 This open meeting of the Arlington School Committee is being conducted remotely consistent with Governor Baker's executive order of March 12, 2020, due to the current state of emergency and the Commonwealth in order to mitigate transmission of COVID-19. We have been advised and directed by the Commonwealth to suspend public gatherings and as such, the governor's order suspends the requirement of the open meeting law to have all meetings and a publicly accessible physical location. Further, all members of public bodies are allowed and encouraged to participate remotely. The order which you can find posted with agenda materials for this meeting allows public bodies to meet entirely remotely. So long as reasonable public access is afforded, the public may follow along with the deliberations of the meeting, ensuring public access does not ensure public participation unless such participation is required by law. This meeting will feature public comment for this meeting. The Arlington School Committee is convening by Zoom as posted on the town's website, identifying how the public may join. Please note that this meeting is being recorded and some attendees are participating by video conference accordingly. Please be aware that others may be able to see you, take care not to screen share your computer and anything you broadcast may be captured by the recording. All of the materials for this meeting, except any executive session materials are available in the Novus agenda dashboard. We recommend members of the public follow the agenda as posted unless I note otherwise. Shortly we'll be turning to the first item on the agenda. I will introduce each speaker for any response. Please wait until the chair yields the floor to you after you have spoken. Oh yeah, we're not gonna have public comment after each thing. Each vote taken in the meeting will be conducted by a roll call vote. So let's go ahead and do attendance and make sure that everybody can hear us. I just need to change. All right. Ms. Exton. Yes. Mr. Cardin. I don't see him yet. Dr. Allison Ampe. Present. Mr. Thielman. Yes. Mr. Schlickman. Good evening. Mr. Heiner. Present. And Dr. Bodie will not be here tonight. Dr. McNeil. Here. Mr. Spiegel. Here. Ms. Fernandez. Here. Mr. Mason. Here. Mr. McCarthy. Here. Ms. Rodriguez. Here. And Ms. Bird will be joining us later for her agenda item. So the first item on the agenda tonight is public comment. There are three people signed up for public comment this evening and I will call on you Ms. Holler, Mr. Corcoran and Ms. Hall in that order. This is a reminder that you have three minutes for public comment and the committee does not respond. And but some items that you discuss or bring up may come up later on in the meeting. So the first person for public comment is Ms. Emily Holler. Hi, can you hear me? We can, thank you. Okay, great. Good evening Arlington School Committee members and thank you for giving me the time to speak tonight. My name is Emily Holler and I am the parent of a first grader at Thompson who is in the hybrid program and who is also happily participating in pool testing. He's very proud of himself. I am here tonight to ask the school committee to engage with your stakeholders and create an executable plan for providing the option for full in-person learning this school year. Though our incredibly hard-working students have been pushed down on the vaccination list which is a source of mass frustration for all of us, we know their vaccines are coming soon and I'm thrilled to see that the Massachusetts teachers unions are pushing their own plan with the last mile vaccine delivery proposal and I truly hope that they are successful. What we are asking of you is that you take the initiative and begin the planning process now so that we do not lose what very little time we have left once the teachers are vaccinated. I believe this planning process should have been well in the works by now and the fact that there has been no public discussion doesn't bode well for our children. Arlington parents are watching as other school districts are moving ahead while we sit back and we wait and it's the kids that are suffering the most. The parents of Arlington want to know what we can do to help and support you as you move this process forward. A Facebook page titled, a Facebook page titled Back to School Arlington MA has been set up and is helping inform and engage the Arlington parent community about important school committee meetings, informations and information and decisions. This page has 130 followers after only being live for a week, all of whom are trying to figure out what their lives are going to look like for the next several months. We need to see progress and we need to see effort. What can we do to help you get our children back in school full-time this semester? We are here and we are asking you very directly. Thank you so much for your time and please feel free to reach out to me anytime to discuss this further. You all have my email address. I do know that. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Brian Corcoran. Yes, can you hear me? Yes, thank you. Awesome. Thank you and good evening. My name is Brian Corcoran. My son is a hybrid first grader at Hardy and my daughter will join him there in September for kindergarten. I'm here tonight to encourage the school committee to take a more active leadership role in the effort to get our elementary students back in school full-time as soon as possible. At the last full committee meeting in her response to the superintendent's comments about achieving the 35 hour requirement with more specials, the chair's graciousness and restraint was admirable. Yet her honesty revealed an unfortunate reality. The district is offering an insufficient product which parents are to some extent free to take or leave. And we're all generally accepting this arrangement. I suppose because people are working tirelessly and we're doing the best we can. I know the former is true and I certainly hope the latter is not. This is not an attack on the district. My son is receiving an incredible first grade experience this year, given the impossible constraints, but it's actually grossly insufficient. There is simply no way the high quality can make up for such a dramatic decrease in quantity. And the return to the proper quantity will only be achieved by getting back in the classroom full-time. To do that, the impossible constraints must change. We are already aware of the measurable ones, six feet, number of kids per classroom, staff head count, et cetera. But I believe the constraint that poses the biggest threat to getting back in school full-time, even by September, is the paralysis that our community is experiencing because of fear and ambivalence. To engage and resolve all of the other constraints effectively, we must overcome this paralysis. And we can do that by returning now to the things that we can do safely and responsibly. Clearly, I believe that having all students and teachers in the elementary schools full-time is one of those things. Of course, for those drawing different conclusions, families and teachers alike, I hope the district continues offering a full remote option. Another thing that I believe can be done safely and responsibly is for this committee to resume in-person meetings immediately. And I encourage you to do so. It would be an active leadership benefiting many planks of an effort to return. It would signal a seriousness of intent to parents and demonstrate a solidarity with faculty and staff. Simply put, it would model for the community a path out of this mess that we are in. If any committee members would not feel safe attending in-person meetings, outstanding. You can have the option for remote participation, participation, modeling that our solutions need not and should not be uniform. Tonight's agenda item, school reopening plans. And my understanding that this is a recurring agenda item is encouraging, but it's a small first step that needs to be followed by many more. And I hope you'll consider the one that I have proposed. Currently, most of our kids are in school twice a week, on a screen once a week, and on their own the rest of the week. This cannot possibly be the best that we can do. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Corcoran. Ms. Julie Hall, we can't hear you if you're talking. Hello? Now we can. Oh, I'm sorry. No, you're good. All right, good evening. My name is Julie Hall, and I've had, I have four children. My oldest is in college, and my youngest is a second grader at the Brackett School who is in hybrid. And I also have a seventh grader at the Audison. And the first thing I just wanna say is thank you for taking the time to let me speak. And I want to really just say how grateful I am for the experience of my seventh grader is getting in the sand cluster at the Audison. The communication from Mr. Merringer has been unbelievable and over the top. I'm very grateful for that. Also, Brackett communication has been great. Our teachers have been outstanding. But as your first two callers have eloquently spoken, I agree 100% with them. I feel like I'm in a vacuum. So I just wanted to be a part of tonight to see where everyone else was at. And I'm happy to hear that those first two speakers have the same opinions that share that I have. So I'm just speaking to you from my heart. I think that we need to get our kids back to school safely, all kids. My kids, I know we're gonna be okay, but I think there's a lot that won't be. And that's my fear. It's not just my kids. I have the resources to get them in education somewhere else if I need to. But that doesn't mean everybody does. And I just think we cannot live in fear any longer. And I'm very encouraged by the pool testing, but even more than the pool testing, how about what's happened with the teacher testing? We had an email from the superintendent that I think 3,200 tests have been performed since September and it was at 28 cases were positive, which is like 0.04, which is incredible. So I hope that we're relying on science. I hope that we're not living by fear. And I hope that the word equity is used every day all the time. And I'd like to see equity in action. And that means getting our children back to school. Thank you, safely. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Ms. Hall. All right. So the first item on the agenda tonight is the Arlington High School update on the FY22, otherwise known as the 2021-2022 school year program of studies. Mr. McCarthy. Good evening, everyone. Looks like I'm off mute so everyone can hear me. I'm occasionally going to be looking up because I've got two monitors going. So just so people know. So at this point, everyone should have received a copy of the program of studies for next year, along with an update sheet that is linked to it. Is there anybody that did not receive a copy? I can potentially send it to you now if you'd like. OK. Mr. McCarthy, Ms. Fitzgerald posted it in Novus. So we have it. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you so much. There is a slight addendum to that. And I will cover that in a moment. But we have some policy and general information updates that I did want to convey in the sheet that you were handed. They elicit at the beginning. And then it goes down to the bottom where policies are. And I've highlighted in yellow the sections that have been updated. The first is the class of 2022, which is next year's senior graduating class. Their PE requirement has been adjusted. And that is because last year, because we did close, because the way we closed down the in-person education in the spring, students were not able to access their PE courses to complete the graduation requirement. They were able to access it and participate. But it was not in a way that we felt would connect with the graduation requirements. So we have lowered that from five PE courses down to four PE courses, which translates to one ninth grade PE class, which every student takes, and three-quartered electives, as opposed to the four that students would typically take over the course of their time at Arlington High School. The other policy adjustment actually comes to us from DESI. And that is in regards to the Science and Technology MCAS. There, the classes of 2022 and 2023, which would be next year's seniors and next year's juniors, or this current sophomore and juniors, have found they've given them a different version of what competency determination will be that will translate into if they pass a course that fulfills the state's requirements, which for most students is their physical science course, which is offered freshman year, or the biology course offered sophomore year. I will say in talking to Sam Hoyo, a director of science, most students have completed that requirement. And any of those who have not have already been flagged and are being prepared for support in that manner so that we can get those competency determinations finished. As far as courses we are offering, we're not offering many new courses for next year. Part of that is because we offered several new courses last year that with the changes to the programming for this year, we weren't able to offer. So we want to try and put those back into the mix. We would like to try and offer those next year. Two courses that are new will be Adulting in Technology, which is actually, we're offering this year and is going very well. It covers general life skills for students. We've actually quite a few parents and students reach out to us saying they're very excited about this course. Teachers, students, how credit cards work, how to balance a checkbook, general life skills, how to plan out a budget. Also, we will have, in addition to our early childhood education course, which is Child and Parenting, very excited about that as well. The addendum is for a course that was not added. And I apologize for that oversight. And that is the power of protest, which will be held by our history department. It is a semester-long course that will do case studies and talk about the history and social impact of protest from the Montgomery Bus Boycotts, the Seneca Falls Convention, all the way up to the Dakota Pipeline protest and Black Lives Matter. So we're very interested to see how that will progress. It kind of came out of conversations in the history department, but also a lot of student interest. So we're happy to talk with students and see what they're interested in and explore those topics. The remaining courses, we do have some that are on rotation, which will be reactivating. So astronomy and oceanography will be reactivating this year, very excited about that. And while that activates, weather and climate and our physiology of exercise courses will go dormant for the year, and they will come back the year after. Public speaking, we'll be making a return to Arlington High School. We're very excited about that as well. Keep saying we're very excited. And it's kind of funny because we love offering these courses because the students are very gung-ho about that. And every year they always ask us what they want. The courses that will be removed will be the history of Massachusetts, history of the Middle East, introduction to Italian. Now our goal there is right now we have a four-year Italian program. We want to try and create a more condensed program, a college preparatory course, which will be intense Italian one-two. And we're hoping that will come up in the years, in the future, and that students will be able to take it once they complete their Spanish or French or Chinese requirement, Mandarin. The other courses that will be removed are philosophy of science and philosophy, introduction to philosophy. That comes because the teacher who was running it no longer works at Arlington, they left. And so we don't have anyone that would be teaching those courses. At this time, I have sent you the course descriptions. We do have two other adjustments that I do want to let you know about and then I'll open it up to questions. One, they'll be name adjustments. So our physical science course, which every freshman takes and our modern world history course, which every freshman takes, will be the department has spoken about it. They've spoken to the students and they've decided they want to offer those heterogeneous courses. Now, for those of you that aren't familiar with that title, we do offer some courses heterogeneous, which means they're not honors or advanced. Every student takes the course. Once in the course, the student can review the syllabus, talk to the teacher, and decide if they want to do additional work to reach the honors credit. That work could vary anything from presentations, reports, discussions, independent research. We've done that with a lot of senior level courses. Our English curriculum at the senior level is heterogeneous. And so the social studies and science departments really wanted to, they did it this year and it has worked incredibly well and they want to continue doing that to offer everything at the heterogeneous level for freshmen. So at this time, I believe I've covered anything, but if there are any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. Great, thank you, Mr. McCarthy. I actually have, just before we start, I have a question for the rest of the committee because hopefully somebody can answer this for me. Just so the public knows, we don't get to have these conversations other than on Zoom with all of our friends. So we approve the program of studies, right? But as far as I know, we never approved doing that said program of studies in either a semester or a full year model, right? Does anybody, like if, do we approve the semester or the full year model or we just approve the program of studies and that's it? Does anybody know? Mr. Schlickman? Well, there are two entirely different questions. The program of studies basically details what we're offering. I understand. Right, and the obviously the semesterized scheduling is probably more of a budgetary thing. So while we'd have some say on it, I don't think that it necessarily touches into the program of studies. Okay. Unless the program of studies is specifically stating that we will be doing a semesterized approach and we don't want that in there. Mr. McCarthy, is your program of studies stating that we are doing a semesterized approach? No, it does not. Mr. Thielman? Yeah, I would just add that I believe we did have a role in approving the semesterized schedule when we approved Dr. Jangers, when we approved the reopening plan in the fall because I think it included a schedule. Got it. Okay. So what Mr. Thielman is saying is correct. The program of studies is typically a description of the offerings and some of our broader policies. And so we did present the semesterized schedule. Jesus, I think it was probably August or September when you all approved it. So we are in conversations right now, weighing out what has happened in the past and we will discuss that further and hopefully we'll bring that information to you eventually. Great. All right, so questions for Mr. McCarthy on the program of studies. Mr. Heiner? Well, I was just gonna add at the beginning, my memory serves me and I'll stand corrected. In the past when the program of studies was presented to us prior to COVID, there were some courses that were just listed for one semester. So I assume that if we've passed a course of studies in the past, we should have recognized full year and single semester courses. They've been offered in the past. Am I correct, Mr. McCarthy? Yes. So to clarify, we do offer full year courses and semesterized courses. Now with the change in schedule for this year, where we did semesterize the school, what we did was we took the full year courses and they were offered over the course of the semester and the semesterized courses were offered over the quarter. And so that balanced out in terms of the amount of credits being offered. But yes, in the program of studies, there are semester long courses which we could define rather than semester, we could define this half year and full year courses. There's also quarter long courses. I just wanna say that I'm personally as an elementary, former elementary teacher, I'm very happy that you're trying for the heterogeneous grouping and still affording students if want to do extra work. I think that affords the class an experience of everyone sharing similar experiences. So thank you for bringing that forward. I hope it's successful. Absolutely. And actually, if I could speak to that very quickly so they know we had a lot of questions about that when we were discussing with parents. I know there's concerns about making a heterogeneous system around the physical science and the social studies. We have had it in place for if you go back in time because it started when I was teaching English so probably 10 years ago at the senior level of English, it has worked incredibly well there. It brings a lot of diverse conversations and it just adds a new