 So, seeing the presence of a quorum, we're calling to order this meeting of the Amherst Palin Regional School Committee at 6.34 p.m., a few members are down for the count with the flu. So, we are going to soldier on in the hopes of good health and good committee work, something like that. Our first order of business is approval of the minutes of January 23rd, 2018. Now, people have had a chance to move to accept the minutes of January 23rd, 2018. So moved. Is there a second? A second. Moved and seconded. Is there any revisions that people have found? Changes? Things like that? Pause for two seconds. Seeing none, all those in favor of approving the minutes of January 23rd, 2018, please signify I have a raise in your hand. It carries with the six folks present. Announcement and public comment. So now, it's time for announcements and public comments. If you have, we're going to do public comments first, which we usually do. You can come forward and please state your name to the microphone, I mean to us actually, but in the microphone. You'll have three minutes to make a, up to three minutes to make a comment. And we're welcoming them now. Thank you for giving us an opportunity to speak tonight. I'm Denise Boyd. I'm a middle school guidance counselor. I'm Tom Siddique, dean of students at the middle school. We learned last week that the position of one of our two middle school guidance counselors is being cut. We are here to share some of our deep concerns about this decision. The middle school has two guidance counselors working with our 420 students. We have a multitude of responsibilities, including providing individual counseling, offering groups on organizational skills with students, chairing 504 meetings and working on sixth grade and seventh grade transition. We hold parent meetings, triage with outpatient providers, and connect with community groups whose work directly impacts students and families. We are active members of the middle school teams. One of us working with seventh grade and one with the eighth. In this capacity, we join teachers to discuss and advocate for students' academic and social needs in the classroom. The guidance counselors support my work as a dean of students with students that have different behavioral concerns. By holding reflective lunches, I'm sharing restorative circles, I'm participating in attendance meetings. The counselors are important members of the crisis management team. Sharing their experience on adolescent development and identifying the social-emotional needs of students in need of interventions or services. In addition, guidance counselors work with the administration on the child study team and student intervention teams, discussing students who are out of behavioral, emotional, medical, or academic risk and struggling and suggesting possible interventions. They're part of the mental health. They're part of the team examining data regarding which strategies have been successful. The loss of one full-time guidance counselor is difficult to see how all the responsibilities that they have that have been outlined above will be handled. Students will experience a disruption and continuity since the guidance counselors move from one grade to another with their students. They also work with teachers on the both teams. One of the guidance counselors cannot handle the caseload currently handled by two guidance counselors. Some tasks will doubtlessly be reassigned to our already taxed mental health staff. Others will have to be dropped and which ones these will be. With the reduction in individual counseling, excuse me, will it be a reduction in individual counseling? Will counselors who know the students on a personal level, will they have less time to meet with them? Will they be unable to participate in team meetings or attain the many crises that we deal with on an everyday basis? In addition to our concern about the position being cut, we want to share our dismay that this cutback also means that we will lose Rena Holder as a colleague and guidance professional. Rena is a compassionate, capable and professional counselor who has served with us for four years. In addition, as a black woman, Rena is the only person of color on our middle school mental health team. As you know, our students in the middle school are composed of black, Latino, Asian, white and multi-ethnic. This shows us the importance of racial mirroring to our young folks. Our human resources team, the department has worked hard to increase the diversity of such models of our staff. It's important that we also work to retain people of color who are vibrant and young and who are currently working in our district. We recognize that in a budget crisis, all cuts are painful. However, we believe that guidance is an essential service. Tending to the social, emotional and behavioral needs of our middle schoolers as they negotiate the significant time in their lives. Our school, along with others across the country, have been moving forward toward providing more inclusive and supportive environments for all students rather than offering substantially separate programming. We have been taking steps toward becoming a trauma-informed school. Now is not the time to cut counseling staff. We urge the school committee, all of you here, to take steps to preserve funding for middle school guidance and at that same time to carefully consider how our district retains staff of color, such as Reena Holder, who contributes so much to our students and community. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much. If there are other public comments, if there are, please come forward. Feel free to come forward, I should say. And just again, identify yourself, you'll have three minutes. Good evening, everyone. I'm Katie Lasdowski. I first want to start by just supporting the comments that were just made. That's the first I've heard of that. And having taught 7th through 12th grade, I know that's an extremely vulnerable age and would also support those comments made to not cut funding in that area. In regards to funding, I'm also here to speak about a funding issue. I have the privilege as a school equity task force member to meet monthly with DW and Mark Jackson and to hear about how the restorative justice program is unfolding. It's really impressive the work that has been done, that DW has been doing this far. Really getting a glimpse and an understanding of the culture at the high school and implementing her own style and building her understanding of restorative justice and how it can come about or be played out in that setting. I'm here, though, to advocate for more funding in that area, too. Because at this point, we have a team of one, DW, who is spearheading this initiative. And you may or may not know, but this is a culture change and a culture shift that needs to happen to allow that restorative justice program to be taken up and implemented the way it is intended. And that entails more funding in regards to training teachers and more professional development around issues of racism, implicit bias. So that her program, the restorative justice program, is complementing change that's already taking place. Because if we really want this to succeed, and I really bet we do, given the values that we hold as this district, we need to support that initiative with other ongoing and larger professional development efforts. And given the population that we have in our district, with increasing numbers of black and brown children, and given the threats we always have of losing students to other choice schools, I really encourage you to stop and think about where you put your spending and what message that sends to our community in regards to how important the brown and black children are in our district. Thank you. Thank you. There are other public comments? I have a public comment on behalf of CVEC. This would be an appropriate time to bring that. I was going to acknowledge school committee members once the public was done, which they may be. I thought they were not. You're reading the room. Probably you're reading the room accurately, but I always pause for a second in case someone's gathering themselves or grabbing notes or things like that, which they're not. So it's an appropriate time to do that. Absolutely. So this is a letter to the school committee on behalf of Nancy Stewart, the president of the special education parent advisory council. And she was unable to be here tonight, so she asked as the liaison if I could read this on her behalf. January 30th, 2018, dear school committee members, as the special education parent advisory council CPAC president, I want to voice concern over the proposed budget cuts. I appreciate what a difficult process this entails and understand a great deal of thought was put into selection of cuts. I am asking for the district to reconsider the cut to the specialized instructional coach position. It concerns me that the district would choose to eliminate a position that has been so positively linked to growth and support to our teachers and students. When I met with you last, I was unaware that this was on the list of possible cuts. It's important for you to hear some more about the role and impact this position affords our district and ask that you reconsider not cutting this position. Cotaching would not be as successful without support provided from this position. In the recent survey shared with you at a recent school committee meeting, staff provided positive comments about support of coaching and felt significant improvement between special education and general education is being made. In addition to this teacher perception data from the survey, oh, in addition to this teacher perception data from the survey, the PCG survey results also included a substantial number of positive comments about the district's co-teaching instructional model. The position of the specialized instructional coach is a very important way to both provide training and the ongoing coaching to teachers for this model to be most effective. While we still have work to do in this area, the positive steps are being recognized by local area schools but also by the state. Now is not the time to cut a position that focuses on providing quality collaborative specialized education in the least restrictive environment. The position also enables our district to co-facilitate an in-house district team in addressing the needs of English learners. Specifically, support is provided deciphering the tiers of support and how the eligibility slash evaluation of specialized elementary, sorry, of specialized education may be necessary. Currently the person in this position attends all CST meetings at ARHS and elementary schools for students with complex language and learning profiles. Now is not the time to cut a position that directly provides valuable consult into supporting English learners and students with dual needs. By use of this position, our district provides Orden-Gillingham training to staff in-house rather than contracting outside trainers to accomplish this important work. Specifically over the past two years about 44 students received OG tutoring of 50 to 100 hours per week with 20 teachers providing the OG instruction, OG is Orden-Gillingham. Additionally, an introductory course for staff was provided to further educate staff about reading and dyslexia. Many states have mandated this type of training for educators to enable personnel to provide the specialized instruction to address the needs of students with dyslexia and to work to close achievement gaps. Now is not the time to cut a position that supports teachers' ability to address the needs of students who have dyslexia. I hope by sharing some more of what this position enables the district to provide that you will consider keeping this position. However, if you have more questions, I encourage you to speak with Dr. Brady to better understand the importance of retaining this position. Although this is not a direct teaching position, the loss of this position has direct implications to student achievement. Losing this position puts multiple areas in jeopardy for continued progress that the district has worked so very hard to accomplish. Our staff and students deserve the continued opportunities for progress this position supports. I strongly recommend that the district retain this important position to ensure continued progress. Sincerely, Nancy Stewart, Special Education, Parent Advisory Council. And I will send it. W, you received it. I have it. Yes, okay, great. Thank you. You're welcome. Thanks to Nancy Stewart for being in contact with you. Are there other, the public comment sectional seminal sprays of their hand is closed? Are there other comments from school committee members or announcements, I should say, from a school committee members, not comments, but announcements from school committee members? I'm saying none. We will proceed to the subcommittee updates. As we can see on our agenda, we already have both, neither of our CTF members are here, but we have an SCTF discussion later that also just that your indulgence, the chair of the SCTF asked if we could move that item down until she gets here, because she should get here. So if we can do, it'll be a floating item once we get to that item, and we'll just keep moving it down and bumping it down. We also obviously have superintendent evaluation already on the agenda and our two collective bargaining representatives also happen to not be here. So I guess I should say is that anyone have any other committee action that they want to discuss? Good committee action I want to discuss. Yeah. No, just, I was going to mention that we had a, but policies of committee meeting last night, we met with Dr. Mongano and Mr. Herb. They brought some suggestions for us for things to address in the food services collection policy. And also a couple of things brought forward by our new auditor around approving student activities, guidelines and fundraising policy. So those will be before you all in the near future. Great. Anything else? Seeing nothing, do we have a handout here? So we've met a lot so I was just going to That's okay, I was just wondering. That's all we have a couple of questions. I would be digging in my pile otherwise. So superintendent. Sure, so one thing, since Dr. Bodie's here, just want to mention that we'll be in Leverett. I think it is the eighth of, it was rescheduled for snow, hopefully not going to win. We don't have more snow for a whole host of reasons. But that's when we'll go up, we had the lovely event Shoot Spare a couple of weeks ago to meet with interested families in Leverett and the Leverett Elementary School's been great. That was Shoot Spare about communicating with their parent network. So that's just coming up before we meet again. Saturday, or Sunday, excuse me, well, it's not a meeting we'll talk about, we'll talk about the budget. But Sunday, unfortunately both Kira and Anastasia aren't here, but when Senator Markey came, it was very powerful. I know Swabney Cage wrote about it to both Eric and myself. Just particularly the afternoon session, which was a relatively small group focused with a person who's being sheltered, his family, the senator, our senator, our state senator, state representative, and other people involved in immigration activities. And then we got to see middle school choir, as well as the Amherst Gospel Choir, Community Gospel Choir, welcome the event. There was the, they had overflow. It was lots and lots of people. It was pretty exciting to be able to introduce him. But I think more than anything, what I walked away with, other than the kind of very personal story we've heard from many of the CEO was just how much of a community effort, you know, and how much people have appreciated the work that the committee's done, the schools have done, and that it's really part of a larger community effort to make sure all of our community feels safe to everyone who's in it and feel supported. So it was really powerful and