 This program is brought to you by Cable Franchise Vs and generous donations from viewers like you. School committee agendas page. I know this is a meeting of the Amherst School Committee, but it is posted there. So I will display, but you're welcome to go to our website to find it there as well. Can folks see this? I'm going to scroll more quickly through this one because this community member has also submitted a verbal voice message comment. So as a reminder, this is in the document that's posted online. And as mentioned, we have 2 voice comments. Amherst mass my daughter's first grader at Fort River School. I'm calling once again to express my frustration and the lack of progress of getting our kids back in schools. It seems like every day there's a new article showing that transition rates at schools are not causes that's transmission in towns that there's much more important factors that schools are safe and can be reopened. And it's an incredibly high priority to keep schools open to benefit children, especially those who need it most. It seems like there's no progress right now in considering metrics in our town that are based on science and are flexible and prioritize the learning of the children. And I just can't understand why there's been no movement as we've learned more and more. We need to get the kids back to school as soon as humanly possible. And I hope that talent can come to some agreement to do that. Thank you. Stephanie Hockman and I'm a resident of town Massachusetts. I'm submitting the following for public comment for tonight's school committee meeting December 1st 2020. And specifically, I'm directing my comment to the teachers, the APA executive members and the administrators. I'm supporting all teachers to speak to their APA representatives, encourage the APA to use common sense, concern for the education of our students, and return to the negotiation table. The current MOU is negotiated at a time when little was known about the transmission of COVID. So much more is known today and we know how to handle the opening of schools safely, just as we've learned to open bars, restaurants, grocery stores and gyms safely. I've spoken to many teachers in the middle and high schools, all of whom want to be back teaching in the classroom. However, these teachers fear retribution if they speak up against the small number of loud voices in the APA, that is wrong. No one voice within a union should make decisions for a larger body that do not represent the majority of that union. When the MOU was agreed to, it was prior to all the knowledge we now have on the transmission of COVID. The nation's foremost experts in infectious disease understand the science and many schools across the nation, which are open to in-person learning, have given us knowledge and evidence that COVID transmission rates are not higher in schools than in the broader community. Furthermore, in some locations, in-person education and having students and teachers in schools are shown to be safer than the rates in the broader community. Teachers who are currently advocating to stay remote or more disappointingly, those that are staying silent for fear of walking the boat with the APA, I encourage you to think long term about why you're educators and what you want for your students. The remote learning is not providing the same level of rigor nor the same level of education our students deserve. In addition, the anxiety and isolation being forced on my teams through the remote learning is causing detrimental harm. Like the 82 respondents in the exit survey, if the school committee, the superintendent, the APA, and the teachers take it back to in-person learning this spring, our family, like many others I know, will seek one of two remedies. The first will be to move our students to school districts that value in-person education, understand science, respect a fluid evidence-based approach, and most importantly, are willing to put education students first. The APA continues to dig in their hills and refuse to renegotiate terms. They will be the downfall system, and more and more families, especially those with names, will seek other educational institutions resulting in severe budget cuts and a potential loss of teachers and staff jobs. A second course of action by many families may be to file a lawsuit against the district for not providing the free and appropriate education our students have a right to receive. Dr. Morris, school committee, I encourage you to take a stand. If the APA won't come to the table, require the teachers to come back in classroom. Okay. So our next item of business is, and our only item of business is the MSBA update. I'm going to look to either Mr. Harrington or Dr. Morris to kick us off there. Mr. Harrington beat me to it. So I guess it's on me, but I'll turn to him later. Fair, well done, by the way. So I actually want to take a step back and just, I think, probably most people on this group followed the prior project and have a good history of where we are, but I'd actually, you know, forgive me or offer me patience to just spend probably two or three minutes going backwards before we go forward. So that I think it might be helpful for the audience in general. So in 2013, we were accepted into the MSBA process. You know, that process went to the place that was approved by the MSBA for funding. The voters approved an override and then it failed at town meetings. That project ended. The tail end has more twists and turns, but I don't think they're super relevant for this conversation today. And so, you know, that project ended in 2017. And, you know, the district and the town reapplied. We were, we did not get in the first time we were applied and then we reapplied again and we were accepted into their pipeline. Since that time, which we were accepted in, which is a year ago-ish, right? You know, it's kind of become cliche to say it feels more than a year ago, but it was in that ballpark. We had the first part of our study, which is, you know, the town has now appropriated and they needed to amend it, but they have $750,000, which will have hopefully some reimbursement from MSBA to fund the feasibility study, because we're still, we're in enrollment and kind of that initial phase. We've formed, the town has formed a school building committee of which Mr. Harrington was appointed here, but as the representative of the school committee, and that group's met twice now. I'm looking at Mr. Harrington for confirmation meeting again next week. For people to know, those are public meetings that do have public comments. So if people want to follow along, they certainly can. At the last meeting, Councillor Shane was appointed and voted in as the chair of the committee, and Councillor Schreiber, town Councillor Schreiber was voted as the vice chair