flavor and depth to the course which we really enjoy. And students do have the opportunity if they want to elect it to the additional work. And like I said, it's different per department what that work is but they do the option to display additional work to get the owner's credit. I just wanted to clarify that. Thank you, Ms. Morgan. There are questions for Mr. McCarthy, Mr. Cardin and then Mr. Thielman. Thank you. It looks like there were eight classes which were switched to heterogeneous for the pandemic year and you're keeping two of them as heterogeneous. Does that sound right? I don't know the exact number but that's what was listed in the FAQ about moving to heterogeneous. There were eight classes listed and we're preserving two of them. Yes, that doesn't include the ones that were already heterogeneous before this year. Right, right. So I have some reluctance to move to heterogeneous classes on a permanent basis just by a change in the program of studies. I would prefer, I guess you said you talked to the students. I would prefer to see some feedback from the students. I'd prefer there'd be a discussion with the parents. These are freshman classes so it would be the eighth grade parents that I would like you to discuss it with. I don't know if any of my colleagues feel the same way but I'm reluctant to approve shifting them to heterogeneous tonight. Thanks. All right, Mr. Thielman, I, as an eighth grade parent I agree with Mr. Cardin that it should be, there should be some engagement. I understand that there were a lot of that we made a lot of changes this year sort of in flight to make schedules work, et cetera. But this seems like more of a substantive and this seems like a change that would roll forward. And so I would like to see more engagement with families and the community around it because it does seem like a significant change. Mr. Thielman. So a couple of questions. One, I believe the committee, the school committee and our curriculum committee should have a conversation with Mr. McCarthy, Dr. Janger about the semesterized schedule. I think that's something that should take place. It's a new experience for our students. It was implemented because of the pandemic and we have, I think many of us have heard from parents, some pros, some cons and I think we need some data and some understanding if that is a plan for next year. Have you, Mr. McCarthy, have there been any conversations about next year's schedule and whether it would be you would keep the current semesterized schedule or go back to the old program? At current the department, we had a conversation in the department head meeting and they are surveying staff at this moment, but we are still collecting data around that. Okay. So I think just to kind of set the stage, I think we need to see that data of course, but then I think parents and students should be surveyed about this. And then I think we should all talk about it here because there are varied experiences in the community and a lot of anecdote and some data through a survey would be helpful. And even though we don't approve the schedule, we approve the program of studies. Last year we did approve a new schedule and so there is a reason, there is an input or we should be having this discussion. So the school committee needs to be part of the discussion. I just wanna make sure we're clear on that. Everybody, is that, so let me make that point. The second point I wanna make is, a second thing I wanna ask about is, could you just give some background in terms of the staff's thinking? I know you said just to recap on the heterogeneous courses that you have here, astronomy, social biography, public speaking. What was the drivers of the decision, of the recommendation? You mean in terms of going to the heterogeneous for physical science and for modern world? Yes, that's correct. I'm sorry, yes. I just wanna make sure I understood. So in those cases, this year, we did end up doing it heterogeneous in order to alleviate stresses on the schedule and on room placement. And they had, I was not part of the department's meetings on these matters. The department heads brought it to me after and we had a conversation, me and the department heads in regards. They said that in the emails and comments I had from teachers, it was that they felt the students were able to have a broader conversation about items that they felt it raised the bar in terms of the curriculum and the discussions in the room. Those were the two biggest pieces that were pretty consistent across the people I talked to. Okay, thank you. That's all I have. Thank you. I'm gonna call on Dr. Allison Ampe yet, but just as a follow-up, Mr. McCarthy, I assume that all of the feedback on the heterogeneous classes has not been uniformly and unanimously positive at every turn. So, unless maybe it has, maybe you've only heard good things, but I would be curious if you've had what some of the downsides that have been shared with you. Okay, so to speak on that, the departments which felt they did not wanna continue this process for various reasons was the math department and the English department. They felt that it was easier in sections like that to break the groups apart and I shouldn't say break the groups apart, but separate them into advanced and honors to address the needs of those specific groups. I don't have specific quotes from them at this time though. But there was no negative feedback at all from anybody in science or modern world. In the teachers that I spoke to, the departments came to me and said they had a conversation as a group and decided as a whole. Out of the teachers I spoke to, I did not get negative feedback. I did have one lukewarm teacher who said I'm not a huge fan, but I can see where it's a benefit and I would go with it. But I am happy to go back and speak to the teachers and the department heads and collect more data if this group would prefer that. The direction that I heard from at least myself and Mr. Cardin was certainly to connect with them but also to connect with the community, with parents and with students because that would be really helpful. Dr. Ellis and Ampe. Thank you. Mr. McCarthy, first a question about the handbook. I'm a little confused on what page, page four. It says that students whose year of graduation is 2022, 2023, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And have demonstrated competency in one of the four tested disciplines, biology, chemistry, intro physics and technology engineering in either the 1920 school year or a prior school year. It's that vast bit that either the 1920 school year or a prior school year. I'm thinking about the freshmen. So the only course they would have taken at this point is the intro physics last year. So... Just to clarify, you're talking about the sophomores of this year. Yes, yes, yes. I'm talking about the sophomores this year that they would have taken intro physics last year. And that's the only course that qualifies, I mean that counts towards this requirement. Yes, and that does count towards the requirement if they passed it. I believe the wording there is because the original documents sent out by the state said that last year's seniors were also included in that. And so they could have taken a course, their freshman or sophomore year or their junior year as well. This was sent to me through the department chair of science. And so I believe that they used the wording that the state put out. So yes, a freshman would take physical science last year and if they passed it, that does fulfill the competency determination requirement. Right, but if they didn't pass it, it doesn't matter if they passed biology this year because it's not included. It was only last year or prior. You are correct. And so we've identified those students that did not pass last year in order to give them supports and to prepare them for when the state does offer it. The state actually just released the dates for the MCAS exam for this year. I would have to check the specific dates but they are offering the science exam in June. So we've identified those students and we are preparing them for that exam. I don't have the exact numbers in front of me though as to how many students that is. I don't think it's very many. Okay, so the bottom line is it's not a typo. I just can't see why if they passed biology this year and why that wouldn't also count, but whatever. I think it's because they are offering the science exam right now. And what they've did in the prior was if it didn't run, like last year when it didn't run, maybe the students opportunity to pass that exam did not exist, so if they passed the course. So my assumption would be right now, they are on course to do the exam in June. If that exam does not run in June, then I assume that they would fall back on this statement from years prior where if a student passed the bio course, for example, that would fulfill the requirement. Right, but there's no years prior for this year sophomore except last year. Right? Yes. Anyway, I feel like it doesn't make a lot of sense, but if it's what the state is saying, then I guess we have to go with it. The other thing I wanted to talk about is I'm also very interested in understanding, having a discussion about continuing the block schedule and ask as you gather the data that there is, that the information is broken down by type of student as in our students with high needs or our high achieving students and because part of it, what I'm hearing anecdotally is that the kids who struggle more in school are really doing well with the box schedule because they have fewer things, there's fewer transitions, there's fewer things to be, balls to be juggling in the air. And I'd like to get that flushed out into actual data and understand how does that, is that significantly different for say our honor students or whoever or average students because I think this is something that we should be taking into account as we will by we, I mean you really, as a decision is made because if this is a way of enhancing achievement for our high needs students, it doesn't cost anything and maybe we should be looking at this. Even if it's not perfect for everybody and I understand there's problems for people who are taking the AP tests or who are taking advanced math, but can we work around, try and fix those problems for those people if it's helping our students who need more help? Anyway, so that's, I just ask that that be considered too. Thank you. Nope. Mr. McCrudden. Yes. Just while we were talking apparently Ms. Perry, the department head for English is on this because she texted me and said the, I know there was a conversation. I had said the English department was going to split between honors and advanced and I want to clarify, she texted me and said the English department is wholeheartedly in support of going heterogeneous for freshmen as well. So I misspoke earlier. I do apologize for that. Ms. Eckston. I just want to piggyback on my colleagues who were talking about the heterogeneous courses and sort of thinking that that needs to involve more of a conversation. And I appreciate you sharing about the department heads because that was going to be one of the pieces how teachers feel about these courses and how is that working for them. Another thing I'm thinking when you're gathering more information from parents and students is making sure that you're getting that information from a diverse group of parents and students because I think a lot of the reasons for the heterogeneous groupings is so that students who might not have had opportunities to be in an honors course or may have at some point been excluded from those or in them. And so I just worry that all voices will be sort of contributing to the thoughts about whether it's working or not working and why we should either continue or not continue to have them. So just being mindful of how everyone is being included in this conversation. Thank you. And Mr. McCarthy, can you confirm that it is the policy of the Arlington School Committee that students can elect to take courses at whatever level they so choose regardless of teacher recommendation coming into ninth grade? Yes, we do not have any prerequisites when it comes to a level of a course. We do sometimes have prerequisites when it comes to the order of courses. But students can elect to take honors or not even despite what their teacher might recommend. Yes, a student can take AP or honors or advanced. They have that choice. Regardless of what a teacher recommends. We often advise people to talk to their teacher and have those conversations so that they are making an informed decision though. Any other questions from the committee for Mr. McCarthy? Dr. Allison Ampey and then Mr. Cardin. I just wanted, I forgot to mention this before, I just wanted to point out that part of the reason we began the heterogeneous classes in the first place was that it was a requirement of or at least a suggestion by the NEASC, I think maybe a couple of review cycles both ago that this was something that they felt was important to have at the high school. Thank you. If I may. Go ahead, Mr. McCarthy. You're absolutely right. That is when it was implemented across the board when we diversified it. I actually ended up with teaching a course, the heterogeneous course, I believe three or four years before NEASC came. So we actually were a little ahead of the curve which I was very happy about. But yes, when NEASC came around, it was something that we had discussed about doing on a broader platform. Mr. Cardin. Thanks, I just wanted to clarify. So the proposal before us doesn't actually change freshman English to heterogeneous. Are you saying that that's another step you're taking or not? Well, it sounds like from this committee right now that would be something that you would want me to gather more information on before we take a vote on it. That would be something we would be discussing though when I come back with more information. Yeah, I'm not sure where the majority is, but that's fine, thanks. All right, any other questions for Mr. McCarthy? Mr. Schlichman. Yeah, thank you very much. I want to say that I admire the high school staff for doing the work to create heterogeneous grouped courses that are rigorous and provide support for kids. And one of the advantages of doing the semesterized block, four by four block schedule is that it also provides for acceleration for students. So that if particularly, I'm speaking as a former high school math teacher in that you can move between courses quicker so that you can complete your geometry course in a half a year, then move on to the next course, then move on to the next course. And the net effect is to get students who may not have been performing well in middle school who all of a sudden gain love of mathematics to make it to calculus and higher level mathematics without having been penalized by their placement coming out of eighth grade. So there's a lot of reasons why the four by four semesterized block has advantages. There are some disadvantages as well, but we've experimented with it this year. And I want everyone who's thinking about the impact, both positive and negative on the four by four block this year to understand that the data we're collecting is also data we're collecting in a pandemic year where other things may confound the data. But I'm very pleased with what I'm seeing from the high school in terms of adapting to the current circumstances as well as becoming more open and accessible for all students. Thank you. Any more questions for Mr. McCarthy, Mr. Thielman? I just, just two things. One is we haven't yet received data on the semester, the four by four semesterized schedule here at the school committee that I've seen. So at some point we need to get that data, digest it and talk about it. And so that's what we need for that conversation to be thoughtful and helpful. And regarding the heterogeneous classes, I think that would be a very good discussion to have in the curriculum subcommittee with some faculty there, guide us through their thinking. That would be the best way to handle that or department heads there. So I know that one of the intentions of bringing this tonight was looking for our approval if there's a motion to do that, fine. Or if somebody would like to make a motion to, or we could just sort of provide feedback to Mr. McCarthy that he would like for him to come back to us with more of the information as we've discussed tonight. So I defer to the committee on what you'd like to see happen with that. Is there a deadline, Madam Chair? Yes, Mr. Schuchman. Is there a pragmatic deadline for the high school for getting the course of studies out to the real world? If there is the possibility of delaying two weeks, I support viewing this as a first read. Mr. McCarthy? So I get anything we would like to try and get it out there as soon as possible because we are looking at next year and what scheduling will look like for next year and getting recommendations and requests from students. I had put on the schedule that we would be looking at March to open up the window to start having requests coming in as to see what courses we'd need to run and what staffing requirements we would need. I can post on the website this, I can post this as a draft on the website with noting which ones are still in question or I could hold on posting this. The last year's program of studies is in place until I can bring this back in two weeks. I'll defer to the committee on that one. Mr. Thielman? I suggest we do this. It's not gonna be posted till March. The curriculum committee is scheduled to meet when? When is the curriculum committee meeting? The 24th. So we have a meeting on the 25th, we can meet on the 24th and talk about this and on the 25th we can vote and that's plenty of time for March. Will that be enough time though, Mr. McCarthy to collect any feedback? I mean, we're heading into a break week. I'm pulling up the calendar right now just to take a look at that. Obviously, we will be on vacation for the next week. I'm sure the department heads will be able to gather the information from the staff. I'm not worried about that. I should be able to gather information and feedback from parents and students. You know, that gives three school days to gather that information, assuming I'm bringing it to that meeting and I'm not reporting it in advance to Ms. Fitzgerald. So that would be a procedural question. I don't know if you would need it in advance, how far in advance you would need it or if I could bring it to that meeting. I know- It doesn't sound like there's too much time to do it in advance. So I don't see how, I think we would have to get it live. I don't, I don't, I mean, it was the night at 715, right? So- I mean, I would speak to the department heads while coming to that meeting as well. So we would try and collect as much data as we can. Mr. Hayner. And then- Just for clarification, we seek trying to get Mr. McCarthy to bring the information to the full committee or add a little more squeeze to them to the curriculum committee the day before. I just want to clarify that. I think we could do it either way, right? I think that's what we're trying to figure out. Okay. It sounds very tight. The timing sounds very tight to me to collect actual meaningful feedback from the community and families. And I actually think that this is a pretty significant change where we're adding disciplines as we sit here. So we're up to three now, which is a pretty significant, which is a pretty significant change. So I think that it's important that we, you know, that we collect some feedback on it before we're in a position that we need to make a decision on it. Mr. Schliffman, I'm sorry, go ahead. Okay. I would agree that getting the information is important. I'm just suggesting if he's going to give it to the full committee, there's no need to have a decoder, the curriculum committee ahead of time. Because the best that they're going to do was make a recommendation to the full committee the following night. If time is tight, I'd suggest we give them as much time as we can. Mr. Schliffman, and then Mr. Cardin. I think that the curriculum committee can discuss things in a little more informal aspect so that we can gain a firmer footing on what's going on before we walk into the meeting. So that if it's agreeable with Mr. McCarthy, I would love to have him invited to talk about it at the curriculum meeting. To that point, I move that we accept the program of studies as a first read and authorize the district to publish this with the notation that the program of studies is subject to final approval by the school committee. Is there a second for Mr. Schliffman's motion? I'll second it. Okay. Discussion. Mr. Cardin. Thanks. So yeah, I do think this is worth having more conversation at a subcommittee level. And I agree with the motion because I think Mr. McCarthy, you can publish. The only thing we're talking about is actually the change that was made this year. We