 Okay, seeing the presence of a quorum call the meeting of the Amherst School Committee to order at 6.04 p.m. Welcome everyone This is the last meeting of the year, school year for Amherst School Committee, so it's a big deal Okay, so the first order of business is to approve our school committee minutes of November 27th and I'll take a motion The approval of the minutes of the Amherst School Committee at over 27th 2018. Thank you. Do I have a second? Thank you, Mr. Dumlin give the committee a moment to review the minutes Mr. Dumlin, I feel like I always need to remind the public that we get these electronically a few days ahead of time So yeah, we have plenty of time to review them and I don't know when I first watch the school committee meeting I'm like, how can you prove the minutes? I was like, oh, you've seen them before, okay There's always the last minute, you know Yes, so if there are no edits It's a committee ready for a vote. All those in favor, please take the fiber raise in your hand and We have three in favor in one Extension, okay. Thank you very much Okay, moving on we have announcements Are there any announcements from the committee before we go to public comment? No announcements. All right So we will move to public comment If anyone in the public would like to make a comment, please come up to the microphone and state your name. You have three minutes Hi, thanks for the opportunity to comment. My name is Johanna Newman. I live at 137 Stanley Street Which is in district two and I have two kids at Fort River elementary school a kindergartner and a second grader And I guess I'm here to share three Core thoughts the first is that you know in the wake of the previous building project not coming through We now have really clear numbers about what it's going to cost both to renovate the school that my kids are in What it would take to actually so that it's you know kind of doesn't rain into the school And we can turn on heaters safely and that cost is twenty nine million dollars just to make those renovations Replacing the school is going to cost forty six to sixty four million dollars and that's just for Fort River So, you know, I just find the costs associated with getting our kids into quality learning environments staggering and I Don't know how Amherst is going to deal with that and I thank you for your attentiveness in dealing with this issue But I'm also here to just urge you to come up with an interim plan because as you know The Massachusetts State Building Authority didn't let us into their process again this year for a building So now based on I believe mr. Morris's estimates the earliest we get our kids If we do two separate buildings the absolute earliest we would get quality schools for our kids is 2033 I don't think Fort River or Wildwood are gonna last that long. And so we actually need an interim solution while we come up with a longer-term plan and I Want to urge you to move forward that interim solution? Start getting community involvement around it so that you know, we can move forward together And then obviously I think we just need to keep the pedal to the metal on you know the actual underlying infrastructure problems we face which is you know, we need new schools and I Can't imagine Amherst being able to fund anything other than a co-located building within the time frame that we need Thanks for the time. Thank you. So my name is Virginia Wardlaw I am an airmate area to students and my address is 57 Amherst Road in Pelham, Massachusetts So as you know recently there was a act of anti-Semitism at the school We're in right now where a swastika was put on the back of students backpack and Recently we found that You guys not you but the school hasn't been giving Jewish students a voice in the matter and I Understand that after school there's going to be a meeting where we're allowed to talk about it, but I feel as if it should be Required I don't know if there's gonna be an advisory planned, but I want to know how as a community we can give Jewish students a voice and Allow them to maybe take the lead in some of the conversations So, yeah, thanks so that was a Just a reminder that this committee deals with primarily the elementary schools In here in Amherst, but I think we can certainly take these comments to the meeting of the regional school committee, which is Our next meeting is January. Sorry, Dr. Morris 15th. I think 15th. I believe So we'll take these comments there and these become part of the public record. So, thank you Any other public comments? Hi, I'm Depp Leonard. I live on Old Farm Road. I have three students in the Paramers regional home school district I have one at Fort River and two here at the high school ones currently playing basketball over there It was 17-2 when I left so we were doing well Ah So I'm as many of you are and many of the communities and I'm really Spinning about the numbers that I've been hearing lately the certainly the 12.4 million dollars in repairs to buildings that are at the end of their lifetimes Another 29 million dollars just to bring Fort River alone up to code the Previous study from Wildwood was 20 million dollars for Wildwood. These numbers are Staggering and with no MSBA funding for 2019. I guess what I'm asking is For a plan to make a plan going forward I mean that the plea has gone out and been heard that we should stop rehashing the past Which is easy to do when we have something to do with this energy that this Concern with this sense of urgency that we feel as a community for the needs the academic needs the equity needs in The face of the fiscal realities of our town. So I think the community can come together and work together But there's nothing to do right now except just keep going back It's like balancing your checkbook. You keep going back and saying the money's not there. What are we gonna do? The money is not there. What are we gonna do? So, please? Thank you for your part in all of this, but but please think about ways that we can Think about moving forward and formulating plans for fixing this really awful situation. Thank you Her public comments. Okay, seeing none closing public comments so moving on to Superintendents update Sure, and I'll keep it brief. So we've talked in multiple committees about the diversity teacher workforce grant that In effort to increase the diversity of our staff with current para educators. There's no website, which is listed on the sheet One of our para educators is featured on the home page So it's again trying to publicize the work that four districts the Amherst public Amherst our districts combined as one Holyoke public schools Springfield public schools and The North Hampton public schools are working together on this front along with five colleges, Inc Tomorrow morning There's several staff members really staff across the elementary district They're visiting a school in East Longletta that successfully Implemented breakfast after the Bell program and the short story of breakfast breakfast after the bell is that we know some of Our students aren't having breakfast at home and then based on whole range of factors aren't having breakfast when they come to school So a school in East Longletta has it up and running and is a model school So desi is actually going to be there as well I think it's listed below and so we have a team including custodian classroom teacher Administrators and food service staff attending that and when we come back in January with the food service update That was one of the budget guidance questions We'll be able to include some thoughts on this but we resolutely scheduled for tonight But it felt like when I talked to Miss Palmer the food service director be really odd to have the conversation about budget guidance before this is a major exploration So we pushed it to next month Our preschool again is working with multiple other preschools on the parade of model to better meet student needs And what was nice? We put this in the Friday newsletter and actually a community member reached out and said oh I'm actually working on a similar project another community and is now connected with our preschool coordinator. So Really nice that it's not just us, but there's actually multiple preschools across the Commonwealth working on it And I think the last thing I'll mention is that And school remember, you know, mr. Dennis you can share as well Last week Fort River hosted a meeting for current Fort River Let's you know families to hear about their experiences to help not just inform the dual language program But get feedback in the school how people how families experience the school more generally We were happy with the attendance and a lot of good feedback was gathered and the idea is how can we make this group kind of a advisory group moving forward I'll talk about a little more implications for dual language programming when we get to that agenda item, but I thought it was Good it was worth mentioning at this point as well and a few things Yeah, I'll just say that I had received a phone call from one of the coordinators of this program a Week prior to the actual meeting taking place and was thrilled to get the phone call and The call was entirely in Spanish, which was completely appropriate given the target demographic target audience and The idea really for it goes beyond getting feedback for the dual language program It's actually about encouraging participation and volunteering An involvement in Fort River school, which is fantastic for Latino families who don't typically Get a say in that way or you know aren't necessarily sort of solicited I guess to participate in that way It was really exciting and there was good turnout as you mentioned The again the length the meeting was entailed and almost entirely in Spanish People seem very excited to be there. There was some food and the you know the general environment was actually really congenial So it was great I'm really happy to see the school moving forward in this way and inviting community to come in You know sort of open the doors wide for these families. I think it made a huge difference people felt really good There were a lot of smiles and a lot of attention being placed. So yeah, it's great to be there. Thank you Great. Okay. Thank you. Dr. Morris. Thank you So moving along The first item of business is Cambodian artifacts the gift of the Jones library collections Dr. Morris, I'll let you Help explain what this is all about So I'm just going to show some images up above But there's a memo in the packet that explains it a bit that we've had a long relationship with the schools I've had a long relationship with the Cambodian community all the way back from the when the refugee project started many many years ago and Fort River has a I think you know having taught there a special collection a special connection I think with that Cambodian community not that the other schools don't but historically There was a larger presence at Fort River than the other elementary schools and Fort River has a collection of materials And we want to make sure they're preserved and what we all know about you know schools is There's a lot of kids there and sometimes that works. That's what we do and the other thought is in terms of preservation It's not always the best environment for materials And so I'm gonna try to do double-duty and speak while I Show some of the materials that are here. You can see the do not touch signs outside the library, you know So students are wonderful, but we don't have a lot of closed spaces for storage at Fort River And I'm fast-forwarding a little bit because I want to get beyond Some of the great pictures of students just to show the types of materials that these are we've used them for educational purposes in the past They tend to be rather delicate Items some of them again are photos of the history of the refugee experience and Amherst Original stories that go way back and So the Fort River staff Came to me many of the a couple of the Fort River staff members as well as a UMass professor Richard shoe who's been leading a group a community group That includes staff members to talk about how we can continue to best support the Cambodian community and Amherst multiple Generations after their arrival And What the recommendation from that group which I'm bringing to this body is to deed our collection to the Jones library In a second I'll invite someone a representative from the Jones to speak to that So we'd be giving up kind of quote-unquote ownership and permanently gifting the materials for For us it's a way to preserve the history in a way that we still could have access to the Jones is down the road all Of our students visit the Jones every year, but it's not just the school history It's actually part of Amherst history and that was really the the key principle about wanting to gift it to the Jones We feel like we have this treasure trove of materials that We would like the whole town to have access to because it's such an integral part of the town of Amherst So Cindy, I don't know if you would like to come up. So Cindy harborson from the Jones library. Yeah, you can join me here It's going to speak a little bit to the connection and what would happen at the Jones library with the materials if they were If you support them being gifted So we have a small collection of Cambodian related materials that date back to the 1980s our ESL program was established as a response to the Need for adults to have some English as a second language Instruction and and so there was a lot of support there for for that project, which still continues and flourishes today and so then the special collection seemed like in meetings with Tori Weed and Fran letting Tim thank you That it would be a good connection to have the materials there for right now they're on carts in the library sort of tucked in the side and there was worries from the staff as They're retiring the people who were closely involved with the project of retiring that the materials might get lost and so special collections is That's what we do is house and preserve important items like this. So We think it would be a great fit everybody in the community would have access to it they met over several months with Community members and and they were all very enthusiastic about having the collection come to the Jones so that's And we would make it available and there'd be a you know finding aid for it and everybody who wanted to to see it would Have access to it as they do to all of our collections so that's My and I'm happy to answer any questions So does the committee have any questions? Our guest or has anyone in the community expressed any direction to this move? I mean it seems like a really like you said a great fit Seems like a very high-level community support For my not not for me everybody I've talked to is really my chair and sherry the director is very excited about having the collection there Lynn Weintraub who does the ESL program put me in touch with Tori and So people seem really really excited about it. I haven't had anybody To me personally express any any problem with it The same on the school side is that this really came from staff who are deeply connected and committed and some of them really Connected from the first generation movement to happen of Cambodian families to our community And I think they're just at a place of These materials are getting older. There's no rates as I mentioned There's no great storage place and you know for us. It's actually a great You know and I'm not sure how much of a conversation you've been in but just to have students realize that the library the town libraries are places that the town's history goes to be Connected and is accessible is a really great lesson because for young students They don't they think of libraries as books, right? Which is not that that's not true But that there's special collections is actually a wonderful place where you can find out many many more things and not just the books that you Want to read and bring home and read on your own with your families, but actually there's so much of the town history that is That is connected and literally at the Jones. Mr. Nakajima. Yeah, I'm just wondering whether the materials are well documented now in terms of what everything is and where it came from and What the special history behind it is or if that's something that might Happen in a more whether it's well organized now or whether one of the benefits of this is it might be better organized If you were housing the Jones had the collection So I've looked through the materials. I've seen them once and In my mind, they're not really well organized. So I think that this would Be a good opportunity both the people of Fran and Tori were very interested in continuing to work with me on on doing that sort of You know adding the information about where the materials came from and And making sure that that's documented. So I think it would be a project Going forward to make sure that that Is done and just sort of putting like things together Yeah, awesome Quick question. Are there plans in place or in the works potentially to encourage access of the elementary school students to this collection once it's If it does move to the Jones Tori and I spoke briefly today We were having trouble connecting because I was sick and we had to cancel and then her daughter was sick today So I don't have details, but we talked briefly about Plans in the future to do some community outreach event and also With the students sort of showing them that it's being transferred and that sort of thing So I think it's in the works, but I don't have details So I Think it sounds great I mean, I appreciate also the ability to catalog the items and to you know Provide proper storage for them. It sounds like, you know, this is a really valuable resource for the community So thank you for thinking about this and making them for it What I am wondering though if there's any way to actually create some sort of Leave behind I guess at Fort River Whether it's a poster or one of the items, you know that with a note or some kind right so that students and teachers and parents You know family members can see That there was some sort of history there and and you know and even provide Some direction to go to the Jones library if you want to see more materials from then it can even be something They can circulate out, you know on a regular basis or semi-regular basis. I don't know but just a way of Providing that link between Fort River and Jones, you know And so maybe the same thing could also happen at Jones or I could say, you know Some sort of thank you to the Fort River community for doing that But just I think it strikes me that for students, especially for families With Cambodian heritage that have come through Fort River if they visit the school that there should be something there that says, you know We acknowledge I think at the mural it's out here, you know in the hallway here at the high school Just a way of acknowledging the contributions of that community to that's that particular school Yeah, so I think it's a great idea and I think the thing to note is these materials aren't like readily accessible during the school day So I think if there was some way we could think about sharing You know whether it's a plaque or some note that actually is more visible than the materials are now About that. I think it's something that you know yourself myself Sharon We can figure out things a great suggestion because actually will highlight even though the materials literally won't be there It'll highlight them more than how they where they currently are. Yeah. Thank you for that suggestion. We'll do that So there is a motion If I'll take a motion, Mr. Nock, do you want to read that? Sure. I Move the Amherst School Committee Adopt the following motion moved to permanently gift the collection of Cambodian materials Currently housed at Fort River Elementary School to the Jones Library for archiving in their special collections. Wonderful. Thank you Is there a second? Second. Thank you. Any further discussion? The only comment I'd make is having Toured the Jones thoroughly. I don't know. Half a year ago or more I love I love the special collections and I thought a number of them are really remarkable What they also are is they're largely oriented towards our town's wonderful literary and agricultural heritage which is phenomenally white and It's it's a funny thing I mean because by the way, this was happening when I was a kid in our schools So it's sort of like a weird thing to like think that stuff that you remember and Experienced around you and it's like an important part of our community on a very sort of day-to-day I mean I hate to say it but very much like the students who were earlier talking about negative incidents in the high school That's part of our lived experience, right? And it's it can feel mundane or it can feel very personal to people, but it's also our town's history It's who we are and who we become and so I think the idea of the Jones Not only protecting the materials, but also finding ways to include it so that when people look at the narrative story of our town It includes all of its dimensions including the wonderful Contribution is well of experience lived experience of the Cambodian communities is wonderful. Thank you mr. Okay So are we ready to take a vote? All those in favor of the motion is put forth, please signify by raising your hand. It passes unanimously. Thank you very much coming Okay Next item on the agenda is the Fort River Feasibility Committee Dr. Morris sure I can start and you Sure, so we had a good meeting last week And just to you know the goal of this update is just to orient the committee where the feasibility Committee is in process So it was the first opportunity to look at cost initial cost estimates that were draft They're getting revised. We have another meeting on Thursday morning 930 yeah, that's really only the first revision. I'm sure that coming out of that meeting will be more Yeah But it was good to see a first draft some of the topics that came up or were discussed were Not just a net zero by-law, but the spirit of the net beer zero by-law and with that spirit included You know how many pvs not in a literal sense, but in a figurative sense are consistent Or is it really the building envelope and the heating source that contributes that sweet? I think a robust conversation about you know implications of net zero Just I mean I'll give only a little bit of color to that because I think it's useful from a cost perspective one of the things the designers were saying is that the cost of photovoltaic panels has gone down so much over the last few years that if you literally want to build a net zero energy Elementary school and let's say for the sake of arguing you have lots of lanes you could put solar panels on it that you already own You could you could create a zero energy building without adopting the kind of forward-thinking Building design or materials that you might have looked to do And no, but it might have been necessitated to do in the past And then so the question that came up Which is also raised by a member of the public who attended was is the spirit of the by-law that it's pure and simple Zero energy in which case there are cheaper ways you can do it the way essentially you might have I Hate to call it a leaky building because it's not literally true But the point is not as state-of-the-art tight a building which would be more expensive But you just put up more solar panels to offset it or is the spirit of the enterprise that no no no no no No, we're gonna be a forward-looking community that adopts, you know if not state-of-the-art designs ones that are really pushing where our community should be in terms of energy efficiency and Not adopting sort of the photovoltaic analogy to saying if oil is only 35 cents a gallon Why not just put in a bunch of oil burners and don't worry about insulation under building envelope? Which would be the analogy from 50 years ago? And so I'm sorry and there's cost implications to doing that right so you could have a more expensive looking design Because theoretically you're saying let's do something that pushes or adopts the state-of-the-art As opposed to doing something that's cheaper on paper that says well it is zero energy But it's honestly the building is like any other building this design. It's not zero energy and I think you were actually somebody to give this feedback the Committee even though it understood that this made for a more expensive sticker price on paper for a study, which is all this is We adopted the more expensive sticker price because we felt like saying to the community we were going to pick And we were not going to try to adopt the state-of-the-art around zero energy in terms of building design and the building envelope didn't seem to fully Comport with the spirit of the by-law the town had adopted But and also the other point is if that's the most expensive it gets then if the town whenever it decides or the committee decides to move forward with the building If you want to pick something cheaper pick something cheaper, but you'll know what you'll know what the disroys is are Yeah, thank you. Yeah, no it does and there was a little window Yeah, and I think the framing that that I'll say I personally had at the meeting was to fold one was Understanding the net zero implications of all the models not just new construction because it's really important When we're looking at ad reno that the ad part of it has to be net zero And there's a lot of focus on it on the new construction and you know in my perception It wasn't as well-defined on the ad reno models and what do we in someone else raised? What do we do on the rent? Tomorrow's can you please? Oh, I'm sorry Models no, no, sorry We talked about this at the last meeting But I don't think we went into it in much depth is that if the portions of the building that are being renovated Everything subject to the zero energy by-law, but the portions that are new construction have to be constructed so as to be zero net zero The portions that are being renovated but not replaced do not have to be net zero They can be more efficient, but they don't have to be net zero So my my column was actually about the ad reno comment right because it's addition renovation Yes, I just wanted to clarify that for the community in case somebody's listening and wondering what is reno mean Anyway, so the point the point of it is though is that in it I think this is the point that the superintendent was making my to meet at the meeting and today Which is was useful was the the designers weren't really providing feedback They were and they weren't they they provided like a table that showed the relative building efficiency of different Forms of construction, but it was really vague what that really meant like how do you translate that into? Let's hope you're gonna jump in it Sure, so so I want to you know, I guess my the way I'd say it is I