learning. The good news for us is that about 95% of it aligns with what we're doing. Interestingly, the part that is new has been something that both families and staff have been asking about, asking for, which is, can we start teaching new content? The guidance at K to eight had been, no, that we're only kind of teaching prior content and going deeper. And at this point, the state is opening that door for us to go through. And I think for many of our staff, we were hearing, if there's only so many times I can go deeper into the same previously taught content, that works for a while. And at some point, it was getting more challenging to have engaging activities and instruction for students. So we're meeting with staff on that tomorrow to go over those. And for the majority of the rest of it, really aligns well to our plans. And so people will see a difference and I'll be communicating out on Friday, some of that. One of the big things that was interesting was really discouraged use of what's called synchronous learning. So like what we're doing now would be a synchronous call for a whole host of reasons. We're doing some synchronous learning, but much more focused for them was synchronous learning for special populations, ELL special ed and synchronous learning around check-ins and synchronous learning for office hours. Like, you know, if there's an assignment that students can go in, but a whole class synchronous learning is not the recommended approach that Desi is having. And we're doing some of it and but they're finding districts that are going more full bill on that are having a really hard time. If you do watch the mental health or emotional wellbeing video, you'll see a number of families suggest that their students are anxious to go on calls, will not do it. And I'm hearing that across the spectrum. That's not, you might think that might be a younger student thing. And we're finding that students are struggling a bit with synchronous connections and even class meetings really K to 12. So we're gonna be adjusting things a bit. We're not, I think we're well aligned on that front. We're not relying on that all day long. And there's also a concern about screen time and students and what that does. And so more soon on that, but I was really pleased and you've heard me be critical of Desi. You might hear me be critical of Desi a little later in this meeting. I thought they really had an excellent document and shared it with some colleagues in other states. And they were frankly quite jealous that the guidance was thoughtful, measured and appropriate for the current situation. Last update is we do have kind of the outline of a plan for high school graduation. Thank you Amherst Media, they're streaming this and thank you for all your work and they're gonna help us out. The short story is that what the students and families, the majority of them wanted was some walking across the stage physically. And so what we're doing is getting advice on how we can do that in a physically distanced manner. It'll probably be quite literally an all day affair like eight or nine hours, because of the number of students we can have at any given time is gonna be so low. And what Amherst Media has agreed to work with us on is to get the video spliced, we'll have recorded speeches by the chair of the school committee, the superintendent, the principal, the alectorians, all the typical speeches. And Amherst Media will shoot those eight or nine hours of footage of students walking across. It's not at Mullen Center, it'll be outside the stage splicing it together to look like it was more typical like it's not gonna be a nine hour video, it'll probably be like an hour and a half or two hours like our typical graduations. So the memory of it will be there, but students have that experience of walking across the stage and having a diploma that was really critical. The student council met with Dr. Gramacchi, our assistant principal and Mr. Jones, the principal. And that was one of the real asks and things students expressed real passion about was not having a truly virtual graduation, even if it's sort of artificially physical, right? It's not at the Mullen Center and it's not gonna be the typical one with people watching in the same way. But to have used video technology to have that memory, but the physical walking across the stage was critically important to students and we're gonna respond to that and make it work for folks. So a lot of logistics, as you could imagine that we're working on, but one of the great things is having Amherst Media to be able to support us of how to do that video very quickly. We have a tentative data, I don't wanna say it yet because once I say a tentative data, it won't feel tentative to people. But the other thing that we're working on is having the high school seniors end their classes a week earlier than they typically would have, just an acknowledgement that their senior year has been really hard. It allows for a little more preparation for the online graduate or the physical slash video graduation as well. It would end with the last day of AP exams. That does it. It also gives enough time for students who may be scrambling to get their credits done to be able to graduate to have time to be able to do that. And we didn't wanna have them stay longer than everybody else because they're trying to do that that didn't feel equitable to us. So we found a happy medium and there was a positive response for students that they will be able to end a full week earlier than they were typically planning to end. Because if you don't know, and Master's is high schools which is still foreign to me, even though I've lived here my whole adult life, high school seniors seem to graduate, they finish classes like a month before everybody else. In the state I grew up in, that was not the case. So we baked in a 98 degree day in late June for our high school graduation. And that's fortunately for Massachusetts, high school students, that's not the case here. But we responded to their kind of what they expressed as desires, what was most important to them. And I think we have a really good plan. There's still details to be worked out but a really good plan to allow for that. And I think the video splicing idea will make it seem a little more natural than if we were doing something like this, a graduation looks like this. And that's my COVID update for tonight. So happy to take any questions if there are any. Mr. Demley? Yeah, so thanks for that update. You answered all my questions. The graduation plan sounds really great. I think having a public community event that's positive and celebratory will be really nice, the community. So look forward to that. If you could give a brief status update, like brief on, we had talked about a survey being done with parents about how distance learning was going so far. And if I recall it was only for parents. So I didn't know if we had plans to do a similar, even informal outreach to students on their experience as well at the regional level. Yeah, so that parent survey as well as the staff survey went out on Friday. We did not have explicit plans to think about students. I think at the regional level, it's a really good point that that would be useful feedback. Not that it wouldn't be at elementary, but it's a little harder. So we're going to be looking at some of the email addresses and there's some logistical challenges as well as developmental challenges of what that'll look like. So let me bring that back to the team. That's a good idea, thank you. Any other questions? Not seeing any more? One last shot? Nope, I think that's everything. Thank you, Dr. Morris. Thank you. So now we're going to move on to new and continuing business. Discussion on the superintendent evaluation. Ms. Spitzer, would you like to introduce this topic? Sure. So ages ago now, we started with kind of a rough outline of the superintendent's evaluation. And it's obviously with everything going on, we need to consider how we're going to update both the timeline and I think with some guidance from the MASC we've received, folks are also looking at updating kind of the structure and the content that we're used to for the evaluation. So just to refresh everybody's mind, back in the fall we set goals for the superintendent and each of the committees represented here today have their own set of goals. And the typical way we do this is we set the goals and then in the spring the superintendent presents artifacts and we complete, we have a meeting where we go over everything and we're typically only supposed to give feedback on the specific goals that were set and voted on by the committee. So there are a couple of concerns. One is just that the year has changed radically in a way that nobody kind of predicted. I think some of the goals we set will still align with the things that we care about. The other thing that's radically changed is just the amount of bandwidth for everybody on the team, including the superintendent in terms of, the presentation of the artifacts is usually a multi-page document that I believe takes Dr. Morris, considerable amount of time to put together. So Alice and I have started a conversation about what would the timeline look like? And then we've also started talking about whether or not, what should the presentation of the artifacts look like this year? And also, how are we going to recognize that the goals we set out obviously need to be, I don't know, the best way to phrase this, but it's just that the goals that we set out, we had limited information and we didn't know what was ahead. And so they may not be necessarily perfectly aligned with what's what have been the priorities of the superintendent since the pandemics. So do we have the dates in the agenda or should I kind of the fourth kind of share my screen? So Alice and Carrie, I'm sorry, if you want what was sent to the school committee, I can share that pretty easily. If that's the document that we can share. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'm happy to do that. I think this is it. Is this the one you were hoping up to share? Yeah, well, that'll work. So we were thinking today is April 28th and so we're having an opening conversation about the discussion of the instrument and goals in light of the current crisis. May 12th, we're hoping to kind of finalize an improved instrument to gather feedback from the committee members at the regional school committee level. And this only reflects the region and Palom. So obviously it's great to have Palom folks on now because we can see if this works for the whole community. And then trying to, oh, I guess Amherst is called to order so we can discuss Amherst and us too, can't we? Okay, great. So June 6th, we have the Amherst School Committee and a modified artifacts presentation June 18th. Hopefully the committee members would complete their evaluations by that point. June 23rd, which would be soon after the schools are closed, we'd have a modified presentation of artifacts. June 26th, the regional school committee members would hopefully complete the evaluation at that time. And then June 30th, the Amherst School Committee meeting to review and vote. And we could also, it would be a joint meeting again with the regional school committee on the same day meeting for you to vote. So this is just a draft. So please, you know, we're looking for feedback. And in terms of thinking about what it's gonna look like given everything that's been going on in the past few months. Before we, let's start this, I'll just add to that. One of the things, I think the two key things that we want that's sort of talk about this evening and sort of come out with clarity on is the timing. Clearly, so for those of you paying attention, this, we have added an extra meeting at the end of our normal calendar, this June 30th. So do we want to do that? Or do we want to move it up and try to finish? Cause normally the 23rd would be our final meeting of the school year, at least for the region. And I think Amherst was right before that. And I would imagine that Pelham is somewhere in there. So timing is the key piece. And then the other is the, what do we want to have as modified artifacts as Ms. Spitzer described them given the current situation? And I think there's some conversation about whether it would be a PowerPoint presentation from the superintendent, as opposed to the typical lengthy report that is fabulous. But obviously requires a significant investment of attention and time to produce and prepare that. And likewise for the committees, a significant amount of time to read, digest, and sort of reflect on that in writing the evaluation. So those are the two key things I think we're hoping to come away from tonight with clarity on that. And Allison, if I could, just the only thing I'll share is that we wanted to have this, even though it's a large meeting, both this and the next topic, seemed like it made sense having the three committees together because there typically is at least some overlap this year less than others. But so that, in terms of an evaluation piece, at least if nothing else, each committee knows what the other committee's thinking and what their timeline might be. So that's one of the reasons we asked for a joint committee tonight. Sorry about that, what's the call? Ms. Stanser. So what would be the process if we wanted to alter the artifacts to reflect the things that have happened? How would we go about doing that? Great question. I'm not really. Ms. Spitzer, do you have any thoughts on that? Well, I'm not sure it's a matter of altering the artifacts. Do you mean the goals perhaps? Maybe, because I don't think we can go back and create new goals. But if I remember, for example, one of our goals was wellness. And I think that we could be looking at that wellness goal in light of the pandemic. Now, some of the other goals may not as neatly align with what's been happening. And I think that the big thing is that I don't think, I think the thing we wanna avoid is holding the superintendent up to goals that made a lot of sense in the fall. But given what's happened, maybe he didn't have the time or the resources to achieve the progress that we would have expected in a normal year. And so I think that the guidance is that we should be not necessarily setting the goals, but making sure that we're not, that we're recognizing and not holding the superintendent up to standards that are no longer appropriate. So, but I'll let others. Mr. Denley? Yeah, so a few thoughts. One, I don't think we should move the timeline up before June 30th. If anything, my first glance at that schedule was that we should push it later. And just because, as we all know, May is gonna be all budget all the time in a really compressed, intense, we're cutting things timeframe. Distance learning that we've, they've gotten recent guidance on is really trying to ramp up as much as it possibly can. So to have those two major things that aren't usually happening this time of year go on. I wouldn't want to push it up even further. In terms of the general question of, well, how do we change what we're expecting? I mean, I think we do it by what we're doing right now, we'll just discuss it and talk about, you know, how we all want to approach it. The way I frame it is that I think about the document, right? That we fill in that online survey that comes from Desi. And basically it boils down to a set of ratings and a set of narrative text inputs. And going based on the last few years that I've been on the committee, even years before that, members even in a normal year have decided on their own whether or not they want to fill in the boxes or whether they want to fill in the narrative text or whether they don't want to fill in either or whether they want to fill in both. So in terms of the minimal legal requirement, there isn't really much of one in terms of you have to fill in the text boxes, you have to fill in the rating boxes. So I think it's really up to us in terms of what's appropriate. And if that's the case then, then I think the thing that we should be flexible with this year, given what an extraordinary exception year this is, I think we should probably be fairly liberal with our interpretation of what is in scope and out of scope in terms of whether it actually ties to a predefined goal. It would seem really artificial to talk about the superintendent's performance this year without mentioning COVID-19. I mean, it just wouldn't jive. And I understand that a performance is often above and beyond the defined goals, but I just think in this year that would be a little odd. I think a way to limit the time demand on the superintendent so that he doesn't feel the need to produce a really meaty artifacts document is to define some sort of narrative input, but defining it at a very limited length. Like even if the school committee said we're looking for three pages no more of a narrative summary of your review of your goals and your performance the rest of the year, that's really all I would be looking for. I think if we, just my view, if we try and quantify it down and say, these goals can be rated, these goals can't be rated, we'd need artifacts on these goals, but we don't need, I just think it's over-engineering the process. I think simpler is better and the less that we spend time trying to engineer the process, the better will be. I guess the last couple of things I'll say is I do want to hear an update at some point about the goals that we've defined. Those were important goals that we worked on for a while. And so I'm not looking personally, I'm not looking for an artifacts document anytime soon, but I think as this process closes out as part of the feedback from the superintendent, I would want to get an update on those. And I also want to respect the right of any individual member to fill out as much of the instrument as they want. Like I said, there've been years when not all members have approached it in the same way. So if somebody wants to fill in every single rating box and every single narrative, I think that's the right. And it will be up to the chairs to, as it always is, to fold in the inputs from all the different members. So those are the basic principles I'm thinking about. Okay. I'll just build on that. I think, it's not like, yes, the world has changed since March 13th, or probably even going back in March 1st, but there was a lot of work that was done up until then. And so it's not to say that just, because the world's changed, we're ignoring the work that had been done, the great progress that had been made on many of those goals. And sort of taking a page from the way that we're approaching student evaluations and teacher evaluations, I would approach the same as recognize something that an update that provides the committee with information and the reminder and the documentation of the work that had been done. And as you say, Mr. Demling, not quite as, we don't need the 20-page fabulous document, but something that at least brings us all back and focuses on the work that has been done and put into place. And in many cases, that's a foundation for continuing work on many of those goals. So it's not like it's when and done, but sort of where are we and sort of that forward-looking? And so I would agree that some sort of update, whether it's a