thank you if there's a lovely sign that I know. Senator Markey was excited to take pictures in front of him. I saw that on Saturday. It was neat. Yeah. The neat sign. Yeah. So thank you for that. And I know, I mentioned I think the last week about the grant that we received and Ms. Cunningham's gonna do a bit of an update since she's on the steering committee related to that. Okay. So I do want to, thank you for mentioning it. I know that we have spoken previously about this grant and I'm pleased to announce that the five colleges was one of three organizations that received this innovation grant. And so right now, well, we met today because we have to now flesh through what we're going to do with this money. Amherst is looking to have about three to five paras go through the program. And as part of the grant, we have to do things which will help to change the culture in our district. So it's interesting that many of the comments that were made here tonight talked about a culture change within our district and talked about the importance of having persons of color that reflect or mirror our student population. And so this grant will be able to aid in assisting three to five paras to move into that role and become teachers and hopefully be licensed by the year of 2020. Congratulations, by the way. Thanks. You know you did a lot of hard work on that. Mm-hmm. Got it. Are there any questions for the superintendent or otherwise? I have. Sullivan? On the choosing of the paras, you're going to start with paras that are very close to earning their licensure or are you going to start with paras that are lower and further away from the goal? Okay. So the committee had talked about the paras who are closer as the low hanging fruit so that we can get moving quicker to reach that goal of having them licensed by the year of 2020, which is not too far away. So yes, we would be starting with those who are close to it and assisting others through the pipeline along the way. So we're looking at the MTEL because we know that that was one of the biggest obstacles, especially English language learners or people who don't, English isn't their first language and for them to take the MTEL, which is the communication and literacy one, the biggest one, many times they fail and have to repeat it. So we're looking at offering tutoring and any kind of assistance possible to help them to pass that. And the next MTEL and once again, do the culture change for the district? Thank you. Other question? I mean either for, is Cunningham or the superintendent? Seeing none. I don't think we have a chair's report particularly. I mean, we have a lot of complicated things we're dealing with around budget. I think people are aware of that. I don't know if we're gonna talk about this later during FY19 budget feedback, but if you've gone, having gone through the recent four town meeting, it's apparent that there's consensus in one way, which is very positive, which is that the group as a whole wanted to minimize the potential budgetary impact on the district, which is great. And so there was a, I mean, we'll talk about it later, but this whole method four tier two, which is a convoluted language that we can probably simplify later, at least minimizes the cuts. But one of the challenges with it, and I think this came out in the discussion that day, but also some of the subsequent discussion, is that there's also not generalized agreement around how we're going to work together as towns to apportion our responsibility for the budget. And there continues to be sort of a lingering challenge about whether or not the towns all collectively have the same understanding and vision for what our schools are funding and what they're trying to accomplish. And it's very challenging. And so I think one of the things that was talked about that day that I think the school committee should take up, and I recognize this echoes number five on here, but I think it's going to take some collective work and discussion on our parts to think about how we take a more active role in organizing a conversation with our respective towns and other parties outside of our towns around stool district funding, financing and support. And I think one of the things, I'm saying this because this does go to sort of agenda and other duties of the chair typically has, I think one of the things we also have to do is we've started to do, I think, a really nice job over the last year, a little more than a year at the elementary district as well to have conversations and presentations that deepen and extend our understanding of what our programming is setting out to accomplish, what do our teachers do. In light of the conversation, we've multiple comments that were made today without discussing those comments. We've heard discussion of the value of the different set of professionals who are parts of the team that work to engage, both our teaching staff, our full staff and parents and families, guardians and students. And I think to the extent that our understanding of the complexity of that environment and the complexity of stability in terms of building over time, the capacity that allows us to succeed in these school settings, if certainly my knowledge of this is deepened and I think other members of the committee have expressed that theirs have too, then it's even more so frankly for people who only have a secondary or tertiary connection to the schools throughout our district. And so one of the points I'd make on this is I think as we're looking out over the next year and we're thinking about what we're doing, we have to build in more opportunities for public conversation around what our schools are accomplishing, how they're adjusting to certain pressures we have and the good work that we're doing. That encompasses a lot I recognize. We don't actually have a communications item on our agenda right now. And some of that's also thinking about different ways of exposing the public in different leaders to it. But I'm saying this out loud simply because it's something that's gonna require a lot of work and I want to think about a lot of that work as well. Yeah, I just want to just, as you were talking about the town towns, four towns, sorry, four towns meeting. Just for the public, I think you said that what was sort of generally, there was some amount of consensus around a method that you said minimize the cuts. And I think I just want to say, and this is not correct, but just to be really clear for the public that I think it was cuts that could potentially be, there were more cuts that we were concerned that there was a level worse than where we landed possibly, but the cuts are not minimal. And I'm not saying that you're saying that, I just want to make sure that that's really clear and that I feel like in that room, there was, I'm not sure there was a person who didn't really have a sense of sort of the pain that we're looking at here as we make these cuts. So I just wanted to, that was, does that? I'm gonna correct you. That's fine. There were definitely a couple of people there who did not get the message of the pain. No, no, I understand that, but I'm just saying, I'm just saying, no, but the super majority. The super majority. The super majority of people were trying to minimize the level of the cuts. Interestingly, it was not in fact unanimous. In fact, there were a couple of people who expressed the notion that they were skeptical that the district couldn't absorb all the cuts it could take, essentially. No, I apologize. That wasn't meant to be a question. You know what's funny? Just wanted to. I mean, apparently we have a chief executive officer in our nation who treats everything like a TV show. And this episode, it's now sequentially, we spent last week, we spent like two and a half hours on the budget. And so in my mind, I'm sort of building cumulatively off of our last, not last week's episode, but our last meeting. And we spent a lot, as you know, we spent a lot of time talking about the minimal level of cuts that we need to have just to even get our necks above water under the best of circumstances. They are significant. It is, so I'm sorry, I'm only backing up what you're saying. And I wasn't trying to imply that at all. It's just sort of the, and in fact, actually, I was going to a darker place initially because to me it's like, no, because to me it's like the consensus that we wanted to try to pick the method that was sort of at the middle point of the cuts, not the worst, was good news. But in fact, for all of us who were there, the underlying tenor of the conversation was actually far more troubling. That there just isn't consensus around how we're gonna move forward as a district in funding the budget we need. I don't think there's uniform understanding about what we're accomplishing with the staffing we have. And unfortunately, this parallels even national and state discussions that everything one looks like what they used to call a walrus, meaning just like a worthless hack that could just be cut. No one said that about any of our staff, so I don't wanna go there. But my point is, if you're not careful and you don't actually understand what we're doing with what our staff is doing, it's easy to look into a room and see five people and say, well, why can't you have three, right? And with all respect and love to our neighbors, the other side of the Connecticut River, one of the things they're having currently debate at one of the schools in Northampton is the question of what is an appropriate staffing pattern to try to maximize the ability to do an inclusion model at an elementary level, right? And not only what's the staffing pattern, but what's the optimal staffing in the sense of, if you're doing some folks who do a really wonderful job of instructional and learning methods versus people who may have behavioral or social and emotional issues, what's the balance in staffing there, right? And my point is there's a complexity to this stuff that's really challenging. Now that's a situation which has become a troubling debate in that town and I wish them all the best luck because I know their intentions are good. Here, we've come from a different place where we actually have really good schools that are in many ways performing in an outstanding way. And that's actually more troubling because when things are going largely well and you're largely are doing a good job and you have things like the CPAC survey that showed a tremendous improvement in people's views, it's far easier to get complacent and say, well, then you must be able to absorb a five or 10% cut without it being a big deal, right? Because you're doing a good job. So it poses a challenge to grip to a political agreement but also frankly to do it in the context of the learning environment in which people, let me put it this way, I'll put it even more plainly. If there's going to end up being a disagreement about the future direction of our schools and how we support and fund it, then let it be a highly transparent and clear one where everyone understand what the alternatives and choices are and we're not running with sort of myths around whether we have extra to cut or not and there's a clear understanding. And I realize I'm perilously treading on debating and debating myself and debating with the microphone and so I'm really going to stop this because I wouldn't want any of you to do this so I shouldn't do it myself. I guess I need to move this along. New and continuing business. Well, this is a good item. Closing of inactive revolving funds. Sure. So, hello everyone. So in front of you, you have a list of a number of inactive revolving funds and they haven't been used in over three years. And so our auditors recommended that we vote to close the balances in these funds to our E&D account. So this will have a positive effect on our E&D and potentially next year's budget by closing the total of $27,249 into our, it'll close into our miscellaneous revenue which will then go into our E&D account at the end of the year. Most of these, as you can see are text revolving so some of these don't exist anymore. We used to have texts for like athletics or used to be a text business program. We used to have a text, we don't have that course anymore. So a lot of these, the courses don't exist or the courses no longer use a textbook. Some of them I honestly don't know what they are. They've been here since I first started and so there's not really a trail of why they came into existence in the first place but we do know that they haven't been used in a number of years. Can you just share with the committee and the public what a revolving fund is? Cause I think that'll contextualize when people see it. So the school district operates a number of revolving funds and revolving funds are set up to manage separate revenue sources and expenditure activities. So an example would be athletics. Athletics has a revolving fund which collects participation fees and then gets used on athletic activities. We also have, as you can see here we have a number of textbook revolving accounts for different subjects. So when a student loses a textbook and they pay that fee to get a new textbook that fee goes into this revolving fund and ultimately someday gets used to buy replacement textbooks for that program. So that's where most of these are our textbook revolving funds. Okay, I'll either take a motion or questions from the committee. There's a motion at the bottom of the sheet. I'll move to transfer residual funds from the listing above of revolving funds to the general funds miscellaneous revenue account. Is there a second? Second. It's been moved and seconded. There are further questions over debate over this. Can you just tell us what the eco bus for revolving fund is if you know? I'll try. Once upon a time we had a eco bus up at the high school. It was like a very old school version of an electric school bus and it was used by a class up there. This one I do remember because when I first started we actually sold it to somebody. In fact, we didn't really sell it. They were the only people that would come and take it. So they saved us money, cost avoidance. But so there used to be a bus up there that used to be worked on. I don't know how it generated revenue, I'll be honest, because it wasn't operational when I first started. But the eco bus, it used to be a bus up at the high school. That was used for the schooling. Further? What do you know? Where does this money go? So this money will go into our miscellaneous revenue account which is a general fund revenue source. It wasn't budgeted for, so that's good. That means it'll be surplus and it'll go into the E&D account at the end of the year which we can then appropriate for future year budgets. So the eco bus was like the magic school bus. That's what I like to think, yeah. It was, it went around and students were able to do science projects and experiments on the bus. We even had our own misfrizzle. So all those in favor of the motion is presented. Please signify, everyone's in their hand. Carries unanimously. All items can go to this easily, huh? Authorization of stabilization expenditures. So we started this practice last year which is having the school committee approve all expenditures out of the district stabilization fund. The district has a stabilization fund specifically for capital and it's used for very limited things. So I gave you sort of a snapshot of the entire year, both revenues and expenditures, but really I'm just asking you to approve the expenditures. So on the revenue side, or you can see the beginning balance this year, a 434,000 in the stabilization fund. We had earnings on that balance of 1,700 approximately. This year in the FY18 budget, you approve the contribution into the stabilization fund, specifically for the track, you may recall. I was added to last year's budget, so that's a revenue into the stabilization fund. And then we have two expenses. The first one is interest on our bond anticipation note, which is how we fund our