of the committee and, you know, because I have experience in those roles, I offered, you know, my support to them and whatever would be helpful. Along the way, there's been multiple steps. You know, Rupert Roy Clark, our facilities director had submitted a maintenance report. You know, I had to submit a bunch of documents for enrollment, and right now where we are is waiting for enrollment information to come back from them. What we, you know, what they do is they look at what we've proposed their own enrollment study, and they will propose a certain number of enrollments for us to study for instance. You know, one thing that's not a surprise is that one of the enrollments will study is keeping everything status quo and looking to renovate or rebuild Fort River in the size that it would be projected to be in five years. That will almost certainly be one of the options that will be studied. And I think just about every project, that's an option that gets studied. Then there are a number of other options that we've discussed with MSBA and waiting for their official confirmation and letter of what they will approve us to study. That's sort of the tail end of the process of the enrollment where we are. After that, we can move forward with hiring an owner project manager, and then they'll guide us through the rest of the process from there. So we're at the tail end of this phase. We do need approval from MSBA to be accepted into the feasibility stage. But I think we're nearing our conclusion in terms of, you know, checking off all the, our checklist is getting down to the bottom and we've submitted everything we need to submit. And really at this point, only thing we're waiting to hear back is enrollments. I think it is worth noting that I'll give an example. For instance, you know, one of the things that certainly there's a public meeting with a posted agenda for a Pelham School Committee on Thursday night where, you know, regionalization with the MRSA is at least on their agenda to discuss, not at all to propose, not at all to do anything with. And I did, you know, talk to MSBA a bit about that, like what would happen if, and they were really clear that they're looking for districts who are ready to move. And for us to talk about regionalization as a hypothetical at this point is not something that will be supported. And if that's something that this committee wanted to take on and that would affect the enrollment, they would encourage us to drop out of the MSBA process and reapply when we have confirmation that that's something we want to do. They are willing to, you know, engage us. We've talked a lot about, you know, sixth grade to the middle school comes as no surprise that, you know, some options. We had very public process year and a half ago to talk about what options might be. And then a very public study around sixth grade to the middle school and great reconfiguration is something that they could, they would consider for us as an option that would affect enrollment. I think it's important to note that not that any decisions have been made, but they feel like that's something that's fully in the auspices of the school committee can occur in our case without any funding shifts, you know, or investments, I should say. But when it comes to something big like, you know, becoming an elementary region, they're looking for districts who have sort of made that decision, not districts who are have studied it and it's not really an active discussion at the moment. And they're just very clear, you know, if for districts who aren't ready to move, they're just, they're not interested in working with them at that time, they're happy to have people drop out and reapply and they talked about some districts who have opted to do that. They just, they weren't ready to move forward. And so we're looking forward to getting their enrollment letter and bringing that to the hopefully we get in time for the next building committee meeting, but it's not in our control when that letter goes out. And we'll sort of go from there, but I'm sure I'm missing things. So I'll ask Mr. Harrington to fill in the gaps of what I've missed. Well, I feel like you actually added more than I would have. Solid update for that. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Ben. So I'm happy to answer any questions that anyone on the committee has questions. Mr. Demling. So. Okay, so with the regionalization update that they gave you verbally, they, is that something they're going to make clear in the, in the formal letter that they, that they, they give us for the enrollment options that they would approve us to study. And, and when, and about when do we, do we expect that letter? This month for sure. Easy to say that in the first of the month, but, but I feel confident saying that to your first point. My experience at the MSBA is they'll be explicitly and clear about what they're willing to do. They tend to not go into great analysis of what they're not willing to do. So, I don't, I haven't seen, right, there's no draft of the letter that's been seen. I don't know exactly what it will have in it, but verbally, you know, in conversations with MSBA, just raising this topic. They're very clear about that. But I think my experience is they're very directive of, here's what we're willing to do and they don't often address what they're not willing to do. And that may, you know, that may be a style thing that may shift, right? I haven't been in, we haven't been in this process. I haven't been connected to it for quite some time. But that, that's sort of my experience. Mr. Damley. So the proposal that, that we submitted way way back now. This compromise proposal, right, to get a building to take care of Fort River and Wildwood approximately 600 students. Then we talked about different ways to get to 600. And so, so the reason why I asked about regionalization is because I'm not advocating for against that here. I'm just thinking about the various ways that one gets to that 600. And so, okay, if that's, if they've given you direct guidance, it sounds like that that's not an option but that simplifies the, the, what needs to be studied and looked at. And then, so then you talked about that you, you, you mentioned the sixth grade to the middle school. And that's another option where, where the enrollment for the elementary shifts obviously gets you to 600. So the other variable in that that's been discussed publicly is is Crocker farm to some extent playing some role. In that enrollment picture are getting to 600. Do you, has that come up in discussion or, or do we expect that to be referenced in this, this formal letter of options that will be approved to study? Yeah, so the, it has come up in discussion. I did share the full Crocker farm expansion study with them for their