suddenly switched classes from leveled to heterogeneous. So I think people can start, you can put the notation that we're considering making these classes heterogeneous, but in the meantime, students can start thinking about whether they might wanna select honors or not. And in the end, they may not get that choice. I mean, they'll get the choice by selecting honors by doing extra work, but they may not get the choice to be in a separate class of only honors. So I think it's an important issue and we should work through it. If the Wednesday after break is too early, then we can schedule a meeting the following week. And in the meantime, the students can start thinking about their choices. The only thing we're debating here is whether the advanced and honors will be combined in one class. We're still offering both. So the students still have to choose, but we're just not sure of the delivery method. Mr. McCarthy. I just wanted to clarify something. I recognize that these are the three freshman classes that we are discussing, changing from honors and advanced split to heterogeneous. But I do wanna make clear, this is something we have done over the last many, at least the last 10 years, across disciplines, across subjects in other areas. Now granted, many of them are electives, but some of them, like English, are graduation requirements. So I just wanted to make sure it's clear. It's not something we're just, it's not something that we just did right now. These courses, obviously, these three courses that we're talking about, they are a change from last year, which we use this year, and we'd be looking to use next year. I just wanna make sure that was clear. And Mr. McCarthy, just for myself, a student, it happens as Mr. Cardin described, a student would pick whether they wanted to be in honors or not at the outset, correct? They're not making in-flight decisions about, well, if I do this assignment, I'll be in honors. And if I don't, I won't. They have to make that decision from the beginning. So our process is in the first day of school, a first day of class, the teacher lays out the syllabus, the expectations for the class, and then says, if you're interested in honors level, credit for this course, here is the addendum to that syllabus that you would need to complete. Students are usually given one week to two weeks to have conversations with their teachers and make that decision for a year-long course. And so part of that is students can come in, they can see all of their courses, see what the requirements would be for all of their courses, and pick and choose which ones they're gonna take at the honors level. Thank you, that's helpful. All right, any more discussion on Mr. Schlickman's motion? All right, seeing none, Ms. Exton. Yes. Mr. Cardin. Yes. Dr. Allison Ampe. Yes. Mr. Thielman. Yes. Mr. Schlickman. Yes. Mr. Heiner. Yes. And I am also yes. All right, so we will see you in the curriculum instruction subcommittee after February break, Mr. McCarthy. May I ask for clarification? Yep. So at that meeting, from my understanding, you would obviously, I will be there. Would you like the department heads of these three departments to be present or at least to have a statement if they cannot attend? Yes, I think that would be very helpful. And Mr. Thielman had asked for a teacher or two. I can't guarantee that, obviously, but I can try to get a teacher or a department head. And I will try to collect the data from parents and students in regards to this and get it to you prior to the meeting, obviously with vacation, I will try, but that's my understanding of what the expectation is at this time. And I can also publish the program of studies currently in this draft that you have with the notation that there are possibly some changes coming. And I will note out those changes based upon this conversation. Dr. Allison Ampe and then Mr. Heiner. Just to be clear, is block scheduling going to be discussed at that meeting or is that going to wait? To clarify, block scheduling hasn't really even been discussed with our teachers yet. We are in the process of collecting data. I would not be prepared next week to discuss that or in two weeks. Okay. That's, thank you. Mr. Heiner. Mr. McCarthy, I don't mean to add more to your table, but is it possible to get some input from students that have already gone through this program? You mean the heterogeneous process? Yes. Yes, that would be my goal would be to collect information from the students and the parents. And if possible, the spectrum. The bad and the ugly. If you could. Oh, no, of course. Thank you. I wouldn't polish it all up. Don't worry, you'll get the data. Thank you. Mr. Kemen. I just want to clarify the time of the curriculum meeting on the 24th. Scheduled for three o'clock. Thank you. Anybody else? Seeing none, the next item on the agenda is school reopening plans. And this is something that one of the people who spoke at public comment mentioned that this would be a sort of recurring agenda item. Yes, it is. So that affords us an opportunity to have discussions amongst the committee about this and understand where we're at and get updates from the administration on what their plans look like. As most of you know, we cannot have conversations or meetings about this outside of our public meetings. So this is, you know, we're all getting updated in real time. So on this topic, so I know that Mr. Thielman sent something out by email. Mr. Thielman, do you want to start with that so that we have something to discuss on this topic? Sure, I think just first of all, I empathize completely with all of the speakers tonight. I think we start by getting a report from the superintendent and her staff on planning and discussions that are taking place about bringing more students back to school. So I had a conversation with Dr. Bodie and she said to me that reopening is probably not the right title because the schools are open. It's about expanding in-person learning. And so that's the turn that's in the motion. So I have a motion asking for reports from the district and I'll just read it. Move to the school committee, request the superintendent to provide filing reports by no later than Thursday, March 11th. So it's meeting one month from today. One, a written report on options and planning taking place to expand in-person instruction during the current 2021 school year for students of the district's lowest grade levels. And then two, a written report on options and planning taking place to expand in-person instruction during the current 2021 school year for students at each level, K5, grade six, grade seven, eight, grade nine through 12. Once Arlington Public Schools staff who teach and work with students have the opportunity to complete a full COVID-19 vaccine regimen. So once there's a second, I'll just speak to this. I'll second the motion. Okay. So to clarify, so for the first one, it's what can we do regardless of whether a vaccine is available for students at the lowest grades? Doesn't specify which ones, whether it's K123. We leave that up to the superintendent and her staff to report back on what's possible. All of us have heard about districts that have opened school for all students in the earlier grades. We'll let the superintendent come back to us with what's possible in the earlier grades in Arlington. The second one is very specifically, what is the plan once our teaching and school staff who work with students have the opportunity to complete a full vaccine regimen regimen? So I think this gives us a timeline. It gives the superintendent to and through the 11th to give us a report, which we can talk about in that meeting. And then after, during that meeting, we can then delegate it to one of the committees. Obviously probably the curriculum subcommittee to go into further discussions. So that's my position. All right, comments on discussion, Mr. Schuchman. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I would request the motion be divided. And I will tell you why. First of all, I'm very, very encouraged by what the president said today in that they arranged to purchase another 100 million doses of vaccine and that there will be enough vaccine by the end of summer to fully vaccinate 300 million Americans. And in a nation of 330 million people that puts us in a position where I think we are firmly headed toward reopening full and person learning in September. Now the question then becomes how do we expand opening schools this year? And in one way, the two motions are duplicative in that we've got a report on lower grades and then report specifying the various levels that would be described K5, grade six, seven, eight and nine through 12. Now, the only difference between them is that the second motion has an underlying assumption that everybody's had an opportunity to complete a full COVID-19 vaccine regimen, which in my mind is sort of is quite important in terms of moving forward for expanding opening because right now what is limiting our ability to open is in part maintaining six feet social distancing. And the reason why we have so few positives among the teaching staff is we've been able to restrict the number of students there in contact with on any given day through the week. Bringing people closer together with more kids is going to increase the risk. Now how much it is, I can't model that out, but given the fact that vaccinations are accelerating and Dr. Fauci said today that by April, anyone who wants a vaccine should be able to get one. We should be in a position by the end of April to have met the criteria stated in motion too so that I would like to see what a plan for expanding opening would be should we meet that threshold, which I think is attainable this spring. So I would like to divide the motion. I would vote against motion one, but I would very strongly support motion two as being the most realistic scenario for us moving forward with expanded openings. Thank you. Mr. Cardin. Thank you. So I'm supportive of the motion. I might have gone with different wording, but that important. The intent of this CIA meeting on the 24th was actually to start the discussion about a plan for a plan. And I think my reluctance, my issue with the wording of the motion is that it's sort of what happened with our high school, right? We asked for a plan. The plan was we can't do anything. We can only do remote. So I think as a school committee, we need to be more specific. And right now it's a tiny bit premature. The CDC is coming out with new guidelines tomorrow. There have been several districts that have moved to the three-foot spacing for students, but hopefully we'll have more guidance on that tomorrow. So, and my understanding is that the principles haven't the elementary principles have been talking about different options. So I think this is a good first step, but I do think we'll need to go further. And as Mr. Shukran sort of indicated, specifically direct that we expect a plan to move to full in-person at certain levels when certain criteria are met. And we're not ready to, part of the purpose of the CIA committee is to develop more specific criteria for that and have a tighter guidance for the administration from the school committee, but we're not quite ready yet. So this is a good first step, but I do expect as a CIA chair, hopefully by the next meeting, maybe not till hopefully by the next meeting to have more specific guidance on what we're expecting. I mean, so, yes, the teachers are vaccinated, but the kids aren't. So what does that mean for lunches? What does that mean for families who are currently like the hybrid but aren't comfortable having their kids in a room with 20 kids instead of 10? What does it mean for the kids that are in the remote program who were in the remote program because they didn't like the hybrid, but if they get to be in person four days a week, wanna opt into that. There's lots of huge issues that we should be working on right now. And I think as a committee, we sort of need to guide that conversation so that we get a product that we want and not a, sorry, we have to stay this way for the rest of the year. So I will support the motions whether divided or not. And I do look forward to being more granular on it in the future with the will of the committee. Thanks. Dr. Allison Ampe. Thank you. I'll support this motion, but I wanted to make some comments so that they're heard and hopefully taken into consideration at the CIA meeting and going forward. My concern with, I understand the desire to have students, especially in our younger grades, return to school. And if everything had held constant as it's been with our testing and all, I think we would be in a good position to move forward. My concern is about the COVID variants that are starting to surface. A couple quotes, Dr. Fauci is concerned that the British B117 variant could become the dominant present in the US by the end of March. It's 50% more infectious than the strain that has been here. Another person, Michael Osterman, who is out of the, who's the head of the Center of Infectious Disease Research Policy at the University of Minnesota, says a surge is likely to occur with this new variant from England. It's going to happen in the next six to 14 weeks. And so I feel like we can change the virus changing is kind of like adding more students to the room. And I know this isn't happy talk and I'm sorry, I'm always Debbie Downer here. But it's something that we also need to be aware of. And so I would very much hope that any conversations are made with the consultation and information provided from our health department because I think these things should also be informing how we make our decisions. I think with how things have been going, I think we're okay continuing what we're doing. But I am not sure in the setting of these variants whether now is the time to bring kids, bring more kids back into the classroom. But I also haven't had a chance to talk to our, or of health or anyone about this. So that's, I would hope that the APS does this as they create plan. Thank you. Ms. Exton. So I will also be supporting the motion as it is or if it's divided. I think, I agree with Mr. Cardin, though there are a lot of layers that whether that's something we ask for in a CAA subcommittee meeting or add to them amendment. I mean, I think one of the things that I think we need to think about is can we bring some of the younger grades back maintaining the six feet distancing? And we haven't gotten a report on current class sizes and what class are there available classrooms for teachers who are teaching in the remote academy where we could space out students at six feet and still bring some of our younger students back. I appreciate the optimism from some of you about the vaccine, but it just feels like it keeps getting pushed off and pushed off for teachers. And it's a really, it's essentially a five week process from the first shot to being completely protected from the virus. And so if we don't start making a plan now when it starts rolling, we need to be ready in five weeks to be able to bring students back. So I think that making a plan sooner rather than later is really important even if it's something that is ready to go and we can't implement until a date to be determined later. I think it's gonna be really important to, as others have mentioned, get a survey from families based on what would their intentions be if students came back at six feet, if students were gonna come back at four feet. And with regard to the variants, we have the pool testing for the students, it's going to continue. And so hopefully we'll start to see if there's a big uptick in cases that's gonna give us information about whether COVID is in our schools. I think one of the things I think a lot about and I am in schools with students every single day. So this is something I'm doing too with these negative results is, it's not that it's not spreading because of our mitigation factors necessarily but it's just not there. And so we need to be aware of if it's there and we have these protective factors, it's not, then is it not spreading? So that testing is gonna be a big piece of the data for us. And then finally, I wanna know how the teachers feel about this. I know that there are some teachers who are eager to have their students back full in person. Hybrid is really, really challenging. I know others feel very differently. And so I think another piece of this plan and the report back needs to be what are teachers' expectations and what do they need in order to feel safe? Is it more PPE? Is it to maintain six feet? So I will support the motion but I think we need a lot of information. Thanks. All right, any more discussion on Mr. Thielman's motion? Mr. Thielman, are you amenable to splitting it as? I'm finally dividing the motion. I urge members to vote for both one and two. The reason why number one is there is because I have yet, and I've asked, I've asked in conversations outside of this room with leadership of the district for an explanation as to why, given the staffing that we have, the classrooms that we have available, why we couldn't bring back kindergarteners now with TAs and teachers. And so, and no one has given me an explanation. So I decided the best thing to do was to put number one in here and just say lowest grades or lowest grades so that we can get a report on that conversation taking place about students in the lower grades, particularly kindergarteners. That's why it's there. And Mr. Thielman, I have been asking since the 5th of December for a class size report that would give us a sense of how many students are in our in-person classrooms and that has been very hard to produce apparently, but I think maybe we need a little more. So I don't know if that's something, maybe I can ask for a third motion around that that we could tie that in to March 11th, but that seems like information we really need to have and I have not been successful at procuring it for this committee. So I defer to all of you if that is something that you would like, but I think we may need to request that more formally at this point. So I would suggest we divide the question, we vote on one, two, and then Len writes number three. Okay, I can propose an option for number three if somebody would move it as well. So I know what I want, I just haven't been able to get it. I didn't mean to imply it, I didn't mean to imply it, I just meant he could, yeah, okay. All right, so more discussion on Mr. Thielman's motions that we will be taking in order. Mr. Schuchman. I think that the chair's request and Mr. Thielman's request as well of the current status of hybrid instruction and the number of kids who were in the room at any given time across the district is an important part of the motion under number two. So that should come with it. And if we wanna make that more explicit with a subsequent motion, I would favor that. All right, any more discussion on Mr. Thielman's motions? All right, seeing none, Mr. Thielman, would you read for us please the first, we're gonna vote on the first piece. Move to the school committee requests to superintendent provide the filing report by no later than Thursday, March 11th, 2021, a written report on options and planning taking place to expand in-person instruction during the current 2021 school year for students at the district's lowest grade level. Great, thank you. So on that motion, Mr. Hainer, are you still willing to second, to be the second on both pieces? Yes, I am. Okay, all right, Ms. Exton. Yes. Mr. Carden. Yes. Mr. Allison Ampe. Yes. Mr. Thielman. Yes. Mr. Schuchman. No. Mr. Hainer. Yes. I am also yes. All right, and then Mr. Thielman, will you read the second part of your motion please? Yeah, by the way, the way I said, the reason why I said Mr. Carden should write the third motion is critical of the language in this one. So I said, let him write something. I will see, I'll put something out there. And I think you can provide feedback as we all can. So, okay. Move to the school committee request to superintendent provide the filing report by no later than Thursday, March 11th, 2021, a written report on options and planning taking place to expand in-person instruction during the current 2021 school year for students at each level, K5, grade six, grade seven and eight, grades nine through 12, once Arlington Public School staff who teach and work with students have the opportunity to complete a full COVID-19 vaccine regimen. All right, Ms. Exton. Yes. Mr. Carden. Yes. Dr. Allison Ampe. Yes. Mr. Thielman. Yes. Mr. Schlickman. Yes. Mahina. Yes. I am also yes. So I would entertain if anybody feels so inclined a motion directing the superintendent to provide on March 11th as part of the aforementioned report, a class size report indicating how many students we have in hybrid and remote classrooms broken down by school. Does anybody want to make that move? Second. Discussion. Dr. Allison Ampe and then Ms. Exton. I'm fine with that. You might want to say how big the hybrid