presentation at that meeting, I can't remember when we have it there, the 23rd towards the end of June, accompanied also with a narrative or instead of something that gives us an update and reminder of the work that had been done through March and sort of maybe a sort of forward-looking and sort of what's left to do or how we're positioned for continuing that work and going forward. Dr. Morris. Yeah, so I just wanna say from my end, I do think some level of presentation would be beneficial for me and I think the district because I think in this particular Unix, it goes back to the same question we always have about how do you build goals for next year and how does the evaluation feed into goals? And I do think it's such a bizarre year, as you all have noted, that even if it's a slide deck that's a bit longer, but that it engages and engenders two-way dialogue with the committee, I think that is something I would look forward to, both to share that update, because we've done it regularly in different ways, but this would be a sort of a culmination. But I think that dialogue would really be helpful in terms of thinking about goals that aren't only COVID-19 and safety and public health moving forward as opposed to at least, just doing a written document without, last couple of years it's been a lengthy written document and very short on presentation. I might think about my personal opinion, flipping those because I think that two-way dialogue would be really helpful because we haven't talked about those things in a couple of months. So not just in terms of the evaluation and I get there's an evaluative part, but I think actually for a district direction to have some conversation, we've not gotten back as Mr. Deming noted to really some of the topics that we were either talking about or planning to talk about. So I do think if it's a presentation that engenders two-way dialogue between the committee and district staff myself, but particularly but district staff, I think that would be really helpful for us in terms of moving forward. So that's just my two cents. So I wanna recognize that we also have the Pelham School Committee here and I don't know to what extent you have comments on this or thoughts on these timing and context. Sorry, artifacts. I'm fine with everything. Please call. Hi. Yeah, so I agree that it should be, as Peter said, some kind of expounding on the narrative form if that's what makes sense. And it just from Pelham's perspective, I think everything that you're saying makes sense and I think minimizing the added work by doing something different is important. So I would wanna just be consistent with what you're doing. Ms. Spitzer. I just wanna respond to a piece that Peter put out about maybe pushing the dates back and just see how do people feel about maybe changing it to be a little bit later? I see a thumb up. I'm good with later. I figure none of us are going on summer vacations as we know. Really, really valuable in July. So yeah. Mr. Demling. Yeah, I think the only thing on timing is in general, I would defer to the superintendent and the chairs to maybe come back to us to make a recommendation. There's so many large parallel irons in the fire right now with summer and the budget and the fall that like Dr. Morris alluded to, it may be helpful to define some of these things earlier so that we can then plan how the future goals can impact the fall, but maybe not. I don't know, I don't have that visibility. So I'm definitely fine with it going later. I would be hesitant to make it earlier and I would defer the level of adjustment to you all. I brought this question up earlier. I also agree on the timing. As you can see, it gives us very little time. This current timeline gives us even very little time to produce the instrument from when artifacts are there. But I just want to also, so when we go back and look at the dates for this, I also want to be conscious of if we have any statutory requirements of timing for getting this done as well. So it's figuring and balancing all of those requirements will be important. So any more comments on the evaluation? Not seeing any. Okay. Great, thank you everybody. So we'll move on now to the next item on our joint agenda which is FY20 bus contract and fees discussion. And I don't know if that's Dr. Morris or Dr. Slaughter. I'll queue up Dr. Slaughter for just to give some context. So, and this is in the packet, but so when schools were closed, Desi put out a document and they encouraged districts to work with their transportation vendors so that essentially to work out some level of compromise in terms of spring payments to transportation companies. And the thinking was if no districts paid bus companies this spring, there would be no bus companies to transport students when we got back for summer or fall. They wrote on really tight margins and there was a real fear that, yes, we would save some money, districts would save some money in the spring and then not be able, literally, not be able to get students to school in the fall. So there were some questions, legal questions that emerged about paying for services not rendered. I was on a conference call this afternoon with our state Senator Comerford as well as Senator Lewis who is the chair of the, or co-chair of the education committee. There will be legislation in the Senate in short order, just to clarify that question that it is districts are able to pay transportation vendors in a situation like this spring. It was a great question. It wasn't clear either way in prior law and they're clarifying that. So the vast majority of districts have been working together. Desi's advice was for business managers who work with vendors to work together to come up with some common rates so that it wasn't every single district negotiating with every single vendor because there are more districts than there are vendors. We are an unusual situation because of our transportation contract with Amherst-Pellum, Leverton, Sheetsbury where we have two different vendors. We actually have a special ed specific one about Banpool but I'm gonna leave that out of this conversation for tonight. It's much smaller than the others which is currently Kosmaskis and Five Star. As you remember next year, starting next year it'll just be Five Star based on the bids. But you know, so I'll ask Dr. Slaughter just to share an update. Now this is negotiations that are ongoing so I just wanna be really cautious that we can share some information but like any other negotiation we're not gonna perhaps be as able to be as explicit as we might when it's done. I will say that when it's done it will be a decision that eventually comes to the committee to be briefed on and to vote on because it is adjusting a current contract. So we're not quite there yet. I think we're getting closer as Dr. Slaughter will share with you. But you know, thank you Dr. Slaughter for being one of the very few, if only superintendents who's doing double duty on these negotiations. So I'll turn it over to you if you wanna share a quick update and again with that caveat that we are sort of bound to not go into the level of detail that we will be able to probably next time we meet. Right, so you know, at present I've reached out to our attorneys to craft some language for us to amend our contract with each of our two vendors. And so that's in process currently. I've suggested to counsel, you know what sort of level of payment we'd be comfortable with I think and that I will recommend to you and we get to that place which will be hopefully fairly soon. It's interesting in sitting in two different groups of districts, you know sort of demands on those districts and the constraints on those districts and likewise on the vendors. The vendors are in very, very different places. One of our vendors is a much smaller vendor and by virtue of the group that they work with there's some carrying costs or some fixed costs that they carry as a percentage of their hold it's a bit higher in a little tougher circumstance that they're in at this time. And so they've been very willing to work with us. They're anxious to find out from us because they're all, as Dr. Morris said you know they run on a tight margin they run on fairly close margin cash flows. And so they're in difficult circumstances very quickly in that regard. The other thing I would point out is that for our two companies they have laid off their drivers primarily because that was preferred by their drivers. They actually by virtue of going on unemployment and the current additional $600 federal stimulus bonus in that unemployment contract generally works about better for those folks. That changes the calculus on what we want to work relative to helping keep them viable as we go through the remainder this year and preparing for next year. So we're still in negotiations and we've gotten good information have been very forthright with us on that. We're gonna get some language from council that we'll then share with those vendors and then try to move along pretty quickly at this point. Yeah and I think the only thing I'll add to Dr. Slaughter that is not giving any negotiations away is that the number is less than 100%. In other words, there will be some savings that come with it. And for all three districts that's really important because at the region I'll speak specifically to that that as you know, any funds that are left over going to E&D which supports next year's budget. And at Amherst and Pellum at all three districts we've had some additional costs that we've had to bear given the current situation and that will really help us get through the year in a way where we can land out in the place we do and