consideration. And we have a request that we look at enrollment, you know, potential enrollment that would include that and we'll wait and see what they say. But, you know, it was certainly communicated very clear to them that this there's some interest in the community you got funded that project to look at Crocker farm expansion. You know, we looked at their numbers, which are always going to be a little different than how we calculate them because that's just the nature of this. And we'll look forward to how they respond to, to that scenario. Miss Spitzer. Thanks for the update. I guess just two quick things and I think you've answered this before but I want to just say it. Again on the record, since this is the topic for the MSBA the enrollment numbers are not going, I mean I was just listening to NPR we had another story about declining enrollment that being seen in our district and across the state. So, will the COVID decline in enrollment it's not going to be impacting these enrollment numbers that are going to be shared from the MSBA, I'm hoping. And then I just had one other follow up question which was thinking about how we're going to just get people to tune back in, I guess to the MSBA process and what are the thoughts and I know we had a website I'm trying to track down where it is but and I know these meetings are public I'm just thinking if we could share again the website that folks can go to to get updates on the process and also maybe start sharing this a little bit on our social media channels or otherwise I just think it's important that we make sure the public's tuning in again to this process as I think it's really important. So, I guess a couple things in terms of let me just slow down a little bit because there was a couple things in there. So, in terms of communication that's certainly something that the building committee is wants to take on and we've had some internal conversations to where the website should sit in the town site or the school site and all that so we got to sort that out and now that we have a chair and some clear leadership I think that'll be something that we want to do in the short term. So, in terms of COVID you know they, I think they were using historical data that didn't include, Desi just updated the website last week I believe with the current years data which shows the significant drop all this work was done prior to that data being public. So, I do not think they took that into account all the data that I've seen from them did not take that into account. I think the thing to note is the MSBA generally is going to be tighter on space than what am or standards are, you know, in terms of you know we've had many conversations recently about, well, you know I know you're going to bank on 25 students per class, that's not consistent with the school committee guidelines and so we try to work with them on that. But I don't think the COVID enrollment decline is going to factor into their plans I have no evidence of that and all the, all the work was done prior to the updates to in the enrollment. Is there one more I feel like you asked one more that I didn't get to. No that was just a communication and the enrollment numbers and go but thanks. Any other questions. Mr. Deming and Mr. Spitzer asked my question so I don't have any. Maybe I could just add that, you know, on our website under initiatives is, you know, the current school building committee website which we're again we're going to decide what we want to do with. But it is on there, you know, at least as a template for now it does have the members of the school building committee. It has some of the documents that have been completed but it's it's not you know that there's not that much there and there's not that much to be there yet. But once we get an OPM on board my experiences things pick up very rapidly so we want to make sure we have that kind of plan attended to very quickly and I you know for what it's worth I'll say publicly I'm glad we have town counselors really involved in in this. I think it's, you know, one of my major learnings from the last project is, yes it's a school building project and is no disrespect anyone, any of the elected officials here tonight. It has townwide ramifications and so I'm really pleased that we have counselors who are willing to be involved and then in leadership positions on that because I think doesn't absolve the schools of doing communication at all but I think it really helps with the townwide focus as opposed to a school specific focus I want to thank Kathy and Steve for jumping in and being willing to lead. Any other comments or questions seeing none. And we have a three minute pause until our colleagues from the regional school committee join us. So, if folks can make sure that you're back on screen at 630 that'd be great. Welcome Mr. Sullivan. I'm a singer saying she doesn't have the invite email it to her. If you open up I didn't have it either but if you open up the email and the calendar will pop open and then you can it's there. Yeah, she's on the calendar invite as Steve said. Okay. Okay. Well we can at least call ourselves to order and she'll likely be joining us momentarily. So seeing a presence of a quorum of the regional school committee I'm calling that meeting to order at 633 p.m. on Tuesday, December 1st. And we'll take a roll call attendance please state state present when I call your name. Mr. Deming. Deming present. Mr. Harrington. Harrington present. Miss Kenny. Oh, sorry she's not here. Ms. Lord. Lord present. Ms. Spitzer. Spitzer present. Ms. Stanser. Stanser present. Mr. Sullivan. Sullivan present. And McDonald present. Ms. Seager. Are you present? Yes, Seager present. And Ms. Kenny. Kenny present. And on the in the meeting we also have our student representative. Ms. Emily Gripko. And we also have a C. L. A. Sharkis. Taking minutes for us and Dr. Morris. So we'll begin with the superintendent's update. Dr. Morris. Sure. It's a lengthier one. But I'll start by just sadly and understandably the Kanagasaki group confirmed that they're not coming this spring, which, you know, again, you know, for obvious reasons, and it's such a wonderful partnership that it's sad not to be able to continue the in person part of that, which, which is always, you know, for the students, both their students and our students, the highlight of the experience. I just want to thank our partners in Kanagasaki that, you know, hopefully we're in a really different place in 2020, you know, I guess it would be the spring of 2022. Typically those, those things happen in the spring, but I appreciate the close communication collaboration and more than anything friendship that we maintain with our, you know, our counterparts on the other side of the world. But, you know, appreciate that with them. I also want