FY16, 17, 18 capital projects. One of the notes came due and we have to roll it over another year and when that happens, we have to pay the interest on that note. And then the other one is we have a debt schedule for reimbursing the town of Amherst for a renovation job they did at Summit Academy about six or seven years ago at this point. And so this is the regular payment in our schedule. And there's probably two or three more years of that schedule left. So the total outflow of the stabilization fund is 13,617. And at the end of the year, we expect the stabilization fund to have a balance of about $491,000. Okay. We're going to entertain a motion. One more forthcoming. I move to approve the FY18 disbursements from the capital stabilization fund Is there a second? Second. It's been moved in a second. Are there questions, comments, debate? Seeing none, all those in favor of the motion is presented. Please signify by raising your hand. Carries in unanimously. Thank you. Where are we on our schedule anyways? I think we're actually about to start running ahead. Look at that. We're running ahead. Now we're doomed. Apparently there are cookies over there. We need something to distract ourselves. FY19 budget feedback. Wanted to choose this? Yeah, if I could. So I thought this would be an opportunity to share both, and the chair already did, but a little bit of my perspective of the results of the 410 meeting, perhaps less, more on the immediate for the FY19, and less on the very accurate state and important state. Less cosmic? That's okay. I wasn't frame it that way, but I think you raised very serious and important points about the health of the region's finances into the future. I thought I was gonna, since this one said FY19, just update both the committee who wasn't there, but also the community about how the result of that, and then what's coming in terms of the budget process, and then I could take any comments or feedback from the committee if that's okay. Yeah? So I think as was spoken about before, the outcome of the meeting was that there was consensus for next year on a five-year phase-in of the current statutory method, which in nomenclature that only would understand if you sat through the meeting. It means a tier two level of cuts. The number, which I think is important, is $1.376 million of reductions that are being, that was the agreement. I think as we've said all along, we did the early budget reductions and presented them publicly to you all last Tuesday, as well as on Saturday, with a bit of apprehension because we knew it was before certain variables would be known. So even between last Tuesday, for those people who were watching, and Saturday, things changed. And the big thing that changed is that the state came out with their budget and because of the ratio of what each town would pay and minimum contributions, there were some shifts to the overall numbers, and therefore shifts to what cuts would be made or not made. And I think as we were clear on even on Saturday, there's more of that to come. So the state aid piece is more clear, although it's still the governor's budget and when we get to regional district advocacy, I think there'll be some commentary I'd like to share and the committee may be interested in talking about with that. Things that are happening even since Saturday, we now have more clarity on our vocational roster for this year. We get updates directly from the vocational schools in the region as compared to just for those Amherst members, the Amherst public schools. The charter costs aren't just, I'm only doing this as a point of comparison, not because I'm trying to talk about the Amherst public schools. The charter costs have paid directly in the year at the region. So the fact that we have fewer charter students, it sort of matters who they are because you have to figure out who's going to get, how much reimbursement we're going to get. So it's great that there's less charter students than we're anticipating, but depending who they are really flips the numbers. So now we have more, we're gathering more clarity on the voc and the charter piece. One of the things that happens is we typically, contractually, we ask staff who are going to retire to let us know 18 months in advance and there's some incentive to do that financially. And yet, life happens and sometimes people, a couple months before the end of the year, say, you know what, this is happening in my life, I'm going to choose to retire in June, even though it's unanticipated. We would call it unanticipated retirements because we do budget planning for those who tell us 18 months in advance. So we've had some of that in the last couple of weeks, including like this morning. So we're now factoring that into things. Utilities, I think, are locked in today. So Sean, press the button or whatever that myth. I think he has like a big red button that he presses and utility rates get locked in. Yeah, I like my imagery better. But so utility rates, which as we shared last time, we're not locked in or now locked in. Probably the biggest thing on here, the two last ones I'll mention are a second quarter budget update. It's just about ready. That'll be shared on the 13th at the next meeting. And to the point that was to dialogue just about even the funds going back into E&D, one of the challenges we faced last year, this year looking to next year is because of the health insurance surcharge increases, we did not anticipate being able to put as much in E&D back into the budget because generally we put it back in the budget and then we use it in next year's operating budget. So we've frozen the budget, as you know, the last month and a half. So we have to see how successful that's been and the implications there. And the last one is health insurance. I know that there's the health insurance advisory trust is actively working on things. We won't have clarity on that for a while, but we have to account for some of those things. I'm just mentioning those as variables. And so what will happen, what I would anticipate happening is before we get to the 13th, certainly at least the Friday before, if not sooner, we'll share with you an updated budget that accounts for all of these things and try to clarify why there's a change from last Tuesday to Saturday till two weeks from today, two nights from today, as well as updated additions and cut lists because that is the public hearing. So we'll put that on the website and people want to see that ahead of time. They certainly can, because that even is the budget hearing. So I think there's likely to be some changes. I would not anticipate, we're still talking about 1. something million dollars of cuts, we're not talking about, ooh, magically we're cutting $25,000. That's not in the realm of variation, but every small bit matters and a lot of these factors are challenging to predict and that's one of our, I was like, am I, but I see about it. I think I can say our apprehensions about sharing it earlier is once you put a number out there with cuts, then that's the number on those other cuts that people perceive. So that's our challenge, but I think it was successful. I don't regret doing that because I think the four towns really did need to see the reductions to understand and come to some consensus for this year on the budget. But that's sort of where we are in process. I don't know, Mr. McDonough, if there's anything you'd like to add? I think I mentioned this the last time. The only other variable that you didn't mention explicitly is food services. Oh yeah, sorry. Again, we're having a new food service in district program, which we're every month looking at the results. And so far it's been good, but that's just another variable that we're trying to factor in and how to project for next year since this is our first three months of an industry program or first four months of an industry program. Thank you. You mentioned there was some disagreement over the budget at the four town meeting. When and how do we reconcile these differences? I think that in terms of this year's budget, and others can tell me if they heard something different because a number of you were here, were there rather. I think there was general agreement to pick the tier two cuts method for tier two which is a ridiculous way of talking, but it's a line on a table basically that was shared that day. And I should say, because I don't want to, it's kind of a funny thing. I'm toggling between where I was on this, is that we have to give credit and recognition to the towns that once we walk through the potential cuts, I think people were very sobered by that and immediately the thinking crystallized around the least impactful method that we could agree upon at that table. And so what we're gonna find out over the next few weeks is whether that basic agreement holds on that particular method. If it holds then we're good, essentially we're not good for this year but it's procedurally, we can move forward with that budget. The regional committee could then recommend vote and send to the towns that budget at our early March meeting, which is what I foresee that we would be doing. The challenge, and this is why these are related topics, the challenge is what level of communication or dialogue we have amongst the towns about what implication there is on the budget for this year for what we're doing next year. And just because, again, it wasn't televised, so people watching now don't know what we talked about on Saturday. Essentially, the point of disagreement came down to whether or not the towns were agreeing to move to the current statutory method in full, phased in over a period of three years or five years or not agreeing to do that at all, basically. And so the challenge is we could agree on a budget figure and an allocation for the towns this year. We in fact could even just agree to do that and we could agree next year to do another allocation at another level. But the question is whether there's a political agreement between the towns sometimes felt strongly that if we were committing to a five-year phase-in, so for example, of the statutory method, then that's what we're agreeing to do and that's what we're all agreeing to do. I know, if I'm not gonna name which towns, I'll say there's another town that was very vocal that they were precisely not agreeing to do that. And I'll leave it at that. They were agnostic as to what would happen next year. And so the question is, does that second question of what the broader long-term agreement, does that end up disrupting the agreement about what our budget is this year or not? Yes, Mr. Chairman, I'm sorry. I clarify. The assessment methods that for this year is agreed upon? It can be and it was not, no, no, no, I'm not sure it'd be funny about this. Everyone at the meeting the other day left agreeing to again, it's a completely ridiculous way of talking, method four tier two. Everyone agreed to that. But the problem, the reason I'm saying it this way is the problem is some towns said they were agreeing to that method but they were agreeing to it only for one year and then they were gonna reopen the question of what we do next year. Other towns were saying, oh dear goodness, I am definitely not gonna reopen this conversation next year and for whatever reason, it could be out of exhaustion or just philosophical disagreements. I think both were expressed. And the question ends up being if the towns aren't in fact committing to the long run question, do then they backtrack on the agreement on the budgetary method just for this year? And I don't think we really know that yet but my hope is because of the discussion of the level of the cuts and everything, my hope is that people can commit to do this this year. It's a little bit of a tangent. I mean it's on budget but it's not thought-for-town meeting, is that a? Yeah, sure. So just the two follow-up items I wanted to talk about because I know there was questions last week about it. One is on a vocational school so we have talked to the middle school who would be the, where students would be applying. So so far we have had multiple students applied at Vogue School but all of them chose only to apply to Smith for students who come in who share an interest in applying to a different school. That hasn't happened yet but the message will be we're not saying not to do that but we would encourage you to apply to Smith as well so that, you know, and explain sort of the situation but to date no student has come in expressing an interest to apply to any voc school other than Smith. The second thing on that topic is the night after, so last Wednesday the Smith, Vogue and Ag Board of Trustees met. They had a positive, I mean we shared similar documents back and forth and they had a very positive read I think their only concern expressed was will everyone want to do this if they're right? You know, so, but that's on their end but I think there was genuine consensus and an interest in both committees voting in the month of February to solidify an agreement. The last update I want to have because I know people were asking about it as well is so I did last Thursday with Principal Slovan spent about 45 minutes with students talking at Summit Academy about the potential shift. I think he was very accurate in his assessment. There were some students who were really excited. One student said it would be dope and I thought really cool because I knew what he meant. Is that good or bad? Good, good. That's how I read it. And other students expressed more concerns. I think that the three salient themes, one was that, and I just took my notes from when I was there, that separation is important. That they wanted to be assured that there wouldn't be high school students walking through their hallway, that their classes would still be small. I mean, one student I think said it best and I didn't have it quite quoted but he said, I'd be so excited to be in the high school but to learn I need to be in this space, can I do both, right? So he was asking the question of like, I'd like from a social perspective, there's a lot of questions to the second themes about lunch, lots of discussions about lunch and how that works and whether that's a sort of flexible time or not flexible time and really strong differing opinions among the students. But it's related to the first point because he was able to articulate incredibly clearly his interest in if I'm not in a small setting with small classes, with teachers who know me, I'm not gonna do the learning I need to do. So that was really clear and that was whatever student's reaction was that was shared universally. There was a lot of questions about lunch. Some students saw that as an opportunity where they could be connecting with peers outside the academic setting. Stuff students really like the not being in a large cafeteria and I think Principal Sloven did an excellent job of saying these are problems that we'll work out together, right? It doesn't have to be the same for everybody. We'll have that flexibility. And so that I think was reassuring. There was a student I knew since she was in first grade from Crocker Farms so she made sure I would say that they want a vending machine. That is the make or break. So and I'd say that somewhat in jest but somewhat because for her it was important that they felt like they were getting the same access to the same, like, you know, they were expressing some of the academy, the food, you know, while we're doing better with it doesn't, the cafeteria's not there. But they don't have some of the various kind of rights and privileges, so to speak, of vending machines and all that. It's not the same setup. They have a vending machine there. Not in the same way the high school does. I can't say if they do, but they don't have, I mean the high school has like multiple vending. If you look down the hallway, there's a lot of choices and I'll put it that way. So, but I think so while that was, she was very serious about what I talk about it is how do they