wanted apples to apples Comparison of the energy usage and consumption Of all the different models because you know at this point You kind of think consistent with the language of town meeting in the school committee The goal of the feasibility committee is to present multiple options and give as much data to the committees and the community as we can And so anytime there's one model that has significantly more presented data I'm not saying there's not actual data, but it's even more presented data Reasonable people could come to the conclusion that oh, that's the one that Is the preferred one by some group and and that's not how the feasibility committee is structured itself It's not how I think the school committee has structured that the dialogue that happened here And we want that reflected in the presentation materials, right and the other things since people are talking about the numbers the numbers are Estimated as of 2020 or 2021 fall 2020 yeah fall 2020 so it includes 8% inflation put upon their baseline cost estimate Some of the other numbers in there are being Subject of some debate like you know if you have soft costs, do you is it 25% is it 22% is it 30% But reason I'm saying that is only because how you how you pick or justify those percentages based on the professional judgment Of the designers can add or remove millions of dollars of cost that are basically just being I mean I don't be I'm not diminishing it But it's based on a judgment right in the same way that if you inflate the construction cost by 8% to fall of 2020 If inflation goes out of control guess what it's going up from there if inflation is significantly below that There's pretty little construction Inflation then it's going to be below that In that sense their estimates and one of the things that the designers said that they were trying to build into their work Was go being very conservative on their on the numbers they were using of the percentages and by conservative I mean in this case Erring on the side of it being too much money not too little money Put into it. So Their hope was that if the numbers look high That's because it ideally would not Go likely higher than that if anything might be lower than that. All right. Yep That's and so in so the the committee also discussed Trying to provide whatever feedback to the this isn't a decision. It's just literally the conversation As soon as possible so that by the middle or the late January there might be Numbers that were more sort of locked down in terms of a deliverable that could be then brought back to this committee and the public more general The only other thing I'd add which is On the agenda topic was slightly different slightly tangential to this conversation was There's a group that will form that was identified to work on community outreach and you know When's a good time to have forums and how do we you know present the material? So I think that group probably will you know get going likely after the holiday to look at the multiple events that are happening across our district in January try not to double book where people have to make a choice between a high school musical and and learning more about the feasibility so there'll be more to share at our the next Amherst school committee meeting on that topic but it's Certainly on the feasibility committee's mind that we're getting pretty close to needing to take this show on the road And get some feedback from the larger community as well That's great Okay, so Looking to the the committee to see if there are any questions or comments Mr. Dumblin, yeah, so I mean first I just want to thank the Volunteer unpaid for Having gotten us to this point and this is exactly the kind of thing deliverable We were looking for when we talked about this oh so many moons ago So, you know, it's I think it's good to acknowledge that that level of progress and success. Um, I guess you know one You know one sort of concern I have I'm not really concerned as much as much as something to first to just to be aware of and Put a final point. I'm just not gonna even brought this point up is that these these are initial draft Numbers that the committee really hasn't had a chance to the feasibility community hasn't a chance to go all the way through yet And I'm sure and you've already brought up a number of questions about net zero and other cost assumptions and inflation and what you know To what degree does the site impacted and what are those variables? So like this is obviously very interesting and It's gotten a lot of attention in our community and and while I don't expect the numbers to be off by orders of magnitude Who knows how they'll be adjusted and so You know, it's it's hard to look at it and then not unsee it So it obviously informs like my general thinking right like so we're we have time-sensitive things We have to talk about we have the statement of interest response coming up, which is, you know Related to this whole general topic of future of the buildings So it's hard for me not to think of this in that context, but I do want to sort of give Make sure that we as the school committee, you know Guide the public in giving the feasibility committee the time it needs to to deliberate and make it sweet Yeah, I think that's actually a really good point and well and we'll take and thank mr. Demlin I guess it's sitting as I sit on that committee at this committee for the for the comment Particularly because I mean it's it's one of those funny things. It's it's we're Subject to open meeting law right so all and we should be and so all the material should be transparent but what it means is all the points which The consultants are thinking out loud and coming up with scenarios and looking for feedback To adjust their work. They're doing in a public forum where all the materials become public and so That's just the way it is and so you roll with it and You can't unsee something you've seen as you as you comment But we're the but the point is also I think the conversation as we move forward is going to become even even more Detailed in terms of why? Things are done a certain why they're doing certain putting forward things a certain way And I think that's going to be helpful to the community and I think it's actually constructive to our conversation. I mean the reality is um Construction only gets more expensive So the idea that something is more expensive than it was two years ago And we'll be more expensive two years from now. It'll be more expensive four years from now is um Barring by the way a great depression Because as it turns out if you have like a really really really big recession Then sometimes things actually do get cheaper I remember the second time I went to japan Uh food after the great recession there food and hotels were actually literally cheaper in japan the second time It had been like 12 years later, and I was like freaked out Um, but that's like a I mean I'm not gonna I'm not gonna sound silly about this That's literally like 1930s stuff. It's like worst-case scenario But um, so my point is that's the environment we're living in where I think whatever the numbers end up being Things are going to be more expensive five years from now than they are today And we're gonna have to it it's a normative Has a normative impact on the decisions we make as a community. Yeah, so I want to say, you know, I mean I appreciate that we're seeing drafts early and that the public is seeing drafts early like It is a higher socialization challenge and a communication challenge because it's it's this is the in draft process As people are working through and asking questions, but but but that's that's what you get with with higher transparency You know you get this this this to me is preferable then And seeing nothing and then at the very end seeing a completely Pre-packaged final deal. I mean we have the same exact theme on um We did a school district planning board, you know where we're you know We get worried about the public perceiving that we're going in a certain direction But that's that's how the sausage is made and the public should be able to see how that's all happening And draft documents by consultants is something we deal with as well. So it's uh, you know, I appreciate this level of of uh transparency I would I would second that I mean I think from my perspective It's helpful to know that this is a work in progress and that this information is still being developed and that there's feedback That's available that that can be made available from the community and from the committee and and that this will continue to be fine-tuned I guess That said I I do think that it's important to contextualize some of this information and so You know that the numbers do feel So much higher than what you know, perhaps some community members were expecting previously right based on our prior experience with another project um these numbers, you know, the the I guess the cost has increased so much faster Perhaps and then a lot of folks, you know, believe that that could that could happen and even though there had been previous Uh, you know conversations around the increase in cost annual costs for these kinds of projects to see it on paper And maybe not have the you know complete context of like how it is How is this relative to other projects? For example, you know, do you see typically this kind of cost increase year per year? And I'm looking I guess to both of you having sat on this committee and having those conversations with the designers To help shed some light on that right because I think that that's part of what's missing around the community conversation with this You know the numbers feel so much higher that some folks will react with skept skepticism around it And others just feel like wow like this is you know, how do we how do we deal with this right so You know, have you talked about that? Is there a rationale for it? You know and to what degree have you really bored like drilled down to understand, you know What what accounts for this one of the one of the things actually that the feasibility committee asked for For next iteration is actually more benchmarking against other projects to understand how this Project compares I mean, we would have been happy to have gotten that and then it'd be in your your packet But since they put together the materials and presented it to us that was a question that came out of it So one of the questions is going to be how does it compare? I'll let I mean I'll superintendent jump in but my understanding is that the site costs are higher Then or the sites outside are high, but maybe higher than they would be at a different location in town and At least on the margins the zero energy adds some cost to the project as well Don't forget also everything you're seeing has that eight percent inflation adjustment out two years into the future But you know tacked on to it. So you have to back that out You have to back that out to see what the present cost would be Yeah, um, I think I'll speak a little more about this in the next agenda item So I don't want to have a awkward segue. That's not my goal But I think I still have questions that I know will come up on thursday. So Um I don't feel great about respond. I have the same questions that you raised I don't feel like I'm resolved with um, I do think to mr. Nakajima's point about cost Escalation if you think about people comparing to a prior project, this is a project in the future That was a project that would have been in the past. So the escalation is it's more than just two years It's actually it's actually it's multiple years, right? And so just You think of cost escalation at three or four percent times three or four years. That's a lot of money And when you're talking about millions of dollars to begin with So I think I have a pretty tight construction market right now too. Yeah, I mean it's a Seeing nodding over there. Someone who knows. Yeah Yeah, um, particularly all over the northeast particularly in massachusetts We continue to to see that and hear that Just it's really hard to get subcontractors and folks that do it There's there's enough private building also which is A little easier facilitated For a lot of people who work in the trades because there's less hoops to go through and So I'll talk about this a bit more perhaps in the next agenda item But I think in terms of the questions, you know about site about net zero about why the cost would be You know what the escalation and how do we end up at numbers that are harder than typical again? I think at the next meeting I'll come back a little more clarity and I'll share a little more at the next agenda Yeah, and it's not my question wasn't intended to have you know the two of you come up with the answer It's a very complicated question But I do think that it's important again to contextualize it just you know in terms of helping the community understand And if the Is going to be sharing that information out to make sure that that is a part of that conversation, you know and that there are You know that the rationale is given Consistently for why those those costs continued increase. I mean I've heard you know materials costs are increasing Concrete the parts of concrete and steel for example, you know shortages that have happened just you know Just constant surplus attitude and the labor shortage and so we're paying more for For labor and and competing with a lot of other A lot of other developments, right? Are there any other questions or comments from the committee on this particular topic? I'm curious now that we have the town council formed and Salve I missed the integration, but um, how have we been communicating between the port river feasibility committee and with it Any or all members of the town council at all just thinking about feasibility not just in terms of the site feasibility or feasibility of what we can build there, but the feasibility in terms of getting that all in the community invested in this but That So I know that at the last meeting last week there was a discussion of the feasibility committee about trying to get on the town council's agenda Um, I don't think that's the only group interested in connecting with the town council, right? But I know that there was some dialogue about that topic and making sure that before this group disbands Which is not wildly far in the future There's an opportunity for town council to interact with the materials and the work that feasibility committee Okay, um, so what are next steps after this? Okay, so, you know meeting thursday 9 30 And I think we're planning. I think the two pieces are one Kind of more finite and clear answers to some of the questions the questions that came up in this conversation Really mirror a lot of the questions that the feasibility committee raised in their first interaction with these materials So one is uh, where do we go from here on the practical level? What feedback do we give the the design team? How do you get more clarity on some of the numbers behind that? And the second is how do we do more community outreach? And what does that look like it's a small group listening sessions It's a kind of more large group some combination And connecting with the elected officials the different bodies in the community With the goal I believe of having the four report done sort of mid to late february You know the designers felt like that was a reasonable timeline Yeah, although to be clear because since this became it was a topic. I think a month ago or so The when we talk about doing outreach it's around the report and the deliverable And trying to make sure that when the we're putting together the report presentations and appendices If their question was the town people in town have that when they're saying Um, I want to are you what you know? What is this telling you or how do I does the chart explain to you what it should explain? You know what I mean You know there was making sure the feasibility study itself is able to be accessible and answer questions And doesn't require an expert standing next to it Explaining all the charts for someone to be able to access it and become better educated about it Do you feel that you have what you need from this committee at this point in time to? Yeah, yes, okay. Yeah, I do. I think what you should do though when you're Planning ahead for your meetings if there's a good time on the calendar to have being obviously after probably Early to mid-January if there's a good time A good meeting for the feasibility committee to come back or to come back and present or discuss Be good to think about that Yeah, I think from from my perspective and I don't know if the committee disagrees That makes a lot of sense. Um, you know, we have talked before about sort of bringing back a more final product if you will And so I guess just working out with the superintendent with the committee. Yeah, you know what the uh Yeah, I see nodding heads. Yeah, great. Okay, great. Thank you very much. Thank you Okay, uh, so moving us along the next item is the msba response to statement of interest And I'm gonna in a moment turn it over to the superintendent To take the lead on this conversation. But before doing that, I just wanted to take a moment To say a few words that um, I didn't want to get lost during the conversation So um, and also this is just for community who may be watching at home So, you know in the past week or so we've heard from many amherst parents caregivers and concerned community members Who are understandably disappointed. They're sad. They're angry even about the uh, msba denial And also the the news that we just discussed right the the high cost of the possible future projects at fort river Um, of course, there are going to be strong feelings when it comes to news that has such a large impact on our students and educators lives And with so much consequence It feels like everything is at stake and we don't have a clear or easy path forward for addressing the many problems with our school buildings That said, I'd like to urge us all to remember that while we've disagreed on the appropriate course of action We cannot lead with anger or with shame We need to move forward together as a community if we hope to provide safe healthy learning environments for our students as soon as possible And this isn't just wishful thinking Communities that have advanced through the state funding pipeline after rejection have done so by showing the state That they are united in their request and ready to move forward We must find a way to show that we're capable of collaborating That we've come together as a community If we ever hope to leverage all necessary resources to fund any project in the near future No matter which avenue we choose We will need to present a united front that may not be in complete agreement over every detail But definitely believes in a common goal and is willing to compromise to get it I've met with community leaders on all sides of this issue recently and have heard concern from each and every one of them About how to make this right I'm hoping that we can activate these sincere expressions of purpose and focus To figure out next steps and to overcome the challenges we face together Our kids are counting on us to get this right and we can't afford to lose any other opportunities I hope that as we hear on the school committee as well as a superintendent and town government leaders and concerned community members Begin planning where to go from here that we can put distrust and anger aside to make positive change happen And so with that i'm going to turn it over to dr morris To share some more formal details about the decision And then so that we can discuss any next steps But i also want to allow if there's any you know comments or things that any committee member wants to say before that point To go ahead and do that. Mr. Demling. Yeah, I would echo your your sentiment and your call for for cooperation I've also spoken at length with a number of community members Many of whom supported and many from opposed the the past project And it's it's a tricky thing being a human being that has a natural emotional subsystem with natural human reactions Wanting to be sincere and truthful with how One is feeling and yet then engage with others towards productive action um And um, it's it's it's tricky, but but not impossible and I feel like it's possible to It's I think it's okay to be angry. It's okay to feel frustrated. It's even okay Um to feel frustrated or angry with a group or a person I think simply just having that feeling by itself is nothing right or wrong with that feeling. It's it's then What what how do we choose to express that feeling to with with what action and that that's where I feel like The the steps ahead are in terms of our our practical Um, you know what we do practically and I actually I just don't even think it requires trust I think sometimes, you know, I mean what we went through a year and a half ago is it was pretty intense and um, there were a lot of hurt feelings. There still are a lot of hurt feelings and there may never be a Total level of trust between all engaged community members, but But what we what we do need is cooperation You I feel I feel like with a common goal if we can define What the practical next step is that that we can all agree on that we can then work towards in cooperation Um, so it's it's it's a tricky balancing act. It's it's it's not easy Um, but but I definitely think it's it's possible and and I would 100 agree with you that that's that's necessary for for whatever next step we take Sure, um, no, I um I absolutely agree with the foregoing sentiments. I also just think that The the conversation we've had over the last few months about the current conditions at Wildwood and Fort River Both sort of the day-to-day Condition of the buildings and experience as well as also What we think the usable life of a lot of the building infrastructure um But you know also we've just heard from so many people just every single day either working in or living and experiencing the buildings and People need to have a sense of direction in a sense of hope that within The sort of fiscal constraints that any community has and that our state has That we're going to get to a point where we have good schools and good facilities um And so I don't I don't know and I think we need to focus on that and we need to build towards a consensus on it I don't know How we want to approach that conversation and how we want to build Momentum I do agree That if we want to get back into msba and superintendent could tell me i'm wrong in a second He finally gets the microphone Is um, I I think the town showing Some level of direction and consensus not on the end product meaning the building will look like this and it'll be on this site But on a general goal and direction Is probably going to be pretty important. I think the school committee doing all to do that I think the town council being able to do that And I think members of the public um, who can Who can eliminate the notion that there are different sides? Because ideally there would only be one side in this effort Where we're where there are lots of voices some including people who maybe weren't the loudest last time but were concerned about Property taxes and sort of how expensive this town is to live in Um Those voices are still going to be at the table and they should be at the table, right? Because we want to be concerned about that But the question for me is When do we get to a point? I'm going to be very blunt. This is the right forum for me to have this conversation Um, so we need to apply again for a msba We need to get in and we need to have a consensus in this town that we need Uh new facilities whether honestly at this point because we're in the middle of this feasibility study Whether that means 100 new construction or whether it means some percentage I don't really care right now if you're in favor of a new Facilities that are optimal for our staff and our kids and our families Then if you agree with that sentiment Then you're on board and that's great The second one to me is We don't have I don't I don't know whether it's 20 28 or 20 34 Or whatever the number is and what you put on a slideshow back a year ago was somewhat hypothetical anyway But it's a really long time from now right so If realistically we could get in in the next year Then we could get something done probably in the next five years right five or six years. Maybe five years If it's five years Then the other normative bias I have Is that people should come together and commit themselves to the idea that we're going to try to solve The conditions of Fort River and Wildwood both I'm talking about facilities I'm not talking about educational programming I'm talking about facilities And if we could get a consensus that we need to do that And that we need new facilities That would be an awesome place for us to be in There are an enormous number of details that would have to be worked out There's the implication of regionalization with Palem there's the implication of Looking at space planning at the middle school Um, so there's a lot of stuff to work out, but I think the spirit of the enterprise Is a consensus Putting aside some differences Not sweating disagreements around some of the details And including and by the way, I'm not saying they're not important The entire point of disagreement is that the details are actually very important to people and in their lived experience But my personal view of it is after experience of the last Couple of years, but certainly the last few months of talking about this If in this is where the process is important I would have preferred to have this conversation a month from now or five weeks from now When we could have dig even more deeply into the capital plan And looked at what we need to do for the capital plan at the elementary level Talked about what those needs are talked about what the alternatives are And frankly to be honest with you done a bit of a more of a deep dives Um Community effort to see whether or not there was consensus that these buildings are in terrible shape And genuinely need to be replaced. So now I'm sort of just telegraphing what my answer is Um, and so maybe I can't convene people anymore, right because I I'm too I'm too certain about what I believe Um, but the bottom line is I don't think it's a hard consensus to get that we need new facilities Whatever that means to you and I don't think it's a hard consensus to get That we that we don't have 10 years 12 years or 14 years. What the hell it is to solve this In that if we can solve both populations and create a quality learning environment in five years Everyone should be on board to doing that. Now, how do we have the conversation and the process to get there? I don't know. I mean as I said, I'm sort of giving the answer to the the problem before the problem's been posed But I passionately believe this is something we need to do as a community And I actually believe I agree