to, and you some of you may have seen this on social media, but we had an anonymous chalk artist come to our schools and give them wonderfully kind messages to students, faculty, staff. And it was incredibly appreciated. So just want to share that and also want to share my appreciation, you know, we heard a lot of public comment earlier at the Amherst meeting. And I think understandably so about metrics and return to school and all those things. And I just want to note, all those things can be, you know, I want to honor those and I also want to thank the staff for trying to make the best of a very, very difficult situation. So I think, you know, for not living in a time of dualities that, you know, where statements can both be true and not counteract each other, I think this is it. So I want to, you know, acknowledge how difficult it was to hear those public comments that were shared or to listen slash read them. But, but I also want to acknowledge that staff are really trying to make the best of the situation and that I'd share that really appreciate wherever that anonymous artist was. Thank you for doing that. It brightened a lot of people's days. Mine included because some of us outside near where I work. At the distance learning center at the high school for intensive needs students, we are up to 13 students who are attending. And, you know, thank you to everybody involved in making that a reality, you know, starting with facilities, favoritism special ed folks. And just, you know, one of the nice things has been just hearing both directly by email but also through Faye and others just Chris Cusack, who's kind of the one of the administrators on site. And just how much difference is making for kids and families. You know, we were concerned about, you know, not every student is a high school student who's in this is a K to 12 program. And yet, kids have adjusted very well, been very supported and we're hearing really positive feedback so thanks to everybody involved in that. I got a couple questions, multiple times from people about it after the last school meeting so I thought I'd use this as an opportunity just to clarify things. Students are required to come in this was a this was a something we made available to families have been K to 12 intensive needs students that opted to do it and that's a question I got. Another one was, you know, how expensive this is and the short story is, you know, this is additional costs we are looking at grant funding to offset some of these costs but for many of these students in terms of needing access to in person support. This is going to be a very cost effective strategy with compared to the other one which is not a district placement, which we're starting to get multiple families requesting the exploration of and so you know for us it's it's we think it's in the best interest of those students to help them fully access a distance learning curriculum. But we also think well it's an additional cost. It's much less than the cost about a district placement and keep students in their home district which we have a long standing value in. We are working with LSEC and the marks metal aftercare programs those are not being run by us with their run by our partners, but they're collaborating with us we got a really nice email from a principal that I shared with with the chair this morning, just talking about students who are really going back to our last meeting with attendance to students who had a total of over 50 absences to date and since they've become part of the aftercare program or the daycare program. Their attendance has been spotless and they're being much more successful in the school setting so really appreciate marks metal analysis and their work and working with them to see if they can get the approval from the state to expand the number of slots available which would expand access to to folks in our community. I have a bunch more to say on this update sorry I have a long update, you know, you give me a week without a meeting I come back with long update I apologize but I wanted to pause if there were questions about either kind of gassaki. This is learning center, or anonymous art is on that the big questions about it but it was pretty cool if you saw. Mr. Daly. Yeah, so I want to really appreciate that you have the effort that you and the administrators have gone through to establish this for our intensive special needs students. And one of the hardest things for me through this entire process has has been, you know, hearing these stories directly from parents. I'm at the CPAC meetings and here in public comment for months about how these students are struggling and really, really needed in person. Assistance in order to gain access to education and so the fact that we're able to do this for even this small number of students I think is very, very noteworthy given the given the circumstances so I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge that and and and getting the email that you shared with us from the principal about the improvement in attendance for our students who are having attendance issues. Now going to distance learning centers was also great to see and so I'm just trying to think you know how what other limitations do we have to expanding this to more students right because yeah I mean I understand that there are a smaller number of students who if we're weren't able to service them would be looking it out of district but you know there's that next level up right of students who might not be as intensive special needs but there's still significant special needs and are are really struggling in remote learning, you know, in addition to you know to our other students and we want to meet every students having attendance issue would be ideally right to be able to offer this service so you know the high schools a big place we have a lot of rooms. I mean, you know, I mean I'm half joking but not really a long time, looking not just the high school but all of our buildings and really making sure that they were completely ready and you know above the grade, in terms of what not so it doesn't seem like physical space is an issue so like when we look at the following weeks and months you know what's what's what's will be a limiting capacity in order to expand this as much as possible. Sure, so in terms of marks motto and LSE I mean they have to get the staffing in place space as you notice not an issue. Really all we're offering and it's not all but it's what we're offering is in kind space, you know, and then we are providing some transportation for families who can't provide it or would struggle to provide it as well. That's a pretty small number of students and because we don't have other students coming that aren't in our distance learning center facilities and maintenance and