where we wanna be fiscally at the end of the year. So the number will be less than what we're banked on. I think it will really help us with some other costs and potentially could help us even with the FY21 budget as well. We'll find out a little more about that in a little bit but I think Doug wants to jump in one more time. Just one other thing, since there are representatives from Leverett Tootsbury their elementary schools are also part of that contract. Whatever savings there will be, we will also pass along in the same sort of manner to you folks and so that will help. It's not huge numbers as far as the impact on those but any little bit helps at this point in the year and so that will be coming. But it's, we've got to figure out what that, we've got to get the negotiation finished then sort of do the math on it and then pass along what that means for all the districts including the elementary districts in Leverett Tootsbury. Any questions for? I have a comment. Yeah, Mr. Salter. So the smaller bus company that you're speaking of they did not give their drivers a choice. They received a text at noontime on Friday, March 13th tell them they better sign up for unemployment beginning that afternoon. If I can. So just to sort of following up Yeah, they did, they did that right away. I think that was even before there was any potential government programs that might help support them in that regard. They could see the right on the wall relative to what their costs were. I will say that they have, they currently, in a normal circumstances pay 80% of the health insurance as a piece of that sending that message out to folks they're having 100% of those people's health insurance at the present time. So they've, there's been a little give and take there. I think they've been probably in conversation with some of those drivers since that time, but I think they knew immediately once they, we're gonna cancel school for several weeks that they were gonna not be able to have cash flow to pay those people. So they made a decision really quickly. I think to try to get those people in the queue as quickly as they could so they could get some support. And then it's a tough circumstance. I don't envy those folks at all. Really good hard. Any other comments or questions? So I'll just say the next steps so that Dr. Slaughter working with legal counsel will hopefully finish those negotiations soon, perhaps even by the next meeting that may be optimistic, but I think it's in the realm of possibility that we may be able to do that or two weeks away. It'll come to the school committee. I think the other next step just to be aware of is as that process is going on, the fourth quarter budget's gonna be the most complicated fourth quarter budget and that's not true for every organization that we're no different than anybody else in that regard, but we'll be able to hopefully itemize what the savings will be and how that will help with this year's budget and potentially next year. So that's sort of the work on our end and we'll keep you abreast of that and hopefully be able to bring it to you sooner as opposed to later for the kind of adjustment and contract and a vote on that matter. And the other thing I was gonna say is typically those votes historically are taken by the regional school committee because they have representatives of all the town. So it wouldn't necessarily be a joint or meeting, school committee meeting needed, but we thought rather than update everybody at their next meeting, it made sense to have everybody and if anyone had any questions for them to have the whole group together. So I'll just ask one more time if anybody has questions. I'm not seeing all of the talking heads on the screen. So I just wanna make sure everybody's had a chance to ask a question or make a comment. I want anyway. Okay. Seeing no other questions or comments on the FY20 bus fees, I'll turn it over to Ms. Hall to adjourn the Pellum school committee. Okay, I will take a motion to adjourn. So moved. Moved by Jessie. Second. Okay, well we need to do a roll call, right? Or everything. Okay, Hall, aye. Ron. Manino, aye. Jesse. John, the we, aye. And Margaret. Stancer, aye. Thank you everyone. Sorry about those technical difficulties early on. Thank you. And now I will take a motion for the Amherst school committee. Ms. Spitzer. I move to adjourn the Amherst school committee. I second. Moved by Spitzer, seconded by Lord. Roll call vote. Mr. Demling. Demling, aye. Mr. Harrington. Harrington, aye. Ms. Lord. Lord, aye. McDonald, aye. Ms. Spitzer. Spitzer, aye. We are adjourned. Thank you, everybody. And now moving on to our region only agenda portion of our agenda. Our next topic is FY20 third quarter update. And I'll turn it over to Dr. Morris and Dr. Slaughter. Yeah, and so this is should be on your screen. It was in the packet. Dr. Slaughter is going to, as I mentioned, the fourth quarter is going to be the more interesting one, but we'll go, I'll ask Dr. Slaughter to just do a broad summary of the third quarter update and see if there are any questions people have. All right. So I just pointed out a few things here. I think the sort of simple good news that we have is that if you look at the sort of bottom right corner, that the number of $379,762, it looks like we're under budget. By about that much, it's likely that that's kind of the right order of magnitude. I think we're doing all right for salaries. They're very much on track. I think some people might expect our substitutes to be, we won't have any more substitute charges through the rest of the year, but at the same time, that does carry some of the people that were out on long-term substitute situations where someone's out and someone else is covering for them. So it sort of carries that cost in the substitutes line, which is why it's nearly spent all the way to zero there. Amongst our regular expenses, I think in the positive area under special education, we had a couple less out-of-district placements this year. We picked up one or so. And so that's still in a positive area. The other one under other programs, you can see about $300,000. That is because the preliminary versus the more refined numbers around charter costs and reimbursement from the state worked in our favor here. Their prediction originally of what we thought we'd have for students that are a charter student was much higher than the actual number of charter students. So that helped as well. In the encumbered and projected columns, those numbers will probably change pretty significantly. We're going through now, I'm working with our student services and other areas of our schools to look at things where we might have projected to spend money and then are not going to have those expenses. Transportation being an example of something similar to that, there are similarly other kinds of services we get from outside vendors relative to special education. And that sort of thing, it'll be a little bit less. Not all of them will go away, but some of them will. And I think that it's still a big unknown at this moment on some of those and how much they'll go down. Are you told them to be down a little bit? I'm trying to conservatively estimate that a little bit to understand what that number looks like. And then the one area that's marked as yellow with a little bit of concern is under risk and benefits. I think that our active employees insurance is a little higher than we had budget for. However, our retirees in both the Hampshire County group and the teachers retiree group are under that. So that's helping sort of offset that mismatch between what we budgeted and what our actual costs are. The other area that's a little larger this year, and this is just an artifact of how this year has played out is our unemployment insurance costs or unemployment costs this fiscal year have been higher than anticipated. That's pre going into this, this sort of thing we're in now. And so there's just, you know, there were some claims that weren't expected. The usual things, the one thing in mind when we do unemployment, it's called insurance, but it really isn't. We're essentially, we do cover the entirety of that cost. So ultimately sort of it's delayed, but nonetheless, we do bear the burden of that full cost. So we've had a little higher claims in that area than we anticipated for this year. So that's an area that hopefully as we finish out the year, we'll not grow much more than what it is projected to be at right now, but we'll be keeping on that relative to the other things in our budget. But I think that captures most of what's going on again. I think we have some potential savings relative to our overall budget, which we'll try to leverage to help manage the rest of this year and also prepare ourselves for fiscal 21. There's gonna be some difficult conversations over the next month relative to fiscal 21. And there are some small things we can do and nuance of how we finish this year that will help us as we move into fiscal 21 and hopefully reduce some burden on fiscal 21. So we'll be looking at that as we move ahead. Mr. Denley. Mr. Slaughter, do you project that we may have more than 5% left over at the end of the fiscal year to put into END? That's an interesting question. I think it's a little hard to tell at the moment. There are some things that we can do in how you use END between the end of one year and the start of the next that they've hinted at as being ways to prevent getting over 5%. I think I'm concerned a little bit about timing. That's really my concern. It's not that we wouldn't fairly quickly spin down if we were over that 5% threshold. I'm hopeful that we aren't. I think it's gonna reveal