with something that was said earlier That one of the surest ways to get us From a point of conflict and backward-looking and towards a positive forward momentum is to focus on the positive If we could all commit ourselves that we are going to solve this problem in the next five years And we are going to do it and we're going to do it together And they're going to do it for the benefit of the kids of this town and the staff of this town That'd be a wonderful wonderful thing to do and I believe we can And you'll tell me we can't Or not Sure, um So I usually don't write down my statements because I'm not very good at this I'm not Barack Obama who can do the teleprompter thing and look like he's not doing a teleprompter, but um, but I Right, right. Well, even if I did, right, uh, I'd be bad at it, but Right But um, but I wrote things down because I think it's complicated, you know My thoughts on it are really clear how to express them is a little complicated. Um And hopefully, you know, you someone use the word blood before I think, you know, I'll get there. Um, So I want to say this is a framing piece that, you know, this is something that I talk to the town manager about all the time You know, we met end of last week No, that was yesterday never mind. We met yesterday. It's been one of those kind of things. Um, we speak about this frequently and and I say that not because To talk put mr. Bachman on the table here, right? He's not invited to come tonight But to say that this has to be a collaboration between the schools and the town, right? And I think people know that but I want to start from that place of the importance that At school committee meetings and we have some counter examples tonight But we typically have people who have either children in the schools or deep connections for historic reasons to the schools And really what we need to figure out, you know, from my end is I can share the school's perspective But the town's perspective is critically important in all this work. So that's why I start from that place. Um to talk about So I've had multiple conversations in the MSP over the MSPA over the past week about the statement of interest process And um, I just want to summarize some of the key points they shared So the first was that the MSPA found the statements of interest to be detailed and complete There was no critique of the technical discussion or submission, you know, because I you know Anytime you don't not successful in a submission or anything You always want to get better and and they did not suggest any You left out this building system or they had a question about it. They they felt like it was a complete full submission They also wanted to share that they had high demand. They have many expensive projects in the pipeline So they have two projects right now that are secondary school projects that are over a quarter of a billion dollars One got voted successfully ones up for a vote. I believe this june That's in their pipeline, but it's up for a town vote. And so this impacts how many projects can be funded they have a fixed budget just like we do and And so when there are individual projects that have that level of capital outlay that affects how many other projects they can take They also shared that every year of the statement of interest process is a brand new year There's no consideration given to anything that has occurred in past years such as prior submissions Other things so whatever we did this year, even though that we got positive feedback on the submission doesn't mean It's going to be more or less successful on the technical side next year because they look at it every year as a fresh year The MSP does look to cities and towns that are ready to engage with them on their project. So kind of readiness is a component They shared when they continue to receive regular communication From citizens expressing a diverse range of viewpoints. It appears to them that communities and they're not talking about AMR So this is a general statement. It doesn't appear that the healing or consensus has been reached from a community So they are looking about readiness. They are looking for everything that was shared by multiple committee members here Um And so I said, all right, so what do we need to do to make this a bet? I'm hearing about the technical submission I'm hearing about this. What what do we as a community need to do to improve our chances next year Because they acknowledge our buildings are not in great shape, right? There was no disagreement from their point So, you know, I made multiple suggestions and the suggestion that they said Other communities who have failed had failed projects with them before have done that's been well received Is could a statement be added to the 2019 statement of interest? They've been include a formal statement, perhaps with data or votes from elected officials that can answer two broad questions What do you absolutely want and what do you absolutely not want? So right to the to the point. Mr. Nakajima said and we haven't talked about this So, you know, it was I appreciated the framing you offered because it really directly Connects to uh, what the mspa shared They're not looking for exact information of square footage or you know, what the That kind of detail is not even this net zero piece for them is not a detail that they'd be overly concerned about But compared to um Some communities that have whether it's be cost or great configuration the whole range of reasons why communities have failed projects to have Some clarity on whatever that critical issue is So that they get a sense that the community is ready to move forward and they'd be actively looking for that and it is an acceptable Um part of a statement of interest submission Now wouldn't be they're very clear and I'd be very clear It's not that the superintendent thinks right that that's they value superintendents They're great about you know how they work with educational leaders But they're looking for what is the community value and is there consensus in the community on how to go forward? So again, not super specific space configurations But general size of school, right and and those types of things were what the mspa told me that Um would be positively received if there was consensus on those things Just to remind you of the timeline statements of interest are due in april So I just want to frame out if we're backwards designing how do we get there from here, which i'm going to speak to You know, that's our timeline So i'm going to go off mspa and then this is just sort of my thoughts coming forward So as an educator, you know, my primary responsibility is to be an advocate for children Right so above all the other and all the meetings I mean what I try to focus my attention is how can I advocate for children to have the best educational experience period In this particular instance my Overriding priority is getting amour students into learning environments with falls ADA compliant spaces and in schools with parts Mechanical parts that we can actively fix that parts that are sold On the open market not on ebay not on other places That promote learning as soon as we possibly can that's my priority number one. That's my priority number two That's my priority number three all the other pieces the details Are way down on a secondary list of things I think about and eventually I'll care more about them But my main priority is that how do we provide high quality learning experience experiences for all students as soon as we can and so I think I say that because our team of educators can make Learning a work in a variety of You know some of those details we can work those out and we're also have I think we've shown ourselves as a district To be incredibly flexible you can't walk through some of our schools and not see the flexibility of our teachers Making good sense of how to make a bad situation better now. We don't want a bad situation new school I'm just saying that our level of flexibility is high partially because of our experience with the experience we've had And so You know, I guess my outcome is to me it'd be a great failure for our students If our current kindergarten students all of them weren't in high quality quality learning environments before they left elementary school Right. I'd love it to be all students right now. That's not in the cards. It's not feasible But that'd be my goal for the town is can we guarantee that all current kindergarten students In the town of amherst and the Amherst public schools Don't leave our elementary schools in open classroom Open classrooms and that's my goal So You know, we'll do our best to advocate and to the conversation about capital Which we'll come back to in january. We'll share more information there to improving the buildings as much as possible to that time But there's no way to address some of the fundamental issues of fort river and wildwood No matter how much we spend on capital improvements over the next five years Some of the fundamental challenges of those buildings will remain the same and to me that's just unacceptable Also to be clear my role, I have no control whether the town will fund any schools without msba funding Any thoughts in the spirit of the net zero bylaw, right? I could comment, but that's not mine to really answer Uh, or any other aspects that are townwide that are relevant to the work So oftentimes i'll get asked, you know, do you think the town would fund x y or z and and that's not mine to say Um, and that's why I see in the collaboration of the town is so critically important It's for elected and appointed officials in the town to discuss and offer opinions about But with this I will guarantee you I'll be a dogged advocate for getting to a resolution as soon as possible to improve the learning environments for students And that's going to be my sole priority As it relates to this, we have students and staff in Spaces 180 days a year That need to be improved they need to be improved as soon as possible And that's where my mind is as it relates to this Anything less than having closed classrooms with natural light consistent heating cooling systems that are sustainable So we're modeling our values to our students not just Providing good learning environment high quality learning environments, but we're actually Talking about net zero bylaw and we currently have really inefficient buildings, which you know that mismatch for our students is not the model That I want to have So that's just for me. That's where the priority lies the other pieces We can work within lots of constraints. That's the constraint that we need to focus on And just to put some context on it wild would it be 50 years old two years from now or year and a half in 2020? Fort River turned 50 in 2023 And having these buildings hit these anniversaries when we think of the lifespan of a building being 50 years Without having really major and renovations or upgrades to the core issues of the buildings In those 50 years is not something that I looked forward to celebrating I'm sure we'll do celebrations of 50 year anniversaries and all the wonderful history of those schools But there'll be there'll definitely be moments of sadness when Staff members who started in 1970 at wild would look around the building and said, yeah, we didn't like it in 1971 Because I know I've talked to those teachers. I know those people I've heard the stories of the staff room in 1971 and how people were responding and couldn't believe that we were doing the same thing over again at fort river and To have nothing happen or nothing even really in the queue in those years just feels unconscionable to me And I'm sorry to be this blunt, but this is just, you know, I want to be honest about how I'm feeling Um, I want to actually just show something visually So this is on the msba website This is public access if you go to msba dot whatever there at massschoolbuildings.org. It's a one click And it brings you to this and what this is a chart of is the cost escalation over time So you could see that there's little Orange dots. Those are completed projects And then as you go into the future 2019 2020 The different shapes indicate where the processes are right so the ones that are open are not fully completed yet And what you can't see up there, but you can see on the screen because it's cut off is the per square foot cost And you could see to the points that were raised earlier significant jump In per square foot cost deal, um, you know, all the things that other people said I'm not going to necessarily repeat ourselves But for the current feasibility project, we talked about eight percent, you know from now to 2020 and short of economic calamity, which we're not rooting for, um Right that that there's not just educational reasons take bold action steps now There's actually financial reasons to take bold action steps right now And they're seeing across the state. So when we talk about per square foot cost And the prior project and was coming in the kind of low to mid 400s per square foot You could see that that line is trending upward and trending upward pretty significantly And this is this is every project in the mspaq that has a cost estimate right now So we could certainly pick projects and go into detail on all of them I suppose and if it'd be useful, but that's not my point of putting this chart up My point of putting the chart up is The time urgency is significant financially not just on all the pieces that a superintendent. I care about All the trending is moving upwards from multiple architects Not just the ones that are working on this project but other ones in the area that that escalation costs We're not seeing that go down And if you think of two years being eight percent eight percent of I'm not going to put a number on it But let's just say 50 i'm not going to put a finite like this project will cost but 50 million dollars That's a lot of money right that's multiple millions of dollars and that's going to grow and grow So I do feel urgency both ways that my concern Educationally is if we don't take action soon things will get more and more financially uneasy about moving forward I think I want to close by Before I prompt to ask a question. I want to say i'm fully aware of three facts One that remains division among some in our community dating back to the previous project and You know for me, I think that's understandable. I agree with the commentary of the committee members And I'm solely focused on moving ahead. I don't spend much time You know if any thinking about the prior project. I'm not saying others shouldn't but it doesn't behoove me to to do that Because whether however, I felt about the prior project it didn't pass. It's not a reality and I'm most interested in the students we have and what we can do about them The second is that my full belief is that everyone who's engaging in this issue Whatever their belief structure was in the prior project wants the best thing for students They want students to be in high quality learning environments I've yet to find a person who thinks now things are really fine how they are. Maybe those people are out there I'm sure there are but there no one Speaks to me about it the people who are advocating on a whole variety of fronts on this everyone has the same goal in mind And the third one and this is maybe the hardest comment to make but Um, I think I need to make it which is good intentions won't be enough Right, so we need collaboration. We need cooperation. We need Frankly, and it was word used earlier compromise to figure out how this is going to go forward So I think everyone's coming from a place of good intentions. I truly believe that And if we stay just in the good intentions place and not how do we move the next take the next steps I foresee, you know, the goal that I set which is kindergarten current kindergarten students being in new classrooms By the time they before they leave our elementary system, you know, I just have high Harbor fears that that's not going to be a goal that the community is able to reach I'll go back to start where I Go back to finish where I came from which is I'm in regular conversations town manager We're meeting next week on this and so what I'd love guidance or thoughts about is what's the process Let me rephrase that What are thoughts you have about how to move ahead? And next steps the community can take to get us to a place where We have a statement of interest that has a clear statement Voted by in my opinion voted by public officials elected officials That truly strengthens our approach for next year and then not just gets us in the process, but actually sets the course for Expedited process once we're in right so one is just like do we get in and how do we do that? and the second is if Believing it not just that it's just a way to get in but actually no We've actually already agreed on some of these core principles We can we can breeze through the first couple modules here of the msb process because as a community We've had enough leaders and I don't mean just elected informal leaders But leaders in our community who have endorsed this path forward So I know that was a mouthful. I usually don't talk that much consecutively But I just feel really strongly on the issue and feel like it is you know, if not One of if not the critical issue facing the elementary district at this time I appreciate your comments dr. Morris and I actually would say I absolutely 100 believe that that it should be your priority The way that you've outlined everything Just in terms of prioritizing the the welfare and benefits of our for our students and for our educators, frankly So I I do agree that that's where your mind should be. I can't speak for everyone else, but at least from my perspective I appreciate a lot of what's been put into that statement I'm wondering if the committee has any immediate reactions or responses to what's already been raised Both, you know the the tone and some of the ideas or those other things It might just actually a clarifying question And thank you for your statement. I also totally agree with with that as a top priority For you, but my my question is is going back to your conversation with the msba about Signaling community consensus and if you can provide any more sort of Description about what does that look like practically right? You mentioned voting, you know officials voting but voting on what voting on the msba application or What what could that look like? Yeah, so I think I'll answer technically, but then I don't think your question is a technical question So I want to but I do want to answer technically because I think it's relevant So both in the model For msba applications both the school committee and in this case the town council will have to vote for it to move forward So on a technical side, whatever agreement Is written in the statement of interest has to be voted. Otherwise, it doesn't go to the msba But at the larger, I think with the To get closer to what I believe you were asking Some communities I mean like there's examples of communities where the cost was a big issue Right, so project failed and it wasn't the primary issue was Some people in town felt like and I'm going to again make up numbers just because I think it makes it more tangible You know the project cost 30 million and some people said well, it should really cost 25 Right and in some of those communities, there's been agreements of elected officials and community members like well Actually, we're going to do this project, but we're going to cap the cost at A number that's somewhere in between like I can I know one example or I've been told of one example where that That occurred and so in the next statement of interest they were clear like yes, we were didn't agree on this critical issue On the last project. We know that msba funded We being them we know msba funded this project and sort of lost some money Right because the project didn't move forward and they want to see projects move forward But we're now in a different place and this one Kind of thorny issue has been resolved and there's consensus moving forward You know projects fail for a variety of different reasons, but I think that that's one of like the tangible things where The community was able to say we can compromise in this case On a cost that the community feels they can afford and in this particular instance There was the school community was you know There was a gap between the school community and then the non-school community in this In this town and they were able to work out those differences ahead of time and msba was assured You know based on votes that were taken. Oh, actually no, this this is fully endorsed by critical stakeholders in the town so I'm not suggesting the cost was the main driver and our particular situation, but I think For us to collectively come up with something that had broad community support and is reflected in votes of Kind of major elected bodies of elected officials Would be the outcome that I think would be the strongest The spitzer and mr. Dunlin So thank you so much for sharing all this With us and I really appreciate the detail on the feedback because I I think the thing you're stressing and the thing that I'm feeling is The urgency and so there are two pieces for urgency that I'm saying here one one is we want our kids in new school It's as soon as possible But now I'm also here in the urgency of by april we need to have some sort of way of demonstrating to that msba that our town has gone through some sort Dialogue I you know some sort of process that we can demonstrate And just you know taking the game this is coming right now off of your comments But some sort of agreement on why the past project failed, which I'm not sure You know, I think that's going to be difficult to achieve this And then also agreement on maybe potentially setting some bounds on future projects that would address The you know the reasons why the past project failed and I you know Think that that was going to require engaging with we've mentioned the elected officials um Membership, um, you know that there are several there are at least two organizations or Coalitions, I don't know what the right word is but but two community or you know, those members of our community Sorry Two community groups that kind of represented the two opposing sides of on this issue I think we don't want to engage with those folks and they're going to be the voters too those Like you said those with kids who have an investment in in our schools That's more tangible than those without kids And then potentially we might on maybe go up and talk to some of our state level representatives But to me this is sounding like a massive project to get done In time for april and I think it's going to require a lot of our attention and I think what we need to I mean, obviously we're not going to come up with a process for it all today, but I think given How urgent it is to get This funding I think this is to me seems like the most viable way to move forward with Our town and getting people on board is to lower the cost by getting some money from the state And this is the only way that we have that opportunity to do so So if april's when we need to be able to demonstrate Some sort of agreement in the community We're really going to have to work hard so I'm just I want to start a conversation on how we can do that And if it's going to potentially require Convening all of these folks on some level because to me I don't see how we can get here without at least having Some engagement with the groups I just listed So one thing that I forgot to say because I have too many handwritten notes in my statement because Just hearing you talk made me think of a number of things which was good, but then you forget to say them Um is I feel like this is my perspective It's no one else's but my experience has been that some of the work that's happened since the failure of their prior project So the enrollment working group the fort review feasibility study I'm not saying it's solved all wounds or you know, everyone is is in the same place But I think there has been deliberate attempts to Continue and to engage stakeholder groups that may have been in on different sides of prior of the prior building project Are we there yet with everyone feeling connected? You know, I don't think so. I also Think there's relatively finite options, right? There's not 15 I mean and to be clear I'm not suggesting that we get to the place in a statement of interest where we say Yeah, we want to do an addition renovation like that's a level of detail that I would not suggest Is appropriate. I think actually it would be read negatively by the msb. I like how did you come to that level? That's not the that's a level of detail. It's too small For in my opinion, but I do think there's some there's a finite number of solutions And I also think the town has a large role to play in this dialogue, right? So, you know, I tried to be explicit about it before by using example But it's not mine to say whether the town can afford to do a project non-msba You know, that's not it's not I I'm not going to comment on that. It's not my it's not mine to say But we do need the town to say Yeah, we think we can do that or no This is what we think we can afford or this is in the bounds of what we think is Fiscally responsible and so I do think in addition to what you're suggesting in terms of Folks who may be on may have been on different sides of prior projects engaging and having some Getting the financial recommendations from folks on the town side is crucially important People may also not agree with me that a goal is to have all students currently in kindergarten Out of open classrooms by the time they're in sixth grade I mean, I want to be really clear that that's my I'm going to advocate for that because I think that's the right thing for students I don't want to presume That that's shared by the larger community, right? And I may be way off on reading the community on that and I'm not trying to be flip about I'm being very Intentional in how I say it from superintendent. That's the fastest timeline. I can imagine All students being in high quality learning environments Um, I think we're getting going if we don't hit that We're going to get to places and mr. McPherson said this all the way back in the summer where We're having to make separate from costs of you know, capital improvements We're just going to get to the place where So many of the systems are outdated the furniture all those things that um We're not going to have great places to go And how to fix some of the problems that are just hard to fix in buildings that are that old that were built in the style they were You know, reaching ripping out all the units and completely changing the whole HVAC system, right? That's not It's not just the fiscal cost of it. It's is that actually practical? And so You know for me, that's my vantage point, but that's certainly This is the first time