transportation department is not struggling to provide some limited transportation there. In terms of special needs that one's a little bit trickier because that is our program are, you know, we're owning that and so funding and financing becomes a real challenge and think as it is we're going to be having to make some really different I mean the collective we here going to make some difficult decisions as we head through the winner. I think after we get through the second quarter and see where we're standing. I think that that's probably a time where we can re engage some of that dialogue and our principals are actively advocating around that. Also, it's worth noting we are providing some in home services and support and some of that for some certain families who are choosing not to come in. I think my opinion I think I share this in the past but I'll share it again it's a good opportunity is that the advantages from a safety perspective of providing in person supports in the school building as we know what the ventilation is. We know that, you know, other than if students have a disability that prevents them we know it's a space where people are wearing masks all the time as opposed to a home setting. You're working in a bedroom that's not the case we know these spaces are professionally cleaned and maintained. We have an ongoing nurse who's there because we got the state grant to provide the symptomatic testing if student does or staff member does feel sick. We have onsite. We will soon applications are second round of it's not an application but our the data they're requesting will get out this week to them. We'll have antigen test that we can use there that we can do in person for in home so we do feel like in school, you know, is a safe place and I think it's particularly because of what you said Mr. Demling is we've got spaces galore right so we were able to provide 900 square feet and it could be a child and one adult is in that space that's not true in homes that people have I mean I think you know perhaps some people have homes where you could provide that larger space but for most people that's not close to feasible so in terms of being able to distance and able to work with them. We're able to provide a very safe environment and I think the home environment you know we really appreciate everyone working in homes, but there are some real challenges with ventilation professional cleaning mask wearing when they're not there especially if there's low ventilation. So, you know, we've made the estimation that you know if we're going to provide it in person service. You know we're certainly not doing any arm twisting of anyone but if people choose to be in the building that we feel like that's the best spot for them. Sorry it's long-winded but I think the safety piece is really important to say because it really is access and distance learning with with that in person support so I think as we get through quarter to we can kind of reengage those conversations as well once we know where our financing is and and perhaps how we could expand further. Thank you. So I just I'm assuming for the marks meadow and the LSE C program that I know we're not we're giving in kind space. Typically, you know some students would normally have to pay for daycare even if it's subsidized or you know after school programs, their fees associated for the students who are participating in the these distance learning centers at marks meadow and LSE C or daycare centers and not sure what the right word is. Is there any cost for the family or is that funded through the programs. So marks meadow has an existing system with the state where they do have and I'm going to blank on the right word which I apologize so if they're listening I am sorry but they essentially have subsidized waivers. So for students who qualify a certain number they can access the program at lower no cost. The other students are paying an LSE C right now I think is mostly doing it through CARES Act funds that are ending. So I think over time will do that but you know I think again when we get to the end of budget quarter number or budget quarter number two, probably wanting to look of where we are, because we've had such success and we're hearing from families and students, but the success of these programs. So we're going to have to have some some conversations on that topic. So the short story is right now some people are paying. But the students that we've been advocating for in general in terms of attendance have primarily not had to pay to access the program and certainly not if they're income eligible. Okay, I'll go keep going on my update. I'll certainly know there's a 410 meeting on Saturday, 9 o'clock. First one we're doing virtually so this will be an interesting experience that we have. And the 410 meeting for those who don't know is the towns of Amherst, Leverett, Pelham and Schuittsbury get together to have a first look at the FY 22 budget. There's a particular challenge this year because there's so many so much uncertainty of what our schools will look like next year what our enrollments will look like next year we have all of our contracts or we have no contract that extends beyond this year in terms of any of our bargaining units. We have really not a great sense from the state or the federal government of exactly what funds are coming our way. So it's going to be, you know, perhaps a little bit more of a theoretical exercise than it typically would be. But, you know, we'll have numbers will have number of different assessment methods. But I think we're going to really have to caution the group that the numbers we have are not fixed. You know, they're never fixed in the first meeting but they're really pretty far from that. So that begins from the town of Amherst to expect as a 0% increase. And the town of Leverett has asked us for or has let us know in other departments that to expect no more than a 1.5% increase in the town of Leverett. We did receive a request from the select board in the town of Schuittsbury to show a 65% statutory method. I'm not going to go into details and superintendent update on that particular that nuanced topic but as well as 45%. So we'll try to show a range of options. Doug's going to try to, he's working really hard. Dr. Slaughter is going to try to get that to committee. I would guess Friday night. We're going to shooting for Friday morning but the number of variables are just much greater this year than we've ever had before. So he's working pretty much, you know, lockdown working on that all week, talk to him this afternoon and we'll continue to talk to him about that. But that's the public guidance we've got. We typically get numeric guidance from the town of Pellum of the town of Schuittsbury in terms of percent increase. So that's no change just to