itself to the next week or so as we look at that a little more closely and get a sense of where we can potentially utilize money this year to keep us under that. But I wouldn't be surprised to go right at 5% because we'll try to utilize money in the current year and also then also preserve as much product to your for our budget as well. Dr. Morris. Yeah, just briefly, one of the questions on our conference call with regional districts, Desi yesterday was were they gonna relax the 5% threshold? Cause a number of districts are in the same boat as us and we'll talk about this in a couple of minutes. We talked about the budget, but we have a multi-year budget problem. It's not at FY20. We have an immediate FY21 budget problem, but we've got an FY22 budget problem as well. And so there was some requests from regional districts because there may be some savings that other districts are facing and we got a very clear no as to perhaps changing that cap. So one of the things next week or two when things shake out and we get the transportation piece is also looking ahead about what purchasing can we do this year to reduce the burden on next year and perhaps reduce some of the reductions that we might need to make. So it is something that you've spotted accurately as a concern and it's something that we are concerned and I think it'll make it sort of, I don't wanna bleed into the next agenda topic but it tends to a little bit as we start talking about FY21 as well. Yeah, I think I'll stop because I fear I'm gonna bleed it a little too far. So I'll stop there. Okay. Mr. Manino, did you have a comment or question? No, okay. Any other comments or questions? I'm seeing none. Okay, last chance. Okay, okay, thank you. So now we can't bleed into the next agenda item with the FY21 budget discussion. Sure, so because we have members who weren't with us in the winter and early spring, I wanna just go backwards before we go forward. So I apologize to folks if this feels like the reliving history, but I think it's actually worth it for everybody to go back a little bit. So we had a couple of four town meetings and after the last four town meeting, we came up with a scenario that seemed to work for all four member towns. We had at least verbal support from elected officials in all four member towns and this body passed a budget in early March and life changed, right? And so the fiscal situation changed along with it. We received updated guidance from the town of Amherst. We'll get formal guidance, I think the day before our next meeting, I think the 11th we'll get formal guidance from Amherst. What I shared at the Amherst School Committee on Tuesday night was the best case scenario Amherst is talking about is a level funded budget. A level funded budget means a 0% increase. What's particularly unique, I should also say that Amherst has asked all departments, including the regional school committee, to revote a budget by June 1st. For the Amherst town charter, there's an earlier date, I think it's April 15th, I'm not incorrect, but it's in that vicinity, if I'm wrong, I apologize, but it's around there and so they've extended that to June 1st. And I know for some of the other three towns, they are still at least on the docket for having town meetings in June. I will share my personal thought that at least one lever, it has indicated, last I checked, have not set a date for the town meeting. One of the things that we're hearing, we heard in a conference calls that many towns, while they have a town meeting date set, there's really an open question from a public health perspective if those meetings are gonna occur as scheduled or some towns are talking about virtual town meetings. I'm not sure quite what that looks like and then I'm not gonna weigh in on the likelihood of that. But I think it's fair to say this open question whether all towns will be able to meet in their traditional way before the end of the fiscal year. That I feel comfortable saying that's a question. So we are actively looking at both the operating budget as well as the capital budget and seeing what we need to do at a 0% increase, not for AMR, so I wanna be really clear, but at a level funded budget for the region, that would require a cut of in the neighborhood of $500,000, just shy of I think it's $494 or something like that. That was the delta between the FY20 budget and the FY21 that we were planning, that got voted by this body. We are also looking at the capital budget. We've received information from multiple towns to that if it's not about health and human safe, imminent health and human safety, that things shouldn't be on the capital budget this year that are not about that. And frankly, some of that's because of the uncertainty of the state budget, the federal budget. It's a really challenging time, not just because the numbers are bad, but because the uncertainty is incredibly high. One of the really interesting things in our conference call, and by interesting, I don't mean that that has a positive connotation, I'm not sure that my statement will, but was a real caution about setting assessment methods because typically what happens, those who are new to the regional district, is the governor sets, the governor comes out with a budget in late January and in that budget, it sets the minimum contributions from the member towns and everything flows from there in terms of whatever portion is gonna be attributed to the statutory method. And I think that the challenge we heard about, so the house and the Senate weigh in and the budget may change from what the governor proposed, but basically those core numbers of the minimum contributions and the relationship with the towns is pretty set at the time the budget passes, the governor's budget comes out. We heard some really explicit direction that not to bank on those numbers this year, that not just that the overall number change, but the minimum contributions and the relationship between the towns could change and there's no timeline for that, which put every regional district on the phone saying, okay, what do we do, right? If we can't base anything on statutory numbers that may be constant. So if you do look, it's in the packet, they put out a multi-page memo and one of the things they said, which was really surprising I think to everyone and I'm gonna just share the screen to that specific point, but it was probably the moment on the call that was the most shocking to folks. So here's the part I'm saying is under additional considerations I'll read out loud. We understand that regional school districts build their budgets based on the governor's budget recommendation. We expect the house budget when proposed in pass could differ from the governor's budget as a result items like minimum local contributions and state aid may differ. It goes on from there and the next paragraph says, we also understand many cities and towns are accustomed to voting on their assessments rather than or in addition to voting on their school committee budget, the department recommends that each member explicitly vote on the total school committee budget rather than vote on the, rather than vote to appropriate its assessment share. This will provide a flexibility members in the regional school committee to avoid the need to resubmit and re-vote the assessment if and when the local contributions and our state aid do change. So that would be, I mean, just frankly, a polar change in the way regional districts have done business. I think it's gonna be really daunting for towns to be able to vote on an overall budget for school committee with no assessment information. And some of that, which isn't as explicit in the letter was that there's an assumption that no regional district will have a pass budget, excuse me, no regional school committee will have its budget passed by all member towns before July 1st. Because the state, there's real questions whether we'll have enough information to even appropriate assessments before July 1st. So this is a complicated scenario. There's a number of ways you could take it. I think when we come back in two weeks, Dr. Schlot and I will have a little more in the way of recommendations, how to manage this. But this is unprecedented, you know, and I know that term gets flown around a lot rightfully so for our current situation, but as it relates to not being clear on what actual minimum aid is and what the relationship between towns, that's really hard. We haven't had situations where it's really a question whether town meetings can functionally meet. There was a question on our conference call, can select boards and finance committees vote in lieu of town meetings? We got a very direct no to that for towns that have town meetings. So the Amherst town council is meeting and can function, the other three are reliant on town meetings again, which may or may not happen as scheduled or even as hypothetically scheduled in terms of Leverett. I mean, I don't know, Ms. Seager, if there's been a date, not to my knowledge in Leverett. I don't know if you have an answer to that one. Ms. Seager? Not to my knowledge. Okay. Last 30 days after having said a date. Right. So we're in a little bit of an interesting moment and, you know, I think for next time at that point, Dr. Slaughter and I will have a recommendation for you all to consider both in terms of a budget given the scenario, but also perhaps a way to think about assessments because I do think it's not going to fly in our communities to pass a budget with no assessment information, even if Desi's saying that that's probably the best interest. I don't see that as being, maybe I'll be proven wrong, but I think that's going to be