classes are. I mean, how many are actually in a person? But the other thing I realized is should we be saying the superintendent or her designee on all of these? Sorry, I didn't think of it until now. Yes. I was envisioning the sort of typical class size report that we have gotten historically that we used to get every month that told us how many kids were in each classroom. But we received one back in October. The challenge is that it's impossible from the report to determine which of those classrooms are remote and which of them are hybrid in person. So that was the information that I've been looking. Ms. Exton and then Mr. Schlickman. Just want to clarify, it's by school and by grade and by class. Like it's all of them, all of that. Okay. School grade classroom. Mr. Schlickman. So to clarify, I'd like to see for any grade level, all the classes that are operating on the AA block and the enrollment, all the classes that are operating BB and the enrollment and all the fully, all the remote Academy classes. So that if for example, at the down there were four fourth grade teachers that we would see that classrooms count of AA's and BB's separately so that for four teachers, we'd end up looking at eight sets of numbers. Then in addition to that, we'd have a count of how many classes we have that are fully remote and the class size of the fully remote cohorts assigned to the teacher. So that's what I'm envisioning. I think that's what you're envisioning too. It is the other piece of information we'd need though, however, Mr. Schlickman, is that there's the AA cohort and there's the BB cohort and they're a Venn diagram because then there are quite a few, there's like three, four, five in each class that are both AA and BB, right? So the sum of AA plus BB does not equal this sum of the class. It's double counting. Actually, we have a number of students who are four day a week students, right? However it's represented, but to know how that divides up, how many AAs, how many BBs and how many four days are in there? Because that'll really give us a sense of what we're looking at and where we can look to expand and where there are difficulties. Right. Anybody else on this? All right. So motion by Mr. Hainer, second by Mr. Cardin on the class size report. Ms. Ecksten. Yes. Mr. Cardin. Yes. Dr. Allison Ampe. Yes. Mr. Hillman. Yes. Mr. Schlickman. Yes. Mr. Hainer. Yes. And I am also yes. So I'm gonna come to you and just, so Mr. Hainer, go ahead and then I want to. I just wanted to ask the chair if this is an appropriate time to seek something that I've been looking for for a couple of months with regard to the curriculum or should I hold off? Is it related to reopening school? Yeah, I mean, yeah, if it's a request, yes, go ahead. I moved that the school committee requests the superintendent and our her designee provide a copy of the curriculum audit by Dean Williams to all members of the school committee. Is there a second? Second for purpose of discussion. Thank you. If I may. I have been told several times when talking about this that it's just raw data and stuff with the school department has had this in the hands since mid fall. I'd like to see it. I'm not gonna make any judgments on it. I just want to see it. And I think it's important that we have it. All right. Anybody else discussion on Mr. Hainer's motion? Mr. Thielman. Repeat the wording on the motion again, Mr. Hainer. Go ahead, Mr. Hainer. Thank you. I'm asking the superintendent or the designee to provide us a copy of the curriculum audit that we asked for that the school committee and the school department has from Dean Williams to each member of the school committee. The staff is my understanding is the staff has now has been working on it for the past couple of months. All right. Others? Just to clarify, this is the equity audit or what? Yes. Yes, thank you. Okay. And Dr. McNeil, was there a written report that fits this description? Yes, the SEO equity audit and it's Dr. Dina Simmons. I apologize. Thank you. No worries. Great. Thanks. All right. Any more discussion? I would just ask that correction for the name of the person that did the audit be put into the minutes. Thank you. All right. Seeing no more discussion. Motion by Mr. Hainer. Second by Dr. Allison Ampey, Ms. Exton. Yes. Mr. Carton. Yes. Dr. Allison Ampey. Yes. Mr. Thielman. Yes. Mr. Schlickman. Yes. Mr. Hainer. Yes. I am also yes. Okay. That was a quick question. Was there a date on that? What was the date? I'd like it as soon as possible. I mean, you don't have to kill yourself to do it, but... No, no, no. I'm just, I just want to be like, you made a motion and I just... I did. I did not put a specific date on it. I didn't want to put that extra pressure. Thank you. No worries. Since the motion was directed to the superintendent, Dr. McNeil, why don't you confer with her and go from there? And if for some reason it isn't forthcoming, I am happy to follow up with her. I will follow up with her. Okay. Any more discussion on school, around school reopening? So I would just like to share, I think that these conversations are really important. I think they can be challenging. I see a path forward through the CIA subcommittee meeting. Mr. the CIA subcommittee meeting. I think that there could be additional direction either in the form of feedback or motions. We meet again as a... While we have a holiday break next week, we do still keep our two-week schedule as a full committee. So we'll be back again in two weeks. So Mr. Schlickman and then Mr. Cardin. Yeah. Well, two points of order. The first point of order is Mr. Thielman's sound is weak and I would hope that he could reposition his microphone or something so he becomes a little more audible. The second one is it was mentioned in public comment about whether or not we meet in person or not. And I recall that when we were doing our superintendent interviews, we went to the health department and the town specifically told us we will meet remotely until there's a townwide decision on how boards and commissions are meeting. So at this point, that's where the first decision comes in. Once they open things up, then we can make a decision on how we're going to meet. But at this point, we are a town committee and we will follow the dictates of the town. Right. And one other comment, this is something that I've given a lot of thought to. I don't have reservations about meeting in person, but there are real significant logistical challenges around the technology and having multiple laptops. I have twins that are at the Gibbs and they're in the same class, which is good and safer for everybody, safer for their teachers, which we're happy to support. But they also share a room because we live in a small house and even just the two of them being on a class meeting concurrently, the feedback from just their laptops that are next to each other, they're constantly, I constantly have to separate them because they hear that if you have your speakers on, you're hearing a perpetual echo. And I have talked to a lot of people who run these kinds of meetings. I had considered just bringing in the committee into the high school building and having everybody else on Zoom, which is something that if we worked with that with the town, that the town council thought was possible, we would be in a situation where we would be perpetually muting our microphones and the speakers on our laptops so that we could actually speak and hear each other. And it literally feels like an echo chamber. So while I am potentially never going to run an in-person meeting as chair, which I would very much like to do, there are real logistical challenges to doing it. The other issue is, is that our meetings are so, we only meet every two weeks, which I never thought I would say was not often enough, but we get into situations and I talked about this with the director of health and human services where you come to a situation where it's very hard to get a quorum in the room or it can be. For example, this week, my daughter was quarantined from exposure at the odyssin. And while I could be out in the world, I would have been reticent to come to an in-person meeting where I was anywhere near anybody else, just because it seems like, it just doesn't seem like a good idea, frankly. So those are real challenges in terms of making sure that we get everybody in the space and then the technology is tough because we would still need to afford public access and we would not be in a position where we could have, we have how many people on the screen right now, 12. 12 of us would be challenging in a space with all of our laptops blaring. So it's certainly something that we've given a lot of thought to. I actually don't think that our hesitation around doing it has a whole lot, doesn't have to do with the safety and the safety pieces of it. It has a lot more to do with just the technology of making it happen and making sure that our meeting is available to the public. So Dr. Allison Ampey, go ahead and then Mr. Cardin. I just wanted to point out that the leadership and modeling that we are doing is to follow the local health directives, which is what we've been doing. And that is something I think a lot of us have wished had been happening all along at all levels of our government. Mr. Cardin. Thanks. So I just wanted to address the parent question about what they can be doing to support moving to more in-person learning. What Cambridge is doing is they're shifting to three feet separation. The faculty is six feet away, but the children are three feet. So I think we need to have a conversation, the parents need to start having a conversation with their peers, particularly after tomorrow, depending on what the CDC says. If the CDC does come out with that recommendation that three feet is sufficient, there needs to be a conversation about whether the parents in general are comfortable moving towards that because it's gonna be extremely difficult if not impossible to offer, to give options of six feet or three feet. I mean, Cambridge isn't doing that. It's just logistically would be a nightmare. So start talking with your fellow parents, particularly after tomorrow, if that's the recommendation because we need some consensus that three feet is gonna be okay because the kids aren't gonna have the vaccine this year. Thanks. All right, anybody else on this agenda item? All right, seeing none. The second reading on the 2021-2022 school calendar vote to approve. Dr. McNeil, do you have a recommendation as Dr. Bodie's designate this evening? Yes, thank you, Ms. Morgan. So looking at the calendar, we are making the recommendation and it's in regards to the first day of school. Just to give context, there was a conflict with the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah and we heard from many parents during the policy and procedures subcommittee. And so we are making the recommendation that the first day of school be changed to September 9th and then we're gonna move our professional development day that's normally in November to September 8th. And so if we have the five snow days that will put us at the last day of school would be June 29th. So that's what on behalf of Dr. Bodie, I'm making that recommendation to the committee. Great, thank you, Dr. McNeil. So I guess I'm looking for a motion on the calendar. Mr. Schlickman. Before we adopt the recommended calendar, I just wanna insert the other component of the calendar. So I move that pursuant to pop school committee policy BEA, it is voted that the Arlington school committee schedule 19 regular meetings for the 2021-22 school year, which shall begin promptly at 6.30 PM on the following dates, September 9th, September 23 and the list is in novice. So I won't read them all. The approved school committee calendar shall be distributed to all principals, administrators with instructions that every effort shall be made to avoid scheduling evening events on school committee meeting nights that language is taken from our policy and will establish the 19 meeting dates that are on the calendar and by our policy we're required to make this vote. Is there a second for Mr. Schlickman's motion? Second. Discussion, so I have one point of clarification and then, but more importantly, thank you Mr. Schlickman for talking about the endeavoring to not schedule school events on our school committee nights. I have missed meetings every year that I have been a school committee member because there's always a school that schedules their back to school night on our meeting night. So it would be really great if, and again, I know people are doing their best and back to school nights are tough to schedule and I have kids at a lot of different schools so that makes it even more challenging but it's really tough. For some reason I feel really okay about missing a school committee meeting to go watch my daughter saw away on her violin that seems sort of reasonable but I get really frustrated when back to school nights are scheduled and they conflict and it also means that the parents from those schools also can't attend our meetings. So thank you for clarifying that Mr. Schlickman. Did you happen to look, and I can, if others are commenting, I believe that the dates that are in the draft four calendar that are in Novus or have taken the meeting dates that you provided but I will admit that I did not reconcile them. So I think we should probably just approve your dates and approve the calendar just in case they don't line up. Well, they do line up but our policy which includes that language regarding notifying principles of the calendar, is in our policy and our policy requires us as a committee to select our 19 dates. So that's why this motion is being made before we adopt the calendar because that's sort of a prerequisite to having the dates on the calendar. That's all. It's purely procedural. Great. So any more comments on the school committee meeting dates that Mr. Schlickman provided? Seeing none. Let's vote on those. Ms. Eksten. Yes. Mr. Curtin. Yes. Dr. Allison Ampey. Yes. Mr. Thielman. Yes. Mr. Schlickman. Yes. Mr. Heiner. Yes. And I am also yes. All right, is there a motion to approve the 2021-2022 calendar? So moved. By Dr. McNeil on behalf of Dr. Boody. So moved. Mr. Schlickman, second by Mr. Thielman. Discussion. Mr. Schlickman. I'm just reporting out that on a motion by Mr. Heiner, seconded by Dr. Allison Ampey. It was voted by the policies and procedures committee to recommend that the full committee at their meeting tonight vote to have the first day of school on Thursday, September 9th. So this calendar before us is consistent with the recommendation of the policies and procedures subcommittee. Great, further discussion. Seeing none, let's vote. Ms. Eksten. Yes. Mr. Curtin. Yes. Dr. Allison Ampey. Yes. Mr. Thielman. Yes. Mr. Schlickman. Yes. That was much louder, Mr. Thielman. We absolutely heard your enthusiastic yes. Mr. Heiner. Yes. And I am also yes. Okay, Mr. Schlickman. Okay. We have another motion from the policies and procedures subcommittee. We recommend that the Arlington School Committee adopt the following statement and send it to Senator Cynthia Friedman, Representative Sean Garbley, Representative David M. Rogers, Governor Charles D. Baker Jr., Education Commissioner Jeffrey C. Riley, and the members of the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. The statement is as follows. Over the past year, the Arlington Public Schools partnered with its teachers to develop expertise and resources for successful remote learning. The district has provided extensive professional development for our professional staff and our teachers have devoted considerable hours of their time to master best practices for remote learning. Thanks to the hard work and dedication of our educators, Arlington has demonstrable success in providing high quality remote instruction for our students. While there is no substitute for in-person teaching, we believe that successful remote instruction during snow closures can be preferable to extending the school year in June. Recognizing our teachers and students proficiency in remote instruction, the Arlington School Committee requests the Amendment of State Law or Department of Elementary and Secondary Education regulations to permit districts to choose to conduct a full credited day of remote instruction when the district would otherwise close schools due to inclement weather. There's a second for Mr. Schliffman's motion. Second. Second by Mr. Hayner. Discussion. Ms. Ekson. I just, I wanna clarify or make sure I understand that this is just a request for it to be an option and not that Arlington is necessarily going to automatically use snow days for remote teaching instead of an actual snow day. Mr. Schliffman, would you like to- Yes, that is absolutely correct. Right now, we do not have the option. Whether we exercise it or not is one we would want to set a policy on, but we can't set a policy of whether we wanna go for a remote snow day or not if we're not permitted to. So this would only give us an option to do something which we might want to do. So my questions or concerns were the same as Ms. Ekstens and I actually addressed them with Dr. Bodie earlier this week because as we know, we did a remote snow day and then we got some feedback, especially for some of the elementary educators, it was exceptionally challenging. And so we pivoted to having what she called a traditional snow day. I don't really know what that is, but like a snow day where we don't do remote school, I guess we could call it. And so I was concerned about this motion initially, but I appreciate the intent of it and I'm absolutely gonna be supporting it because I like having choices too, but I think that if we're going to move in this direction or another that we need to get some feedback, not only from our teachers and staff sort of writ large and aggregate in the form of some kind of a survey and also talk to the community and talk to parents and students maybe in the upper grades about what they would like to see because I think we haven't had a chance to do that, which I think is fine and appropriate, but I agree with Mr. Schuchman that it would be premature to solicit all of that feedback in an effort to make the best decision for Arlington if Desi told us that we can pound sand. So I'm good with doing this, but I agree with Ms. Ekstens that we have a lot of work to do. Should we be given this the option to do so? All right, any more discussion on this from the committee on Mr. Schuchman's motion? Seeing none. Ms. Ekstens. Yes. Mr. Carter. Yes. Rafael Tnampi. Sorry, technical difficulties. Yes. Mr. Thielman. Yes. Mr. Schuchman. Yes. Mr. Heiner. Yes. And I am also yes. Okay, any more, we are flying through our motions tonight, guys, I don't think we've ever voted this many times. Any more motions on the calendar are related to the 2021, 2022 school calendar. All right, seeing none. We are going, the next item on the agenda is going to be brought to us by the triad of Dr. McNeil, Ms. Byrd and Ms. Rodriguez who we saw two weeks ago. They presented the Panorama Family Survey results and they are back here tonight with some follow-up and clarification. So Dr. McNeil, go ahead. Thank you, Ms. Morgan. So yes, we are coming back and I'm saying that this came out of my reflection on the questions that were asked, as we were presenting the data and then we had our discussion and I wanted to come back and I wanted to just talk about some of the things that are going on in the district that are not necessarily taking place and direct response to the data, but these are things that we have planned on implementing throughout the year in order to create a foundation. And so in order to address some of the things that were brought up in the data and I'm just saying like, the reason why I'm presenting this is because that these foundational things, these initiatives that we've done that we're focusing on like SEL, cultural awareness and reaching out and communicating with families. Over time, I do believe that they will yield us the results that we're looking for. And I know that the present pandemic has had a huge impact on how some of those parents are responding. And that was actually the initial intention of giving out the survey in order to get to understand what the experiences were of the various stakeholder groups. And I just want to again, emphasize that we've given a survey out to staff, out to families and we're currently have a survey that we've sent out and we're in that survey window right now for our students in grades three, two, 12. So I'm gonna take a moment just to share my screen and I'm gonna go through a couple of slides and then Ms. Bird and Ms. Rodriguez will talk about some of these wonderful, just absolutely wonderful initiatives that they're working on that have an SEL focus. So I'm just gonna share my screen and I will say that this, I didn't share the slide deck ahead of time because I wanted to provide a narrative for the slide deck but I