I've said that in a public meeting and probably in a private meeting either But I want to establish a goal to see if other people agree with that and if they do That'll push us in a rather finite number of directions That I think absolutely engagement absolutely lots of heavy lifting but As opposed to the work of the feasibility committee or other committees It's not looking for that that fine-grain level of detail. It's looking at kind of the big Big pieces that are out there Um, so thank you for this. I like it. I like a plan of action That's something other than let's wait a year copy and paste the statement across our fingers I think the community is on board with with the attempt Um, and I'm not going to brain dump all of my comments I'm hoping we can have a pretty long conversation here because this is a pretty important point that we have Really not gotten to for a year and a half. So I'm very happy that we're at this point. Um so I do think you make an excellent point that we have to partner with the town and In my feeling is the town council and the town manager need to be very clear with us Whether or not they'll fund two buildings or one building. I think that's clearly in their wheelhouse. That's their responsibility Uh, I asked the town manager directly this at the four boards meeting I think he very correctly gave me his opinion, but It doesn't seem like funding self funding a building without msba is practical But he's not a elected official. So he can't really say definitively. We have an elected town council I think that's this would be an appropriate time uh to weigh in Uh to miss spitzer's point. Yeah, this is a very aggressive thing that you're proposing. Um Just doing some quick math. Uh, we have a hundred plus days or so until the first week of april And if we wait until our next amer school committee meeting, we lose a third of that time So What we don't plan now and once we're going to have another meeting Which which given the urgency and the need and the priority that everyone's expressing may very well be something We need to do even though it's holidays and part of the hard to do schedules Um, it might be something we need to do. Um, and this is with everything else that's going on I won't line item all the other busy things that are going on, but you all know Um, so it's very challenging and I also think Not guaranteed to succeed. I think like everyone else has said there is still like quite a strong level of Disagreement on a number of very key design issues of what a new building or buildings would be Mr. Nakajima expressed a I think a very well reasoned opinion about why If we get in we need to have that project take care of both Fort River and Wildwood. I would tend to agree with him I know that there are people in the community Who don't share that feeling under any design I know that there are some deal breakers like for example under any building size under any great configuration And and I'm purposely pulling out the most emotionally charged phrases because If we're really going to you know proceed in a pragmatic efficient manner here, you know We have to just directly confront these things, you know, I think Um, any statement of general community consensus is going to have to Face head on the issue of grade configuration and what what grades are we looking at in the building? I think it's going to have to talk about size What the minimum or maximum size is going to be And made all the more difficult by the fact that a number of things that may affect that size like the Amherst and Pellum regionalization like the Feasibility sites sixth grade to the middle school and some other things We're not going to know by the first week of April so we're going to have to take our best guess I think it's also complicated by the fact that Key stakeholders and community members aren't very easily defined Um beyond elected officials, I would say certainly at a bare minimum It's going to be the current school committee and town council And and the town manager I would imagine the town manager And even that seemed perfect right because a school committee that's eventually going to vote on on an msba project Is going to be years from now It's a very well maybe composed differently or the best proxy right for for what the school can be the same thing with the town council Um, and so yes, like I mean, I'm looking out into the room now and I I can see you know prominent figures who have advocated Strongly on both sides of the past project Um, but like you said that that's not the only stakeholders and so defining that in a way that the community feels involved Um, I think it's going to be critically important because again to be to be blunt and very direct In the interest of time You know the school committee and the town council both have a majority of members who are publicly in support of the Past projects. I think probably a supermajority Tiffany and I account the numbers. Um, so there's a public perception, you know there and so I think I think that that has to be done That said it can't it can't be done so much that it feels like I diluted sense of False equivalently compromise, you know, you talked about it's not Magadena. It was very clear about very good reasons about About the the reasoning of why accepting one building But I think those you just sort of bullet item what those big ticket Broadstroke pictures are right not down to the size of the book closet, but you know great configuration one or two buildings How how long are we willing to wait? size of building Possibly the net zero spirit Maybe something we need to Talk about in a consensus. I don't know that's so this would be a discussion right about like if the endpoint deliverable here Is a letter that is signed by a number of community members and or elected officials What what do we want to include on that sort of the first thing we need to do? Um So So I think it's pretty challenging And and not guarantees to succeed, but You know, what do we have to lose other than our time and energy? And I'm going to put in our my own time and energy given the urgency Yes, I guess I'll stop there so it's not a full brain dump That's So I really I appreciate your your thoughts I'm relieved that they align with a lot of mine I I think I don't I don't think we have any choice and I also think that We need I think I I'm just going to tell you what I think Um I think that we also need to put a straw man on the table on What a set of principles not because we have to live and die by them But I think we we're never going to get from here to there in april or even if we got a vote from Uh town, you know the town council in may or june that we then said middlete or something We're never going to get that done if we literally start with a complete tabula rassa and we say Everything's on the table. Let's start with a blank slate. Um, I also think that the condition I mean again, I'm making my argument, but I actually think the can be The cost of the capital five-year capital program for the elementary schools and the current conditions of fort river and wildwood Mitigate against the argument. It's a it's a powerful counter argument both fiscally as well as practically For why it'd be a good idea to try to Submit to solve both I agree with what mr. Demling just said that that's a kind of that even though i'm staking a position That's also a question, right? Like if we took that to the public and it turns out a huge number of stakeholders disagreed and said No, you need to you need to have one What are so called neighborhood? I guess it's called a modestly sized elementary school Um, and that's really the feedback we got then obviously i'd listen to that and say Okay, well if the first principle is We need new facilities Then then my first principle would be let's make sure we don't screw up getting at least one new facility Right at least one new elementary school Um, and i'd want to make sure we do everything we possibly can To make sure we get that Having said that i i'm not i'm not convinced it's too high a lift Given the current conditions of the schools and given actually that if anything With there's no guarantee to what happens to the middle school Or happens to pelham But the good news is in either scenario utilizing the middle school or pelham Would only mean you could build a more modestly sized elementary school And still solve for both the problems of four river and wildwood so in other words you could start with a maximum number To solve both wildwood and four river And know that a lot of the intervening factors and that in between we don't know of between now and the time We're going through a building program are likely to make it even more modestly sized. I think it would also be worth looking at I know it was already done but more again What what does it really look like to design? Uh, a single solve building that has the look and feel that gives a friendly and more intimate feel To families and to students So if there's a way of absolve of basically solving for the idea that it's going to be some big Impersonal behemoth and won't feel that way if there's a way to mitigate that feeling I think it's worth trying to mitigate that sentiment Um I got to be honest with you. I'm really ruthless on this my actual view is Uh, I think there are a lot of important issues That we could be bringing up in the context of this building So there are some people who would want to go to as uh as environmentally advanced A building envelope as possible relative to pv and other people would say if we could say five million dollars Doing pv instead of a more tighter building envelope then let's save the money That is actually something I kicked a can down the road to the actual building project design and say no, we're not going to solve that right now Um, we obviously anything we do has to be has to conform with the zero energy by-law And it'll conform with the zero energy by-law. No question about it other things like great configuration Any future school committee Has the power and the ability to do great reconfiguration Regardless of what facility gets built So what I would actually beg people to do in the spirit of getting consensus Is say let us defer a decision around any future programming around great aluminum alignment or anything like that To future school committees who can argue it out decide it build consensus and try to get something like that done If if the belief if the belief is the facilities are broken And that they're too expensive to fix and they need to be replaced as soon as possible I would argue the consensus we should be trying to get that we hold everyone's feet to the firearm Is to get that we all come together around getting new facilities As soon as practically possible meaning a new msp a thing and that we're focusing on solving for river I mean, so I'm this is my argument other members of the committee can disagree I'm just a public could disagree But I'm the argument I'm making is essentially both a practical and a political one Not only can future school committees Be a reasonable venue actually even this school committee frankly like next may Could be a venue for those same arguments And I don't have any problem with that because it's all about discussing What's in the best interests of kids in the best educational program And we can do that without While also still maintaining a positive and affirmative Consensus around the need to replace the facilities And to me also that's an easier thing So my point would be I guess is but I don't want to belabor it My point would be I would want to know From both stakeholders who are literally sitting on our audience actually right now As well as others who are watching as well as members of the town council and other stakeholders What's the minimum consensus that we can come together on that is meaningful? So it's actually saying something that matters That's why I stick my arrow on the water of saying we're going to fix both Fort River and Wildwood at the same time Because I think that's a meaningful It's it says something that means something right it's not like oh, we want a new building No, it's a kind of it's a there's a range But it is a specific solve we're trying to get that we're trying to do that in the next Um, msba acceptance Uh, and then I agree we need to find a process to try to mediate out A lot of the other details because the details are going to matter enormously to people and I'm not remotely diminishing that But if we could hang together That we are committed to replacing these schools and improving them Then I I actually am weirdly enough. I'm actually optimistic. We could get accepted and move forward And I don't know why but I am So I'm going to jump in also. I mean, I think uh, I agree with a lot of what's been said. Um I asked actually also share the optimism and I'm heartened to hear some of the feedback that came back from the msba because I actually think given the amount of attention That the previous project has gotten in our community during the past two years That enough people already have heard Arguments on all different sides and have you know kind of made up their minds about where that what they've they they valued and what they believed But most people that I've talked to no matter what the details were have said we need to figure out a solution right away and I hear the concerns from some committee members about the timeline for putting together a Statement or you know some sort of signal to the msba That says that we're ready But I actually think it's doable and I think it's doable because we have again this community that has been rallying around These problems in these schools for such a long time and have been expressing so much concern and the desire to to Fix things and to make them better That I think word can spread like wildfire with something like this, right? And I think that people are primed already to to want to do something about this I agree that we have to take care of both buildings I you know we've heard for the past couple of years again You know the we keep shifting the priority from wildwood to fort river and then probably back to wildwood at some point These buildings cannot they're basically in the same exact shape. They cannot continue to stand as they are And so I agree that we have to do something for both of those buildings And we have to figure out a solution that addresses both of those problems simultaneously I think given the the restrictions that we've heard from the town just in terms of what is is Practically feasible given our taxpayer base given a whole host of different things That we cannot move forward without msba funding and for that reason then it does feel like We have to take action on this You know by april to try to do something with that And I say that because the alternative is that we end up waiting until next year, right? We end up waiting until april of 2020 And I can't imagine any community member that I could go to right now and say well actually, you know what? We're not doing anything this year. We're just going to go and wait until next year, right to you know Because we're going to try to get some some level of consensus on all sorts of details or whatever I don't think that that can happen And I don't think practically we should expect our our students in our community to wait that long I think a lot of people have been trying to look back on us to say take some action do something and do it now so I've heard that loud and clear um And that makes me want to move quickly on something like this Now I also agree that I don't think delving into certain types of details are beneficial at all with with this exercise I think that it's really more about You know, you you mentioned two broad questions, right? What do you want and what do you not want? I think if we can articulate at least an outline of what we want That that gets us pretty far and that if we can bring that to our town leaders and say this is what we're aiming for You know, do we have at least your general buy-in we can figure out all the details later on right? There's going to be so a million and one different questions, you know And even even the budget question the cost question is something that we will be figuring out When a project actually comes to fruition for all the reasons that we just stated before right? Those things are getting expensive and you know, there's decisions that a future school committee or a future building committee can make Or a future town council will make based on what their resources are available at that time And that we have no control over right now. So for us to set a cap even I think is unrealistic um But I think that if we can at least get to to answer those two general questions And maybe what this might look like is an initial conversation that we have with town leaders To sort of get a sense of where people are what they're you know, they're they're willing to Engage around And if then we can circulate some of those initial ideas Throughout the community and so this includes all you know folks from all different sides Right who've kind of fallen on different things and have them give us some feedback Does this feel feasible? Is this something I want to give them something to react to though I don't want to put out an open survey or an open idea because I think people just generally come up with too many ideas And they haven't been part of these conversations even to tonight So I would want to give them something to react to and say is this feel like something that you can actually engage around And that you might be able to provide, you know, uh to support Were it to be put forth as part of our application process and see where we land And I think you know, we're going to talk a little bit more about some forums Um Later tonight This could be a part of that conversation right in forums Uh again, not an opportunity for not not a you know, a request for people to rehash things that went wrong or anything like that But really to help us answer those two broad questions What do you want and what do you not want and if we can get some consensus around that Um and build in those forums within a timeline that helps us put together this application And then I think we'd be looking to you doctor morris to You know you and your staff to actually start putting together the application right within the next couple of months At least that part is taken care of right? None of that has really changed that much. Um, and then all we're working on is really just building out this this statement of support For the application Does that make sense? Yeah, I mean, yeah, I don't know if committee. I saw someone raise their hand before me. So I want to Yeah, I guess just an immediate reaction to what you've heard and then maybe Yeah, it absolutely makes sense. Um, you know, again because of the feedback we received there's not a tremendous amount of the technical application is is you know Unfortunately doesn't change that much year to year, right? I mean the same problems I mean wild would have to be updated a bit with the kind of functioning boiler But you know that that's where we'll be when we submit this in april Hopefully submit this in april. I think the statement is actually the The work that has to go into it is really about the consensus building and then adding the statement around that Is much more significant workload than the actual rest of the application I just wanted to echo sort of I think the comments that that both you both of you have Described and and I share the optimism and our ability to get that done even though it is a very tight time frame I do think That focusing on you know in my world. We call it the mvp minimum viable product, right? So get you know outlining that Describing what are the big? Pillars that we want to see in in any building project and not that this should be in there But I also endorse that both buildings have to be replaced silent or addressed Simultaneously, I think not just from a facilities perspective But also just from a town and population perspective that would be a disaster To have one being addressed and the other one sort of well, we'll get there when we get there I don't think that that's a route that we want to be going down But I do think that it is possible for us to Come to some collection of pillars and principles of what we want to see in any building project going forward And I also agree with sort of that that we should put something out first for people to react to and edit if you will through through the forums and sort of Iterate on that over the course of the next several months. I think that can be a great process to get us to something that We can demonstrate community consensus. I'm less interested. I know they said what you want and what you don't want I think really focusing on on though what we want and and not to say that we shouldn't pay attention to what we don't want but I fear at this stage that that could sort of bring up sort of Bold skeletons, right that we don't really need to I agree with you. I'm looking forward. I don't want to look back but Talking about what we don't want that could very easily, but well, I don't want what we had, right And we don't we don't want to have that conversation It's really what do we all agree that we want to see and need to see in our building project going forward To me, that's one of the reasons why Not only whatever straw man or draft we would develop but I think even the end product One I completely agree with what Mr. Gondel just said that we should be focusing on the affirmative um my personal view is that even if My personal view is even if a lot of things That were in the old project weren't in a new project if the new project was a state-of-the-art building That's all both forever in wildwood and incorporated a lot of the design elements that were articulated by the superintendent earlier and we did it in a way that You know that we felt good about going forward Um, my god would be an amazing home run And if we did it in five years and it'd be such a remarkable accomplishment It would feel positive in other words people be more thinking about what we're able to get done and less about Um, they're always going to be I mean the reality is they're always going to be challenges, right? I said school committee 10 years from now is going to be confronted town or schools or teachers or superintendents Maybe you uh will be confronted with all sorts of challenges in 10 years that we can't predict what they are It's the nature of the work um Solving this facilities problem this learning environment problem is such a hugely important thing to do that it's worth Everyone focusing and sort of norming themselves around What would a shared commitment look like that could be articulated in simple pillars? But the reason why i'm glad that at least a few of you have referenced the salt Maybe everyone solve both different levels of commitment solving both buildings That it can't be jello The point is whatever the pillars are they have to be they have to be meaningful So for example if people don't agree with doing both buildings Whatever that looks like you want to hear it because the bottom line is If that's something we're saying we agree on doing that's an important thing to say we agree on doing And it would mean that two years from now after we're in the process And we're working on it There are no surprises to anyone because we all agree we're going to do that and we're going to move forward um, so Anyway, my point simply on it is I agree with the affirmative I agree we have to hear what people don't want But I think that's not that's not What the other point it would be is I think when you're thinking about an end draft not just an initial one But an end draft people are voting on it's not two pages long It's not hundreds of words To be honest with you I would start with like four sentences and see how many more than four and better meaningful How many more than four sentences do we need to have a meaningful statement of shared commitment? That would actually really cohere the town That's my thought So, yeah, I completely agree with that as the simpler the better and the more and If if we can have it be simple and short It's going to be more in the spirit of what we're talking about these broad brush You know when I think about like the conversations that are going to happen the next 108 days or whatever It's about a small number of variables that we're going very deep on small number of high level variables that we're going very deep on that are interconnected Right, so we're not talking about square footage of book closets. We're talking about size of building We're talking about one building or two buildings and um I mean as to grade configurations like I mean, we'll hear I guess we'll hear this and you know and when people get back to us in terms of uh, you know What do you want or absolutely not want? you know my sense is that conflating A conversation about the relative values or not about different grade configuration setups with a building project Just makes it more complicated. In other words, I can't Whatever we feel about the value of a different grade configuration I can't see a scenario in which it increases the likelihood of a building project succeeding to conflate it um, so Like mr. Nakajima mentioned, um, you know a way to you know defer that I don't know if we can completely defer it in terms of well Let's just not talk about it because I I honestly do think that there's just too high level of anxiety and Fear frankly in the community about that because that's that's a specter That's a skeleton that some people are afraid is going to come back and that was a concern for a number of people um But because it is like as has been noted It's a school committee policy could come back at any time at any meeting from now into the dawn of time because the school committee policy Some kind of language where we are committing to at least you know deferring it and Committing to decoupling it from the building project There's a wording thing here But something where we're being honest and acknowledging that a building project does not set great configuration until the end of time We can't do that Um, but it's it's not going to be you know part of that I think I think that would that would simplify it, but again, that's that's part of the work of on I'm doing those those um those knots um And you know, I mean, I guess I'll put my room in the water too, you know I I think probably already said this but I also agree with the sensibility of getting both done at once um, not just for the educational Purpose but for the fiscal purpose because I think you know one big picture thing that that I worry about at the end of the day is I think the biggest Hurdle is the very last hurdle, which is the public debt exclusion override asking the public to voluntarily increase their property taxes Many of whom it would be a hardship for Um, and that's a very