problematic for some of our member towns. Dr. Slaughter, I've done more talking than I should have with Dr. Slaughter. I just have to build on that point a little bit. I think that, I think this is a piece that it's difficult for the folks with Desi to fully comprehend, but if you've said in town meeting or, you know, that sort of thing, you know, to leave that assessment number ill-defined, the virtue of a budget is essentially, you know, allowing a blank check, not entirely, but you'd have to essentially budget for a range of values. And that's something that none of our communities can do with, you know, if it's a couple hundred dollars that's probably something they could do, but it's not going to be a couple hundred dollars. It's going to be a relatively significant number that would change. And I think that's really good for us to not have ourselves fairly well-defined when we get into those more detailed budget presentations. So as much as the state offered that advice to sort of vote the budget and you don't have to come back, we're going to be, I think it's going to be very, very difficult for us to do that. I mean, I just think practically speaking, I mean, this isn't a political statement about town meetings and what they want or don't want. I think just the comfort level that you would have voting this budget and then sort of assessing the results of the assessment. They'd also vote the assessment of it, but that would be a difficult circumstance. So, you know, we're happy to take any questions or feedback. We are thinking of some creative ways that we might be able to move forward. And I think, you know, all this happened yesterday with a lot of this new information and, you know, I think when we get to the 12th, you know, we'll be in a place to both make a recommendation on those as well as the potential cuts that will for you are all consideration because everything's, you know, what usually is about an eight month process is like a five to six week process. And, you know, that brings with it challenges as well, but we'll stop talking and see if the committee has any feedback or input. Mr. Demlin. Yeah, so I guess it's a two comments. One just really briefly as you are talking with those other superintendents, other finance directors, please keep us in the loop about what you think ought to happen and what is the most reasonable plan going forward because, you know, school committees are trying to do the same thing, right? And we're not all that well organized, right? We are an informal collection of associates across the state, regional school districts. And typically we're advocating for regional transportation reimbursement and things of that nature. And, you know, we always go on this assumption that the desi doesn't really get what goes on in the dynamics of budget building for regional school districts, but I am just profoundly shocked that someone who is a level educational administrator would write what's in this guidance from desi. I mean, this isn't that they understood it and then they think, you know, this is a particularly recommended path. It just shows such a lack of awareness and understanding of how the, just the base mechanism of the approval happens. So I've already heard a bit of consternation from regional school districts, members and leaders about what this ought to be more looking like. And I think if school committees and finance directors and superintendents align as much as possible, that's our best shot for getting some kind of legislative pressure for a more reasonable process. Because I completely agree with what you've both implied. You know, asking for a blank check and our towns essentially to fly blind and trust that we'll work it out later is not a budget process. It's just, it's not. And we need to be able to go back to our towns and say that we advocated for you as a town as well as our school district. And this process doesn't allow us to do that. So I hope the state can figure something better out. Ms. Seager. I just wanna make sure I'm following this correctly. But basically they're saying that the numbers for state aid could change and may change sort of out from under us and presumably in a term that doesn't benefit us. But that's what we would be voting on later when saying we vote on some number that we kind of have an idea of what state aid is but the state aid could change. I have one more question, but is that what we're talking about here? Yeah, and so there's two parts that are problematic. One is I think everyone's bracing for a state aid shift, right? The, actually the, I don't know how to say this. The second problem is that it could be that the relations between the towns and how we formulate the assessments would also change. So in other words, they wouldn't change uniformly. It could be that some towns are worse off by X percent and other towns worse off by Y percent. And therefore when you put all that into the formula of who pays what for this overall budget, it could change. And that's why they do have language. I think the most helpful part of the language is like even if it was a zero, a level funded budget, it might be that different towns pay different amounts because things are gonna change even in a relational context. And the relational context is what makes the conversation next to impossible right now to have with the towns. And that's why Dr. Soder and I are trying to come up with some creative solutions that perhaps don't rely as exclusively on numbers that we're not gonna know probably until the summer. Okay. Did you have a follow up question? Mostly just, yeah, thank you. I'm mostly just thinking that it's unfortunate that this, especially state aid could be a pressure release valve for helping fix the overall budget. It's unfortunate for towns like ours who are already struggling that didn't have to think about that changing as well and struggling a little bit more. Thank you. Ms. Smithburn, did you have a question? I guess it's more of a comment and I'm not, I'd echo everything Mr. Demling said in terms of, I'm happy to advocate in any way I can in order to express our concern over this guidance. I guess the other thing that is just weeks and incredibly frustrating is that all of this uncertainty is coming at a time when we're talking about what the fall is gonna look like and not to go too far ahead, but the social distancing, the only way, if that's a reality in the fall, that's just gonna require a lot more resources. And so being told that we're going to, have uncertain but downward resources at a time when we're probably going to need so much more additional resources, if there's any way we can get the little pieces we can control and put pressure on the state, I'm happy to do what I can in that way and let us know. Thank you. Dr. Morris. I'll let Dr. Slaughter jump in and then I'll follow up on his comment. Dr. Slagg. I think the simplest thing, and this comes from my experience sitting on, select board and being in town meeting in Amherst for a number of years. So this is from that point of view is that when we've had these circumstances in the past, the state, one of the most helpful things as far as creating a budget is to get a revolution from the House and Senate on local aid. So the sooner that they can get a picture of what they think local aid's gonna look like, that helps set the frame a lot because it dictates what the communities can expect in the state parade. It sets the picture about what chapter 78 looks like. And so that helps really frame the conversation a pretty significant way for everybody. Doesn't solve the problem, but it does really set a frame that's really useful for getting the intermittent concrete conversation started. Yeah. And so the three things I wanna say, one is in terms of advocacy, my personal opinion is that right now there's a big debate going on. You may have read about it at the federal level about whether there's an interest to support states and municipalities, budget gaps. There have been some senators, Congress folks who have indicated that that's a top priority for them, including some Western mass delegates. There's other people and I'm trying to be very vague because I'm trying not to make a political statement who have made some very strong statements about states, maybe you should just go bankrupt because states and municipalities can't go into the, the federal government's able not to balance its budget. We have lots of evidence of that, but states and localities can't. I do think, I'm not suggesting there shouldn't be advocacy at the state level, but I do think that there's really an opportunity like now for people to get involved in pushing how critical it is for the federal government which has spent multiple trillion dollars on this already to support states. Right now the state's looking at different estimates between four and $5 billion deficit and the whole rainy day fund is less than that and they can't spend it all at once. So I'm not absolving the state from supporting public education, but I do think there's perhaps advocacy at all levels that might be warranted and beneficial. The second thing I wanna say to Ms. Spitzer's point is she's absolutely correct. So we're, you know, one of the things that's, you know, perhaps challenging about thinking about budget cuts is there's a lot of unknowns in next year's budget about what school will look like that's really different than any other year. You know, things like attacking class size or maybe our class size is low. Right, some of those things just don't make any sense to be able to think about. So the number of things that are sort of off the table to make budget reductions in is much