will make it available to all school committee members once we give that narrative. And so you'll be able to look at the information with a certain level of context. So this is the part two. And again, these are things that we're gonna have to continue to do as we review the data, we analyze it and we try to digest it and understand what we need to do to respond to it. So let me see. So the objective for this slide deck is just to, first I wanna present some assumptions to the community. So whenever we have these type of conversations that there's a certain level of understanding of what our objectives are from the school department. And this is to respond to some of the things that the parents have said publicly. And I just wanna make sure that the community is clear on what our intentions are as a district. And then to clarify some of the data points. I think a couple of data points as it related to the learning models. Oops, sorry. That they were taken out of context and I also want to correct an error in the data. And then we're gonna, like I said before, we're just gonna highlight some of the initiatives. There's a mini that are presented in the slide deck. We're not gonna go over every one but we are gonna highlight some of the things that we are doing. And I think that will, like I said before, yield results. And I just want the community to know these are the things that we're doing. And then responding to some of those questions like what are some of the immediate things that we can do to respond to the data? And what are some of the long and after correct that? What are some of the long-term initiatives that can be established to respond to the data? And really the slide deck is actually presenting those long-term initiatives. So just looking at some of the assumptions, like I said, I'm not gonna go through all of them but I want, as we began this school year, we had a goal. And one of the goal, as a running goal is always to bring students back as soon as we can, as soon as it's safe. And one of the things that I want the community to know this is something that we continually talk about amongst ourselves. I think the comment was made that elementary principals talk about this. We have elementary principal meetings where I'm present, Dr. Bodie's present. And we talk about what can we do in order to bring students back? And that we currently at all levels are reaching out to students and families and trying to provide information as it relates to results from the pool testing, letting parents know the impact that it's had on instruction and then reaching out to students and the students and the families of students that who are not engaging, what can we do in order to get those students engaged and understanding what their experiences are and what are some of the barriers and challenges that they're facing during this pandemic. So some of the just the data points from the survey, I think that when we talked about the learning behaviors, there was some confusion. And it was, there was some confusion and I just wanted to provide some clarity as to separate the two. We had a data point as it related to the learning behaviors and we had a data point as it related to the learning models. So I just wanna say that when we are looking at the learning behaviors, there was a national metric that was inserted into that data point. And I did reach out to, and I sent a memo or a message or email to all the school committee members, to all of you to talk about that national bench or that national comparison. And I did reach out to the panorama representative that we work with. And I talked about whether or not it was apples to apples comparison. So the other districts are not comparing the data that they received to other districts during the pandemic. Some of those districts administered the survey pre-pandemic. So when it looked at where we fell in the continuum of districts nationally, we looked at as if we were scoring in the bottom 10%. And that is erroneous because we can't compare ourselves to districts that administered the survey pre-pandemic because it's different conditions. So you're gonna, it's gonna yield a different response. I just wanted to make sure that I identified those two, I clarified those, that data point. And then the second one, like I said before that the learning behaviors were confused with learning models. And so, we were talking about the experience that students were having or families were having with the different learning models. And it didn't necessarily talk about the quality of the learning models that we are implementing for students. So I just wanted to make sure that we were, that I clarified that. So just some of the things that we have going on within the district and as it relates to cultural awareness, which was one of the components of the survey. So over the past two years, we have trained over 70, actually 76 staff. And I'm making that adjustment because some of the staff that we trained, we actually trained actually 80. And I confirmed some of this today, like right before this. So I had to correct this in there, but this data point that we've trained over 76 staff have taken the ideas one anti-racism course. And right now we're looking how we can leverage that knowledge and that experience and how they can share their knowledge with the rest of the district and become facilitators. So we have a time that we're going to meet with those individuals that took the ideas course and talk about their experience and how they're applying it to their instructional practice. And we have administrators and staff that have taken instructional staff that have taken that course. So I'm very proud of that fact because we are offering it every quarter. So we have that course and it's a 25 hour course and it's very rigorous. And staff can also get two graduate credits through Framisham State based upon the work that they do from taking that course. And I'm not going to go through all the rest of them, but I listed the other points there. So I just like, you know, and observance of time, I just want, I put those in there, but I'm not going to necessarily talk about those things. But this is one thing that I'm very proud of that we're able to do because we're doing the training. We're trying to make sure that we're exposing various staff members to this experience, this learning experience. And I think it's going to, in the long run, it's going to help us and it's going to help us reach our goal of becoming a anti-racist district and employing anti-racist instructional practices. And then this is like seeping into what we're doing, some of the discussions that we have in our curriculum leaders meeting. We had the audit. We're talking about how we're integrating multicultural content and culturally responsive teaching practices into our instruction. And then one thing I'm very proud of at the high school, they've done a lot of work around this and we have an anti-working racist group of students who meet with staff to talk about different aspects of the learning community and how they can implement anti-racist practices. So we talk about curriculum. I'm actually meeting with the group and we talk about how the students are developing a diversity, equity and inclusion webpage that they can add to the webpage that I've created for the district that has resources and articles and videos that students and staff can access so they can continue to advance their knowledge and understand what it is to be, to have a multicultural perspective. And then something that we've shared out to the entire district is the anti-racist working group does a video newsletter that's just outstanding and we share that out to the staff every month. Some of the learning needs we have worked, we got a federal grant part of the CARES Act and from HUD that we have a community block development grant and we've been able to establish a tutoring program focusing on the needs of some of our most marginalized population and it's targets students from a lower socioeconomic background. And so we've set that up and that goes, we started it just a couple of around now, like last week I believe, and then that's gonna go all the way to the end of the year. So that's some federal funding that we received and we started this tutoring program. And I look to see that we're gonna, that's gonna yield some very positive results from the students who need it. And then again, I list other things that buildings are doing in order to set up tutoring programs locally for students and trying to also hire staff to meet with students on the remote days. Outreach, there's a lot of things listed here, but as you can see it's like emails, outreach from staff to families, trying to keep families informed as to what's going on as it relates to the COVID testing that we have going on throughout the school district. And then we started the pool testing. So we regularly report out those results to families and still reaching out to students and trying to do our best to engage students and trying to work within the confines of the pandemic and check in on students and see how they're doing. So I'm gonna hand it over to Ms. Byrd and Ms. Rodriguez and they can talk about some of the things that we have going on and building like a SEL, a strong robust SEL program within the district and that covers many different aspects. And so I'm gonna turn it over to her. Thanks. Absolutely. So just taking a quick overview of these slides. And again, as Rod mentioned, these will be available to folks. And then I also wanna let folks know that if they just click on the SEL website for the district, you'll be able to find all of this material there as well. So all of these hyperlinks are easily accessible there. And I can share my screen later and show that to you all in addition. So the safe and supportive schools assessments that we have in place in the plan for the school year, you've already been familiarized with the Panorama Family Student and Staff Survey. So that's one piece of looking at school climate and the overall experience from all the different stakeholders. As some of you may have had direct experience with or indirect experience with, we will in the near future be coming back to speak with you about the universal mental health screener that we've been doing also with students from third grade through 12th grade. And this is a screener that takes a look at the individual mental health of all of our students to see how COVID's impacting them, but not COVID necessarily, but rather the overall milieu of just, how is everyone functioning right now and hanging in there? And then what it does is it identifies individual students who may be moderately elevated or severely elevated in terms of being in distress and matches them with a tier two or a tier three intervention and connects with their families and so on. So we've been doing a really beautiful roll out of that and we'll share more on that, but that's a complementary assessment in terms of the mental health, wellbeing, creating a safe and supportive environment across the district. And then the third assessment in this ecology of creating a safe and supportive school is how are students doing in terms of learning social emotional learning skills and competencies? So when we teach them about things like self-awareness and relationship skills, are they learning them? And how are we assessing those? And how well is our curriculum working? And do we have teachers that could use some more support, perhaps better programming, perhaps better coaching? And where's our assessment cycle on that? And so we're actually working on a pilot with Desi to look at this assessment and this indicator to work with our student data and report back to students what their strengths are and help inform our instruction through that. So we'll definitely have the opportunity to come back and talk more about that, but we wanted to also provide a bit of the context of where Panorama sits in the larger scheme of how we're looking at mental health and social emotional learning and growth and instruction, but also as Rod mentioned earlier to let you know what's been in the works prior to the data coming back. You can go to the next one, Rod. Part of our plan that was put together before we returned takes these three concepts straight from Desi's guidance on how to return to positive environments. Overall, in an HL, they are really stressing the parity and interdependence of physical and emotional safety. So we spend so much time and energy and resources on and you were all just discussing it earlier, you know, six feet versus three feet and making sure that everybody feels safe and that vaccines and testing are funded and provided for and that everybody has their needs met for physical safety. Are we having those conversations on an equal level funding, level time and energy and same ferocity of emotional energy and equity of access when we're talking about access to emotional safety and that's one of the major components that Desi was stressing. And so we try to take that into these plans as well. Similarly with equity and racial justice, we know that COVID has hit our BIPOC families and students and staff much more severely than it has for our non-BIPOC folks. And so we wanna make sure that anything we do with SEL is mindful of that and incorporates that as well. And then the last piece is collective care. When we're talking about self-care that may have been something that folks have heard about before. Collective care, it's much more focusing kind of if you think of the idea of a conductor in front of an orchestra. Everybody needs to play their individual instruments. Every teacher has their individual class they need to play but we had better all tune up together or the whole piece is a mess. If one or two people are out of tune then it doesn't really matter. The whole movement, the whole piece sounds discordant. And so how do we look at self-care not as something that is selfish but rather as something where we actually owe it to one another, we have to be looking at caring not just for ourselves but caring for one another. There is this concept of collective care that's necessary when our entire community has undergone something so drastic and these all come from desi. So we took all three of these principles into our SEL plan. Thanks Rod. We also are majorly funded by a number of different avenues. And one of them is the Arlington Education Foundation as you all are very well familiar with the fact that we are in the midst of a multi-year $200,000 grant and they fund a number of things which you'll see highlighted in green throughout the slides. The Department of Ed, we currently have three different grants operating with them that are funding a number of these programs. The 613 grant is a one-year program that funds the mental health universal screening process. I just described earlier and access to services and the interface contract. The also the grant 337 funds are safe and supportive schools continuation grant and mentoring. We mentor other districts in that. And grant 151 is the pilot program for the social emotional learning assessment of competencies. And then as Rod mentioned earlier, the Chinah 17 which is the community health network area and we're the area 17 has given us a grant for a couple of years on access and equity and mental health, particularly for our black and African-American residents. So students and families. And that's where the ideas funding has come from as well as some cultural humility opportunities and so on. You can go to the next one, Rod. So this is broken down into four areas. I'm not gonna talk about all of them but like I had mentioned all of these are hyperlinks that you'll be able to access on the website. It's under district SEL plan for 2020-2021. And these are all aligned with the castle plan to return in the fall. And just to highlight for folks, castle is the collaborative for academic and social emotional learning. It is the powerhouse and the authority when it comes to what is best practice and research and resources when it comes to sound evidence-based social emotional learning structures and implementation. And if you notice when they, if you get into the reading of it when we were returning back to schools and they put out their guidebook on how to do that, Arlington Public Schools is actually cited as one of two or three contributing districts in the entire nation. Because I helped to contribute to the authorship of this document. And so we should, I say that because we should feel excited that Arlington is actually one of the very few districts that is cited as a contributor to this document. And you can trust that we are entirely aligned with all of their efforts. So you can see everything here that's highlighted in green. Those are all grant funded. And you can notice that everything that's gone through here is well in action. So we have youth mental health first aid trainings. We've been looking at climate data. We've got that Panorama partnership up. We have an SASS council and advisory council with families. We just had a recent meeting this past week, which has been awesome. And then we have equity questions that go along with every step of the way. You can go ahead to the next one, Rod. Then the critical practice two is all about connecting with and supporting the adult social emotional learning. This is a space for connection and healing among adults. And so we have a wise at work contract this year, which actually allows all of our staff in Arlington to have an app on their phone about mindfulness and to learn about how to create peace and well-being in their workplace and some really great things have come from that. We've got some great stats on over 180 folks have signed on and have been using it. Mostly I could say to get some peaceful sleep. So folks have been using it to take care of their own health and well-being. We also have a mental health and well-being website that hosts free webinars all the time and yoga classes and things for staff. We've also sent out the interface connection and the EAP and many resources for cultivating resilience and managing secondary trauma for our adults. Not to mention all of the SELPD that we had at the start of the year before we started up, as well as ongoing PLC or early release times coming up for elementary. You can go to the next one, Rod. Additionally, one of the best PD opportunities that's embedded is an opportunity that we have through the state where many of our schools are engaged in MTSS academies, multi-tiered systems of support academies. And we've got, as you can see here, Thompson Bishop, Hardy, Gibbs, Brackett, all engaged in a variety of different learning opportunities. And these are all multiple years. They're three-year academies, mental health and social-emotional learning, positive behavior interventions and supports and culturally responsive teaching. And they're really brilliant opportunities where they get outside coaching and wonderful internal coaching where they build up the capacity of the staff internally and it's embedded. So these are not one and done. These are ongoing chances for people to connect. We also continue to have the trauma courses from the Leslie Institute for Trauma Studies. And the interest in that has just continued to blossom considering that every student has now been experiencing this adverse childhood experience of COVID. So we're continuing to partner with Leslie and figure out how to bring them in even in this virtual setting. You can hit the next one, Rod. Critical practice three is then when you bring it to the students. And you'll notice there's a lot here. One thing I wanna highlight is this connection mapping that happens virtually. And I just spoke with some folks at Gibbs who have been using this. And it's a brilliant way to identify which students have connections and relationships with different staff members across the building. Maybe they're not even folks that they see or interact with from a class, but maybe it's from a club or maybe it's just from being in the building a couple days a week. And what they do is they use that to identify where the students that have very minimal connections and then how do they as a team go through and find those students and adopt a student or pick a student to say, okay, those are the kids that we're gonna intentionally connect with once every single day until we can now say, okay, that student has grown an additional adult connection or relationship at school. So now they have a solid connection. So the connection mapping is a really simple and very powerful tool to make sure kids are engaged and connected. Tons of resources and work happening with responsive classroom, responsive advisory. Also, Ruler is a social emotional learning training program that is happening for Odesson and at the high school. And it's quite complimentary to all of the CPS work that's happening as well as the responsive classroom structure that