get treated more, like feel equally, you know, in the setting. And I think the third thing was a huge interest in what space it would, you know, some students had experienced the high school either through athletics or just rather you hadn't been there. And so they were very invested at the end. We offered for them if people would like to walk it and offer feedback. So we shared the designs that Mr. McPherson had drawn and a number of, right away I said, you know, can we walk it? Can we go? Can we see the space? Can we inform that practice? So, Principal Sullivan's setting that up. He's also setting up information sessions for parents. Sometime before the break, we're still working on scheduling, which is a little quirky, given other events the district's having. But I thought it was really good. And speaking to him, that conversation has continued every day, right? So it's when they have their community meeting, lots of dialogue and I was just incredibly impressed by the students to understand, you know, some of the issues at physical infrastructure issues at Summit, understand the opportunities and understand the challenges and wanting to be part of the problem solving of the challenges that they identified. So I thought it was a really useful session. And sorry, I'm going a little bit long on this, but I think it's worth saying the staff was also incredible, the teaching staff. They were in counseling staff. They were able to provide their own feelings about it very candidly. Also talk about prior changes. The program used to be in two sites. For those who remember used to be at E Street and then Southeast Campus and some of the fears that were going on there and what they did to alleviate those. And I was just so impressed the way they were connecting with the students throughout. I mean, certainly Principal Sullivan myself were facilitating, but they were jumping in in ways and making sure that students who were more registered to speak in private and then have those thoughts be voiced by them sometimes, sometimes by the students, sometimes by the staff. Just such a supportive environment. So I think lots of good work happening and trying to set up a tour as well as family event for those students. But it was really powerful to hear from the students themselves. Mr. Sullivan? I just want to say that I've heard from a number of students that are in this school and their concern was about the students from Southeast or Summit that they really do want to come here and be comfortable. Yeah. Absolutely. And Principal Jasmine has expressed that. So what's the next step? So we have a hearing obviously in the 13th, but I think apart from obviously we welcome anyone who wants to to come in and give their opinions that day. But on these sort of bigger ticket issues that we know we're looking at, when do we get follow up or some further opportunity, for example, to listen to Principal Sullivan and hear before the decision is made? I mean, I guess what I'm also trying to say is I guess assuming since the committee hasn't voted the budget, I'm assuming, we haven't had a hearing yet, I'm assuming that the decision hasn't effectively been made already. And so if that's true, then the question would be, what's the next natural time point for the community to be able to learn and get a refreshed view of how this is going? So Principal Sullivan? On any of these issues, but in Summit Academy. Right, so he's planning to attend on the 13th and share an update as the ongoing dialogue has occurs at Summit. On the vote one, I mean, I do believe both for our students' best interests as well as for, I think the Board of Trustees at Smith, I think they are hoping to have a vote next month. I think otherwise it puts students in a little bit of limbo and I think the board, their Board of Trustees feels like it's a reasonable timeline for them to make that commitment as well. I'm curious about something, is Franklin Tech aware of this discussion going on? That's what I was, yeah, I was talking to that. I will confirm that with Superintendent Smith, so I'm not 100% sure that I'm not, I don't want to expand on it because I don't want to expand on it. The reason I'm just curious is I'm just thinking about this like thing, if everything is naturally running toward a decision where we say yes, how does the committee satisfy itself that if there was a contrary voice to come forward, they knew enough about it to be able to come forward. I mean, I'm not trying to stir up trouble for the sake of trouble, it's really a matter of, you don't want to wake up in March or April after the decision has been made in the contracts then and all of a sudden people are coming out of the woodwork saying, oh my gosh, I realize it's my fault, for people in my family had the flu, now all of a sudden, you know what I mean? Yeah, and that's why we continue to check in with the middle school guys around, because that's generally how it works is students and families contact their eighth grade guidance counselor, say I'm interested in Vogue school, set up a meeting, and to date, there hasn't been anyone and by February, just the time was applied to Vogue, if there were students interested, they would be. Right, I mean, obviously logically, the Summit Academy's circumstances is different simply because since there's already an active conversation within Summit Academy, I'm assuming that if for any reason the principal and others come to the conclusion that it's not advisable that that dialogue will be well surfaced, I'm sure it will be, so then. So that means, so usually there's a field trip to both Franklin Tech and to Smith from the middle school every year, and does that, so this time it would just be to Smith? Is that, yeah. Yeah, I'm trying to think, I'm sorry, but Dr. Brody's not here right now, I'm trying to think of the timing of when that typically occurs. It's after the sixth graders came to the middle school, right? So I will confirm when those just happen, yeah. So I just wanted to, you said there's an update that a letter had gone out to all middle school parents, this is that part? No. No? Pre-schools, the pre-school families. Pre-school, definitely we're all condoned. Oh, we've got a letter about some of it. Summit Academy, every family got a letter, and a phone call, yeah, and pre-school the same. Okay, so there's not sort of a public announcement going on about other than through guidance. Counselors, is that correct? I just want to say that the only bummer to this whole thing of transitioning to just Smith is that for Leverett and Shootsbury, who are in Franklin County, that's like our last little, I don't know what the right word is, but there are some families from Leverett and Shootsbury who choose, whose families have always gone to Franklin Tech, and we're just gonna lose that. That's sort of why I keep bringing, I brought it up last week and I'm bringing it up now, is it may be the logical thing to do, and maybe we should do it, but I'm kind of trying to continue to give an opportunity that if there are 10 families up in Shootsbury that want to create a hullabaloo, that at least they're aware this is happening so that if they want it, they can, they can come next week or two weeks from now and tell us what they think, you know what I mean? And if they don't, then there's a 5% logic that we're probably gonna head down this road unless people are given a compelling reason not to. Anything else? So this is a wide stuff on budget. I've asked obviously a few questions. I think Dr. Morris has laid out quite a bit. Are there other things people wanna either say or ask now before we move on? I just wanna say that after the, at the end of the four-time meeting on Saturday, the Shootsbury Finance Committee and the Shootsbury School Committee got together and we decided that regardless of what method is used, we would, Shootsbury wants to put in the highest amount it's been tagged for in this, in the summary. We felt that since Amherst was going with adding that to 3.5 that we would put in the 2.16 or whatever that amount is regardless of which method is chosen. Okay, do you know this? I am unaware and appreciate incredibly. Yeah, I know, I do too. I just was like, this is. Yeah, no, this is new news to me. This is good news. Yeah. Thank you. I was gonna go around the table actually, because just, Serena, do you have anything else? I mean, I think I wanna just thank the whole team that put together the budget. I know it's very difficult and I think it was a very informative discussion and I think there's a lot of details to still be worked out as all the numbers come in and I'm hopeful that we get some public comment about if things move in a positive direction, some things that are very important to our community to try to save. I appreciate that feedback from community members that are closer to the school than I am. Thank you, Shootsbury. Sincerely, I mean, you guys really, that's wonderful. Yeah, just sort of thinking about the process as we go to this next stage in the vote, or the hearing, the hearing is next and then the vote is in March. So, as the numbers come in, is that we get a sort of a more settled number and let's say there's another $40,000 that we're able to allocate somewhere. At this point, that then opens, we have, at this point it's out there, what is being considered. And we're starting to get advocacy about one position or another, which is always challenging because of course it's, every person who stands up and speaks with such heartfelt sincerity about the importance and we all hear that and we all respect that so deeply and at the same time, it's such a complex web that it's hard to necessarily note for those who are not here speaking, it's not to say that there's not equal pain in different areas. I just think it's, I want to recognize the sort of the complexity of that and the challenge there. So just, so as you go forward and see where there might be some shifts, sort of what the process is there. I mean, then you'll revise it and give us another sort of look at where we are, but I guess I'm not quite exactly sure what I'm asking, but I'll try to answer it. Thank you, you're welcome. So given that 410 meeting happened, we got a bunch of financial stuff since, I know it's Tuesday and that was Saturday, but lots have happened since then and there's a couple more things that we have to tie up. So tomorrow morning, for instance, I'm meeting with principals all morning, going over the feedback we received, not just tonight, but there's been lots of feedback that happens just more directly that doesn't go to a school committee but just goes to either principals, sister principals, myself, Doreen, Sean, things like that and seeing what we think our, where we think our budget number will land, what we're able to do, I think. And I don't wanna push the point and I don't know how to say this better than I'm gonna say it, but I think it's good to be transparent about it. I think this, I'm glad you keep on bringing it up because I think it's very real and we think about the priorities, some of which we heard earlier tonight about retaining staff, particularly staff of color. That's, when we're talking about 1.3 million or 1. anything million, we're doing either ors, right? We're not able to do the end conversations that we'd like to. And so we try to take in all that feedback about impact on students as well as thinking about what our district priorities are. We're aware that all of our shared, and I speak collectively, shared district priority around particularly retaining high quality staff of color is, we've talked about a lot and we'll continue to talk about a lot. We'll talk about it in a couple of minutes in terms of best CTF goals. And so I think we try to take all those things and what we'll do is we'll share a revised number or revised number and budget list with you for the hearing. But it's an iterative process. So we'll go through that. We'll share it with you. I'm sure people will come to the hearing. They'll be advocating for things either that they advocated for tonight or informally or formally. And we'll take that feedback. And that's just the nature of the budget process, particularly in a year where we're talking about making significant shifts and structural changes. And you know, two of the ones we highlighted tonight in our year, and I think, you know, the hard thing is it's sort of a zero sum game, like we have to get to that number. Sheetsbury's willingness to support us to have a different number. Greatly appreciated, but I think, you know, that's gonna be our challenge. But, you know, our process is, you know, really just starts, I mean, Sean's been doing a lot of work in the last 72 hours, but kind of on the ads cuts list, really begins tomorrow morning to say, okay, what are we hearing? Given the feedback, even kind of some revised numbers because we haven't been with the principal since we got to, I think, a landing place in terms of the assessment method and directors, not just principal, principal directors, where are we gonna land? What are some things that we feel like we can live with? What are the things we can live without and bring that back to the next step in that process? Thank you, that's helpful. It's exactly sort of like, how does that feedback get? Yeah, that's the cycle. Absolutely. Thank you. Okay. Well, I guess, just kind of building on that. So you're saying that the revised budget estimates and cut lists will be available to the public for the hearing so that people, when they're coming to make comments, they'll have the latest information finally. That's been our practice that we'd like to continue, yes. I think so. Anything else? Just to be clear, by the way, I wasn't, I'm not bringing up the change in, potential change in access to vocational schools because I'm looking to cause trouble in terms of the budget and create a cut somewhere else. It's just that when I look at the lists of ads and cuts, there are some decisions that, everything has a cost to it and I know that's true. I mean, figuratively and literally, right? And so if you cut the equipment line, that has a real impact to it. It's also one where you can probably increase the equipment line next year if the budget gets better. The challenge is if you never can, right? When you start making changes though that are long-term and programmatic and some picking on this just because it's, because it's so, it can be emotional for people. If they were, in fact, legacy families and they knew that their older brother or sister would have gone to Franklin Tech and they wake up one morning and they realize that the option is no longer available to them, that's more akin of saying, should some of the academy be in the high school or in the Southeast campus? Because like you're not just, I mean, the next year, if the budget's a little better, you're not just gonna move some academy back, right? Like that's a really big decision. And I would argue the same thing as crazy as this may sound, that there's a risk when you start, I mean, this is also true, I think probably for the instructional coaching around code teaching that we were carrying discussion about earlier. But it's also true even at some point if you're cutting back athletic games and you're going from 12 games to eight games or whatever it is, that there's an experience that you're starting to not get and the more you do that, the more it's hard to build back. Certainly if you cut sports, which is not on the table if we don't have to do the deeper tier cuts, you can't just build a sport back up. And so part of my lens on this is when I'm looking at those budget items, if something is changing us into a vector direction that is essentially irreversible or very hard to reverse, then I'm just asking more questions. It's not because I don't think we should do it. And if I think it's more likely to be a terrible one year fix or even a terrible two year fix, then my mode is to be more deferential and say there are no really good options here. So