real Concern and I'm sure we all share that concern and yet we need new schools And so how do we balance the two and so um, you know making sure that that we are as As sensitive to that as possible I think it's critical, so Dr. Morris did you want to respond or? I'm thinking about whether I want to respond. Sorry. Um I'll definitely say one thing. I'm not sure about the second. I'll see how I feel in two minutes so I think one of the challenges with The engagement piece is people are rightfully going to be asking lots of questions and there's the number of variables we had two months ago Is is greater than the number of variables we have now not that the cost estimates Could go back to their previous agenda item not that they're not drafts and not that they're not don't need work But they give some sense of scale Um, and that's really helpful, right? It also gives some sense of scale to The multiple options around new building renovation. What's possible? So I want to be really clear and stating that I feel like This time is we're in a good place to engage this because we have more information than we had previous Previously and I think there's some process benefits of the enrollment working group and the Fort River feasibility But there's functionally. We know more things now than we knew A couple months ago and that helps us engage and the lingering piece is always going to be the variables Well, when are we going to get an MSPA if we try to do one school at a time? Well, how much of that right there there's not going to be finite defined We know the answer to those questions and I think around the margins of them we have to By we I'm saying the collective we people who care about the schools in the town Um We have to be willing to take you know our best guess and take a little bit of a leap one way or the other Right, and I think that's really hard when we're talking about this level of project But for someone to ask me well if we get in if we do one at a time Exactly when we get in the second time. I don't even know when we get in the first time Right, so I think what I know is that it would be Significantly removed because you'd be working on one project at a time, you know as per their policy Um, but I think those are the some of the harder kind of nuanced conversations as people come up with questions and legitimate concerns Of how do we respond not being able to say we can definitively say this is exactly the timeline to To mr. Nakajima's point what I presented last year was a best guess estimate. I was clear There was multiple ranges of estimates on that And that's not different now So I I just want to caution Not the committee but just put out my caution that We have to figure out a way to talk about these issues That's both Clear what we know and clear what we don't know but have a pretty good sense of because I think in life We're always trying to look at like we can look and find the answer to Exactly when this would happen in the future and I'm probably over playing my point, but I'm over playing it based on experience um That you know, I can't tell anyone with firm clarity Exactly when we'll get in No matter what the town agreement is But the things we do know which we can say is Well, if we're addressing both for all the reasons you suggested Right, there's some knowns there, but you know, I just want to caution see stronger word. I just Think about um the challenge in the process is there's no guarantees That's probably what I should have just said all all along and not done the last 90 seconds No, that's that's that's great. I mean this is part of the point of this this conversation, right? I have heard a couple things come through from the committee as far as next steps are concerned So I do want to get to that very soon to help move us But mr. Nakajima is there a point that you wanted to you know I was just going to say that I mean the reality is this isn't an act of engineering and this isn't this isn't a price Precise process. I mean the buildings are right. I'm not trying to be facetious This is about setting a direction and it's about setting a set of values That's also the reason why the simplicity is important Because the shared set of goals or values that we get everyone to commit to Is always going to be a subset of the total set of values people have right and that's okay, right? Because that's this is about the community coming together solving a problem and feeling really good about it I know I'm going to sound really Pollyanna But the entire point is if we're moving forward and we're flipping a switch on this thing And we're going to try to accomplish this the next few months. This isn't about anything negative This was something really positive. This is about in five years time or six years time We've we've solved the tremendous challenge. We have in our educational learning environment and we're all doing it together And so my point on my point on this is that a lot of no one's saying we have to do this Because we know for a fact That the the out year for a second building is 2023 or four 2029 or whatever the hell it is part of my language We don't we don't know that and that's that's not the reason why you're going to say it's important And you're committing to doing it right? I mean we have a sense that two buildings built separately over a period of 10 or 15 years Is likely to be even more expensive than one building built in the near future to solve both But we don't know with precision what that number is and I would argue if somebody's willingness To support this shared endeavor is dependent upon having that analysis in that number Then we're dead in the water right that's not going to work because the bottom line is it's important to do And it's important to do it is likely to actually be fiscally more prudent to do it now than later And if it's genuinely a shared commitment and a shared process From now to down the road with a future building committee Then there are a million details to be worked out that taxpayers in the town can argue about to make a building more efficient That people are going to argue about around this size of the play area And how the buses pull in and drop off kids And god bless them. I'm looking forward to people arguing their socks off around those things Under the shared commitment that we're going to come to a project. We agree on and we're going to do it So just very quickly, uh, I just Go ahead because I don't want to I do want to wrap up It's not in response to what mrs. Nakajima said and actually I think it pushes us to the next steps So hopefully it's a it's a little bit of a dour segue, but it's a segue so, um You know the other thing that msp is shared, you know, because I shared, you know, okay, that's really helpful feedback You know, we're in a good place. I shared about the feasibility study and we're gathering more information And then there's you know folks in the community who may have been on Opposite sides of a prior project who are now functionally we have two examples of Working collaboratively together and that's really important And you know the comment I received back about you know I asked what if what if we can't do this by april, you know What if it's not possible and the responses, you know, I'm not making you you know The person I was speaking to was not in a decision making role on the statement of interest But I said, you know, well you have to think about whether the community is really ready to commit the statement of interest Right, or if you really need that extra year to 2020 to get the community together She was extremely clear with me that They did not look negatively upon that. They said, you know, it was really if your community is ready They'll show that they're ready If they're not ready, they're going to show they're not ready And maybe the 2020 is a more realistic application for your community I think that's worth sharing because it was a very direct point about that and to be honest I appreciate the directness of the msba in general I'd much rather have that than sort of a wishy-washy answer. They were not wishy-washy on that topic And that's a great point. I mean, I think uh, you know in a very practical point too, right? If a community is not ready they're not ready We can't force it and I think we've learned that also that you know that there's there are projects that will not Come to fruition If people are feeling in any way like this is not the right project or you know, they're not ready for it or whatever So but just in the interest of wrapping up this this uh topic and with the committee's permission What I've heard a couple of things that I just want to repeat back just to make sure that everyone is in alignment So one is that we we are going to aim for April of this year at least to try to get some sort of engagement. I'm looking to everybody just to see like heads nodding or and shaking That we will try to get some kind of of community Consensus together whatever that ends up looking like right and that that also said that we want to address both buildings I've heard pretty much everybody say that so it sounds to me like that's a that's a great positive step forward and then the other thing that I'm hearing is To put forth some sort of Thing for people to react to right so that would probably necessitate. I think some sort of group work or you know smaller Conversation of folks to help bring something back to this committee. Maybe at our next meeting And then that allows dr. Morris to use some time I think to check back in with the town manager and with other folks here in town To see what where we think we can get to does that make sense to you? Any other thoughts or ideas that you have or if there's anything else that I've missed So the only three points that I've sort of picked up from tonight. Yeah, and I heard the same thing. So I want to Yeah, so the only timeline thing that I'm having trouble. I'm having a cognitive dissonance about Is what's the role of the school committee in the town council and what's the interplay? So, you know, is the school committee going to write A statement to be discussed publicly before the town council has been able to weigh in on some of the financial ramifications I don't have an answer. It's just a question that I want to pose and from a process perspective, what's the right process? Particularly as it relates to town counselors And making sure they feel included And it and that's something that I certainly can talk to as I mentioned on meeting with town manager next week And get his two cents on I mean, he's got a better I've not been to a town not town council meeting to date. I think that's extremely important Is to actually check in with the town manager and get his input on that I think you have a good sense of where the school committee's timing would be and where we would want to engage And I you know, I'm conscious of the comments that have been made previously about You know making sure that we're not waiting too long for school committee conversation Simply because it, you know, we'll make it a lot harder for us to be able to bring back to the community Any any of the thinking or anything like that, right? So sooner rather than later and you know, Mr. Navejima I agree. I agree with everything you're saying. I also think it I don't see I'm not saying you're saying this but I don't see anything you're saying Is contradicting the notion that our committee could still work on Drafting and putting our thoughts together because I think one it'll just help advance the ball to I think The spirit of what you're saying I'm going to go out on a limb and assume the rest of the committee agrees that We're trying to find consensus. We're trying to find a process that engages everyone that clearly starts with the town council, right? So anything we're doing in drafting If the first thing we hear back Is a really strong pushback on some of the core ideas or principles that we're putting forward Or ideas then we're going to be all ears to hear that But I think even there My view is the positions that everyone have expressed the ideas we've all expressed here today Come from experience. They don't come from no place. They come from a lived experience Both of the buildings, but also hearing from the community of russing with these issues for a while and so The flip side of it is if I were the town council, I would want to hear what we're saying Assuming what we're putting together is done in the spirit Of a very first conversation A desire for their input obviously on the fiscal side of things So I think I mean my point would be it seems to me you could engage Heavily in the way you're describing And the committee could put together some draft ideas that would then inform that conversation Is an idea Mr. Deming um, so that sounds good So my my logistical so I also feel hopeful, you know People have expressed hope, you know, and it it is weird around this topic to feel hopeful. It's the first time I felt particularly Possibilities are possible creative hopeful I don't know if that's too articulate so But that's we're feeling right here because we are so like zoned in on this conversation, right I'm trying to think of the community that's going to get wind of our conversation And oh, did you hear the school committee was all like jazzed up and hopeful about the future? I'm like, okay. That's great. And then we're not meeting until you know, January What is it 11th or 18th or whatever and so and so this just kind of sits and I don't I don't think that Dr. Morris will will want for things to do on this I'm sure he could talk to the town council the town manager and things when we could draft on our own Our ideas. I'm thinking about the public just sort of Waiting tick-tock and they sort of don't know anything's going on And we're losing like a third of our time to engage the public and and I don't I don't know I don't I don't I don't want to add meetings unnecessarily, but I I don't know if how else that we can You know Bring our draft ideas together in a way that honors open meeting law And and talks about a next step for because this is such a new idea Dutch nurse Oh, I'm sorry. I think carry I'm feeling this right. I may need to Yeah But I don't want to leave I without having a chance to say I agree with Mr. Demling we do need to get moving on this and and all of my expressions of the urgency if this weren't to say that It's not possible. I'd like to reiterate that I I do believe we should and We'll be able to come up with something in April and we should submit in April and I I guess my only concern is when you were saying that we all agree on The need to address both buildings at the same time I'm a little worried about the perception from the public on that is that that's somehow us using code for like We need to have a one building solution And I don't think that's something that we can I'm worried that will backfire on us and I think I think we need to stay At least in these very early conversations to open to You know, I I agree, but I want my kids to you know, they'll be In uh, all of the kids of Amherst regardless of which district they're going to be in a quality building environment But I'm a little worried if we leave with Without saying explicitly, you know We're not saying it explicitly, but I'm worried it's going to be interpreted as such that we're saying We're all behind having a one building solution to this And I'm just putting it out here because of this time frame because we don't have the time to build content is Without starting this conversation now So I I guess as we start drafting that I think maybe it's if Maybe that's what we come to maybe that is is the only way to address these fiscal challenges But I'm worried that that might be a deal breaker for many members of our community And if that's the case and then we may end up having this conversation again in a couple years or even just next next time this year, so I guess I'm just putting it out there because I want to make sure we're clear about how we're communicating And I'm not ready to say that like the only way I see of dealing with this right now is I may get there, but I'm not there yet. Um, so just because of my fear that it's gonna Hold the whole process that I'd like to hear from other members of the community before I say that the school committee's beyond that It's not that I don't agree with So on that I may Needs that I need to address um, and I'm really sorry to step out on this because it's not that I don't think it's Highly important. I really care about this. No, thank you so much. Yeah, I hope she'll be in the building Okay Okay, so, you know, I guess I mean, I think it's a question for the committee just in terms of The you know meeting schedule and when we would want to meet You know, I am conscious of the fact that the holidays are upon us and so and you know I think the district is actually technically closed for a couple of weeks And so there's you know, there's some time. I know the superintendent is probably working Other people are as well. Um, I know I'm working. Um, however that said, it's you know It's definitely a time of of year when a lot of people not just the folks sitting at this table But I think a lot of the community members are also kind of checked out whether families and all of that sort of You know definitely changes how people engage around things like that that said I think um, you know It's it's a committee decision. Dr. Morris Yeah, I mean I have a hard time. I'm gonna I have a thought about miss spitzer's comment But I'm gonna stick to the scheduling of meetings because I think we could talk about that at the next meeting as hard as it is for me So I'm happy to meet next week. I'm in a little bit next week We could certainly meet the week after you know, um, I do think getting a time where there's not Eight other items on the agenda where we can just talk about this Um, I think there's some limitations probably all of us have on schedule But if it's possible to schedule another meeting the next week of the week after I think that we had behoove us to do It behoove us to do that And I'm very open to to making that work as long as people if we can figure out the scheduling So I we also have the week of the seventh because our next meeting is not until the 22nd. So Um, I just yeah, I agree we should meet before the 22nd of january, but um, um, I don't know if it has to be next week And I would also say I mean if the end goal is truly to get more community engagement That's not gonna happen next week between Christmas and New Year's and you know, all the other holidays Exactly So, uh, I think my preference would be if we were to try to schedule something for it to be probably, you know The earliest would be the week of the seventh, um to have some engagement That doesn't mean we can't have the other, you know, uh, I think one-on-one conversations and any other kinds of meetings that We would want to have, you know separately Um, that's yeah, that's perfectly fine with me. I mean, I'm somewhat limited by other committee meetings I have that week. So probably I know it couldn't be on a Tuesday for instance Um, but as long as people have flexibility on other nights, um, You know My friends in Pelham want me there on Tuesday. So yeah, it's good. Yeah So I'm sure we all feel this but I feel like before we close we should articulate, um, because this is Going to be such a fast-moving process and we're talking about elected officials and key stakeholders and community leaders that We will have opportunity I mean you have it right now. I get his email us To for the general public to provide their input on on this and this is not going to be a closed door Hey, the decision makers are going to make this, you know, then we'll get back to you This is going to be a public Open thing, you know, we're going to try and articulate. It's not going to be completely open We'll have the straw man and all the principals who talked about but there will be that opportunity won't be closed Right and I think, you know, as I mentioned before, I think we want something that people can react to right and engage in Not just open it up. So, yeah, mr. Nookajima. Yeah, no, I was going to say I I said it earlier, um I don't care if as soon as today or tomorrow I mean, I can see at least five people in the audience right now Who probably would have great opinions to offer on what they think Would be important to see or not to see as principals In a framework thing like this Including miss spitzer's comment earlier about what the relative size or number of buildings Um And I think it'd be great to hear it because I mean in other words Getting that feedback emails or whatever as soon as possible from anybody who's watching anyone who's involved To understand what their thoughts are On what we're saying would be great and even I don't want to belabor it because I know it's the tower's late for this item, but I still I actually think it I mean whatever the end result is I think the idea that the committee Puts its oar in the water around what its statement of sort of values or principles are Is not at all the bad thing to do since we don't exist in an environment Which this is again like I've never given us any thought I don't wonder what how I'd start thinking about this tomorrow if I chose to I mean that's absolutely Ridiculous and I'm saying that's regardless of the previous product I mean all you have to do is go into for river or wildwood and walk around for a while And you probably get to form some opinion of what you think of the buildings um And so uh, so if if in my I'm I just been saying this because for the public if If some process we went through Made it clear that the only viable way to move forward with improving our facilities Was to have two Smaller or so-called neighborhood buildings, and that's the only pragmatic way that I can get to a point where gosh darn it I'm working with all of you to get new facilities for students Then okay, let's figure out a way to do that too. I want to make sure we get this done However, having said that I think the only way to realistically get there in four or five years Six years is in fact to talk about it in that context Anyways, so I'm gonna know that's that's fine. I mean, I just want to I want to move this along Because I do think we need to get a date on the box So we can share that the community is why it's possible and then move on to Where are the rest of the items? So looking at the calendar January 7th is a monday. Is that something that could work for folks? Yes for me. Yes. Sorry, what? January 7th monday. Yeah It worked for me. Yes excellent He gave a thumbs up Mr. Jumbly I'm saving my voice for the he didn't just say yes, you're kind of enthusiastic about enthusiastic about it So, um, and I guess we can uh, miss us more than if we could just put that out there and ask miss spitzer That's a that date might work for her, but if it works for everyone else here I'm inclined to maybe at least tentatively put that on the box And um, I think that might be the easiest meeting we've ever scheduled Did you see it? Six o'clock just our normal time. That's what I was assuming anyway almost Okay Yeah, okay So monday, january 7th. Great. We're good Thank you very much. Uh, this is a really important, uh, conversation And I think we do have to give it as much time as it requires Uh, but we also do have other business I won't talk anymore. You're looking at me. You can know why we need a Dr. Morris on. Yes Okay, so moving us along, uh, location of meetings Yeah, I don't have to this next topic is all yours. So Well, so this is just a continuation of the conversation that we started at our last meeting Uh, which is really and I think this can be actually a very quick item unless folks have Burding questions or concerns, but um At the last meeting we had talked about, uh, the request that's been put out there or suggestion anyway by the town That we might be able to move our, uh, school committee meetings from this location to the Amherst town Hall, uh, moving forward and the the primary reason given has been that the town hall is actually undergoing a lot of construction and The town meeting room has been sort of brought up to date including new technology that would allow us to broadcast and share these meetings both Through television, but also online More easily And then there's just, you know, a lot of other issues that have been discussed, which is accessibility and you know, uh, Transportation, you know the the fact that most people know where town government usually takes place and you know Some town hall is sort of a natural place for that. Um, I think on the other side We've also heard uh here from the committee some members expressed concerns that Leaving the schools, you know the schools feel kind of cozy and that it's a lot easier for uh community members anyway to Relate the school committee proceedings and meetings To this location or a school location versus going to town hall And then also town hall can be kind of intimidating Generally speaking, so I think we've we've discussed and heard all of that The end of our last meeting when we talked about this topic, uh, the committee had instructed me to go talk with Mr. Jim Liscoe who's the executive director of Amherst media And so I had a conversation with him about this topic and just to you know get some thoughts from him about Uh what his preference or Amherst media's preference would be if any And you know, frankly, I think Amherst media is willing to do anything that we want them to do or need them to do However, he was very clear with me that the technology in that room will actually improve the experience for A lot of our viewers and community members Um, we have also been having a lot of technical issues in this room You know a couple of the cameras haven't been working quite some time but even prior to that there was just the Problems that a lot of Amherst media staff and interns encounter With lack of accessibility and communication with the Amherst media office and you know headquarters Um, and there's a lot of technical glitches and things have been going on for years and not just since this past summer So I think you know from a feasibility or technical feasibility Perspective the move to town hall, you know would be easier on a lot of a lot of folks So I think that you know the the question to the committee at this point is Um, you know now that you've had some time to think about this and reflect on it if there is You know if you've sort of landed differently from where you were before Another idea that's that's also been put out there that i'm going to share is that maybe we just give it a try at town hall Just to see what it's like They're not quite ready to go yet I think that they're still kind of working out some of the kinks and the but but you know conceivably at our next scheduled meeting which is The one before we scheduled tonight, which is january 22nd Um, we could actually try a meeting there