is at Gibbs. And so there's been a lot of conversation about how Gibbs is gonna connect with that. So we're in the really good conversations and beginning steps of looking at that. Our elementary schools have been diving deeper into second step online, but also using the physical materials when they are in person. And then Laura's gonna talk a little bit more about our focus on the three areas for this year. So you can go ahead and kick it ahead, Rod, to the next slide. You already talked about the ideas courses. So we'll go to the next one. And Laura's gonna take critical practice four. All right, so for critical practice four, obviously using the data that we're collecting from all of these different surveys and then from assessments to really deepen those relationships and continuously work on improving both the social emotional learning capacity of our children, but then also our adults. So again, in green is highlighted the grant work, but really that emphasis on elevating student voice and hearing what their experience has been. So I've worked closely with one of the high school members who runs advisory, making sure that, okay, what is he hearing? What are the students saying? What has their experience been? And really waiting for that data to come in from Panorama to use that as well. In regards to supporting educators. Madam chair, point of order, please. Yes, Mr. Schuchman, go ahead. I move that we suspend policy BEDB regarding the limited part of presentations to extend for another five minutes. Okay, so motion by Mr. Schuchman. Is there a second? Second, second. All right, Ms. Ekston. Yes. Mr. Cardin. Yes. Dr. Allison Ampey. Yes. Helen. Yes. Mr. Schuchman. Yes. Mr. Heiner. Yes. And I'm also yes. All right, go ahead, Ms. Rodriguez. So Dr. McNeil, Ms. Rodriguez, do you believe that your presentation will be more than five more minutes? No. Okay, go ahead. Yeah, okay. Sorry. So essentially using that student voice, making sure that we're hearing from what their experience has been. So then we can better inform decisions that we're making and tools that we're really giving to our educators and to our students. So we can go ahead to the next slide. All right, so these are the competencies that we're really focused on for this school year. So first we have our self-awareness competency and it's defined as the ability to accurately recognize one emotions. And then we also have a column for the skills that we need right now. So as we're processing the pandemic, racial injustice, self-awareness for all of our students and our educators is really critical at this time, more than ever. And so we're figuring out how we're able to embed that really intentionally into curriculum that's already happening within the school district and really using those PLC times as moments of reflection for our teachers to figure out how is this showing up in what's already being done and then how can we highlight it even further? We have relationship skills as well. So the importance of building relationships not only with their peers, but also with adults, particularly when we're in this remote world where everyone is experiencing this adverse trauma collectively. And then finally we have self-management. So the ability to regulate thoughts, behavior, stress which we're seeing is really critical in the ability to cope with grief, loss, develop resiliency. So these are three key areas of focus for this school year. I'm gonna, a lot of the work that we've been doing and we'll continue to do really highlight the importance of these three skills. That is all. At this point, we were just on our last slide, right? It's just questions. Yeah, and I wanna go back and I just wanna say that in the first slide, I skipped one about our values and these are things that we focused on for this year. And one of our main values that, you know we continue to collect information on as we do our pool testing, but the one of the values was the physical and mental health of all adults and students in the district. And so I think that's something that we've done very well and then equity and learning continues to be a value. So teacher collaboration. So I just wanted to point that out that, you know as we embarked on this year, we did work with teachers to come up with some guiding principles of what we needed to focus on as we knew that the impact of the pandemic would be severe. So, and also I wanna talk about, when you talk about planning for the fall and with anticipation that students are gonna come back and the trauma that they have experienced and trauma that families have experienced. I think everything when you talk about the planning, it goes beyond than just a physical bringing back of students. You gotta provide a foundation from a multi-tier systems of support lens in order to understand what you're going to need to do in order to re, you know, how the students come back and have them be re-acclimated back into a learning environment and we're gonna have to do some work around that. So some of our students have been out of school for many months, you know, by the time they go back in September it'll be almost, I don't even know, 18 months I think it is. And so we need to have these things in place and this is part of the planning process. So any questions or comments? Well, we can take them right now. Thank you for your attention. And thank you to Ms. Bird and Ms. Rodriguez for being a part of this presentation. Great, thank you so much. Questions from the committee or comments? Mr. Cardin? Thank you very much for that. It's clear there's a lot going on in this area but again, I would just ask for there to be a little bit more communication with the parents about all of this. You know, I know there's the mental health survey, the individual survey that's being done at the high school, I think people are getting notification when that's occurring, but just sort of a, you know, a SEL newsletter or something or just a special correspondence, you know, talking about how this is a tough year and these are all the things that we're doing, maybe not quite in this level of detail, but these are all the things that we're doing to try to ameliorate to the best we can and you know, because we're doing a lot but people don't know about it. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Cardin. Great, anybody else? Questions or comments? Dr. Allison Ampey and then Mr. Othiel. Thank you. Dr. McNeil, I'd be especially interested in learning how you feel the needs as we're reintegrating students next year, how that's going to impact in terms of budget. Are we going to need additional staff or is there anything that we can do to make it better? And if so, how much money will it take? That's a great question. Those are things that we considered as we, you know, Mr. Mason will be presenting the budget tonight. And so we did take that into consideration. We have non-staffing and staffing requests. We have definitely dedicated funds towards, you know, the SEL curriculum materials that we'll need to do to carry through some of the items that Ms. Bird referred to, especially as it relates to second step and making sure that teachers have what they need. But yes, we can definitely highlight what those things are and continue to think about that and report back to you. But that's a great question. Great, thank you. Mr. Thielman. My question is similar to Dr. Allison Ampese. But I was actually, I'm assuming that as you were developing this report, you were thinking of the number of staff that I'm going to need or we're going to need to implement this. So we have to bend discussions. I mean, forgetting the, forgetting, you know, dollars, but like, have there been discussions about, well, I'm going to need this number of additional FTEs in order to do the work. And I'll give you a quick example and Ms. Bird can also piggyback on this. So, you know, one of the things that were, that, you know, one of the grants that was written as it related to the COVID-19 screener, it was like also thinking about, not just thinking about administering the screener, but what is the infrastructure that we need in order to support the whole process. So not only just administering the screener, what is it going to look like when we interpret the results and then we do the outreach to the community? So one of those positions that were part of the grant that we received for that COVID-19 screener, we took that position, which is an outreach coordinator and we integrated into our request for the budget so we can utilize our general funds, our operational funds to fund a position like that going into next year. So it will be a district outreach coordinator and so that's one of those things that we are contemplating and doing. I don't know if Ms. Bird wants to add anything to that as it relates to infrastructure and she can definitely add to anything that she thinks that we might need for next year as we consider what, you know, our budget. This is a fun moment. I've spoken with Rod quite a bit about what is ideal, what is necessary. In many schools, the infrastructure is set up where we have a small number of counselors and social workers who are historically designed to provide some basic tier three services, i.e. like individual counseling supports, maybe some groups and maybe some push-in tier one supports. Every building's different, every culture's different and at the high school, you're also responsible for, at the secondary level, I should say, you're responsible for scheduling and you're responsible for a lot of things for all kids. At the high school, it's particularly amplified because of the college process, right? With the past, I'm gonna say 10 years and the increase in ongoing mental health needs and the increase of anxiety and depression and chronic stress that our students have been reporting on YRBSs for years. And with the chronic stress that our students have been reporting around school, just in general, that need has started to blossom and balloon into, we can't continue to use our counselors in the same way and that infrastructure is a little broken, that we need to begin to teach SEL skills, these basic skills at the universal tier one, every student needs to get those skills as a preventative model because just sending a stress kid to the counselor isn't sufficient, counselors don't have the bandwidth to see every stressed kid, that's just never gonna happen. And now that we have a COVID world where perhaps you had a pyramid once before where 80% of your kids were doing just fine with what they got, then maybe 20% needed a group or a little bit more and then maybe five or 10% needed a counselor or something more, COVID has given us a flipped pyramid. We have an upside down pyramid and there is no fast fix for that and we're also not gonna see, with the pandemic and with COVID, you see your peak after about two weeks, right? With the medical world, what we're gonna see is a peak in education that's going to hit special ed, out of district, private schools and that's how we're going to see the mental health peak. It's gonna be slower, but it's gonna last longer. And so what we need to think about as schools for infrastructure is how do we quickly build up our tier one promotion when it comes to social emotional learning skills but also for disabilities, universal design for learning so that we can stem the flow on the mental health referral side and on the special ed referral side because that's the only show in town when it comes to schools. So we are going to predict, everyone's predicting it, massive influx to both of those tracks because that's the only way kids get help in schools if they're not getting it in the classroom. So I think that aligns very much with what Alison Elmer's been talking about in terms of tier one, getting supports down as early as often and get them in general ed for all kids. It's not a special ed problem. It's a general ed, everybody problem. Same thing with mental health and social emotional learning. That's why you'll notice everything we talk about is tier one. And simultaneously, we need an infrastructure to assess, catch kids early and have tier two supports. So we need to be able to run small groups. We need to be able to coordinate that. We don't have a full-time director for the counseling department. And when we do, it's only secondary. We don't have something overseeing it at the elementary level. So if that was something I know that's been discussed and that's been talked about, I would definitely support any moves in that direction. It's a lot of work to try to do SEL and counseling. I know that SEL support from Laura has been tremendous. I know that there's a lot of support in the budget moving forward. For that, I'm very grateful. And I think continuing that kind of infrastructural support to do the assessments, to get teachers the data and the training is what's gonna be critical. So stimulus money to allow us to hire more staff would be good. And I hear it's coming. So yes, but to be mindful about the staffing. Yeah, that's what came to mind. There's need to be more staff to do this. All right, thank you. Yeah, thanks. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Thielman. Okay, anybody else? Okay, seeing none. Thank you so much, Ms. Byrd and Ms. Rodriguez for coming tonight. It was great to have you here. So, and I'm trying to be better at blessing and releasing people when they're done so that they don't feel any awkwardness to like stay with us. We're super fun. But we really appreciate that you guys came and we hope that you have a really good night. Thank you so much. Thank you. And I did put the link to the SEL website in the slides. So if folks are looking for that, you can find it there. Thank you. So Dr. McNeil, I don't believe those slides are in novice. Could you email them either to Ms. Fitzgerald tomorrow or alternately append that like put them into novice retroactively and then just shoot us an email and let us know that would be great. Yes, I will. Thank you. All right, thanks. Okay, the next item on the agenda is the FY22. I'm having a really hard time with 2022. It looks really weird, 2022. Okay, FY2022 overview of the Arlington Public Schools budget, Mr. Mason. All right, sorry, I had to find the mute button. Can everybody see the presentation? Yep. All right, I actually will have, we have a presentation for you this evening to discuss the FY22 proposed budget. And Dr. McNeil will start it off. Normally, Kathy, Dr. Bode would start and introduce the budget. And I will hand it over to Dr. McNeil. Can you? Yes. So thank you for that, Mr. Mason. And so when we introduced the budget, I just want to give the assertion that, as we thought about the things that we would need for next year, it kind of came up in a question previously when we were talking about our presentation at the end of our previous presentation. It's like, what was our thought process? Of course, we're thinking about, what is it going to take to bring students back? What are we going to have to do to provide for some of the remedial needs? But we also want to always go back to our mission statement, which drives everything that we do within Arlington. And so our Arlington Public Schools mission statement, the mission of the Arlington Public Schools is to educate students by promoting academic excellence, by empowering students to achieve their maximum potential and by preparing students for responsible participation in an ever-changing world. The Arlington Public Schools are committed to helping every student achieve emotional, social, vocational, and academic success. So we know that these are the things that we are the cornerstone of what we do. And so we would make our decisions and we would set our goals. We always link it back to what we value, which is articulated in our mission statement. I'm going to go to the next slide. So I won't go through and read this, but as we think about the characteristics and what students should be able to do once they matriculate through Arlington Public Schools, is listed in our vision of student as learner and global citizen. And then in order to make sure that happens, we have to keep this at the forefront of our minds as we design instruction and giving opportunities to students to practice this. And so that's part of the presentation that we gave before. So we're looking at this through the MTSS lens, looking at tier one instruction. What do we want students to be able to do when they graduate? And not only when they graduate, but as they matriculate through every grade. So this vision of student as learner and global citizen is aspirational. And hopefully by the time students graduate, they are able to represent these skills and do the things that is listed in the statement. And then one more. We also have our, can you advance the slide? Oh, so I also want to talk about the transferable skills. We do have a document that highlights the transferable skills that we know that students need to have in order to do the things that are listed in the vision of student as learner and global citizen. So I just wanted to add that and as a final point. So I'm going to now hand it back over to Mr. Mason and he can talk about the budget and the things that we've identified with this, all these, this admission, which articulates our values and the things that we want students to be able to do. That hasn't changed because of the pandemic. We're still focused on that, but we know that we might have to add some support for students in order to get them, we acclimate it back into schools. And then we can continue to think about what the instructional process will look like, but this is our cornerstone of what we want students to be able to do. So back to you, Mr. Mason. Thank you, Dr. McNally. And once again, good evening. And tonight I did change the document that was originally submitted through some adjustments and through to additional information. This budget obviously is a blueprint. It's going to change. It's going to adjust. That's the reason why it wasn't provided to you as a full budget book yet. And I'll have more information in terms of when you will get that full budget book towards the end. The number that may not be final that we get, but it's the most recent and most likely budget figure that we will get to use for this ES budget. And but the heart of the decision that's Rod had just mentioned as our mission in all of these, the statements made on those slides. In addition to exactly what Sarah and Rod were talking about in terms of the tiers of support. And I want to emphasize this to everyone that the current budget is just a blueprint as all budgets are. But however, this is what we as the district administration see and from what we currently understand are our needs right now. The fiscal 22 budget focuses on addressing additional teaching positions at all levels. So over the past eight years we've seen substantial enrollment growth. That enrollment from I believe 2012 to 2019 was nearly 1400. It was about 13, 1399 students were in terms of the enrollment growth that Armitin seen. And so this year was the first year that we actually did see a decrease of enrollment or a net reduction of enrollment of 200 by 2087 students. And I've provided the school committee and other town committees with this information previously in the analysis that we have done. We also sent out a survey to parents of the students that were either transferred, moved out of the town or home school back in December that showed that at that point in time at least half of those students will likely return if we were open back in person for full-time learning. In a similar model that we had prior to the pandemic. This did not include any additional students that we were expecting from the previous enrollment trend. So the next slide I will discuss more about that. Also our budget we try to focus on as additional resources for special education students or in students with special needs along with resources allocated from remedial services in order to support students that have higher needs or demands due to the change of instruction model that was in result of the pandemic. And you will also see that there will be an increase of administrative support that we've discussed in previous budget discussions from our administrators back in December. And so with enrollment growth and growing demands from the past for the students to support students and both teachers because of the growing teaching staff additional administrative support is definitely something that we see as necessary. We also see that there's a need to continue our progress and increasing resources. We've dedicated to social emotional learning. So you'll see that in this presentation you'll see that in the memo that I sent out to you that is on the list of ads as well as additional investments for reading and math to ensure equity inclusion access for all our students to a close to achieving gap. So this slide is a projection of what the original projection