I personally want to try to support the work of you and your team as much as I can in an environment in which these aren't decisions you want to make anyway. So I'm sorry to explain that, but I just wanted to be clear on it because I'm not being capricious or something in the questions I'm asking. Not the room. It's a big deal, right? We're going to be at this in another couple of weeks. It's going to be a big deal every step of the way. I have a question for you. With the absence of one of our committee members, should we defer and table the warrant process discussion? That'd be my recommendation. Well, that sounds like a good recommendation. So we are going to table item four and pick it up off the table at some other point. Good evening. My microphone works extra well. I'm noticing I'm blasting out to the universe here. You have to call me out, right? I know what I... You're missed in every meeting that you're not at. So it's like, I am welcoming you. Thank you. So we went through the budget stuff. We went through, we're on item five. We're tabling item four because unfortunately Miss Adonis couldn't be here. On regional district advocacy, did you have anything you wanted to say about this? Yeah, I think I maybe just talk through two of the documents that were in the packet. That's okay, just very briefly. So right after the ones that Mr. Magano spoke of earlier. So these are, I didn't write these. These are coming through either regional school. One is from, the first one's from the Mass Association of Regional School Districts. And the second is coming a little bit from M-A-S-S-N-A-M-A-S-E, but let me stick to the first one first because it's a little bit newer. So this is, it was pretty shocking to many of us and who are working in or for regional school districts. There was a state otters report that came out. It was referenced in the four time meeting that one of the recommendations of the state otter was to fully reimburse regional school district transportation. And unfortunately it was level funded which essentially involves Akata as more districts especially charter schools identify themselves as regional school districts. The pie stays the same, but it's not just at Costco but it's actually that there's more people buying for that pie. So that is something that Mars or Mass Association of Regional Schools is trying to build advocacy for is to increase that perhaps not to a hundred percent because I think there's some sense of, I mean even though this says this, there's some sense of there's an opportunity now because we have an official state employee whose job it is to look at programs and identify solutions, identify one and not only does it not met, it seems like the governor's budget completely disregarded. Not even putting it up to that level but really reducing it in assets. So that was the first letter, the second letter and there's been a lot of movement on this from, frankly from MASC as well which is on special education circuit breaker. So to make a long story short circuit breaker supports costs of students when the cost of educating a student with special needs goes over a certain mark the state reimburses some of those costs and it's not being reimbursed fully and this concern is that it's, the reimbursement's down to 65% which is low especially given some of the other items in the governor's budget. So these are the two pieces of advocacy that I wanted to bring you is that's what I've been seeing around go in superintendent circles. I'm ASC, I was checking out their website and that advocacy they're doing as well just to frame the discussion. Mr. McKenzie. So for our district, have we hit circuit breaker? We do get circuit breaker each year I don't know if Dr. Brady or Shawn wants to share. The regional schools get about $600,000 $500 to $600,000 per year and the elementary schools get about 200 to $300,000 per year depending on the needs. Thank you. Regional transportation start to call you back up in regional transportation. Yeah, regional transportation, we're budgeting 750,000 in next year's budget. There's a chart in the budget book that shows what full funding would be. I think it's between two and $300,000 difference if we were fully funded versus the level we're currently funded in. So there's certainly potential for much more reimbursement for right now it's at 750,000. So I guess what I'd offer is if there's a particular either of these or something else that you'd like me to draft a letter for the next meeting for your consideration, I just wanted to get a sense from the committee where the committee said whether it's something that the committee would like to pursue one both neither. I'm happy to do the work between now and the next meeting to draft something for your consideration. My answer would be yes. See lots of nodding hats. Lots of nodding hats. Yes, the answer is yes. I also think that what I would like to do is see if there are volunteers. I suspect Mr. Demling would be a volunteer although he's not here so I'm not picking on. But if there are volunteers or folks who'd like to sit down and put our heads together around how the school committee could organize its work on this subject. I think that would be a good idea. One is in terms of this kind of advocacy where there are letters and efforts where I think we should be as we did in past years be doing advocacy at the state house. Also one of the outcomes of the poor town meeting to connect it back there again was the notion that some of the reforms that are in the state auditor's report if fully implemented or even some of them were implemented would start to reframe and alleviate some of the tensions that exist between our towns. In fact, actually one of the observations of the Bumps Report is, well it shouldn't pick on us but the general observation that struck me in it was how much more alike we certainly are, likely are with other regional school districts that are facing fiscal and governance pressures than we are dissimilar. And so I think it would be helpful for us to organize ourselves but partially to organize ourselves so we could work more effectively with other towns, the towns in our, other officials within the towns in our district and then potentially with other regional school districts as well. And I think that would take a few hands to do that. And I know Senator Rosenberg is aware of some of the issues that regional school districts are facing. Right. Just in terms of legislative, not that others aren't, but I know active conversations in the last couple of days. I think what I can do is a follow up since not everyone's here. I also, I would suspect also Mr. Donies would be interested in this too. I can send an email out to the full committee after this bring up the fact we discussed the topic. I think I'm similarly seeing sort of nodding heads here that whatever the end result is which would come back to the committee, we should certainly do that. So you're drafting a letter, two letters. I'll write an email to the committee and then I think what would do for the purposes of propriety is if we end up meeting we'll post that as a public meeting so that instead of saying, oh, you're interested in helping too, well now you can't because we'll have quorum. I'd rather just post a meeting and let people come. Federated? Excuse Nancy. Just want to comment when we draft the letters. I think we have different house representation based on the four towns here. So we should probably send letters to those representatives as well just to try to get a little more. Oomph. Oomph. One of them is on the Ways and Means Committee. Yep. So not a bad person to have on this list. Great. Anything else on this subject? We're a model of efficiency in this evening, I think. So now we can just take number six as it comes. Yep, and I'm going to turn to Ms. Cunningham who's been working on a draft of, as we spoke last time, we're going to draft timeline of when, when we'd have data, when we can be sharing responses to the goals that SCTF shared with us. Okay. So in your packets, I did put the SCTF goals in there. And in bold, I just put the timeline that I believe we would be able to address it. Due to the data requests, I have to wait for them to come in and then respond to some of the items that are listed here. So for goal number one, we do have professional development that's taking place in March. And I'd like to also provide feedback on how that went because it's going for the whole district, including Paras and secretaries, maintenance, transportation, all of, you know, everyone across the district would be involved in that professional development. So we're looking to address this goal and provide some information by the April 10th regional meeting. Goal number two, I have met with a member of the five colleges today and she gave me a list of other higher ed professionals that I can meet with. I am looking to also meet with some guidance counselors to look at the courses that we are currently offering and look at some of our local high schools in Holyoke or Northampton or where have you to just find out what they're doing in reference to this and then have a plan ready and available by March 20th at that regional meeting. In addition, I'm looking to attend next week's SCTF meetings so that I can possibly get some of the community members and some of the members of SCTF to assist with that. Goal number three, when we talk about the students and the enrollments and the AP and honors courses, that's another data request that has been sent out. And so I believe by the time we get that information and compile the list or the action plan that's being requested, that should be ready by May 8th for that regional committee meeting. Goal number four is also a May timeline where additional data has been requested and once I get that, I'd like to pull it all together again and address that at the May 22nd meeting. The last goal, which is more HR and the hiring and retention as we consistently talk about, I'm looking to have that or address that in our June meeting that way I can get the longitudinal data that you're asking for and provide more updated information to. Any questions on that? That's great, that's very specific, by the way. Thank you. Anything? Great. Number seven, now we go from the specific, sorry to you. Actually, it wasn't super serious, but I see those cookies just sitting there. Is it okay, Mr. Sullivan, if I start that going around? I feel like it was a good pause. Stay where we transition, they go out here. Wow. I don't want to do it. Thank you for waiting. No, I think that's for, I think that's very nice. We're just waiting for Vera. Well I was, you caught me in the middle of where I was going to make a joke that we're going from like a really specific response with specific dates and stuff like that to a discussion that's potentially very spongy. We're going to have a new member orientation. We'll get them first. Doreen, have a cookie before. So, I mean, this is obvious. All right, we'll take a cookie break. That's fine. We can wait until nine o'clock, you know? After tasting those brownies last week. This just looks spectacular. So, for those at home, I'm actually going to take two, since obviously, there's not a lack of cookies here. They really look very nice. No, they wrote me a reason. They wrote me a reason. I love a little reason. The reason's a good for you. Therefore, the whole cookie also. So, we discussed at our retreat having a new member orientation process as well as collateral material or things that we bring together to help orient folks. And I'm not really bringing this up to debate it, since we've already discussed and agreed we needed to do it. It's one of those things where in a challenging year where we've had lots of stuff to do, we're now at that point where I think on January 30th, if we do not organize ourselves to actually do this, we're going to start having new members on without having an actual process or a packet together. So, I guess one question, and I don't know if people's ability to do this are, but do we have volunteers to help organize this process? Meaning, not in our meeting, but sort of offline? Yes? Oh, you are! That's wonderful. And you're busy. It's wonderful. Everyone's busy, I know that, but I just made a note. You may need to be after the presentation next week, and then I'll be able to. Okay, great. Any other? I'm happy to help, like if we want to divide out sections to draft and be able to bring back, I'm happy to divide over. Is there a way that this could be done so that it could be discussed by a small group online without it needing to be a public meeting? I think that that's, if the challenge is the night meetings to get this work done, but if it can be done via Google Docs and so like that, then we can be pretty effective. Is there a way to do that with two? I think there is with just, I mean, this is really, really what you're gonna be doing is you're gonna be compiling sort of rote information that probably a lot of which we already have on hand to bring back to the committee's consideration around what it wants to include in a packet. So I think if there's, certainly if there's two men, two people, you could just work on it together. And it's not a subcommittee, it's just a couple people working on something. So I think, because I thought about the sum, and I think how I see it sort of playing out would be that a list of here are the ideas of what we think would be great, bring that to the committee, sort of have people add ideas, subtract ideas, and then go from there to start to comply. Yeah, I think that makes sense. Does anyone have any other ideas on it? That sounds great, Ms. Mary. So I assume that there wouldn't be any problem then with us just forwarding you guys' ideas that we might have kind of got it down over the course of you know this. And literally to them, not to the group as a whole. Right. I think that is legitimate as long as we're not spinning out into, you know what I mean? Yeah. And also I think we should avoid any debate or discussion. Right. So if you have an item you think they should look at, just email them the item. Don't editorialize on why you think it's important. So I think that's where you get into trouble. Okay. Makes sense. Yeah. So, maybe I'll send out a reminder email about that sometime in the near future. I think that sounds great. Yeah. That's the phrase, we're cooking with gas. Hot grease. Hot grease? Is that what it is? I don't know. Hot grease. Biodiesel. Whatever. Debbie, did you have to put these? I didn't know. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. I mean, it takes forever. It takes forever. We have to pass them back. I'm sorry, that was out of order. That's okay. That'll be, no that'll be a great thing to get going. So that would put us on school committee. Hey, in a related notion, remember when we all agreed we're going to have school committee protocols that updated? Spirit? Do you remember that? You look great. So everyone has a draft document that was passed out tonight. And I think you should have received it a few hours ago. So I guess I can just give a little bit of history about where this came from. You probably remember. I took some various sample protocols from other school committees and kind of compiled a big list and sent it around. And then I got feedback from some members about things that they think were important to include. So that's basically what this is. I've kind of tried to put it together in a way that makes sense. And some feedback that was quite similar, I kind of eliminated overlap and did a little bit of like kind of editing in that way. I left the things in bold are things of more than one. I got feedback from more than one person that they thought was important to include in the protocols. And at the very end, there were a few things that people had indicated that they liked the other. And these are things that other school committees put in their protocols, but they have significant overlap with what's in our ethics policy. So from my perspective, I pulled those out because I think we can make a decision when we're the other, whether we think it's sufficient to have in the ethics policy and we don't need to duplicate it here. I mean, people could make another case, but that's why those were kind of pulled out, but I left them in just so you can see what those were. Since you didn't have this very firm advance, I don't know if people feel like they have had enough time to offer any thoughts on this particular document, or what the best way to proceed is at this point. My assumption was we'd bring it forward next meeting for a vote. And then that would focus the mind around whether folks have any edits or changes they have. But if obviously people have questions or comments now, they should make them if they have them. I liked it, by the way. But it's good work and I thought I could see the evolution compared to the previous draft where before it was more of sort of a prestige of different things. Here, I think there's obviously excellent coherence and consistency. Oh, Mr. McGage. I was gonna say the same, like from the draft version to this version, seems perfect to me. And the only thing that I would is how we conduct meetings, the first sentence, that it's not a public meeting. Maybe to be clear that it's open for the public to attend. It's an open meeting. It's open to the public to attend, not necessarily to deliberate with us. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, it is a public meeting, I think. Mr. Brown? Yeah, so I think this, you know, I didn't read it. I didn't pick up on it the first time you read it, but right when you started looking at that sentence, I think the word that strikes me is without getting, it uses the word meeting three times in the sentence, and I know that's intentional, but it also makes it perhaps not as clear. And what I hear what you're saying is that when it says it's not a public meeting, I think the intent is to say it's not a public hearing where there's dialogue back and forth, but it is, I mean, I get what they're saying in public meeting. I also have a hard time thinking that this isn't a public meeting. I think videotapes, there's chance for a public comment. It's not like there's a back and forth, but I want to acknowledge that point that I'm not sure that's the right. Well, I think it's a practical matter. It absolutely is a public meeting. Like legally, practically, and in the other way, it's obviously a public meeting. I mean, it clearly is trying to find a synonym to, I don't know, like a town hall, like an open and deliberative meetings with them inviting the public, public hearing. I mean, it's clearly that's what they're trying to say. I think other things I've read have said that it's like it's a business meeting of the school committee. But that doesn't sound too narrow or procedural. So how many cage? I think how we govern the first page it talked about the role of the chair. Maybe that should be a distinct subtitle or, you know, heading. Because the chair would have the discretion to recognize members of the public to speak at any point of the meeting. It's really, that's a chair's, I think, role and responsibility to view when that's appropriate. Regarding the comment about the public meeting, we can always decide that we don't feel like we even need that statement in here. So I don't know if people feel strongly that they want something acknowledging that in here and just for me to work on improving the language so it's clear. That's a good thing to keep it in. Keep it in, okay. Sullivan? Mm-hmm. It's like I'm watching tennis, I'm gonna go back and forth. Okay. Okay. So they'll revise it and then we'll get another revised version before the meeting with a note that next time, you know, we'll have a vote if the committee is interested in having a vote. So, I'm sorry. I was just gonna say if we have further comments just because I actually didn't have time to read it before the meeting, can we send them? Of course. Yeah. Yeah, so maybe I could just send out an email to people a week and then have a deadline for comments so that I can have a draft for people to review that's not gonna change between a certain point in the meeting. That's really important, actually, I think. That's really important. All right, I will do that. Great. So item eight is now done. We're now on item nine, superintendent evaluation update. This is distinct by the way from superintendent goals, item 10. Sure. So as requested by the school committee at our last meeting, I reached out to our attorney, Mark Terry, and sort of explained what we were looking for or our questions around who we might, who would be asked and requested to complete superintendent evaluation because there's a minutes of question about if members come on and they've only been on for two or three months before the evaluation is completed, is it appropriate for them to complete it given they haven't been part of the goal cycle and for members who have been, who were part of the goal setting cycle and then stepped off a few months before the evaluation? Should they be asked to complete evaluation if this is based on some precedence of how things have been done before? And so is that just giving a recap so for members where we are? And so the superintendent evaluation or a few members had sort of drafted up a thought about how that, what we might look, well, after speaking with members of MISACC, we put out a proposed possible protocol for how we might do that. And there was a question about if we're restricting people who are sitting on the committee from evaluating the superintendent, is that legal? Could that be challenged? And also if we're asking people who are no longer sitting on the committee to follow the evaluation, could that also be challenged? Which was a really good question, I think Ms. Dwayne, in case you brought that up. So it was a really good question, so thank you. And so Mr. Terry responded with some interesting information. So can I, I'm just gonna read something I wrote back. So he wrote, as a matter of law, only committee members in office at the time of the evaluation process had the legal right to participate. There is nothing that stops former committee members from completing an evaluation document, but those documents should not be given any official weight because the person writing them has no right to vote on the final official evaluation. Okay, so as such, I recommend any documentation created by a former committee member, whether positive or negative, be offered to the superintendent for his personal reflection and or follow up. Further up further, I'd recommend that such communication be created judiciously and only when a former committee member truly feels this is absolutely necessary. Otherwise the communication should be offered verbally. Okay, there's more, but I'm gonna try to limit it here. Okay, that said, each committee member must ensure that the evaluation document reflects his or her own thinking and is not a proxy for comments offered by non-committee members. So this is an issue he said in many districts, but it's more substantial for us given our election cycle. So he gave us a couple of thoughts of how to move forward. So he said, I think the best way to handle this is to make the review cycle consistent with your election cycle. No. I yielded the evaluation two weeks before your elections. Okay, so that was one suggestion. It's a nice suggestion. It's a good suggestion. Another, let's see. If the committee wants to adjust the goal evaluation and calendar to align with this election cycle, we'd at least have to review Mike's contract to see if it's permissible or not. I mean, that's the whole contract issue, obviously, if we really go somewhere in that direction. So two, another approaches to adopt a committee practice by which only those who have served, for example, at least six months, may have their evaluations count for the purposes of the official evaluation. Anyone newer than that could and should complete an evaluation based on their experience as a member of the committee as compared to their experience as a citizen, but their evaluations would not be considered for the purpose of developing the composite document or establishing the ratings. Technically, they could still object to a composite evaluation because we cannot take their vote away from them, but a well-established practice in this regard is helpful. The committee could codify this practice in a committee policy as well. And he's saying that a stronger commitment to the same approaches this second would be to include language in the superintendent's contract to make the same commitments. This would create an enforceable contextual commitment as compared to a practice or a policy that could be followed or changed. So. And my recollection when... Welcome to look at this if you wanna. Not so good. My recollection when you shared it, though, was that in addition to, for one of what you're phrasing it, the lack of standing of a former committee member to fail out an evaluation, similarly, a new member once they're sworn in has all the rights, responsibilities, and powers of any other school committee members so that even though, as you were saying, he said we could adopt a policy of waiting differently the input of a new member. In fact, that new member would have a full legal right to vote and debate the evaluation, right? I mean, that, I'm a little, I think that's a question that needs to be asked because he's saying that we could create that policy. However, if you're saying that they have the legal right, I guess I'm sort of questioning how you could put that in a contract if it was in fact against the law. I mean, I don't know. That's why, in all honesty, that's why I was bringing it up because I saw that as an internal contradiction. I agree, yeah. I interpreted that separately, saying if you had a policy and you did it that way, we all sit at the table and we have to all vote for the superintendent's evaluation. And so if you had, if I had been a new member and you refused to accept my input, I still have a vote to say that's not my evaluation, right? I don't vote in favor of the summative evaluation because it did not consider my opinion. That's how I read those words. I think that sounds right. Maybe I misinterpreted it, but. No, I think that makes sense to me. I think the question ends up being, it's kind of a funny, it's an extension, natural extension of that, is that if you're going to the point that somebody has the right to vote and debate the final evaluation, then it doesn't sound funny about this, but why are you bothering to exclude their ability to write an evaluation? Because it seems like you're creating more trouble than it's worth since once they're on, they're legally on, they have the rights of anyone who's on. You know, it would be to me, I'm sorry I'm going into like a discussion on this, but I'm not offering my opinion, it would make more sense to figure out how to reorient the calendar, the evaluation. Let me, going back to the original point, the only solution that makes any real sense is reorganizing the evaluation calendar so that it lines up at the end before the elections and then you don't have this problem, right? But we have four towns that have different election cycles. So you have to pick the first one and have it be before the first one. And my committee could reorganize at any time. Why would you want to do that? And somebody else could step onto this committee, right? I mean, it happens, we had a chair step down, we had to reorganize, and that doesn't guarantee me this position back on the regional school committee. It's, there's not a big line of people waiting to take this volunteer job away from me, but. I'm just waiting for her to finish, Ms. Renino, I saw your hand, Ms. Renino. What's wrong with the process we followed in the past where the committee suggested that because I was a new member, I might not wish to participate in the vote and I declined to participate. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Sorry, Ms. Marin. Yeah, and I think to that end, we could agree what our recommendation would be to new members so that, you know, some people's not, you know, so that we're on the same page as far as what our recommendation is, and it doesn't, of course, change a new member's right to do what they want. As far as the calendar, I mean, I agree, you might not be able to, you know, prevent any weird blip of new members coming on at awkward times, but if past members aren't participating and all new members are, I think it gets really awkward balance of, as it currently stands, you know, what the evaluation is based on. So I agree that we should try to do some kind of adjustment to rectify that. Okay. I like the idea, I just don't, I mean, we set goal, I'm just trying to give you set goals, it makes sense to set goals at the beginning of the school year when the work begins and the contract here starts. Election cycles happen in April, starting in April for town meetings, right? March. March, actually. March, April. It seems like not enough time for superintendent to have made significant progress on a goal between, let's say the committee is really good and gets out of the gate and approves goals in September to get to March, isn't a lot of the school year. And, you know, there are many times when the situation is that we don't approve goals until winter time, and I think that's gonna be a challenge. Might offer a question. No, sure, we're not deciding anything right now, we're just surfacing the issue and discussing. Absolutely, and Ms. Hazard shared the email with me, so I'm aware of the context in full disclosure. So I think a couple things, one is I think now that I'm in a more permanent situation, a permanent situation, I think thinking about whether goals are one year, their multi-year sort of matters about when the timeline is. I know there are districts that actually write upon the end of the cycle in June, try to have a, like that's when they do the retreat and do some goal-setting for the future year so that it's not like evaluation ends and come back and then September, right? Like theoretically those two things, the processes would be linked, right? You evaluation ends, goal-setting, right? Cause it should be, it just went well, these are things we should work on. Okay, how am I gonna contextualize that? So I do think there's some dialogue that I think I'd be happy to participate in on that topic. I think the second thing in terms of the six months and that piece, I think this is where it gets complicated because let's say, right, so there's a May, let's say it's a Maytown meeting that's a change and the evaluation process essentially is like a one month process for, which maybe there's two meetings in, for a school committee member and then to come up with an evaluation that doesn't take into account anything that happened before they were a school committee member and they may have been an interest member of the public but that can't contribute, it really has to be in the role. I think it just, it sets up a dynamic among superintendent school committee members that's awkward and if it's possible to avoid, I think it's worth avoiding on a number of counts. I mean, you know, you could think of positive examples where it's too positive or negative examples where it's too negative but I think just building an evaluation on a month's work, it makes no sense and so trying to think of ways, I think that's why Mr. Terry was thinking of six months or trying to quantify that and then in a contract as well as in school committee policy to me, that makes logical sense. I think, you know, I agree that the best solution would be figuring out a different timeline. I think, you know, not to be awkward about it but we have to see how that plays out. I think we'll know better the answer to that question two months from now. As of right now, I mean, I can imagine a scenario where they line up