and see what it feels like and you know what the response is from the community Um, and if it's positive then maybe we want to keep it there And if not then we can certainly come back here But at least it gives us a little bit of a you know an opportunity to try new digs and see what happens So i'll stop talking now. This is just sort of a very like I said I think a pretty quick issue, but just want to get the committee's response to to that Mr. Dunlap. Yeah, I I think there is Nothing to be lost and everything to be gained from from testing it out and trying it out A trial run Yeah, well, it's I you know I mean I still sort of share the same concerns to varying levels about the atmosphere and Well how it's conducive to conversation and and also what the experience is of people coming to public comment I'm sorry. Mr. Naki. You've talked about before So, yeah, I mean, but this I'm really just projecting what that difference would be So why not have direct evidence and then be able to compare it? You know, we could we could even have as the last item on the agenda Okay, so how How was it we can even have a little public comment at the end if we wanted to people to say how was your public comment Was it more or less intimidating same order of magnitude of intimidation? Right, um, so I mean I just think you know having some evidence uh, this you know this could can only help Is there not going to And if they're too intimidated at the end of answer we'll have a really A really know That it was a disaster Uh, no, I I I'm okay with doing it. Um, I I was I mean it's um It's a different meeting But I was actually completely startled that members of school committee at the regional level from other towns Didn't couldn't care less if we were in Which which meant that which meant that I was like significantly more politically sensitive to their Potential feelings of you know, exclusionary alienation than they were and I'm like So what do I now? Right? What do I care? Uh, no, I think it's a good thing to do I actually I want to pick up on something though that Ms. McDonald said last time I'm not holding you to it if you change your mind But you said it last time and I agreed with it strongly that I'm perfectly happy if we move to the Town hall to do our meetings, but I think it means we should Get that feedback Listen to how the staff and the community feel about it And I also think we should make a point of setting up other meetings Or even occasional school committee meetings that then occur out in our elementary schools And go out where the people are And have meetings there I agree on the trial. Yeah, okay Dr. Morris So I don't you could tell me to stop me if I'm going to a place that Uh talks about other committees, but I think it is worth noting Um that because there's a presentation about the ADA audit on the 22nd Another nice would be a nice opportunity to actually for regional members and Pellum members as well as Amherst members to see How that works in a larger environment because there'll be more committee members at the beginning of that meeting than just the five Amherst members So it gives us actually a little bit of sense of the large group and small group And you know, I think it's a particularly good meeting Perhaps if we're going to try one to try that one because it's just this space is going to be a little hard For the beginning of that meeting I'm sold Um, okay So hearing consensus generally of the committee. Um, I think let's let's try it right june 20 or january 22nd And I'll follow up on arranging great. Thank you. Dr. Morris. Thank you everybody Okay, uh, so the next item on the agenda is the uh regionalization school committee composition elections Discussion so mr. Demling. I'm looking to you fire up your spreadsheets. Here we go. You're gonna get one all right So, uh, my Standard issue 30 second intro. What is the regional school district planning board? So amherst has a pre k to six school district. That's our us. Pellum also has one And so we are exploring the possibility of becoming one unified school district We already share dr. Morris and other central office services through union 26 But this would formalize that we would be one school committee one budget etc. And so there's a number of Issues to untangle and so and work through towards exploring what the pros and cons are and then make me a general recommendation I would have you So, uh, we are a sixth member board three members from Pellum three members from amherst Mary Lou talman is here. She's remember the amherst regional school district committee See those two committees from the board And we are we are knee deep in going through all these issues. So our general approach Because the original agreement is a fairly complicated document the ultimate document that you would have to Write in detail form and and that's actually what you vote on in the public Has many different sections. So our general approach is to break down these sections Collect all the information and so we have consultants are working with from association regional schools mars To help us work through this collect all the information identify the pros and cons And then present that to public and the groups for feedback And that and have that feedback help us make a general recommendation about whether we should move forward or not So we are nowhere near a point of general recommendation and regionalizing We're not recommending a formal We have no formal recommendation about what the school committee composition or election mechanism should be at this point We're at the point of identifying the pros and cons and what we thought since we are so knee deep in this particular issue at the moment We've met out several times. Why not meet with the school committees in And hear what they have to say Um, so a few sort of meta points before we go through the the five legal options that any one of which satisfies the requirement for regional school committee Um, so um, this general theme keeps popping up. And if you're a veteran of the Discussion slash debate about the nature of america town government. You'll this will be very familiar to you What is representation? And so the way that this manifests itself in these different options are How do voters participate in elections? Which elections do they participate in and how many are there? Um, How many voices are there at the table? How many votes are there at the table? So that's usually a one-to-one correspondence But with a concept of weighted voting that we'll get into a little later on. That's not always the case And also how easy is the electoral process and the governance process to understand? Some of these are more complicated than others And so that could be a pro or con in terms of the public understanding their representation In terms of the number of members So we haven't had a deep dive discussion where we're evaluating every single number from one till infinity And we'll say we've we've sort of just taken seven As as our standard example in order to run through options. And that's because One of the big issues to consider when coming up with the school committee composition for our particular two towns is we have a region And there are five Amherst members and two Pelham members At the regional school committee and so the simplest appointment mechanism for a future Amherst and Pelham Pre K to six region would be to simply have all those members Go up to the region you can Have less or more if you had let if you had less than five Amherst members You would need an additional mechanism to appoint The the additional members to the region In fact, and there is precedence for this. So that's what Pelham does right now the Pelham school committee appoints their membership to the region And if you had more you would have to have some way for the regional school committee to Select among its own members It's membership to the top the top region Um, so I think Um, it would be a little funky to think about something less than five School committee of one through four seem to rather unconventional More than seven it doesn't seem like there's a great reason for that. Uh, but we haven't completely excluded that so Um, my thinking I think five six seven range is sort of the number. Um Yeah, and um, one of the things so when we're talking about votes and and what they control So typically we're talking about Regular school committee. This is like what we're doing here now. Um, you can write into a regional agreement special exceptions Um, for uh, whatever you want. And so, uh, the common example that's come up in our discussions is If there's a vote on say the future of the Pelham elementary building you could potentially write in it says, um All votes of for the future of this building require a majority or all of the Pelham representatives for example So you can sort of override the default system into a regional agreement, but uh, other than that that this is just for the general Comes in. Okay. So there's five conditions Uh, and any one of these can be satisfied in order to be a legal option. So this is the um, the two page governance issues document and An analogous to the um, the draft materials that we saw from the Port River committee earlier in the meeting So this is a a working kind of evolving document. So we have a discussion We ask some clarifying questions. Mars then goes up back up and Updates this and and gets some information from desi updates and articulate that and so this is a in-process um document um, so I want to start with option five because it's the easiest to uh explain and um And evaluate so option five in order to so this is the method of selecting the members to the committee is simply appointment by some Government body. So in Amherst, this might be the town council or Helm this might be the town meeting advantages are the simplest Disadvantages is that there's no voter involvement Our initial discussions on our board is that uh, we feel that Having no voter involvement runs completely counter to the prevailing sentiments in our towns But we want to sort of this is a legal option We don't think it would have really much traction in our communities to have a school committee That where the voters aren't having a say in who's on committee directly I'm sorry. Mr. Dilley just to enter for a second though. I'm sorry. Maybe I'm misunderstanding But these would be so while they were pointed to the region. They would still be elected school committee members. Is that right? no, so this would be so um So the wording in this document is a little Is a little confusing this has such a school board members. So that's why i'm asking for the clarification So such as school board members would be for example the pelham case So pelham elementary, they're They're um I'm correct. Dr. Myers correct me if i'm wrong. They're they're elementary members are elected And then the members to the 712 region are appointed Right, but i'm saying the initial they are initially elected, right? Can I try to offer clarification? So um So the five pelham school committee members are elected by The voters and then from those five there's an election Of the school community is the only voters to select the two members who are then the regional representatives So Yeah, so that's consistent with this. So yeah, I think to clarify for our conversation You could probably just strike such as school board members and and insert such as town council members So this is so you could appoint committee members by locally elected officials So by locally of elected officials on or not school So they they have the option to Appoint elected officials who are not school committee members, but who still have been selected by voters No, no, no. So so so here's so here's an example We were i'm sorry not to the region though what i'm saying is initially Yes, first barrier is actually appointed or elected by voters Is it done is yeah, i'm so in in boston the mayor appoints the school committee In this case the town council would appoint the school committee So there would be no vote by people town-wide Yes, that's right. Maybe that's what you're saying. That's what i'm saying. Well, so that's what I guess my so what I understood was that the town of pelham would elect school committee members to the pelham school committee and then The regional committee Would be appointed Is that is that not i think i think the situation is isn't If this is you're talking about the regional school district committee for amherst and pelham elementary school school elementary schools There would be no pelham elementary school committee and there would be no amherst elementary school Those those those once we once the region is formed those committees will no longer exist and there only will be That one regional school committee For amherst and pelham elementary schools and what you're saying is just tell me if i'm wrong What you're saying is option five and there are four other options, which means we could move on to those So you're saying basically like the town manager or the select board of pelham might appoint The school committee members for pelham and the town council or Conceptually the town manager would appoint the school committee members for the town of amherst. Yes, okay So would appoint so in this this new let's call it the uh, it's a little confusing with the names because we have the amherst Let's call it the amherst and pelham elementary region Okay, let's so say it's it's seven members five from amherst So those five from amherst members would be Would be appointed by some other government body user right then into the regional agreement say the town council of amherst has the authority to appoint the amherst members and the Pelham town meeting has the authority to appoint the The town members in other words so as an amherst voter you're voting for the town council. No, I get it now I just wanted to clarify from you know the the initial barriers, but I was yeah, thank you Okay, so that's that option. Um, so because there's not direct voting A feeling was that was the big con But just put it out there as a legal option Um, so the next hopefully simple Um option to explain is option number one So electing committees by voters in member communities with each community representing a portion according to population so There's a concept Um in these discussions called one person one vote Um, it's a little confusing to explain But it's basically the principle that there can't be more than a 10 difference between how many people Each school committee vote represents So for example, let's let's say that um amherst had 50 000 people In town and pelham had 20 000 people If there were five people from amherst and two people from pelham in that town Each one of those members assuming that they have one vote is representing 10 000 people For 10 000 10 000 10 000 everything's Nice and even that's that's allowable under this according to population if that those are the populations if if pelham was 19 000 it would still be within that 10 variant and so it's it's good. Um, the uh the issue with With amherst and pelham is that pelham it is so much smaller So using the numbers from the 2010 census amherst is 39 833 and pelham is 1130 So amherst is 35 times the size of pelham um And so if you if you were to try and construct a five a seven member school committee with five members from amherst and two from pelham The percentage is the number of people each of those members are representing is is wildly Um different Does that make sense in terms of violating this principle of one person one vote? Yes how to How do we get away with that on the uh secondary district? Because there's nothing like that for the secondary district So I would say that's a good question that is probably best discussed at region Oh, i'm sorry. No, no, no. Well, I wasn't it's a very good natural question I mean no, but I was I wasn't asking it to debate whether Forgive me if you're I wasn't asking whether the regional school committee is legal I was So i'll just drop the question I could say more on it, but it's it's uh, it's it's it's more relevant to the to the region I have a question, but I'm gonna hold it. So if you want to unless anyone else. Um, so so You can if you were to try and construct based on our populations that uh a school committee that was um That passed this option one according to population You could do it, but you would have a 34 member school committee You would have 33 people from Amherst and one person from Pellum. So the con is that that's Pretty unreal and impractical, but you could do it if if that was I appreciate the thoroughness of this neutralization committee to include all the options even the ones that are not viable for Yes Please continue mr. Okay, so that's that's it for option one I'll move on to i'm going to take option two and three together because option three is a variant of option two So option two and three is essentially district wide or region wide elections where candidates run and are voted on by um members Voters in both towns at the same time So there would be a number of candidates running and the candidates that Pellum sees the same that That ever sees and you and you vote on them and that number is elected to the committee Every person has one vote and that's that's in the MGL requirements that satisfies this one person one vote um principle According to the the requirement it is required to happen at the biennial state elections So on the same cycle, but the um the town council and The future amherst school committee Barring this Are on um or by other special legislation I think if if you're familiar with the town charter discussions before you you can do it But it requires special legislation every time that if you want to have a vote um at the same time as a federal election So pros to this Approach is that every voter has a say in every candidate So candidates have to campaign in both towns, right? And so Even though Pellum is very tiny you get to Um opine on every person that that goes on the committee. It's pretty simple to understand um And um and it it supports any number of of uh committee. So if you wanted it to be seven you you could do that um cons Is a if there are if you don't go with option three Which adds an additional residency requirement to a number of the members You could get you need to add some additional mechanism for Potentially for appointing members to the region because you could potentially end up with say a five member or seven member or six member committee that's all amherst residents and then so Pellum needs its its uh representation at the region It's uh Pro or con depending on on how you think about it is that uh it because of of when the elections need to happen It's either a two-year or four-year overlapping terms um And so this is another point I should bring up to come up a little bit is that um You know to have four-year overlapping terms um Yeah, um, let me make you think that this this is so this is different than what's currently in the emmerstown charter Which is the entire school community is up every two years And so and so that's true and and that's because a new region is actually a new legal entity And so it sets its own electoral Rules and cycles and and whatnot So, you know, it has to be according to one of these options that's why we're discussing them But it's it's essentially decoupled from From that that requirement in the in the town charter. We haven't that's been our assumption We haven't you know dealt deeply into getting actual legal guidance on is that actually the case? But if we get you know, if we journey further down to that road that would you know, we wouldn't want that confirmation Another con is that there could be a potentially hard to resolve complication Because Pelham has a different voting mechanism than what emmerst is going to have in the future. So which the rank choice voting committee just started up the town council and so You can't go to one booth in emmerst and rank choice the vote of the candidates and then go to pelham and not have rank choice You'd have to have some sort of resolution And so we would have to think through if this was the preferred option what what we would want that to be And you know, there's different issues of you know voter confusion and Whether that's you know good thing or bad thing to decouple and what not but those this is some of the pros and cons consider Some others So we mentioned the this potential regional complication if there's there's not a residency requirement Okay, any questions on options two and three Okay, um We went to the last one. So weighted voting. So one person one vote um So you can achieve that either by having 34 member school committee or you can have a more reasonably sized school committee But then weight the votes differently so that um So that the larger towns so the emmerst members in this case have a higher number of votes than the pelham members And so by and if you do that you can satisfy the state requirement of one person one vote So this This spreadsheet is a little hard to interpret but they give there's one example that um In this working document there center packet. It's elms gave us of uh, if you had a seven person school committee with five from emerson two from pelham if you gave 10 votes to each emmerst member and two and uh Three quarters of a vote to each pelham member Then that works out to 51 and a half votes and because of the way the populations are it satisfies that Uh requirement, it's not number of votes are not that far off in terms of the number of population it represents So um pros are that you know you satisfied the requirement. Um, you can make these models work for I you know I've plugged in different weighted models for five or six or seven And you can get it to work. Um Some so some cons um Are that because the the difference between pelham emmerst are so large Um for all intents and purposes the weights don't have any Meaningful value. So for example In the case of a seven person school committee member where there's um 10 votes for each emmerst member and Three quarters of a vote for each pelham member. There's there's no combination of votes where those pelham votes ever change the vote It's it's as if their votes are zero Right and so it so technically you can still do it because you can run the math and the state will sign off on it But those votes actually never come into play now you can make you know And uh On the flip side, there's two seats at the table for pelham. And so there's this meaning this comes back the idea of representation, right? If you don't actually have Votes that are carrying weight with the exception of any exceptions you write into the regional agreement Um, what's you know, is there representation? You won't sell that another if you have seats at the table You're obviously part of the discussion and most votes aren't that contentious anyway Um, so it's the same thing with with six or with with seven if you have um It's the the emers members are always going to You're always going to need a majority of emers members and the the pelham votes and everybody's going to swing swing away except for The last case is if you had a five person committee Um, you'd still have the complication if you had four votes four members from emers to one from pelham Um, the pelham vote would be worth one the emers votes would be worth nine and that pelham vote could swing The a two two tie so that's the one case in which a pelham vote could have potential potential means yes So, uh, thank you No, I mean it's it's like a ribbick's cube verbal ribbick's cube So for the option five If you're appointing the members from each town Can you do a straight five and two or does that have to also be weighted by By population or because it's being appointed by the elected officials. Can they just pick a number that seems reasonable to them? That's a good question now we have Because we have not dove deeply into that possibility. We have not asked our consultants the question So we could find out more about that I think the other options sound so convoluted or undesirable that it's probably worth actually asking that question I mean I I mean since I was wrong about the televised school committee meetings in the venue You know, I have no clue whether people in pelham care whether they ever elect another school committee member again But uh, I mean, I'm not trying to be facetious or cascastic about the effort. This is a super important discussion But I'm just assuming that in the same way that the question of the future of the pelham elementary school as a building and a building location for Children who are born and raised in pelham or raised in pelham Is like a super I would assume is a super important thing to the community. I think I'd imagine Knowing whether they're ever going to have another meaningful vote again on the school committee would probably be a reasonable question I mean, you know worth answering Dr. Morris does someone Who happened to attend the meeting in pelham or this very same handout was discussed. I think in this case you're actively reading The feelings that I heard expressed by a pelham elected officials Yeah spot on Um So I don't know if there's members of that committee that you would like to Provide an opportunity to provide some input at this point or that'd be okay with the chair It's fine with me if it's okay with the committee and yeah, I think for for this case It makes sense given the complexity are any members of the uh, planning board who would like you so you have to come up to the mic Microphone please come to the microphone. Yes. I'm sorry Hey, I mean if if you don't mind just Because other people may want to hear that too We want everybody to benefit from your input I think we have to check with mars But I believe all five of these options are residency based because The the regional agreement states the towns that will be involved just as our four towns with 712 This would be amherst pelham and the one person one vote would apply I believe to all of those five options. So we need to check with mars, but but that's the idea And that's a law actually And and wow Thank you, thank you very much So I have I have some thoughts and questions as well, but um I'm sorry. I'm laughing because it's uh, it there are really just a lot of convoluted little details That that you're considering with all of this and of course, I appreciate that it has to be that way at the same time It's it's uh, it really is a lot to wrap your your brain around Uh, so I think for me, um Um Just initial reactions. I feel like you know, again, I was I was being a little facetious before but you know If there's an option that really is just so far out of Possibility we probably should just take that out of the running completely. I mean, it sounds like option one Uh, given the disparity of the populations is just not really something we should even be considering, right? I feel it feels almost, uh, I mean I get why it would be on