be really clear for you all and for the public. But Leverett and Amherst typically do give us financial guidance and they've given that that to us to date. So that is a public meeting. It does not include public comment. It's not a decision-making meeting. There's no votes taken but thank you to Amherst media for all the meetings you're covering and coming and covering that on a Saturday. Greatly appreciated. We started nine. We ended 11. Those are the two most important ground rules as we try to start on time and then we certainly end on time. And again, the public is welcome to watch that meeting as well. In the packet, I included a survey. We got about 82 responses. I think it was from families who have left the district. That's a little less than half the families that we surveyed just because, you know, every year we lose some families. Families move away. We gain some families. Families move to town. But, you know, I think, you know, it was it was a good response rate. For that, I think, you know, there's a wide range of reasons why families have opted to not be with us this year. You could see there's one or two who really didn't feel like kids should be back in school. There's more than one or two who feel like kids, you know, the in-person was really important to them and they found other options. The most important was important, but very important to me was one of the questions was again, which indicated, are you planning to come back? And I think as you saw in the packet, the data on that is very split. And that's important both for the future of the district. It's also really important for planning. You know, so out of the 82 responses, 18 said definitely will come back in the future. 17 said likely. 19 said unlikely. 8 said definitely will not. And then 20 said undecided, but would consider re-enrolling if certain things were different. And, you know, and there's a bunch of responses all 20, I think wrote something. So it's a really helpful data source. I'm not going to try to summarize 82 responses at the moment, but I did want to alert you that it's in the packet as we commit to do with every survey we give. We commit to offering it. If people are going to take the time to fill it out, we're going to make it public. And we did that with the survey as well. We are noticing, particularly at the elementary level, much less so at the secondary, an increasing number of students over the last two weeks. I think we're up to five or six who have left the district since we offered the survey. So it might be helpful to, you know, think about re-administering it at some point as we get towards spring, both because people have a better sense of the planning end of people choosing to return, but also because the survey missed people because we did start seeing sort of a second round of families who are making other options for their children. Questions on that top of our comments, I shouldn't say just questions on that one. Mr. Domen. So kind of related and if you roll it up to the big picture here is when we think about who might be coming back and trying to get people to come back, the establishing and communicating what we're doing next year to me is a pretty massive piece of that. And you noted all the things that are uncertain, not just the budget, but with the staffing contracts, right, which could relate to what we're doing. And we also, it's not in the agenda tonight, but we talked about thinking outside the box in terms of the school schedule. And just basically in general, being able to communicate this is what next year will look like sooner, as soon as we reasonably can. Do you have any, have you thought about that a little more in terms of like what our general schedule is going to be? I know that we said we need to do feasibility in terms of cooling if we're going to have, you know, a lot of in person and like a summer. It's kind of like one implementation detail in terms of like the big arc, right? Of like, well, we have a lot of things to get in line if we are going to be able to not be in August and still have things up in the air, right? So is this like a big discussion you feel like kicks off in January? Is this a March thing? Just kind of your thoughts on planning for next year? The sooner, the better. And that's actually a great segue. If people have other comments or questions, I'm open to them. But one of the things that I continue to hear from middle school and high school students is a real, one student described to me as a fear of going back to a 745 bell. You know, right now they are on a nine o'clock bell. For the most part, there are some deep period classes at the high school that earlier. I think Mr. Demling is on to something that I do think the sooner we start talking about what next year could look like, the better. I don't know how Ms. Gripko feels about it, but I continue to hear that feedback from middle school and high school students that that's worth trying to sort out on the sooner side that that's not a quick fix that has lots of implications. As we think about heading back in person. So in a not in a, you know, different covert era, I wouldn't say covert less era, but a different covert era. So my opinion is actively starting those conversations on the sooner side would be my recommendation because I think there's many, many layers to it. I don't want to go down the late start time conversation fully, but I think that one feels very acute and in almost every conversation I have with any middle school or high school student. You know, they see me as the conduit to that conversation and rightly so. And, you know, I can't end a conversation no matter what the topic without that coming up. I don't know. Ms. Gripko, if you're here that is well from students about the start time difference and the impact on sleep. Yeah, I've definitely heard that this later start time is better. So I think, you know, it will make Mr. Demling smile. I think if we start talking about that because he's been at that long before COVID was a thing but but I think it's just one example of the many layers that we should probably start talking about sooner. Mr. Demling actually before we go on to that because I did have a question on the on the survey if we can hold your question. Mr. Demling I'll come back to you. The some folks in the community had asked for some data on the survey regarding with when I guess the withdrawal date when they withdraw from the school as well as demographics and were you able to splice the data in that way. Yeah, so in the withdrawal date is pretty identifiable because if there are certain, it just is right I mean certain dates you know you could definitely see a wave. That was the first day of school but anything that wasn't the first day of school this year. It started getting very individual, which