reasonably well but you know, Amherst, I'm not saying anything that people don't know, just to be transparent about it. Amherst was considering one change that would have an influence on when the election cycles would be which would make it sort of inconceivable to reconcile cycles between the four downs. Sorry, that was a whole lot. That's funny actually, because in my mind, if the charter passed and new members came on in the fall, like I don't know how that works but I'm assuming if there's a November election, the new members start in December or something that don't start in January. I don't know how that works, I don't know how it's written but if that were the Kate. Sorry. No, is that true? I was reading it and I was confused. Interesting, so that's an open question but I was just gonna say that to my mind, I would find it less problematic to have superintendent evaluations in late April, early May, whenever it needs to be, you know, to sync up with Pelham, Leverton, Schittsbury, if the Amherst members had been in place for even seven or eight months, I'm like, whatever, deal with it, react. So you have eight months to evaluate them, that's not too bad. The really hard part is doing what we were describing earlier which is if the charter doesn't pass and we're in the current mode of saying ideally we'd be doing evaluations in the beginning of March when we're trying to pass the budget, which sounds kind of stupid. If they use a very casual and earthy phrase, that doesn't sound like the world's greatest thinking. Yeah. So I guess we'll stay tuned or? So, yeah. I guess what I'm thinking is that I could follow up and sort of get some real clarification around this question that we've had. And then, I mean, I think that's Mary's idea of even if we can't make it official, making a sort of accepted recommendation, recognizing that we can't actually infringe on a voted official, the voted elected officials' rights, maybe bring something like that back, some language around that. Sure. Sound like a place the next step to it. I think it was Mr. Mendoff pointing out that that's actually what we did. That is actually in the end what we did last spring where, I don't know who else would have been, but I know Mr. Demling and Ms. Renino. I think we both. But you had every right to, and you were offered the right. I wasn't offended. No, no, but I mean, I just remember you had every right to do it. You recorded every right, but we also had a practical conversation about how much time you had to be able to deliberate and that worked through. And I mean, I think that possibly of more consequences is that people, more consequences is that people who have sat for 10 months and the cycle will no longer be permitted to complete an evaluation that will be part of them. That's a big change. I consider that a much bigger loss, to be honest with you. Well, that's what I'm saying. It's of more consequence to actually have the evaluation. And that's actually the reason why, in my mind, I kept thinking we've got to find a way to move the calendar. Regardless, reorganization hiccups, that's why, in my mind, we got to move the calendar up in a way so that it syncs up with when most numbers are because you guys have a lot, since I know my members who might be here who are not going to be here after the town elections, you have a lot to offer. And I think our superintendent would benefit from hearing from you. Agreed. It's my opinion, anyways. Okay. Superintendent Gould, are we okay? I see nodding. Superintendent, by the way, we're racing ahead of our normal time of schedule. So people are set by that, eat more cookies, raise points of order. We can kill at least an hour doing all that. Superintendent Gould. Feels a little funny doing it right after that last conversation about timelines and should these be three months from my goals? Well, I just, I want to know that we're anticipating you submitting your portfolio or how about this? Around three weeks from now, so. That's a good budget hearing. Good luck with that. So there's a newer version of what it was emailed to you. It's front and back. So just making sure everyone has the update. I got some excellent feedback today and there's one thing to add that I didn't get to add in the text, but I'll add as I share them. So thank you for those of you who are quick on the email. So these were adjusted from, oh, I'm sorry. Can I see one question? Yes, please. Is our goal and our hope that we discuss this tonight and then vote them on the 13th? They were originally presented at the last meeting. This is their revised goal. So I think if the committee is comfortable voting tonight, that'd be fine. Well, it won't set me back any, if it ends up being the 13th, this is ongoing work, but that'd be for the committee to set. Okay, I just wanted to frame the conversation out. Yeah, thank you. Sorry, sir. Comedicage. I would like for Anastasia and the other committee members that aren't here to be part of the vote, if possible, if we could do that next. My thoughts. That feels better to me, too. I have no objection. Okay, well, that's not funny about this, but our conversations are always sort of organized differently if we're racing to a point where we're voting and when we're discussing and giving feedback, and so that's why I was framing it out at the beginning. Absolutely. But I also appreciate the give, so I'm going to give you an opportunity and all of us to think about it. Yep. So with everyone's speak now, because otherwise, I'm going to assume we're not voting tonight and we're going to give Mr. Demling and Mr. Rodani as an opportunity to vote next time. I have no objection. Okay, so, sorry, jump ahead. Sure, I'll be brief. So these are revised, one of the pieces of feedback was a request from a school member to add explicit connections to last year's goals, which I thought was an excellent suggestion, a couple other suggestions that you'll notice, minor changes from was emailed. The one feedback piece I'll do orally is I forgot to do it in the writing. I apologize, and I sent them out late, which is identifying which of the goals are professional practice goals, which of the goals are student learning goals and which are related to the district improvement plan or what we're talking about district goals. And so I'll just briefly mention them. Number one, I didn't get much feedback on, so it's mostly unchanged, but what you'll notice from last time is, Ms. Maria rightly noted that I should be linking these to standards and indicators, so those are listed on all the goals afterwards. And I would say this is a professional practice goal around communications, obviously connected to last year's, but I do think it's tightly connected to the rubric and fully supportive of something I'm working on and just as an organization I'm leading. The second goal was kind of combined. You remember there was a couple goals really connected and that was some of the feedback, so I tried to reword actually goals two and goals four. There used to be more goals in trying to connect those and this would be part of what I would consider the district improvement plan, the district's work, which is around the strategic planning process, which I think will kick off. The plan right now is to kick off in March, so budget process ends and then we can get going with that, so it doesn't get intermingled with budget processes given the year that we're having. The third one I also would consider a professional practice goal, which is around the budget challenges, so I think we've spoken enough about budget in the last eight days. I mean, certainly that's a feedback, but I don't think I need to reiterate anything that's on there. The fourth goal, I would also see in the district as a district goal. Doreen talked about a little bit earlier tonight, which is really around both engaging and she talked about SETF in particular, but there's also staff, stakeholder groups that are actively a part of this, training this March and then also using that as a kickoff to really be planning a thinking head to next year to a series of regular growth opportunities for our staff in the area of social justice, so I do want to focus, because March is a big date in terms of a kickoff, but it's not a kickoff for kickoff and then the year ends, it's really kickoff for a multi-year plan and trying to gather that feedback from that event and how it goes. It's hard during a planning, we're talking about today, I just sat inside 400 staff who are all incredibly dedicated, excited to do this work and all in really different places, right? And we think about differentiating professional development on a whole host, right? You wouldn't do like, kindergarten, if you're doing reading, you wouldn't like put the same people together and in this regard, so we're actually trying to break some new ground of how we think about social justice, professional development and offering, differentiating both by interest level and experience level, so the work's really exciting and important and again, we want to do things right this spring to set the stage for the future work. And the last one is on the student learning front, I titled it that way because it says school climate, but it's asking questions about stress level homework, feeling connected to school, one of the best indicators of student performance is, two questions, one is, do you have an adult that you can trust to talk to when things aren't going your way, right? Huge correlation to lots of positive and negative things spending on students respond. Excuse me, and also asking very explicitly about how they experience their school environment because everyone's reality is different and understanding that their demographic differences in disaggregating is incredibly important to understand how different students are understanding those experiences. So I saw that one as directly linked to student learning, it's not like an MCAS goal, but for me, I saw the linkage. So I didn't write those district approval plan, student learning, professional practice, things on there, but I wanted to say them orally, so next time I'll come with a cleaner copy that way. So the work that you've been doing, engaging with community around like dual language, is it dual language or enrollment, working group and all those different groups, where do you see that fitting in here? So on Monday night, we're at the Amherst School Committee, I'll talk a lot about that, but since it's been so specific to Amherst and not, you know, it's funny someone asked a question today about that. It's all blurred. Jeff's here, trust me, for me as well. You know, so one of the enrollment working group, people said, are there regional members getting to hear this? Because whatever the outcome is in Amherst, it's 75, 80% of the students, it has an impact on the secondary school. So I appreciate that, because the dual language actually is, someone asked, what are we doing then? I said, well, the group's gonna present on Monday and we'll go from there. And they said, what are the implications in seventh grade? And I said, well, we're not quite there yet, but I think it's an important point you're raising about what are the connections between the districts and potential changes that we're talking about. Even the summit move, right? Thinking about once kids go from sixth to seventh grade, as we're thinking about long-term, whether there's a place at summit for seventh and eighth graders, what does that actually drill down to the elementary school programming that we have? So I think it's a really good point, but I think at this point, that work has been much more focused at the elementary level. This is, forgive me for jumping in on this, because I know it's not, it's indirectly related to goals and goals of different committees. That when we were talking earlier about the SCTF goals, and I think we might have talked about this in your office a little while ago, that when you think about opening up exposure and utilization of advanced placement and other enriched intensive academic experiences at an advanced level, if you're looking at the entire student population, not just particular demographics, but the entire population, and you think I want to impact the accessibility and utilization of these courses by all students, knowing that maybe all students aren't going to be ready to, but you want to open the aperture up in terms of the students are accepting, I think common sense, or not common sense, data. Your favorite thing, research and data, tell you that if you're not focusing from preschool and kindergarten and first and second grade, then by the time you get to someone who's at 10th grade and is thinking, what am I going to take this year, or 11th grade, what am I going to take this year? There are going to be some, undoubtedly there are some students who given the proper encouragement, environment or pre-courses between eighth and ninth and 10th and 11th grade, they absolutely can take advantage of it. So I'm not saying it truncates all the population, but it's undoubtedly true that if you really said your goal was to expand the accessibility to enriched academically rigorous courses for the entire student body to the extent they're able to, you'd in fact be integrating K6 and 712 thinking, right? I assume? Yeah, absolutely. This is not a critique of the goal-setting process or how we set it up, but it does, to Ms. Chlamity Cage's point, it does sometimes feel awkward because there are unique, I'm thinking of Pelham in particular, both the last two years have some unique goals at the same time, they're all our students and on a moment-to-moment basis, I'm not like, oh, this is my 3% Pelham or the 54% region and it's our students and so I get why there's this process by which we have different districts and I'm not going down a regionalization discussion. Normalization, by the way. Right, at the same time, you're parsing it out this way, there are implications and functionally we work, I mean, at an educational level, when we have principles meetings, I have seven principles there, right? It's not like, unless it's a budget one, like tomorrow where we do have to separate, but even then we have some crossover time because what the implications of budget decisions at elementary and at the secondary level, right, there's a lot of interplay in the elementary teacher, elementary schools sometimes have a lot to say about the secondary and vice versa and that's a really healthy thing, so I appreciate that. Still got, are there other? I just have a quick, you've dragged my memory when you're going through this. The student climate survey for next year, did that survive the budget? Student, so yeah, the goal five? So we- The actual, yeah, I mean. So we- Not the goal, the actual survey. Not the goal, but the actual survey. So right, so when we went to the conference in the Challenge Success Conference in the fall, we're utilizing part of what they offered us at that conference is their survey, which they use on hundreds of schools and we've, the principals have all adapted it with teacher feedback to work for them, so there's no cost. Well, the cost is already connected to the conference. We're not using the same survey that was done a couple of years ago. So not the 2015, so- Exactly. Sorry, Rick, we're going to start all over again and create a new data point. Right, I think the key phrase on this one is this annual practice, right, on that goal. So that, you know, I understand the concerns that one might have about not doing that survey. And I think there's critiques there. I think there's critiques of the survey. But for me, we have to do something that's sustainable. And I like that we took a national survey and the principals worked with teachers at, you know, one of staff meeting, one of small group meeting of mental health folks and have made it our own. And now our cost is, the resource is time, not money. Which I think is more sustainable. Will the survey be the same for multiple years? Yeah, that's the idea. So