higher than it typically is. And I think the third thing that, and I don't wanna be, make this a competitive statement and I'm concerned about that, but the qualification probably doesn't help at all anyway, is that we are in for municipal government function, we're in a very competitive environment. In other words, if we be, if districts become such that they're not competitive with quote unquote competitors, it's not just that people stop coming, it's actually that we get taxed for that in terms of charter school bills and otherwise. So I do think, you know, it's critical that we think about all those things and it is a little bit of a perfect storm trying to do that with an unknown of next year and a budget gap. And that's what we're, you know, working on day and night, you know, I mean, to be a good people working in the distance learning, who I think are doing a great job and we really, many of us have had to shift where budget is kind of the primary responsibility and we're taking that very seriously. The distance learning is definitely going and responding to emails, teacher doing a great job, principles, curriculum folks, but trying to figure out how to cut half a million dollars without touching some of those areas is a real challenge. And that's what we'll come back to you on May 12th with our best attempt at that. And, you know, we are gonna have to do things that we haven't done before. For instance, looking at school choice reserves and we typically don't like spending and don't spend more than we bring in, you know, that rule is probably not gonna hold this year if we're gonna try to keep true to all the things you mentioned, Ms. Spitzer. So we're trying to right size how we're approaching that, what dollar amount to use and we'll bring that to you all next time and get some feedback from you and try to get that budget done before June 1st. Sorry, it's a long way to answer. Let's try not to do that tonight. Does anybody have any further comments or questions? Is there, I heard a couple of people, couple members talking about advocacy and being interested in supporting that and Dr. Morris talked about advocacy, not just at the state level, but also potentially at the federal level and I just wanna pose a question. Do we want to sort of coordinate on that a little bit going forward? I saw one that had Mr. Demling. Yeah, I mean, so there's a number of different ways to coordinate depending on what the issue is and what level we've had some decent success with our colleagues across the state who are other regional school districts advocating at the state level. I think when you get to the federal level, I mean, the other thing too is that, I mean, we're one school committee, right? I mean, we are publicly elected officials. We should do everything we can, but there's a limit to our influence. So I think when we look beyond the state level for sure, I would personally be deferring to our state representatives and then our federal representatives, right? And so I'd like my first thought is that we would, we should be reaching out to Senator Comerford, Representative Blay, Representative Dome about what they're seeing as the most effective avenues for action because this is the whole really hard to identify trick about advocacy that is never really fully answered is, you know when to advocate and you know what you need to advocate for. And Dr. Morris just articulated that, but what specific practical action can those of us who don't hold national political power do in order to affect the change? And that's really the $64,000 question. And so if we don't have an obvious answer to that, I would defer to that. So I think it's really just a matter of having a few of us sort of pound the pavement a little bit with our colleagues and with our state representatives about what's going on right now in terms of advocacy and where can we make a difference? First to identify what our committee can do and then to reach out to other school committees to encourage them to do the same. I think that's when we've been the most effective in the past is when we've identified an action that we can then sort of share with neighbors in our region or across the state about here's something specific you can do and then letting that percolate out a little bit. Again, not a very specific solution, but that's sort of the general approach that's worked sometimes for us in the last few years. Any other comments or thoughts? Seeing none, I'll look again. Not seeing any. Okay, great. I think we can move on. So thank you, Dr. Slatter and Dr. Morris for that. Our next item on our agenda is the removal deletion of policy CI, which I need to pull it up to remind myself the title of that. This is about the filling administrative vacancies. This was brought to sort of brought up by a community member in looking at this as the policy itself is both online and is also in our packet for tonight. This was drafted and approved in 93. So before ed reform and some of the and most everything in this policy is no longer under the purview of school committee. And so it's obsolete policy, but the fact is it's still actually sitting there on our books. And so we wanted to have this conversation about actually removing it from our policy handbook. If I've stated that or presented that accurately, Dr. Morris, so if there's anything anybody else wants to add on this for questions. I think the only thing I'd say is that our attorney did review it and confirmed Ms. McDonald statement about not being compliant with current the ed reform language around the role of school committees and districts staff and all, that's all. And given that state law overrides policy any day, you know, it's sitting there, but I think from a, it contributes to confusion and misunderstanding within our community about what role we do at school committee play in the hiring of positions, filling of any positions outside of the superintendent. So I do think it's important to go through the formality of actually deleting it. Any questions, Ms. Dancer? Would it be appropriate for me to make a motion that we remove this policy from our books? That would be appropriate and thank you for volunteering. We'd like to restate your motion. I move that we remove policy care. What are the? CI. CI from the official policies for Amherst regional school committee. Second. Moved by Dancer, seconded by Harrington. And we'll take a, is there any further discussion or questions? No, we'll take a roll call vote. I will try to do this in alphabetical order. Mr. Demling. Demling, aye. Mr. Harrington. Harrington, aye. Ms. Lord. Lord, aye. Mr. Monino. Monino, aye. McDonald, aye. Ms. Segar. Segar, aye. Ms. Dancer. Dancer, aye. And Mr. Sullivan. Sullivan, aye. That is, oh, Mr. Spitzer, sorry. Thank you. Thanks for waving to my attention there. So that passes unanimously, nine zero. I guess Sasha, Ms. Segar to remove that from the website. I can do, I can take care of that. Okay, thank you. Now moving on to our next, topic which is planning for future meetings. We talked at the, at our last meeting about this topic, about how we wanted to, our meeting schedule as well as what topics we had on the agenda and how we sort of urge other topics into here given as Mr. I think earlier in the meeting, Mr. Demling described it may is gonna be all, all budget all the time. And so I forwarded this document to the committee this afternoon, I don't know if everybody had a chance to see it before this meeting. So thank you, Dr. Morris for displaying it. And so I started with what we have today. I believe all of these meetings are currently on our agenda with the exception of June 30. So that would be the extra meeting. And then per our earlier conversation, we'll take a look at if that's our final meeting of the year or not. I would just lay it out, topics on the topics. We do, I believe Ms. Spitzer's probably been signing warrants for the, for the district. So since we didn't have that on the agenda tonight, we'll look at having that at our next meeting as well as looking at the instrument for the superintendent evaluation. Also proposing that we reorganize at that meeting because I'm still an acting chair right now. And then looking at it May 20th. So we'd be talking about a budget, a budget presentation and hearing at our May 12th meeting and further discussion, potential further discussion on the 26th with, and this was all drafted based on sort of not knowing what our guidance was in terms of when we needed to finalize and vote on our actual budget. So as you can see, it just, it has that continuing until the June 9th meeting. Yeah, I did get the only thing I'll say is I did get clarity that since there was a hearing prior, we don't have to have it. I agree with Ms. McDonald that having a hearing where people can submit questions and we actively have the option of responding to them as opposed to public comment makes sense. But it's not under the same auspices as a, you know, same requirements as a hearing. I got clarity on that this afternoon. But I think we should still do it. I think it's still, my personal opinion is this is a big change, it's a big community. I mean, we should be receiving public comments and be able to respond to questions and opinions that people, that folks have. So I just don't think we'll get an active budget document out a week before, just given the tightness, the tightness of this timeline, the way we would for a typical budget hearing. So I guess that does raise the question. Do we plan for the hearing on the 12th or the 26th given? We'll be seeing the budget presentation on the 12th. So I think the town of Amherst anyway is hoping to have all the budgets passed