this list Um, but I think just in order to have a more Sort of you know robust conversation, I guess and be most transparent In terms of what we're actually considering that it feels like this should probably just be taken off But it's just it's just for the committee to think about um I think for for option two and therefore three Uh, you know, I heard you say before Uh, sort of with a little bit of a question about whether the region is its own legal entity I definitely think we I would also second that we need to get legal advice It feels like the right time to do that and to just, you know get, um In an actual answer to to that question Yeah, so um, so we have I had a number of questions go through Amherstown council Um, more specifically related to another subtopic that we can talk about another time Which is what's the potential impact at the 712 region because this is just one of the um So can you aren't so I mean, I know that a region is its own separate legal entity But like like so specifically like what would just so I get your question Like right I think you you're almost exact quote was we're pretty sure that it's its own legal entity So maybe we're just you know, it doesn't matter in any case I think just being very clear on some of these initial or very basic questions would be helpful And this is just my feedback, right? So, you know, um, take it or leave it. I think for option two, uh My concerns there would be um under disadvantage is the allowing for the disproportionate representation and the uh, the elections every other year um That feels like it might be Uh, really difficult in Amherst with town council elections um I just feel like we I would like to better understand exactly how that might work Maybe it's a model, you know that we look at and just see play out with the numbers We're just given the option two Uh So just you know, I would like some more clarification on how that works with our town council elections Uh, regardless of the region being its own legal entity just in terms of feasibility for our voters You know, how they might be able to to hook into this process. Um, it feels like we need to have Some clarity around that um And then an option for The I think that my my initial reaction to this one is that, um The you know the one vote, uh representation It's almost like a pact that we've made with voters, right that, you know, you vote for somebody and your vote counts As a vote and it gets counted and tallied up at the end And for there to be any votes weighted more than others It feels like it could I see one of two things potentially happening Uh A disincentivization of regionalization period because I think people would wonder well Then why would we even want to do something like that if our votes aren't going to be counted potentially? um But also I think even once we get into it if we were to adopt this That people might feel like their votes just don't matter, right and it's so difficult to get people to The polling place as it is and to get them to vote that to then add this layer of well, you know Your votes are going to be one 50th of one one vote Uh, or even just trying to calculate what that might be like and I'm trying I'm thinking of a lot of our new voters, right that we're constantly trying to get you know out To explain that fairly difficult concept. Um, and why that is I mean I get again the justification for it, but You know my initial reaction to that is I would love to hear feedback from folks whose job it is to to turn out the vote Uh, and to see if they've ever had any experience or something like this and if it feels Like it's just, you know, too difficult a concept for people to grab on to that maybe, uh I'm not sold on that idea Especially in light again of the difference in size between our two communities, right? There is such a huge difference in weight potentially between those votes That it feels almost insincere to to, you know, put something out there So as an option, I actually I think it's one of my least favorites for that reason But in any case, I mean I appreciate again the level of complexity and detail that that you're grappling with as a committee around this question, um, I do think again helpful to get some, you know, some legal advice on some of these and, uh, just to continue thinking and getting feedback, you know, from community around around those specific questions would be helpful for me Ms. McDonald and Ms. Nakajima, it's just a question because I either you went really quickly through number three or I zoned out and apologize, but um, so when it says it's the same as option two But with residency requirements is that Do I understand that correctly that it's similar to the Amherst town council where you have at large and in districts? So we you'd have everybody votes, but you're going to vote for Two people from Pelham and five people from Amherst Is it done already? Yeah, pretty much so everybody. Yes. So you'd have um, yeah candidates that are running from Pelham and from Amherst for a specific number of Uh, of seats as defined so the regional agreement defined these number of seats for Pelham these number of seats for for Amherst So, you know, so that's that's another way to get to the your votes matter With with residency requirements Even from even you could even combine it with with with waiting. I suppose although I'm gonna get a little wonky But you can imagine a seven person council council committee with with one or two people defined from Pelham But I just wanted to say that you're like, I think you hit the nail on the head with with concerns about waiting not that I'm expressing an opinion pro or con waiting at this point, but Essential to a lot of these issues is is that Pelham is so much smaller than Amherst and so How do you how do you create a structure that's legal? And it's still representative, right and that's palpable to both communities It was it was somewhat interesting to me that you could do a a five person committee with one Where you had nine a weighted nine votes for each Amherst member and then one Pelham Remember they had one vote where it's it could still be have some meaning I could break that tie But again, it's it's it's explaining to to be not all people understanding that but feeling like it has has a difference So that's That's worth it. Mr. Nakajima You were so thoughtful that I felt like I needed to say something more thoughtful Um, who's this confused? I feel I feel ashamed I think doing weighted votes is going to end up being politically unpalatable and convoluted And so I mean I know you're you're the chair and on the committee so you have to Be really neutral and thoughtful and fact-seeking right now since I'm not I can just say what I think Um, so I'm just going to say what I think I think it's a terrible idea And I think in the end it'll have a lot of the problems that the chair just spoke about Over time you'll have diminished engagement around it My guess is you're right you hinted at that you thought that option five wouldn't be politically palatable to the communities Because voters would be cut out Except for indirectly through electing their principal officials If if I'm not saying you can get around one person one vote But if those if those delegates represent the town as opposed to the individuals in the town as corporate entities I don't know if that means you can do five and two or one and five or one and four That's based on legal advice if you can't based on one person one vote Then I think similarly that is like couple strikes against it Right, you're not going to get enough very many people in it and it cuts out the voters Which means to me you're really left with option two or option three and that means either And you know it's it's unpalatable and unfortunate in some ways almost option three becomes the default In my mind the default scenario because it's the one that at least respects the idea that you know for a fact You're going to get an elected representative for who happens to reside in both towns And so you can which isn't which I think is an important principle And that they have an equal vote when it's all said and done option two Is unfortunately there's some people who say I'm not saying I'm one of them But there's some people who have often talked about Pelham as being As independent as it is a highly desirable suburb or or neighborhood within the town of Amherst Not literally but figuratively And I think moving toward option two is making it more More literal than figurative that essentially is just a really nice part of the corporate town of Amherst Pelham You know and I don't again, I imagine people in Pelham would have Really hard feelings about that which pushes you to three But good luck because I knew you're still at this Mr. Demling I should say if the committee the planning board ultimately Recommends regionalization the the task would fall to Well, I mean it would fall to us But the Amherst school committee and the Pelham school committee would be heavily involved in Helping draft the details of regional agreement. So you're not off the hook if we uh, if we go forward with that So, um, thank you for this mr. Demling and uh, so I'm wondering, you know This is obviously you mentioned that you you hinted at Uh, you know additional items that are going to come before this committee for consideration discussion um I'm assuming next steps are just we're going to continue hearing some of the things that you're grappling with And continue providing some feedback when appropriate right for the for you to take back. Is that right? Yes? So so I should say so we're planning public forums. So we've uh contracted with a public engagement consultant We're all very happy with and it's going to be running four public forums early next year So we're still trying to nail down the dates, but um two in Pelham two in Amherst different times Um as as a informational, you know community output in january or is potentially in january. Yes. Um, it it really depends on scheduling Uh information we we get back the next few weeks. Um, another important milestone um is a week from friday at our december 28th meeting tentatively we have our financial consultant mark abraham's presenting results of his financial analysis and so this will be the What is it? You know that that detailed deep dive from the regionalization expert about how does the regional transportation reimbursement and the operational Budget and even msba reimbursement potentially factoring to all this in terms of the financial Beneficial, so that'll be a very important piece. Um, and depending on what comes out of that You know, I think that would be something that I would want to share and how our committee discuss As soon after that's presented great Great. Okay. Well, this sounds wonderful. Um, I think as soon as you get those dates for those forums if you can share that with the committee That would be helpful so that we can Help spread the word here in Amherst and even in Pelham To the degree possible and then um, I think looking to our next agenda, you know, we can get on there That'd be great just to hear back from the consultants and everyone Any other questions or comments? Okay, thank you very much Sure, so, um It's a committee up for a quick break Sure. Yep. Can I get a motion? I'm moved to break just briefly. Mr. Napa Okay, thank you. Uh, so maybe just a two minute break. So all those in favor Okay, we'll take a two minute break Calling meeting back to order at 906 the end the next item on the agenda is Dual language program update Dr. Morris and I will try to be brief Um, lots of good exciting things, but I'll try to do them succinctly um, so just, uh We've got seven things and I'm just going to roll through them and see if there's questions at the end So we applied for a grant in collaboration with the Holyoke public schools The state put out a grant that was after the look act was passed Although the grant can come out to this fall to support districts who are implementing dual language programs There was a minimum number of English learners as a requirement to be an applicant, but collaboratives were allowed So Holyoke since they just started their second program We worked with them in UMass as a common university partner So we submitted that grant in december 4th and we find out on thursday whether received it It would fund things just this winter and spring, but it would allow us to take, you know Some some really active steps, uh, purchasing for multiple years and some of the other costs that we talked about A couple, I guess last month Be able to take sort of progressive timelines on those as well as professional development for staff So we'll let you know when we're here. Um, but we're keeping our fingers crossed So it's actually a fairly sizable grant. It's even though it would be shared with Um, two districts if we were to get it Um, uh, I talked earlier as the admissions donas about the Fort River family meeting Um, that occurred on december 10th and continuing to gather feedback on that Michelle flow is actually the I really didn't do in the update the same day that the commissioner visited So we didn't have time, but actually Principal was hoping to be able to mention that and just we got off on other topics and kids were engaging and that was a good Use of the commissioner time in our time as well, but um successful meeting Uh, one of the best parts of my week last week is uh, we finally got to resolution Which we talked about the committee before about working with greenfield community college on designing and edg uh, Spanish for educators course So we were hoping, you know, so miss richards and I had a lot of conversations to say well We'd love to do it for a prioritized fort river families You know not to get into a lottery conversation, you know, but it did sort of mimic some other conversations we've had um, and we um, Put it out and we're hoping to fill their ideal class size for beginners about 15 And we have about 75 staff members across the districts who expressed Interest and not just the loose interest because we had a date a time Need to commit to come every thursday from 345 to 530 you sign up at gcc you get credit This isn't like a casual drop in if you want to So that's a great problem to have it's a problem, but it's a great problem to have So we're now in conversation with gcc about offering at least two sections one specific to fort river staff And prioritizing them because of the dual language program and one for some lottery system equitably for the other schools in the district But i'm just so encouraged by the broader staff in the district with so much interest We also have a need for like an upper level class for staff who is Either moderate or close to fluent but need don't have opportunities to speak spanish on a more regular basis So we're trying to explore other possibilities about how to do that and that may be a sort of next fall thing It may not be gcc's. We're straining their capacity to ask them what we're doing now, but we are exploring There's also a group in north hampton. It's not a university the International language institute i believe is the name and we're trying to reach out to other Folks who might be able to assist us with this, but there's just strong interest for For our staff on a variety of levels of who have a variety levels of fluency in spanish to Have a real specific format so you know just compliment our staff for their willingness to work An extra two hours a week, you know on top of their busy schedules who's outstanding This is weekly emails that miss richardson sends out. There's a kind of the leadership planning team and So, you know, for instance, there's a dual language special ed network meeting in late january That we're going to send a group to in ashland. That's all over new england They get together to talk about how dual language programs best serve the needs of special education students with special needs and what's the interplay between that Mabe and phyllis are coming in early Excuse me early february to do some on-site pd specific to kind of three topics one is like the cultural aspect and how to weave the cultural aspect in the second is kind of this Special ed ELL this conundrum that she's worked with our staff long before there was dual language on the horizon How to approach that and and then also on the curriculum front So we have subgroups on this planning team and she's going to then kind of address, you know, more throughout the day with all the subgroups As was shared with the committee electronically our initial feedback from the desi application was incredibly positive Not just the right boxes were checked But there was a small narrative that expressed appreciation for the work that our team is doing on that We are in the midst. I saw draft Yesterday or today yesterday Mr. Takayama who's a technology teacher at fort rivers working with staff to create a video For the dual language program just to share it with the larger community as students and staff in it Right now it's it's you know, it's narrowing it down. There's so much good footage that he's like four and a half minutes And we're really looking for a shorter tighter Video, but it's great that the staff is jumping in and trying to figure out ways that we can promote this to larger community We've posted the position The first position, which is the kindergarten teacher for the Spanish side of the dual language program We've posted it on a paid advertisement on facebook We put on schoolspring and a d.com We sent additional email to staff just talking about word of mouth, which has already yielded a number of responses Mabe has posted it for us We have been in contact with multiple universities in Puerto Rico University of Puerto Rico, which has multiple campuses and then also The inter-american university, which is also multiple campuses the two main, you know higher education Institutions that train teachers in Puerto Rico Um We were contacted by the Spanish embassy So they got wind of some of our posting information and they do work with a number of districts in massachusetts around Actually many of the district massachusetts dual language programs about supplying teachers and all that and we're not committed to do that To go that route, but the conversation would be useful, right? There's no point in closing doors We're trying to keep them as open as they can So they're actually willing to come out someone from the consulate who does this some time in mid january And I think this was small and it's working on a date actually to talk about this They were excited and wanted to talk to us about what they can provide And the university of Puerto Rico real pre-adjust which is the main campus of the university of Puerto Rico Also has a job fair in march that um, they invited us For a fee to come to um But it's something that we'll likely do even if we have our first teacher What we're looking is how do we increase the number of bilingual staff in the district more generally So even if we're like, oh, yeah, we got it. We're good to go We feel like it's good to make a relationship with the main campus. They you know, it's um, it's a highly respected institution Not that the others aren't but it's in terms of academic preparedness thought to be the highest in the caribbean So I think we're going to send a team that may include me to go down for it's going to be a quick trip But a day or two just to go with feedback We've received already is that when you go to job fairs the way it works typically that people are hired There it's not like especially if it's because of the distance. So the miss Cunningham or I wasn't There we might not get the candidates and miss Cunningham. I know can't go so Gosh darn it. I may have to go to Puerto Rico for a day or two. Not the worst thing in the world in march The last update I want to have is we can come back in january to talk a little more details But we've actually moved the registration deadline back a bit So later in march, then we've had in the past. There was multiple reasons One was just when you can do the banner downtown, which people actually do read, you know And it was already booked for certain dates in early march But more relevant to this conversation because we probably could have figured that out in another way We want to give more time to have more information sessions in early march for families So when they get to registration, they've had more opportunities To interact with what the program is how the lottery process works It allows us then to push back our screening by a couple weeks Which gives us time to do our lottery Which we talked about the last time before the screening takes place So we feel like we're lining things up, you know, we just got the registration dates. I think settled yesterday Um, so we're you know when we come back I can kind of be more finite with here's the date of this Here's the date of that but everything's kind of lining up pretty well for us You know, so I do you think a topic on the january agenda not the january 7th But the january 22nd would be just fine-tuning how we're thinking about the lottery How that process works and going into depth now that we've got some of the other details lined up Thank you, dr. Morris for that any questions from the committee for dr. Morris, I'm just impressed how detailed it is. I appreciate the fact that Particularly at this hour the likelihood I'm not done with the other committee members that I'm going to come with a million great questions Is low, so I'm grateful that you yourself were It's sure I mean what I like about it is when you're talking about the number of teams a number of efforts The number of functional areas that need to be worked on You're hitting all the different elements and I just appreciate that Yeah, absolutely and um, like do you have the quote from desi about the preparedness response? Like I thought in terms of like my Oversight role the school committee in terms of the program like that was the most relevant piece of information That was so great to see that like oh, yes all this Qualitative sense. We've had that that the program is being really well flat out and prepared for is it's actually objectively verified It was it was really nice to see I would second that I think you know and we heard that from mabe. I think also earlier in the year. Um, I guess they're probably You'd expect it a little bit more from them and you would from desi, but it's still nice to hear Um, I have a couple of of quick comments and questions Did you want to have the language and there's one other thing I meant to answer meant to add that I didn't so the comment was The district's preliminary proposal indicates the district plan for the new ele program meticulously And then it just has you know, some more technical language, but I think that was the the line the one thing I mentioned in terms of the position post that we've also have ads going in la vos and a blank on the second publication but two major spanish language newspapers that are printed and shared in both western massachusetts and northern connecticut So we have ads that were sent out and there ones going in la vosa is going this week And then one week after break the other one doesn't publish until after the the holiday season ends So those are also going out. Um, so I apologize. I didn't mention that earlier That was actually related to one of my questions. Uh, just With spanish language, uh, publications or outlets. We were Publicizing this and I think la vosa is great. Um, also was just going to ask about spanish language radio Because I know that for spanish speaking, you know communities Radio is extremely important. So if there's an opportunity there in a budget, right, uh, that that would make sense So we reached out to la I think is la bomba, which is the most common But the most popular spanish language radio station in this particular area We went back and forth a little bit So we haven't gotten full responsiveness of what it would call like all those details So it's on our radar and we have reached out and just we're not getting The loop closed a little bit on that one, but it is we have reached out and I think we will get there Great. So just uh, very quickly. I think one one question and comment Additional question and comment. So the you mentioned moving back to the registration deadline, which makes all the sense in the world I'm wondering if You will be sending home information with families Uh, so for spanish speaking families, I think that you know a lot of the the relationships They'll be sharing information. So that might be an easy way to just say hey, the registration deadline has moved and you know, if You know folks or whatever Yeah, and we typically do outreach also to all the area preschools in addition to our current students, um To then share with their communities as well Yes, um, and then I think the other Comment that I had just something that came to me when you were mentioning about uh, professional development This this idea wouldn't take the place of professional development, but maybe a nice ad for folks who are moderate to fluent Um to maybe as you know that the spanish language uh community is being sort of built up in fort river Uh to provide an opportunity for educators to to maybe talk with those families and to share with them I think uh conversational opportunities are always extremely important for learning a second language or getting stronger in a second language So again, not to take the place of of pd, but you know, that might be a great way for spanish speaking Educators some of whom even I'm not familiar with. Um, there's been a couple folks that I've been surprised to hear like wow You actually speak spanish. I have no idea Um, but if they are able to sit in with some of those families, maybe informally and have some conversations, you know On a regular basis that might help a lot as well. Uh, it'll help build relationships and also help build language skills So, you know and help the the families feel more engaged like they've got something positive to contribute as well It's not just you know So but otherwise I agree. I think this is fantastic to get this much information about the work that's gone on there. Um I think the way that you have been providing Information throughout the past year has shown clearly that there's been a high level of engagement and thinking about this So i'm not surprised by all this information, but it's all really helpful to have. Thank you. Thank you Great, uh, okay, so moving us along. Um Formats of school committee meetings Yeah, I think this was a as I remember in the last meeting mr. Demling Started us in a conversation about format not to put all attention, but yeah, that's how I remember Is this the so this is about the idea of uh, of having Sort of formal meetings in town Hall and then having some informal Sort of yeah, I think I had raised that idea. Yeah. Oh, I apologize. Um, yeah So this is a comment that I had made uh in