we were very cautious with data that could ever be identifiable. And so really actually on the race ethnicity I mean I certainly can share an overview that it was, you know, the majority of families who have left the district are white. I think when we get into it's such a small n size 82 that when we start getting into more granular details it starts getting you know when I see an n size that's less than 10. I start getting a little nervous that we're getting closer to being identifiable. And there are some racial ethnic groups that are below that that kind of and there's no rhyme or reason to it is like why 10 and not 12 or why eight but for me when it gets a single digits it starts feeling identifiable. But what I can say is that the majority of families who have left the district are white. Thank you. And Mr. Demling. Yeah, I just want to say real quick, I mean, I appreciate you bringing up the late start time and now we've been on that kick, you know, in the past, if it wasn't clear though the thing I'm more, you know, focused on in terms of next year is guaranteeing to the public that kids are in the building. Yeah, I feel like if we, if we don't do that on the sooner side of the street, then given what's happened this year we don't have a lot of, we haven't established a strong level of trust in the community to put it that way in terms of saying this is what's going to happen and then having it actually happen right and so yeah if we can do late start time great if it's in the cards cool but I don't I don't think we're going to get parents coming back and retain them because of late start time I think we will get parents coming back and retain them to some degree if the more that we can commit to and deliver on in person learning so that was just a thrust of that. Yeah, fair point. There aren't any other questions just one thing that's come up recently is around snow days and I think we talked all the way in the summer that we you know didn't plan to have snow days, you know I think the one variable that I want to put out there is, you know, when we do have huge no storms, you know people have raised in and I'm not picking on shoots ran lever in particular but people have communicated that that there is often a loss of power in those communities or loss of internet. When there's large no storms and not though inch or two inch variety but you know you're getting like eight inches a foot that the internet becomes very unreliable and power becomes very unreliable and it's Steve there's no disrespect to the good good folks in the town of shoots very I want to be really clear about that I think it has to do with how is put in and the hills and topography and that shoots very and leverage don't often be. They're not often the first priority of the utility companies put that nicely. And so you know I think you know we that's really good feedback that I have to take really seriously and have to really. I am doing some thinking about you know knock on wood we have not had any big snow storms to date and not our forecast and then super near future, but I may want to come back to you with some sort of. Some thoughts on that in a you know in terms of when we get to future topics I know is on this agenda is how to manage days where there's a high probability that some of our students won't have access to the internet or won't have access to power. Because it's not you know and from what I've been told it's not an infrequent occurrence that when there's a major snowstorm. It's not so much whether it'll happen to be when it'll happen and how long it lasts. I don't know if the Seeger Mr. Sullivan have any thoughts on that one but it's it's been come to me from many families and many. Students not just in Sheetsbury and Leverett but I will say that particularly in Sheetsbury and Leverett it seems like a larger issue in terms of what happens when there's a major storm. Solving to be agree with that unit you're my go to person for shoots very so. Yeah and the issue now with the broadband is that you know shoots very owns the system but it's run by somebody else. So when it does go down it takes a while for someone to come out and I think Leverett's the same. It's unlike Verizon and the power companies it takes a few more days to get the broadband back up again. Yeah the Seeger's anything you want to add to that. Okay. So it's just it was a really good point and that's where where it's really helpful to have community feedback. Right because you know I know an awful lot about the roads in Sheetsbury and Leverett and I talk a lot to their DPW people talking to their broadband people that's a new one for me. And so it's really helpful to get that feedback so you know I'd like to bring back some thoughts. Maybe the next joint meeting we have or it could be a region meeting to on that topic. The last one I think I have. Actually what there's one you know I just want to address this because it's come up a couple places is that there seems to be some perception among some that I can force the MOA not to exist. That sort of it's in my power to override the MOA and so you know I want to like publicly address that that you know technically I suppose that's true. But I generally don't like breaking labor laws when I know I'm breaking them. And I'm pretty sure breaking the MOA, which is a signed document is no critique in this would would would be met with active resistance and legal opposition. And I get that I'm in general a supporter of labor right when people have contracts. I want to follow them right and it's not that we never have conflicts or we never disagree and what's in a conflict interpretation. But you know whatever my my professional viewpoint is on students being in school and I think that's been pretty clear in terms of setting up distance learning centers and some of the benefits. I do not perceive that it's my discretion to disregard a signed contract. I have a couple of different places and I'm not just public comment I think it was one or two tonight. And there's no critique of the APA there's no critique certainly of the school committee, but I want to, you know, be able to communicate that I don't I don't have the power to disregard legal documents that have been signed and you know again, the documents as every legal document is prone to interpretation or subject to interpretation. But I have to do my best to interpret it the way I think the intent was and so I just wanted to communicate that to the committee in the community since it seems to be a little bit of a theme of late that, you know, that I'm, you know, partially bound or something, you know, I perceive myself as bound by my legal documents and so I just, you know, sorry to belabor that point but I thought it was just an important one for me to share. So I'm glad you brought that