school committee on June 1st. So I think it depends on whether the committee is comfortable having hearing and voting the same night or planning a meeting on the 28th or something like that. You know, which is certainly could be done. Let's again, cause you're not under the same sort of rules. I think, you know, you sort of can do it both ways. Great, great. Mr. Deming. Does this raise the issue we were talking about before though, which is how are we going to pass a regional school district budget? Which is typically, I imagine the Amherst town council, for example, wants to know how much Amherst is going to be paying. So if we haven't talked about assessment methods and what the assessment to Amherst is, is there still that drive for June 1st to give them a top level budget that they can make a guess at what Amherst's cut of that is going to be? So we'll be proposing next time, both of those. I know we don't have to and the desi guidance isn't, but we agree with all the consensus that I felt from this committee that they're going forward without letting the towns, at least giving them a sense of what to respond to is not going to be practical. I'm not saying we'll come to Tonkidori agreement on it, but we'll be coming with a suggestion both in terms of a dollar amount assessments and then budget cuts for our next meeting. Ms. Spitzer. I just have a question going back to the idea of doing the hearing is how is that going to look at the, are we going to have the public comment in the way that we did earlier this evening? Or are we going to be able to have an interactive situation? Is there any potential for that or? I think that that's a point that we can discuss this evening. I think that the going in default would be to manage it in the way that we've been doing it, which is the email in and sharing it on screen. I know that there's been other that the district has used, for example, with the questions that the event that was held on Friday, the wellness thing, that was another, that was more of a discussion. And, you know, there's sort of benefits and drawbacks to each approach for that. So I don't know, Dr. Morris, if you have any thoughts on that, you've participated in many other types of meetings where there's been conversation or feedback. Right, so typically the way budget hearings work is that people can come up and make comments in the same way that people are doing electronically here. And the difference between that and a typical meeting is that according to policy, public comments generally aren't responded to. And the distinction would be in a hearing, more typically there is the opportunity for both school committee and staff to respond. But it's, when you use the word interactive or two way, I think that's the way that most budget hearings operate in that context, not a conversational piece. It's more that instead of reading public comment or listening to public comment, that there's a response or at least the opportunity to respond by committee members or staff. So I think that can function in the current environment. We can think about what works different or better. But that's the budget hearings that I've been to have the vast majority of them, I would say. That's how they've been. The distinction is that there's the opportunity to respond by staff or committee members as opposed to listen and consider, but not actively respond at the meeting. And I would, at least in another district in the Emmer School Committee, the hearing was more than that approach. So we received all of the input and questions and then there was a response period, but not necessarily a conversation and individual response to individual questions. Ms. Spitzer. I guess I understand that we won't be having like a back and forth. I think, I guess I would just like to say that, I think it would be really nice to be able to hear people's voices during the budget hearing just because I think that there's a lot that's communicated through voice and reading. And I'm not sure how this is looking at Emmer's Media, I haven't tuned in, but I'm just concerned also somewhat about accessibility issues. Like if I have site issues and we're just broadcasting and nobody's read a comment, it may make it harder for them to see it. So I'm just thinking about twofold. One is the emotion that people might convey with their voice. And then secondly, the accessibility issue. And I think particularly with the budget, we want to make sure we're capturing it as much as we can. Yeah, we can talk, you know, I'll work with the chair and we can figure out maybe a way to try to do that. Are there any other thoughts on this schedule, topics, planning, budget hearing? Any, I'm not seeing any. If anybody, and obviously if there's other thoughts, anybody from the committee, I know we have two new members, but if you have any other, you know, after tonight and you wish that we had added X, Y, Z agenda item to some future meeting, absolutely. Just email myself and Dr. Morris and we can talk about how we integrate that into the schedule. This is by no means like carved in stone. So as nothing is these days, right? And that not just to our two new members that holds true for all of us on the committee. So I just, okay, so I think that we're through our new and continuing business and we actually now have gifts to accept the paperwork for our gifts. There were two, in our packet there were two, but I believe one is for Amherst. Is that correct? Yeah, the updated packet and what I'm showing is just the regional gifts. That's the region, awesome. Okay. Would somebody like to make a motion? Mr. Menino, would you like to make a motion? I can't read it. On my screen. I'm trying to figure out how to make it, okay. Okay, move to accept the following gifts. Shirley Newsomecchi, number 238, Leo P Vignol, Memorial Scholarship, $500. Vanguard Charitable, number 80337, James Kwak and Sylvia Brandt, Distance Learning Technology, $5,000. EOS Foundation, number 287, COVID Rapid Response, Nutritional Services, $2,500. A-R-P-S-P-G-O, number 212159, Distance Learning Internet Access Gifts, $20,000 for a grand total of $28,000. And I can't read that line underneath it because it's blocked out. Incompliance with state regulations regarding the receipt of gifts. I suggest that the Amherst Pellum Regional School committee officially accept these donations at its next point at this scheduled meeting. Thank you. And with by Manino, is there a second? I second. Lord. Seconded by Lord. And I know we talked about this tremendous gift and there's several other ones as well now for to support some of these expenses, but we talked about the PGOs raising significant sums of money in a very short period of time in the outpouring of generosity from our community as well as some local organizations. And I did forward the list of donor recognition of all the individuals and organizations behind that. So it's a tremendous gift. And thank you to the entire community who have supported providing internet access for all of our families and students. Any more? Fitzger. Yes, I'd like to echo the things and just the other day I made a donation and I got a call from a board member of that organization to say thank you. And I've been feeling like especially in these times, not only for the people who have so generously donated, but also for the volunteers who are helping to run things like the food trucks that are distributing meals that maybe we could coordinate a little bit to send out personalized thank yous to some of these folks. If anybody's interested in doing that, I don't know if that would go be, I don't know, would that be breaking open meeting to coordinate sending thank you notes offline, but if not, I don't know, just I feel like we should somehow formally thanks folks. Dr. Slaughter. So one thing I will say to you is any gift that's received by the district, we do send a lucky letter from the district to that individual, so that is one piece of it. Over something like the PGOs and the fundraising they did where the PGOs did it, it certainly, they'll get a letter of thank you from us if something more extensive were to be done that would be probably appreciated by the people that have donated. And to Ms. Fitzger, I think as long as you don't have a quorum, which I mean, maybe you'd have five people jumping in to help you with that, but I think, you know, if there's any, I mean, I don't think, you know, over meeting laws, you know, I don't think this would apply, but I'm not sure, but I think you keep that number four in your golden. Okay. I will volunteer for coordinating that. Okay, so we'll roll call vote, and hopefully I won't forget anybody this time. And I'm just gonna go by the order I see the images on my screen, so that way I won't forget. So Ms. Dancer. You haven't made a motion yet. I believe you made a motion, and Ms. Lorde's seconded, is that? Oh, sorry. We had a lot of discussion after the motion, so I, unusually mad. So now everybody moved around, so I'm gonna start with Mr. Harrington. Herrington, I. Ms. Sieger. Sieger, I. Ms. Lorde. Lorde, I. Ms. Spitzer. Spitzer, I. Ms. Dancer. Stancer, I. Mr. Demling. Demling, I. Mr. Menino. Menino, I. Mr. Sullivan. Sullivan, I. And McDonald, I. Thank you, passes unanimously. And I believe that's how that's in. Yes, so, our motion. Ms. Spitzer. I move to adjourn. Moved by Spitzer. Second. Seconded by Ms. Dancer. And there's no discussion, so we'll do a roll call vote again. Mr. Harrington. Harrington, I. Ms. Sieger. Sieger, I. Ms. Lorde. Lorde, I. Ms. Spitzer. Spitzer, I. Ms. Dancer. Stancer, I. Mr. Demling. Demling, I. Mr. Menino. Menino, I. Mr. Sullivan. Sullivan, I. And McDonald, I. Thank you, we're adjourned.