that we, you know, what we all want is to have five years. I mean, Mike, you know, we're on the, I think I might have to list a story, I apologize if I did. It's one of the traveling back and there's a principal from another school in sort of 495 area. And he had 10 years of climate dirt survey and Mr. Jackson and I were like drooling, you know, because that's really what you want to have. Because if you have only one year, you're getting the snapshot that's valuable. But what's really valuable is we have this data, we use it, we inform in our practice, we then get more snapshots and we actually see trends over time. So that's what we're going to do. Is there anything to catch? Rick Hood is probably raising his hand. But could read, I mean, his points are true, right? It's, I mean, he said it about multiple factors, you know, not just the climate is. One data point is one data point what we're really looking for is trends and seeing how we're doing over time so that it actually informs our practice and doesn't just become this dangling data point. Plus, that's the wonderful connection to the earlier one around district improvement plan. And I think I'm going to note out loud that you were by identifying CPAC and a CTF are talking about developing a strategy in which those other priorities or elements or questions people have around the quality of our service are all integrated into the common plan. It's not like there's a series of disparate plans sitting out there or even worse that we have the district's plan than we have other special plans. The entire point is it's all integrated and cohesive and hopefully self-reinforcing. And then if we do that right, then the climate survey becomes as well as periodic and regular CPAC surveys become super valuable because they're reflecting back on that strategic plan that's being developed but then implemented. It's not the case. So when process question or timeline question, when would you do the mid-year report for this? I don't even know when the evaluation's happening, so it's hard for me to judge. I won't be here, probably, for that. I'm sad about that. Do we have two meetings in March? Do we have two meetings in March? We have a March 20th meeting, right? I wonder if that can be, since there's not a tremendous amount of feedback I'm hearing to date on the actual goals, can we actually, if we have this in the agenda for the next meeting, could we have that? I think it's an important question. Yeah, I agree. And I think we could then highlight, okay, if there's gonna be approval of the goals on February 13th, how do we wanna map out the rest of the process? Because I think the mid-cycles of one of them, but I think there's actually other key dates that we should probably map out backwards on. The process is gonna end this date and when do these things need to happen? Well, and not to sound perverse about this, but we have to map it out in such a way that we don't actually approve the final evaluation instrument after we've had all of our votes elections in town meetings, because I think there's a possibility, it means there's a theoretical construct in which basically we might have six or seven new members and like two or three current members and seriously, I think we'd wanna avoid that if we could, not to sound dumb, Ms. Merritt. This is kind of also around process and thinking about, we've done some thinking as a committee about strengthening our process in general. And so compared to the last time, if I'm, I didn't get a chance to look at this, I had to find out. I'm sorry, but that's fine. No, no, not at all. You've listed some kind of, I guess, outputs or would you call it some of the objectives of the work. And I think what would be nice for us to do, and again, this is a weird year, it's the process is short, but for us as a group with the superintendent then to come to a consensus about what success looks like on each of these and what we're hoping to achieve overall by doing this. What we hope the outcome will be and then how to be evaluate that. Because you can successfully do all of these goals and then achieve the desired effect. So I think consensus among us about what the desired effect is, what it looks like and then how we, not that that, I mean, just I think it's a good exercise in general for us to be engaging in. So final comments on this topic. So I don't know if this would be an interesting or acceptable offer from school committee members to suggest some of the evidence that you could share or you can talk about or present, because I think the new things like the IBB process probably could fit in goal one in terms of the labor management practice that you're trying to develop with the association. Also, your committee work outside, like with Mars and with the rural school committee, school network or whatever. And your work with the racial imbalance committee. So I think those are good highlights to sort of present as, you know, first to think and say. I think that fits into the, what do we feel success looks like for these, right? So those are certainly like, that's what our expectation would be for something like this. I think it informs us and helps us understand the goal better. And hopefully informs you too in terms of what kind of evidence we're looking for and what, and facilitate that discussion about what is a reasonable success look like in the timeframe that we have. That's helpful. Does it make sense to put that as part of the agenda next week prior to approving the girls? I mean, that way we could get all the members of the committee to think about that for next, for the next meeting. I was just saying that's not next to, actually for once, it's not next week. I was just saying. Throwing me off kilter here. It's actually two weeks from now. I think that would be a good idea. And it's interesting, because I think what it would inform, potentially inform us, is that as we get our structure set for the remainder of this current cycle, I think it would be valuable again to do something we talked a little bit about last year of setting up an initial calendar for next year, at least a draft calendar for next year, because I actually kind of agree with you, superintendent, that in a perfect world, given the idea that you want your annual goals to be aligned with, especially, I mean, for you in particular, more than anyone else, your goals should correspond to sort of goals we have for the district for the year, or even multi-year goals, that I don't think there's anything wrong with the idea that there could be some retreat or discussion, not in August, but at the beginning of the summer, rather than the end, and that that could lead to an approval of goals that have already been discussed and started to be worked up, even as the beginning of the first meeting of the next year. And I know I'm getting ahead of myself. My point is, by the same sort of logic, because then that would line up, basically, your goals that you're being evaluated with, with a stronger conception of, you know, when all the teachers show up again in the fall, you're already essentially working on your goals for the year, right? And if you didn't work on them over the summer, you can't do it in the end of August, right? I mean, so as a practical matter, we'd be starting to line up the calendar better with when you've really started afresh to say, you know, what on earth am I gonna start doing this coming year, and how does it relate and stuff like that? Yeah, and I'll just say, historically, one of the challenges that's not personalized to any superintendent is that when the goals get set in the fall, right? That's, I mean, in terms of leadership and principles knowing what the goals are for, you know, it's just all those things, right? They've already got their day, their schedules, and so I think if there was any way to have it sooner where that could be the lead in for administrative tweeting week in August, right? If it's always been juxtaposed sort of awkwardly, it's no one's fault, you know? But if we could break that cycle, I think it would actually really have, it would have a significant impact on district functioning. Cool, all right, so anything else on this topic? And I say that not only because we're running currently 55 minutes ahead of schedule. Let's keep it that way. It's almost not possible, is it? So at the back of your books, we actually have gifts for this meeting, which is kind of cool. So who's gonna speak up to read gifts and make the motion? I mean, out loud, read them out loud. I can't. I can't. Don't get it. We have Donor Marshall and Annie Jones to support James Faison's scholarship in the amount of $250. We have Donor Anonymous to support Student Act Repair and Replacement of Swim Equipment in the amount of $2,000. We have Donor Jones Group Realtors to support 2018 scholarship in the amount of $500. We have Donor Anthony Reynolds Senior Memorial Fund to support 2018 Anthony Reynolds Senior Memorial Scholarship in the amount of $500 for a grand total of $3,250. So move to accept those gifts, is there a second? It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion? Comments, seeing none. All those in favor of accepting those gifts, raise your hand. Carries unanimously. In the floating agenda that you have, meaning not the one that's stapled, but the one that's not stapled, I think we're already starting to create other things that we have on our future agenda. I mean, among them, superintendent goals, superintendent evaluation, I think I've got a compiled list, if it's helpful. Beyond the four that are in front of us? Okay, go for it. So I've got FY19 budget hearing, and just as a reminder, I mean it's chair's discretion, but typically that involves sharing of a budget and then an opportunity for public comment after the budget has been shared as opposed to typical meetings where feedback happens at the beginning. So that's up to the chair's discretion, but I think historically it's positioned to have comments to be more informed by the dialogue that people hear, so that'd be my recommendation, but of course I'll be flexible with whatever you want. You're silly. You're like, we could do it the smart way or we could do it the stupid way. It's like, do you want to do it the smart way or the stupid way? His cookies got me all getting so. And it's like, because you know, I'm like, all right, but I think we should do it the smart way. I think it's been well-received by the public. Not the Eric way. Oh! So we also have a school choice hearing. I'm sorry, but obviously I'm trying to be cautious, but have a strong recommendation. School choice hearing FY7XY18, second quarter budget update, which I think theoretically is related to the FY19 budget hearing, but I'd like to, my preference would be that the budget hearing happens first because for people who come, it's predictable when it happens. Yeah, I don't want to. I mean, those should not be unduly linked actually, I don't think. My understanding is there's at least one, if not multiple policy first reads that will be coming on the 13th. Is that accurate? Maybe not the 13th. Okay. I will remove. Well, these don't have to be through the 13th. What the committee wanted to know is what are the topics on our list? Right, so. Some of these are the 13th, some of them might be beyond. The other ones I have are superintendent goals, discussion and vote, because it was part of it's about a voting goals, part of it's about a broader discussion about evaluation. Protocols? School committee protocols, warrant process, and regional transportation and circuit breaker advocacy. Yeah, and I think you could even put regional advocacy is another topic beyond the letters. I mean, not necessarily for next meeting again, but just for the future. I just have a timeline question. Our vote for the regional budget that will go to town meetings, when is that scheduled for? It is March, I'll tell you in one second, I'm sorry. I believe it's March. My confused. I just seven. Yes, you're right. That's what I was gonna say. Can we just double check, is that in time for the lever? Is it 25 calendar days, 25 business days? Because we were just backing that up for our school committee and we thought March 5th was kind of our deadline to get ours voted on, so I was just curious. We could have miscounted, so I just wanna make sure we hit the time for it. It's funny, we've been debating Pelham, right? And so, we'll look into it. I don't wanna miss it by a day. No, but Audrey, it's good you're bringing it up. This is something rather than sitting here and trying to answer the question right now, it's like after, you know, we should, not to sound neurotic, but it might be nice if we just double checked all of them. Just to double, so we can, you know. Yeah, I'm clean on Amerson Pelham and I think I'm clean on Schuetsbury. Who would be the person in Lebron? I don't mind. I think it's Matt, Margie would be the one who put Pelham together. So I will follow up on that. Yeah, I wanna say our town meetings April 28th or 26th, whichever is that Saturday. Okay. And then we counted out 25 days on the calendar, but we weren't positive on the, I think 28th, so. So I will check on that and then through Eric with the committee now. Thank you. Yes. Yeah, I just listed a few other things that it looks like we're gonna talk about. You can tell me if it's not coming up. So you mentioned an update on Sound Academy. Yeah, I was planning on doing that. Just as an update. It's a budget presentation and hearing, so I thought that would be part of that topic. And the Smith vote vote also is part of the budget, okay. But that Smith vote is a separate vote. Yeah, it should be listed separately. You're right, thank you. Do we need to bring a list of ideas for new member orientation to the next meeting given the timeline? I think it'd be advisable if we had some kind of presentation, initial presentation then. Why don't we put it in the list and we'll see where we are. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And then, do you want me to bring whatever update from Mr. Terry on Super Valuation? Yes. Yeah, I was trying to phrase it, the superintendent goals slash evaluation discussion vote. I don't know if that's too broad. No, keep them together. It's fine. Yeah, superintendent goals and evaluation process. That way it's very clear. That's where it's very clear, both of those things. That sounds like enough stuff right now on our agenda. Is there anything else, by the way, between meetings, you can always email me and Dr. Morris and we'll put it in the queue. And next time what we can and what we should do is try to have this same running list. And I know, Mike, we had done this before where there were, at one point I remember we had like three or four meetings in which we had stuff blocked out for different meetings. If we could, I mean, I'm happy to work with you on this but I think we should do that here and it would be fluid enough that if members of the committee think something or just has good advice, like either you want it done sooner or Ms. Kacinski says, you have to do it sooner because we won't be able to get a budget done otherwise. Then either way, we can hear that and move things around. I think that'd be nice. But what we ought to do is set up a meet and you and I should set up a meeting sometime between now and then and we'll do that. Actually, the running list that I had would be the year of the good news for the committee and the meeting that's going to end earlier than it said is, like a lot of those things but remember we had this long laundry list? Like that list is much, much shorter than it was six months ago, five months ago. It'll keep getting shorter. Yeah, but it's good news. So unless anyone wants to wait till 10 o'clock to adjourn, like it says on our agenda, I would entertain a motion. I move to adjourn. Move to adjourn, is there a second? Second. So that's a reluctant. All those in favor of adjourn raise your hand. It is unanimous we adjourn. And thank you Amherst Media.