response to the Location of meetings. Yeah. Yeah. No, I remember I was complimenting was mcdonald or for the comment Yeah, well she had I think I piled on I don't think it was my original idea. Well, you're both great Collectively the community came up with such a good topic We were talking about this the same thing. So yeah, go ahead mr. Demling. I think I think we are just different Yeah, yeah, so you originally brought it up under that idea where we were talking about location of meetings And said oh well we could have different types of meetings Here and then that kind of related to like so it's come up to several other meetings, right about Um, the limitations of public comment and you know, we had that I thought was a fairly positive experience at the very beginning of The former first school building committee where we were just having public forums about what people wanted about the design of it And it was a back where we sort of set the table gave some something to people to react to then we had kind of a back and forth Q&A and um, and so after you had mentioned that possibility of um, well, what if we had different types of meetings back at the The high school if we were at Town hall just I was just sort of thinking through different, you know permutations of that And that wouldn't it be need if we had like a series of those that were like somewhat regularly scheduled like say they happen two or three times a year Where um, you didn't have to wait until a particular agenda item came up and then you get three minutes And then you you don't you don't get any response from the school committee Um, where it was oh, this is the fall Q&A and so what's the update from the school committee And so we we do five ten minutes on what's going on and then people could just Ask and and it's it's a public meeting. It's open. It's on, you know published open meeting a lot on that But it's a lot more dialoguey right than than public comment ever could be So, yeah, I think I think we're just coming out to different places I I mean, I I think it's a great idea. You know, I think uh Providing opportunities for the community to engage. Um, you know, it's just my my opinion I think having agendas, you know, it's helpful that also providing just some open space for folks to bring their their thinking and their You know share their their concerns That would also be helpful. I guess, you know, my the only thing that I that I thought about that I guess I'm a little bit concerned with or just want to think about a little bit more is Just our our staff time. So I think superintendent You know, it's no secret that you go to other meetings in addition to These meetings um other, you know evening meetings And are obviously being pulled in a lot of different directions And you know, and I think it's important just to to raise it out loud because this would be potentially adding some additional You know meetings several, you know, long meetings to the course of the year So we'd love to hear your thoughts on that as well. And then I think if it's an open meeting, you know Are we also taking minutes? Like is there some other Function for staff that we would have to be cognizant of and not to say those are barriers I think I could see actually maybe it would be beneficial to not have a superintendent at some of these meetings You know, it's just the school committee listening um and talking Uh, similarly, I think, you know, maybe we could take turns keeping loose minutes Or, you know, if it's recorded, you know, we can figure something else out. I don't know But there could be some other options for that, but you know Yeah, so, um, I appreciate you raising the the concern, you know, um I don't have a great answer, um a response to it, but I think My sense is that every now and then there's topical um Necessities to engage and we might have embarked on one tonight. Um I'm guessing that maybe at some point, you know, there's going to be some opportunity to do so, um I also just I put it as an I wonder and I truly mean this and I wonder if um, there are sometimes where Public comment gets opened up and in a traditional meeting it turns into a little bit of a hybrid meeting So in addition to sort of more open forums, there's topics where, you know, I just Example in one of the other districts I'm working in now where we're actively planned and have communicated We are planning to have a meeting where in the course on a particularly An issue that's taking a lot of the community's interest or has a lot of the community's interest We're going to put a forum into the meeting. So yes, the committee is going to discuss this matter And then there's a 45 minute session where it is more give and take and it doesn't follow the more traditional rules of of Of public comment and you know, there's language in the policy manual that describes how that How that can function so it's not to suggest that what people are interested in is a bad idea But I also wonder just from community interest like Sometimes it's really satisfying to hear the committee discuss something and then actually engage and Dialogue as opposed to just having it more open-ended Where, you know, a range of topics get spoken about at the end. It's kind of like lots of information gets Shared, but where does it actually go? So I just I don't know. It's just another way to think about how to The same end which is how do you engage people? How do you gauge a community? How is there more give and take than in traditional business meetings? So just something else to think about So a couple of you know one, I mean, this is where my comment came in earlier that I think this is a particularly good topic If we're gonna, I mean, I don't look maybe everyone will love being in town hall and No, I'm saying the public. No, don't mean us. I hopefully will like it too Hopefully the public will feel good about it and it won't have a dynamic that'll seem to beg for opportunities to engage In a more open setting but also in the schools ideally But I I like the idea of if we're when we're shooting for something simpler twice a year, maybe like in the once in the fall once in the spring Doing a meeting in You can roll the dice in the elementary schools because they're probably all want it and I'll link to could get it, right? And I I also like the idea of doing a hybrid where You look at the calendar of issues that are going on and just pick something that's particularly germane that when it was There's always going to be something right Where we where where both the committee and the public could hear maybe a little more end of the information But then have some open dialogue and discussion and feedback and then another part of the agenda That's just more open so that if somebody comes and they might like the topic that was being discussed more organized But if not, they still have an opportunity for a minute or two to bring up some issue That's just acutely Significant to them and really be heard and really have an interaction and the reason I also say that is I think Um For those of you who are familiar with this and I know at least a couple of you are If you have like community based hearings like hot as a million of these and city halls have a million of these and So you start because Everyone agrees community engagement is really important, right? And so it starts out as a really nice idea where at least for you know Including miss bitzer the six of us all really think this is awesome and really on board And then like two or three years from now Is turned into this thing everyone does and just shows up to And no one can feel comfortable killing it even though like nobody shows up to it And no one's really interested in being there anymore Um, but it feels like an obligation to me part of the way of avoiding that sort of dystopian outcome Is is is for the committee to think actively What would excites what is exciting us? What are we digging into that's important? So that gives people a reason to show up because there's something comfortable, but then they still have an opportunity to engage more generally Uh, that is such a good idea. I really like it other it and so I think it complements Well, the idea of doing two versus three three is kind of like okay We're telling you the news telling you the news two it keeps it special and it keeps it Um, you know, it it makes you think about quality So you could have a combination where you had one featured topic your hook topic, you know And this is going to get people are going to come up for this specifically They're going to give some little presentation about it, but then also a general update Oh while you're here to talk about this exciting thing, let us tell you about the assessment method Or whatever it is not not the amherst assessment Some other walkie-boring product the amherst column elementary school assessment methods But you know what I mean and then yeah, so you have like uh, you you're hitting both um approaches Yeah, I really like that. I I do I I wanted to mention at the top, you know One of the definite cons is you know, not only superintendent and staff time But but school committee member time as well where we would be signing up for this as well But yeah, I think that combination could work really nice I also love the idea of the hybrid meaning approach too. So um like having the hook and and I wonder if it could Sort of weave its way into but actually not being 100 percent incremental meetings, right? So I wonder if there's ones not this, you know By sort of creative agenda formation We could work it out so that it is maybe instead of adding two or three meetings in the year we're adding One or two and we sort of repurpose some of our meetings and have them out in the elementary schools I like the idea of having two to make them feel special But I do sort of we should hold ourselves open to the idea that the third school may be begging us to come And and be open to that because I don't want to pick favorites true Yeah, yeah so Well, so Does it make sense in order to because I'm hearing some some enthusiasm from the committee about this idea, right? Um, does it make sense for maybe for for me and dr. Morris to kind of put our heads together and think through if maybe there are some agendas existing agendas that you know or Existing meetings that we can turn into those kind of joint meetings Uh, and then think through What that might look like time-wise and then bring that back the committee does that work Mr. Demling. Yeah, I mean I'd love for you of course to you know in the spirit of like testing things out If it's workable on the schedule, you know between now and the end of the year like, you know One of these you know going in that location that would be that would be some some good progress great. Okay, so we'll do that Excellent. Thank you. Okay Um, okay, so moving along amherst media, uh mass cultural council support letter. So there's there's a draft in your packet Um, and this is also I think very brief item Excuse me In my role as a liaison to amherst media um, I Had heard from the executive director from gym, lisco that That there was a application being put forth to the massachusetts cultural council For grant money that actually comes from their capital fund Uh, which would potentially if they get it would help them, uh towards their goal of building the building And I think as all of you know, uh amherst media has been Raising funds for a little while now to try to collect the money to build this new building Um, and they are getting there slowly surely But they could use some help and I think this is a substantial grant I don't remember the exact amount, but it's it's uh enough of a of a dent over in six figures that would actually help You know make a sizable Dent in their capital campaign So, um, I had spoken with mr. Lascaux. He had given me some thoughts about You know some of the ways that amherst media benefits the schools that we could potentially react to because they are looking for support from various community voices And a letter of support coming from the school committee that they could include in their application to the mass culture council Could really help them kind of get over the edge and actually get this grant So I thought, um, I would draft something bring it to the committee for your feedback, uh thoughts If you hate it, we don't have to do it Um, but again, you know recognizing the value that amherst media brings Um, I try to include some examples here of some of their programming As well as just the role that they play in the community a little bit more, um Broadly and uh welcome your thoughts on whether this is a good idea And if there's any additional edits that you would like to make Mr. Nakajima, uh, so I think it's a good idea. Um, I Feel jealous that I've apparently missed the curious draft It's online you can't actually yes it is you can actually get online. I honestly I'm gonna go on It's quite adorable. Yeah, because if it's got a curious draft in it, I'm assuming they're not misleading advertising Uh, then uh, you can't go wrong with that No, but I mean all seriousness. I appreciate that being put in there because in all seriousness Um, we if you frame it out is a lot of the sort of civic virtue stuff like, uh Like I really appreciate the fact that there are people who are going to watch me hearing me with these comments And uh, god bless you for doing so and I appreciate all your feedback Um, but and something like this the fact that there are Um young people who get amazing opportunities to to learn And do hands-on media work and that there's also programming that helps to really engage and connect Um residents of our town with their schools On a programmatic level as well as also a governance level is just really wonderful. So we're supporting. Thank you I'm yeah, it's also yeah, I fully agree. It's a wonderful idea I was also going to mention the curious draft show I'm glad if it's bringing a smile on my face because I'm about to get upset about the next topic, but um Yeah, that's uh It is it's amazing. We just take it for granted. You know, so many people in town just take it for granted They think it's it's just oh, it's just part of public service that we get how do we to get that and just it's just there Um, I talked to so many other community people from across the state Like, oh, how do you if people watch your school committee meetings and like what do you mean? Watch the school committee mean, you know, they're not recorded and then it's it's such a barrier to engagement Yeah So you you talked about some of the digital evolutions with the meetings being available online and that's some people access and technology It's just it's great. So it's a great public service. I'm very happy to support it. I think this is a wonderful letter You did a great job I echo everything that's been said I move we uh support the draft as presented Second, thank you Any further comments or questions? All those in favor Excellent. Thank you very much. Really appreciate it. Um, so I will dig up a name to be the recipient for this letter Wait, I meant my motion to be it's supposed to be sent to deer name You know, that's uh, I was gonna say something about that but um, so I will I will dig up a name for this And then take take the draft off obviously at a date and send it along. Thank you Okay, so uh next item is fund our future resolution Mr. Dumblin, do you want to take this one? Sure. So, um, we should be familiar with this. We already did this at the regional level But for those of you watching at home, this is essentially Well, it's the story that everybody should know by this point, which is public education in massachusetts is grotesquely underfunded 2 billion is is an easy estimate And the hardest hit communities in our state are the poorest communities because what happens is that when your basic foundation for education And we're talking about it's called the foundation budget for a reason. It's supposed to be your foundational expenses, right health care special ed resources for low-income students for english language learners. These are like the big The big pieces and it's severely underfunded So what happens is that the state under funds that and it's left to municipalities It's left to communities to to fork over and so if you are willing and able to do that as a municipality Then you get better funded schools if you Are if you want to do that, but you don't have the economic means then you can't and schools suffer and we have such It's an indescribable level of income inequality in our state and You know, I mean specific for amorist like yes, we will get money for this even out of conservative estimate There's a so it's called fund fund our future campaign You can write in your town and it'll give you an estimate of what this would mean if they updated the foundation budget To to modernize it And this has all been studied. This is foundation budget review commission. This is very well documented This isn't just teachers and schools asking for money So amerset we get 265 Thousand dollars a year which which is no small chunk of change. We could definitely do a lot with that Holy oak will get 20 million Dollars a year springfield would get 95 million 95 million dollars a year to springfield And and why should kids in springfield just because of the zip code that they live the the real estate Values of their neighborhood have a less funded education than kids in amorist or newton or Wellesley And and it's it's it's unconscious. It's on it's unbelievable and it's it's As much as far off as I get about charter schools And and and you know, that's another legitimate issue to get fired up about I get more upset about this because it's so hard to Describe to people in our state that we are not a progressive state when it comes to funding education and other core public services And this is the the the fundamental example of it. So this is you know, yes, this is good for our community I'm glad this will have benefit to amorist But it's it's a social justice issue. It's about income inequality It's about holding not just the republican governor, but our democratic leadership in the house that has completely Dropped the ball on this issue for years accountable And and helping the mta and the message justice alliance and the rest of these grassroots organizations that are fighting Many millions of dollars against Because because what this what this does, you know, when you when you pass legislation that demands this funding You got to find the funding for it And the state it has a revenue crisis in terms of not having enough funding And part of that is because the state income tax has decreased over the last 10 years And it begs the question shouldn't we have a progressive income tax? And that's why you have people fighting us on the side It all comes back to money And so, you know, I'm I'm just happy that we can do something in this fight for for income inequality in the state of mess I think that's very well said mr. Jemely and I also say that just to you know to add and to clarify that There are other similar resolutions Not just the one that we passed at the regional level but across the state And so I think the the basic strategy is to show support from school districts across the state For the sentiments expressed in this resolution And hopefully that sends a very strong message to our state leadership that this is that that matters to us It matters to our schools And that we really need them to take action on this and again, you know We have mr. Jemely and I have met with and i'm sure many of us on this sitting on this table Have met with various state elected representatives In recent years on a whole bunch of different things related to regional transportation Charter schools and etc And I think you know our leadership continues to express support for these ideas But when push comes to shove we find that the the politics and the will just isn't there So I think anything that we can do to help support that Those sentiments make sure that we're sending that strong message The better off we all are So I will take a motion for unless mr. Dr Do you have for something else you want to add or would you like to Excellent The Amherst school committee support the resolution support of full funding for mass cheers public schools I'm going to read it Sure Whereas free public schools available to all students without exception Our foundational door democracy and are required by the state constitution And whereas all of our students no matter where they live deserve high quality public schools that taste the whole child And provide them with a rich school experience that addresses their academic social and emotional needs Whereas the state's foundation budget formula which determines state aid to each district has been woefully out of date for years There by underfunding our districts by more than one billion dollars a year for essential educational services And whereas an updated foundation budget formula would bring the amherst school district additional state aid each year Allowing this district to move closer to providing all students with the education to which they are entitled As residents of the commonwealth and whereas the legislature failed to pass any foundation budget legislation In the last session leaving districts educators and students without the funds necessary to support the schools Our students deserve in every district in the state therefore be it resolved That the amherst school district urges the legislature to approve and fully fund a new foundation budget formula by may 1st 2019 sawn to behalf of the amherst school committee Interstage we're doing this chair. I'm school. Thank you for a second second. Thank you. Uh, any further comments or questions? All those in favor Thank you Resolution is passed Thank you very much so, um Looks like there should be signature of Miss westmoreland, uh, is there a maybe we can get a clean copy that we could Yeah, I'm sorry. I should have brought one. Well, that's okay. Yeah I'm late this week. Yeah That'd be great Thank you Okay, uh, so moving along the next item on the agenda is gifts, but we don't have any gifts tonight. No, no gifts tonight. Okay Next time, um, school committee planning So I have for the 7th, you know loosely titled for now MSPA statement of interest process, you know, but we've got a better language working with the chair 22nd, um I've got a lot. Um, so It's I've got the 88 audit, which is going to be a joint meeting of the multiple committees with the consultant coming out Um, I think we'll still be talking about that so I process on the 22nd Um sabbatical we did a sabbatical request in the Amherst public schools consideration of that capital, um Some information about the registration onboarding process Uh, it was asked for we have a bunch of gun budget guidance discussions Do a language lottery system and then initial budget projections Mr. Dunling, I'm going to be pretty in-depth. I'm just like thinking about, um You know community attention if we're really ramping up on the the SOI process People are going to be thinking about yeah capital needs and whatnot. And so Yeah, so what we can do and what we loosely talked about is just sharing all the backup data that people were asking about It's going to be use your word a lot of spreadsheets and wonky stuff. Um Our new facility director doesn't start until later that week So he won't be there to present it which is you know a bit unfortunate But I don't think the timeline can change on that. Um, just in terms of where the data came from um What the projections and really focusing on the next fiscal year not as much Five years down the road, but in terms of the fiscal Recommendations or requests and you know, we've gotten some feedback from committee members from community members So we may make some adjustments from what you saw in november, but um, that's the type of Information we were planning to bring This sounds right to me. Um We'll meet later on just to finalize the agenda Okay, any other Issues or comments for the superintendent or for me about uh planning It's gonna be nice to see, um I know we did this at the regional level. Have we done like Looking out a few meetings and topics we know we're going to come up Sort of exercise for the not not for the but we can certainly do that I think that might make sense. I mean it might make sense because the question I don't want to ask now and I'm totally not asking right now It's like if that's what we're doing on the 22nd and it's filled with lots of really cool important stuff I wonder what's on the likely to be on the next agenda And I'd rather just get that in my email inbox and read it and then we can talk about it later Yeah, that makes sense to me. That makes sense. Mr. Demlin either So it's we're going to have to play it by ear with timing But at some point the commissioner is going to rule on the charter school expansion And then pretty soon after that there'll be a one of the Board of Ed's meetings In which So the last couple years has kind of been a last-minute opportunity to provide additional feedback and then talk about you know planning and or presenting and such so Hard to say at this date whether that should be on the 22nd But we'll probably just have to wait till the last minute Yeah, it could be a quick item that we just in update. Yeah, I think that makes sense Great Okay Mr. Demlin, I'm sorry So at that point we'll have the regional planning board will have had the financial consultant report bag Do you want that on the 22nd for the I think that makes sense. I mean given where we are with the conversation, but Why don't you keep us posted on what comes back? Okay. Yeah great Okay, um And just just to put a fine. No, I'm trying not trying to accept these Someone might logically ask about forward feasibility. Yeah, you know and whether the january 22nd date or the february meeting is better Based on the number of things you just listed I'm having a hard time imagining how we're going to deal with it on the 22nd. Um, I think we'd probably be Ready by them, but I think it's up to me when's the one in february Is it soon in february? I think it is the 12th 12th doesn't sound terribly bad. I'm sorry. I was wrong Uh, no, it's the 26th section needs to be on the 22nd Just one second. Yeah, I think we can look at some of these items So there there is a long list of items, but I think some of these we can move through fairly quickly Yeah, I think it's the budget guidance that actually I'm most concerned about Not because it's not worthy. It just but you know, we have encouraged staff to come and make presentations It's hard to it's important. It's important. I think we need to have that right But it would just a matter of making time for for these. Uh, yeah, we could start our meeting at 5 30 Or not. We could do that We could do that. Okay Uh, I will take a motion Move to adjourn Thank you, uh, all those in favor All right, meeting adjourned. Thank you very much