was. So we were seeing based on a agreed formula that we use for our main projection to use in our funding model. And the original projection had projected us still increasing over the next, sorry, hit the wrong button, over the next few years and eventually tapering off. But during that timeframe we've actually showed that the lower line here, the red line shows that using that same formula and due to that the deep decrease of students this year would show a trending down line. Now we all know that that's not what's actually gonna happen. And there's a more likely projection that I provided in previous meetings that were more likely happened with the return of the students that I just discussed and using the previous trend that we were seeing. And that would show that this yellow line which we will still eventually catch up to the previous enrollment projection. And that would show that we would have a substantial growth if we indeed commit and people feel secure returning back to school for a school year 2021-2022. So in order to establish a budget we have to review all the revenue sources, understand the enrollment to establish a budget target. And the funds included in building our budget is built from the town appropriation which include chapter 70 state aid, town, local contribution, grants and revolving and circuit breaker. And so this chart explains how the districts has been funded over the last few years and seeing those trends. And you'll see that this particular year our obviously state aid did not increase that much due to the Department of Elementary and Second Education and the state and the governor's current budget using the enrollment that we had in October one. And meaning that we didn't have any growth so there would not be seeing additional monies per se but would be held harmless to what from that enrollment decrease. The town does provide a set percentage increase in our formula for special ed and general ed. And so they also in the current figure stayed to the commitment of providing 800,000 that was part of the operating override. And they on top of that are seeking to add $230,000 that would be part of the repayment of what they did not pay us for the commitment for last year where we reduced our budget in agreements with them by $460,000. If you remember last year, we were supposed to receive $600,000 added to our base. So the numbers break down for FY 22 like this. For our total FY 22 town appropriation that includes the state aid and the local contribution which is a substantial portion of the taxpayer's dollars is 80,104,634 dollars. The town appropriation includes funding from both that state aid formula that I discussed and is about $4.4, $5 million higher or exactly about 6% increase from the prior year. However, normally we would project grants at a higher amount and you'll see that the grants are reflecting actually a negative amount. And that is because typically we keep core grants that we normally get year to year in here. But I thought it was important to show that this year we did receive additional money from the coronavirus stimulus funds. So that included SR1 funds, which was about 150,000 and about another $1.3 million from the CVRF funds which was coronavirus relief funds to reopen schools this year. We're not gonna receive those funds currently. We are slotted to receive SR2 when we apply for it which is a little bit over $500,000. That was what I added to the memo when I sent a new memo back up. There was talks about a current another allocation which would be about nine times the higher than the levels of SR1, but that's still to be negotiated. Those numbers can also drop down. There was also a reduction in circuit breaker on top of the reduction that we've seen last year. And that is due to the reduction in our out of district spending. Circuit breaker is a reimbursement of that spending when we hit a certain threshold. And so that gives us our final actual change in funding which is about $3 million when including grants and revolving in the spending. Revolving negative doesn't reflect that we've received less money. We do have some reserve balances but as well as we did not receive much revenue this year in FY 21. So some of our revolvings did take a hit this year and so we will need to definitely look at those balances but we do feel comfortable that we will still spend from our revolving and do expect that our revenues will increase or pick back up on those revolving funds. This chart shown is a normally shown in the past it shows the total budget for the district but it shows it as a pie chart showing that the local contribution contribution is about 75% of the funding for our own team. So the grants is a really smaller portion of that and chapter 70 is about 17%. So it's about $14.7 million. This side shows how we're gonna spend the budget typically the school committee votes on budget transfers categories and the amounts that we will spend per category and the largest part of our budget still remains to be special education. Followed then by secondary and elementary and that's what's shown here. So this year typically since it's a different type of year we're still trying to build the budget a little bit more but I wanted to keep it very simple. We got on the town appropriation side and this only reflects that we've received 4.5 million extra dollars that's on the table possibly. And we anticipate that with some adjustments and salary increases we will have to in contractual obligations we will have to send out about 2.25 million dollars to cover that, those things that we anticipate. And then that really leaves us about 2.2 million dollars to do some additional ads to meet the needs that we need for this year. And to also cover any positions that we added from last year or from the current fiscal year, should I say not last year. So I wanted to go into the ads and talk about what the ads are. I gave you the list but just to kind of briefly give you an understanding of each of the ads I may not touch on all the ads but one of the things that we're gonna add is a 0.2 preschool teacher which is to provide ELL instructional support services to the preschool as well as testing for compliance and state regulations and to also begin English language development in the preschool. Also looking at adding a special education teacher for the SLC that they were planning to move to the part of the SLCC program to the Hardy. And so we will need at least a special ed teacher and two teaching assistants for that program shift for the next year, as well as some additional support for the SLC, so special education as a team chair in the SLP for the SLCA and SLC to increase the staffing level. One thing is we talked about in the previous, it was heard in the previous meetings it was about the assistant principals. So there's been a need due to the enrollment growth that we've seen in the past that there's been a growth in staff. And that means that principals have taken on a lot larger responsibilities in terms of the amount of people that they're managing, the evaluations that they have to do, more meetings that they have to support, and more students that they have to support in general. And so that means there's less opportunities for principals to be instructional leaders in their schools. So the assistant principals, we strongly believe we would support, but this doesn't not necessarily support giving all schools assistant principals. This will just support to get schools based on that need the full assistant principals, the level of support that they need. In addition, we have a reading teacher obviously as I discussed before about the reading and math support, you'll see that on here, as well as addressing some maybe some, the lead math coach, which is a position to provide support to overseeing the large staff that the math department has, which would provide a more consistent oversight of the program that are really specific for elementary, as well as setting up additional meeting time with the elementary principals. The current structure, it makes it difficult for the current staff to do that, as well as the literacy coaches to provide additional support to close the achievement gap. The Gibbs ads also continue the certain trends we do need the math support, or some level of resources that should be added to provide that as well as an SLP for the Gibbs. One thing that I believe the new principal at the Gibbs also mentioned was the need for additional administrative support in the main office. That would also give it up to equity with the audits and middle school. We couldn't provide the full request ad. We did provide at least half of that in this budget. We believe that the Gibbs is not as big as the audits in, but it does need the support and a half would be the compromise to do that. And occupational therapist increases just to address the enrollment growth and that load for that particular staff. So the proposed additions also at the other middle school with the audits and middle school, which is also support for reading as there's a core students that are entering into the audits and middle school. There's expected over about 80 students that are going to be coming from the Gibbs this year. I mean, that year from the Gibbs will need additional reading support. They're already in the reading in the program getting that additional support. And currently at the Gibbs is three reading teachers. So adding a teacher at the audits and would actually bring audits in up to three as well. And audits in as a larger school should also have more reading support. Also adding a social worker at the audits and middle school. So currently the audits and it's two social workers. And the two social workers as I believe Sarah kind of pointed out is a lot of the counseling and this work is done for students that are more that has the IEPs or special needs. They're not necessarily supporting the general education students. So this social worker ad would be there to support students who do not have IEPs and also support the bridge program at the audits and middle school. If I remember correctly. You see, and there's also some allocations just for enrollment growth for the Spanish teaching and the music teacher and just additional math support also at the audits and middle school. The high school, generally it was driven by trying to catch up the high school based on the enrollment when we open up in full person there's, we need to be able to provide students with the classes that they need to for the students or that they want for the electives. And so we do have provided just a general 2.3 FTE for classroom teachers for the high school teacher at the high school as well as for additional student support staff that really mainly for special education. And in addition to that, this is not necessarily specific for the high school is for the secondary level is providing some SEL SEL support specifically for the secondary level which is being put in place to continue to support the efforts that we've been that if you remember we did the same thing last year we added some funds for SEL for SEL support last year that's in our current budget. And the idea that was brought up earlier about the need for that Sarah was said in her comments about the needs of counseling in social emotional learning basically was the idea that they might be the need of bifurcating counseling in social emotional learning. And so we're still in discussions this is something that we're still trying to work out and I think that this is obviously as a clear placeholder as well as the possibility that it might have to adjust after we evaluate further the needs of the two departments. District wide proposals typically we always have reserved positions in the budget to address the uncertainty of enrollment growth or any uncertain changes that we need to make. In addition, we are also setting aside reserved position special ed teacher positions or not necessary teaching positions. It's meant to be there to support the idea that there is a possibility that we have to address different workload issues or areas of concern. So that that is what the special ed reserve teaching positions are there for. And we also like many other districts in the town has already have their own equity and inclusion role. The school department is also looking to add an equity inclusion and access coordinator because of the need, you know, we can't just we currently used the town resources but that's not enough for what we need in the school district. We need more resources to address the equity and inclusion and access issues. And the role is also to provide support in those areas. But in addition, you know, what we were talking and thinking about this is that a lot of districts are already doing this. Several districts have either already hired this year or are going to do it in the near future. And so there's definitely seems to be a need to make sure that we can address some of these issues by adding this position. And in addition to that, adding a district data manager or analysts, testing coordinator position that is the need to help us provide targeted support to close the achievement gap. We need a person dedicated to collecting and reviewing the various data points to inform creation of goals or pinpoint strategies to address achievement gap issues. And the position will obviously work in tandem with the equity inclusion and access coordinator as well as the assistant superintendent. So after I talk the air off all this time and put you to sleep, I'm, what's next? I would hope to have a full budget book to you by February 25th that we normally would have already provided to you. We have a good substantial portion of it already completed. It might look different this year again, but in a good way, hopefully, so that you guys will take to it well. It may be electronic using the ClearGov website. We're working with them there. After that, there will be also a public hearing for the FY 22 budget on March 11th. And all as well as school committee will vote on that budget on the 25th. And then we will present to Finnecom and go to town meeting out shortly after. I'll leave it to you, Jane, to facilitate the questions. Great, thank you so much, Mr. Mason. I think my questions I know are gonna relate to the slides, but maybe just so that I can see everybody if we can go back to the Brady Bunch screen for a minute. And then we can go to your slides as needed. So I'm gonna start with my question. So I'm actually, I'm gonna make you go back, Mr. Mason, to the slide with the enrollment, the yellow, blue, and red, if you would. So I think my computer's acting up. Well, take your time. I can pontificate as you're doing that. And then we can all look at it and then be done with it. So yeah, it was well, it was very close to, it was where you were showing the enrollment with a start date of FY 22, I believe. So there was a yellow line and a red line and a blue line, I believe, lovely. So I think the important piece here was that, if you look at FY 20, if you look at FY 2021, right, which is the year that we've finished, and all of these, there were a lot of students that didn't come in September. And the long range plan had over a million dollars in enrollment increases that were not realizing in FY 22 appropriately because those students didn't show up. But it's a lot of money that we left on the table. And while some of those students moved out of state and moved out of Arlington and some of them moved to homeschooling, a lot of them went in search of full-time in-person learning, right? And Mr. Mason did a lot of analysis for us in the budget subcommittee and we went through that. And so I think this really speaks to the conversation we had earlier about looking ahead to the spring and when we may be in a position or we will be, hopefully in a position to bring students back full-time. I think this is critically important because I think that a lot of families are making decisions about what they're gonna do in September based on how this district behaves between now and the end of June. And if we're unable to bring students back or some students back full-time, then that is not going to encourage them to either re-enroll or enroll or stay enrolled, right? Here come September and we could be in a situation where if we don't do that, we could potentially not be Mr. Mason's yellow likely projection, which I support I support that projection if we bring students back to full-in-person learning. We are not going to see that happen if we don't bring them back. And so I think that the conversations we're having about what school looks like this spring have a lot to do, they obviously have to do with health and safety, certainly, and they have to do with teaching and learning, but they also have a lot to do with what the budget looks like. And our budget for this year was projected to be a million dollars higher. And that's not happening because we didn't bring them back in September. So I think that it's really important to realize that and for that to be a piece of the conversation. And otherwise, I think that this was a great presentation Mr. Mason, it was very comprehensive. Thank you, Dr. McNeil. We've gone over this at length in budget subcommittee, so I don't have any questions. So if we could go back, Mr. Mason, to the grid view, lovely. All right, other questions or comments for Dr. McNeil and Mr. Mason around the budget presentation? Mr. Cardin. Thank you. So Ms. Elmer isn't with us tonight, but I don't know if you can speak, Mr. Mason, if you can speak to the proposal to move the SLC program to Hardy and how that's the planning for that is occurring, how that's gonna happen, have the families been consulted. I believe they collapsed it to one classroom there next year. So is it that you're just adding the younger classroom to Hardy and only a few kids are moving or both classes moving? What's the plan? I do not have the full details of that plan. I would call Dr. McNeil if he has any information in regards to that. No, I don't need either. And we need to consult Ms. Elmer for the details of the plan. I don't think they've been flushed out. I mean, back up and not say that. We need to consult Ms. Elmer for the details of the plan in order to understand where we are in the planning phase. That's what I meant to say. Okay, thanks. I mean, I think, you know, this has been mentioned for many years on and off because we did add classrooms to Hardy, which are not being used, whereas Brackett does not have any empty classrooms. So from a school system's perspective, it makes sense. But we're potentially, depending on how it's structured, requiring people to switch schools, which is a significant ask for people. So, you know, when those kids were enrolled in the program, a lot of them had to switch schools once. And so if we are affecting kids, we're requiring them to switch schools again. So I just wanna make sure that we're being very careful and minimizing the impact to the extent we can. Thank you. That's a very good point. And we will make sure that we come back with an updated response to your question. Great, thanks. Other questions on the budget? Mr. Thielman. Yeah, I just wanted to get, I just wanna make sure I have in my head the numbers straight. So the net FTE increases is, I'm looking at the mind of the stream here, memo that was something that's 36.3 FTEs. Is that correct? Correct. Yeah, 36.3 FTEs, totally 4.534 million dollars. Okay. The 4.5 million dollars includes the, yes. Yep, okay, I'm sorry. Okay. And can you, so in the assistant principal discussion, which we've had a lot of back and forth on, the final solution, the final recommendation from the district is to add one assistant, I'm trying to get a clarification. How many assistant principals are you proposing? So it would be a total of 6.5 assistant principals. Okay. In terms of FTE full-time equivalents. Yep. Okay, all right, thank you. Mr. Heiner. On the added staff for the high school, Mr. Mason, the four FTEs for support, they aids? Correct. Okay. There's a special that. Thank you. And the 2.3 classroom, they already been assigned, if it gets passed to specific classes, subjects? They have not been assigned yet. That's Dr. Jango will have to look at his needs and what his enrollment will dictate in terms of- You made a distinction between that and on the next slide, you had FTEs for anticipated enrollment growth. Is that what the 2.3 at the high school is too? So 2.3 is actually really a catch-up for enrollment. So in the five-year plan, there was a modeling of adding five or so teachers per year based on enrollment. We didn't meet that the last two years based on that enrollment growth. And so we've actually shorted the high school in terms of the positions that they were projecting that they needed. And so this is to actually get them to where they should be in terms of the request. Thank you. Last question, the equity inclusion position, is that got a job description yet? No, we do not have a job description. We've been speaking about it and we're doing a lot, some research on the actual position and all of our needs- I understand, you need to get funded too before you go forward. Thank you. Exactly. Ms. Ekston. Thanks. So I just want to make sure I understand. So the K-to-5 lead literacy coach is that the same as the K-to-5 reading coordinator that the principals presented back in December which has sort of been renamed? I can take that. So not necessarily because the coaching is still an instructional coach. So that person will be providing, as we talked about the multi-tiered systems of support like looking at tier one instruction and strengthening that tier one instruction. But yes, that lead coach will be like a go-to for the elementary level to talk about the management of materials, making sure that teachers have what they need but still providing that instructional coaching to teachers. And so that was also something as we were looking at the five-year plan as it related to literacy, our projection or our goal was to provide a literacy coach for all our elementary schools. And again, that's strengthening that tier one instructional support. And that is one way that we're doing it by looking at the instructional coach and also managing the things that we need to do in order to provide the materials and resources and having a focus on early literacy. So that's one reason why we have that person in place but it's going to shift over time as we are able to have more coaching, coaches at each one of the buildings than that may evolve over time as may not be the lead coach. Okay, so it's adding an additional coach, literacy coach who has sort of an additional role of coordinating materials. Right, and we're also going to the person that we would seek to hire in that position would have a specialty like a focus on early literacy. So we're trying to strengthen that part of our coaching regime and so that our regiment, excuse me, and so to make sure that we have the proper focus in that area. And then yes, managing the materials, making sure that we have what we need in order to build that strong early literacy program. And is that, so then is the idea the same for the lead math coach? Lead math coach, same thing, trying to find like a go-to person for principals, again, not taking away that ability to provide the instructional coaching for our teachers. So, and then that person would confer with Matt Coleman, the director of math, K-12 math. So, trying to provide more foundation and more support at the elementary level. And then, sorry, one more. And then the social studies coach, is that adding a second social studies coach for K-5? Yes, with all the things that have been going on society and our focus on trying to, you know, provide a multicultural perspective. And as we're building the social studies curriculum at the elementary level, we haven't found like, you know, one of those, you know, I'll call it a canned program or resource that has everything that we need. Because when we look at the standards, we wanna make sure that we're supplementing with the multicultural materials. So what we're doing is we're curating various resources and the social studies department and Denny Conklin, our director, we've decided that we're going to create something that's to customize something for our needs in Arlington. And so we are putting together resources and creating our own curriculum and developing our lessons so we can have that multicultural perspective and, you know, providing more learning experiences where students can see themselves in the materials. And so in order to do that, we have to, you know, really look for resources that are, and then construct our own curriculum. So that takes quite an effort. And so that we need that extra social studies coach in order to help with those efforts. Thank you. Mr. Heiner. Sorry, quick question. These coaches, are they part of the UNIDAE? Yes. Yes. So they wouldn't have any evaluative responsibilities or communication with principals and things of that nature regarding evaluations, am I correct? No, they would be, again, instructional coaches, you know, working on improving things that, you know, areas that teachers want to work on and setting goals, that sort of thing. No, they would not be part of the evaluation process. Thank you. Dr. Allison. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mason. And I don't know if your presentation is already a novice, but if not, if we could get it in there, that'd be great. I guess one question, well, not a question, but a point is, I wish we had something that showed us as we do these ads, have an idea of what the base is. Because it's just hard for me to get a good picture of how much effect we're given, how much effect we're getting with these things, not knowing. I mean, I know some of this stuff, but it's just, it's hard for me to keep it all in my head and compare all at the same time. So that's one kind of wish list thing for the actual budget book. And then another question is, I felt like one of the things that we've heard as a concern during the pandemic is that math, especially has been not living forward as much as we would like. And I feel like I'm not seeing this as reflected in the positions here. And I'm just, and especially knowing what I remember from the basis that we're not as strong in math in terms of manpower as we are in literacy. So I'm just confused. Could you repeat that last part again? My recollection is that we don't have as many bodies, math coaches and stuff as we do literacy. I mean, it's gotten better, but we're not, we don't have as many. And I thought that I had heard that math, especially has been an area where we're kind of behind because of the pandemic. And looking at the positions being added, I don't see those two facts reflected in the ads. So what, I guess I'm, what would you like? I would think we would need more math support. I mean, more math support in terms of people. And I'm not seeing it here as much. Are you talking about math interventionists? Like, because like, and I wanted to come in two rows, I just asking so I can, I can understand exactly what you're asking. So we have the coaches that support instruction. And then we have math interventionists that provide direct intervention to students. So I just want to make sure that I'm understanding what you're asking. And I'm saying it could be either of those things. Okay. I'm saying I don't, I feel like there's not as much energy put into math, I mean, in terms, we don't have as much push in math in terms of people given what we've been hearing about the issues in math. All right, but it depends on what you're talking about because we have more math coaches than we do literacy coaches right now. We have four literacy coaches in the district. So we have more math coaches. And I don't, and I think maybe you're referring to, I don't, and I'm gonna make sure I'm understanding you. You're talking about more, more direct services to students, right? It's the whole thing. Okay. It's not just, it's not just what we're trying to do is enhance math instruction next year to try and catch up, right? Yes. Because we're behind. And so it's both interventionists and coaches, it's what we're, we're trying to do that. I didn't realize that we didn't have as many literacy coaches now as we do math coaches. So that's where having a picture of what we have would be helpful. Okay, perfect. I can definitely get that for you. So like what you want is like an organizational chart of what the math department looks like and what the organizational chart looks like with the literacy department as it relates to elementary literacy and elementary math. Or do you want it for like the whole district or is that a specific level? The whole, no, the whole thing. As much work chart as possible, that would be great. Perfect. Okay, thank you. I just wanted to make sure I'm giving you, I'm sorry for the questions, but I just wanted to make sure that was responding and understanding what you were asking for. If I could add. Go ahead, Mr. Mason. So I appreciate also the comment. We do have 3.2 FTEs in the budget that's geared towards some level of math support. And then we do have various reserve positions. Not necessarily that it's gonna address directly a standard classroom, spaces do eventually become limited in that sense too, but that those reserve positions can also be used for the math, math support that we need. But I think it's good that you bring up that point. The other, the point I want to make to address the position or giving the base idea of the positions. In hindsight, after you mentioned that, you made that statement, said, wow, it'd been great to kind of provide some kind of baseline FTE count in the presentation. So I will do, I will look at providing that something like that in the future. Typically in the budget book, we do provide a position schedule. I can look at how to have it arranged based on department or program so that you can see exactly what you need. And the difference this year when I was planning on how I was gonna present that was that I was gonna show what was, I had originally in the base 21 budget, what was the actual in 21, because 21 was a very unique year and we did a lot of ads. And so part of my, I had to do a lot of analysis and looking at where we did ads compared to what I thought we were going to have. And then showing the additional positions that we're adding this year. So you'll see that the schedule will be slightly different to reflect that. And I think that will give you a better understanding of the base positions. Seeing that, okay, this is what we thought was in the base of FY 21. This is what actually happened this year in all the adjustments. And then this is what we're currently rolling over and adding. That'd be great. Thank you very much. Anybody else? Great. Thank you, Dr. McNeil and Mr. Mason. Great job. Looking forward to continuing along our budget calendar as presented by Dr. Allison Ampe and the budget subcommittee. We forge ahead and are now on a new row. So that's great. Keep it on track, which is great. Okay, the next item on the agenda is vote to approval of the town appropriation number, the town appropriation in the amount of 80 million, 104,634 dollars. So moved. Second. Discussion. Seeing none. Let's vote. Ms. Eksten. Yes. Mr. Cardin. Yes. Dr. Allison Ampe. Yes. Mr. Thielman. Yes. Mr. Shlipman. Yes. Mr. Heiner. And I am also yes. Next item is the Chief Information Officer Recruitment Process. So it sounds like Dr. David Good is retiring. So Mr. Mason, I was wondering if you could give us an update on where we're at with that process and how it affects the schools briefly. Yeah, no worries. First, if I could say, I really, it was a pleasure to work with David. We had a link before me coming here to work in Arlington of a person in common. And he's been really, he's always been supportive and responsive. So he's gonna have big shoes to fill. So in a memo, it kind of briefly states the process in which how we're gonna select the Chief Information Officer. And so far has been a very collaborative process up to this point, which is very important since David and the whole IT team has provided substantial support to the school department. And especially even this year when we needed all the devices for having the students that are remote and knew the teacher refresh devices. It took a lot of work. So currently the position has already posted. The first start after that process, the town HR and a select group will review the resumes and do that initial screening process. And then we'll be represented in the process. We have the school department representative, which will be me, will be part of the second round of interviews. And then the final step will then be, will send a final list or final lists to a selection interview with the town manager and the superintendent. And so the goal is to have the selection completed by late April. And obviously we would like to treat our selected finalists with the same courtesy we expect from them. So if all goes well, best cases we could have a selected finalist start in the role as early as May or early in May. And it may be later if the individual may have certain project that they're currently working at on in their current employment obligations. And currently we do have Dan Sheehan. He's the interim. And so I think that basically sums it up. The implications to the school department is that we'll have a new CIO like the end of this process and hopefully they can meet and be a substantial part of the team as David was. And I'd just like to say that it was a pleasure to work with David as well, coming in as the assistant superintendent and looking at how we could merge instructional technology with the technology department. With him we created an integrated technology team. And so that's why I think that through his management and leadership, we were able to do that. And then just the distribution of over 900 devices over the past year, even more than that and keeping track of the inventory and making sure that it got in the hands of students all because of David and the way that his team responded. So I just wanna definitely highlight him where we're giving him accolades at this point and say that he definitely served the district and the town very well. And it was a pleasure to work with him. Thank you. Questions or comments for Mr. Mason? Mr. Thielman followed by Mr. Schuchman. I just wanna echo, I've known Dave good for a long time now and he was an outstanding partner of the school district and I just wanna use this opportunity to thank him for all he's done for us. Mr. Schuchman. I concur, David was very good and now that he's gone, there's no good. But I'd like to get a copy of the job description. Yes. Mr. Mason, could you provide that to us through Karen? Yes, I could. Also, I meant to say that there was slight adjustments. I didn't miss that in my notes that there was slight adjustments to the job description. So you'll see that because David did, in his position, it grew over time. He gained a lot more responsibilities. So we had to adjust that with the town. Anybody else? Mr. Cardin and then Dr. Allison Ampe. Thank you. So I saw this on the select board agendas. I just wanted to make sure that we were aware of it as well because it's an important position for the district. But I also noted that they hired a new facilities director which I did not know they were going forward with. So it would be good for us to, those positions are shared. So they're a little bit unusual. The superintendent is sharing in the decision making and in the process, but it would be useful to be notified as with any department head position that's being filled. Thanks. Dr. Allison Ampe. I guess I'm wondering where will this position live? Will it still be completely shared or will it, is it going one way or the other? Mr. Mason, or yeah, Mr. Mason, do you have any? No, it's still going to be shared. There's no change in the arrangement that we have between this department or the staffing model. So if the current staffing model is that there is a chief information officer and then there are two assistant directors, one specifically that supports the schools and one's more for the town side. And so Dan Sheehan has been serving as the assistant director on the school side and we've worked closely with him over the time and as well, he's currently sitting as the interim currently. Okay. I guess one thing when I looked at the recruitment and hiring process, I felt like there was a lot of representation more from the town than from the schools. And I don't know if that's a problem or not because I don't know how far apart our interests or not so much interests, but our needs are, the things that we call upon the information technology officer to do versus what the town calls on. And I'm just concerned that it seemed like the first screening doesn't have any representation by the schools. And then the second one has two thirds town, one third schools. And then, you know, then we're down but you've already weeded out a bunch of people and I just don't know. I'm trying to make sure that our needs are well represented in the applicant or well represented in terms of picking candidates to bring forward. And I was a little concerned about how this was set up that I wasn't sure that that was true. So. Can I share? So I appreciate that those statements. It's interesting, the process is very similar to how we selected the facilities director. And I felt that the school department did get our voices heard in that selection in terms of the initial screening out process. It's really, well, who they bring in an interview, we're not necessarily at the table, but that initial screening process is really streamlined to the point where nobody's seeing the names is really a impartial process that I believe I have confidence in that we will find good candidates. And if we do not find the right candidate as we were going through the facilities director process by the time it came to where I was part of that, we weren't just gonna fill the role we're gonna find the right person. So if we didn't find some, but the right person that that second round, we would obviously go back out and look for more. So I feel pretty confident, but I will take that note and discuss with Kathy and figure out if we want to be part of that process earlier on. And I wanna apologize about Mr. Walters not being, not informing you guys about Greg Walters who's our facilities director, he just recently started. And it was a great process though in terms of finding, we had two great finalists in that process. And so I hope that we have the same turnout in this process. Thank you. Great, anybody else? Okay, seeing none, I'm watching the time. So here we go. Consent agenda, all items listed with an asterisk are considered to be routine, will be enacted by one motion, we no separate discussion of these items unless a member of the committee start requesting which event the item will be discussed in its normal sequence vote approval of warrant number 21167 dated 22, 2021 in the amount of 644841.18 Vote approval of minutes, regular meeting minutes January 28, 2021. So move. Second. Ms. Ecksten. Yes. Ms. McCartland. Yes. Dr. Allison Ampey. Yes. Ms. Newman. Yes. Ms. Rishlikman. Yes. Ms. Heiner. Yes. I am also yes. Subcommittee liaison reports and announcements, budget Dr. Allison Ampey. We'll be meeting the next, the week after next. Community relations, Mr. Heiner. We've already had five school committee chats. We'll have our next one this Saturday at 11 o'clock for grades pre-K through fifth and the following Saturday at 11 o'clock for METCO families. C-I-A-A, Mr. Cardin. We already discussed earlier, we have a tentative meeting scheduled for the 24th at three o'clock pending confirmation with the administrative team. And we also still need to meet again with the Human Rights Commission representatives. So we'll schedule that for early March. Facilities, Mr. Thielman. No report. Allison, Mr. Shlikman. Thank you. At the last meeting, which was on Tuesday, Mr. Heiner moved seconded by Dr. Allison Ampey that we asked the chair to invite representatives of the Arlington Human Rights Commission to make a presentation describing progress towards establishing a town policy, adopting a land acknowledgement statement. Great. Oh, come on now I've lost my sheet. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Shlikman, High School Building Committee, Mr. Thielman. We meet at March 2nd. The building is going up, it's going well, drive by it and take a look. Liaison reports, announcements, future agenda items. I have for February 26th, I am going to, just so that you know, I'm going to ask for something from Ms. Elmer about the SLCC move to Hardy. And then if we can get the land acknowledgement presentation from the Human Rights Commission on there, then great. And if not, we'll have to move it to February. Mr. Shlikman. I'd just like to ask that we put on the agenda the possibility of making a temporary policy during COVID to require folks speaking in public comment to turn on the camera. I'm going to put a discussion to wrap up that. A discussion and or vote. Yeah. So if we decide to do it, we can put a vote, but I think that's important. Okay. Okay. So we are going to move the 10 o'clock roll in executive session. So let's get there quickly. Thank you so much to Ms. Fernandez who we are going to lose and Sean from ACMI. Have a good night. You guys are all stars. Executive session to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with union and or non-union personnel or contract negotiations with union and or non-union if which held an open meeting may have a detrimental effect to conduct strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation which you've held an open meeting may have a detrimental effect, collective bargaining may also be conducted Arlington Education Association AEA.