up because I feel like, you know, parking for the moment my personal opinion and whether students should be back in person or not which I think is pretty clear but just putting that aside and just talking strictly about process. I continued to see coverage of of the topic of kids going back to school in person remote, our whole model for this year confused about about what the change process is. And so, so to piggyback on the point you just brought up that you don't have just divine intervention authority to throw an MOA away, legally. In addition, the JLM SC cannot change the MOA and the MOA is that document that signed agreement that has that those those hard caps right that that 28 per 100,000 that automatic to closure to week closure of schools all those things that we agree to the JLM SC which is that that informal board of reps from the APA and the school committee can can talk about agree suggest jump up and down make votes but has no authority whatsoever no involvement whatsoever in changing the MOA it's just to talk about resolve issues with the current implementation of the current MOA and the only way that I'm sorry I'm belaboring this but I feel like we've tried to do this before and there's continued confusion so I'm just going to go on. The only way to change the MOA is if the school committee and the APA board agree to talk about changing it. And then which is that is to say renegotiate the MOA and then and then agree to change it. And the school committee has asked for this on October 23. We got a response back from the board on October 26. Say, saying that they did not wish to talk about it at the time. We had some meetings in public comment on November 2 school committee again, asked the APA board to talk about changing the MOA and we haven't received a response. And that's that's where it stands. The last update is November 2 we asked the APA board to talk about changing the MOA and we haven't received a response. And that's it. I feel like I mean I'm honestly I just I'm sort of commentizing here a little bit I'm a little frustrated at just being able to articulate the process here, you know, again parking my opinion about what should or should not happen. You know, both sides need to agree to change the MOA. And if we don't agree to talk about it. And again, that request was made on the second and we haven't received a response. Then, then, then we're, we're stopped. And there isn't anything more the school committee can do about it. In turn, it would do about changing the MOA is that. Have I said anything in that long rambling monologue. I'm sorry, Dr. But that is contrary to your understanding of the process. Okay. Thank you. And unless there's more comments on that one. And I know it felt that I know where I said that but I just I'm hearing it in enough places. You know, and I'm hearing enough references to other communities where superintendents did certain things and that was either in most of those it was prior to a memorandum of agreement or there was a lot of gray in the memorandum of agreement it wasn't when there was clear metrics defined in the memorandum of agreement. So I can understand why that is confusing to members of the public in this particular situation. You know, I that that's where we stand. The last one is just really appreciating, you know, favorite who's been involved but particularly Diane Chamberlain who's the principal of Fort River really spearheaded this with a parent or caregiver in the Fort River community that we have a student who shot clinic on Thursday. This Thursday from 230 to 430 at Fort River school through CVS we've sent out link they give us the wrong one we fixed it and recent that out but you know it is a requirement for all students in Massachusetts believe it or not in person or virtual to have the flu shot by January 1 and December 31 and so we know that for some families that's going to be an easier dynamic than than going to doctor's office at this point so be under the tent on Thursday at Fort River if you're interested please check your email if you can't find that email. Please just you could email me directly or debut us more than you get emails from every Friday, and we can get to the link if you need it but it is really important not just because of a compliance exercise but because it's really important from a public health perspective that all students receive the flu shot this all in my opinion everyone receives a flu shot this winter this is particularly focused on students but my encouragement is that everyone gets it. Some of you know me. I'm quite phobic about shots not my favorite thing in the world to do I'm on the like the far end of that spectrum of comfortability with it and you know, so I can feel and understand people who don't want to go get a shot and it's just, you know, every public health person I speak to talks about the importance of getting one this winter so that's my public service that I'll do on the public health front but it seemed I'm pretty convinced that it's an important thing but thanks to Diane and CVS and parent guardian caregiver who put on help put on the clinic on Thursday. That's the end of a very long update. Any questions from the committee. Seeing none. Maybe I'll be able to get us a little bit back on track on our agenda. I was going to mention remind folks about the four towns meeting on Saturday morning that Dr Morris already did that. Thank you. And also for Amherst committee members on Monday is the town council was hosting the state of the town meeting and presentation. And that will have reports from the town, the school committee and the Jones library. So, I've been preparing that I think I will be able to send the copy of that report to everybody on the Amherst school committee. And I send that over to to the town council for sharing in the packet. So, thank you to Dr Morris and Mr Demling for working with me on pulling that that together. That is all that I have from the chairs updated right now. So moving on to school committee announcements. Are there any announcements. Yes, thank you chair McDonald. I would just like to update the school committee and anyone who's listening or watching a little bit on what the school equity task force subcommittee has been doing. Recently, we worked with. Assistant superintendent Cunningham and Miss Evelyn Aquino on the restorative justice position and program in terms of how do we support it. We're doing a search when we're out of our hiring freeze, etc. I know we hear a lot of parents gathering stories of the incredible hardships some of our families are going through during this remote learning. I know we hear a lot on the public comments, but there are a lot of other voices that don't either don't have access to leaving the comments through many different reasons or can't so we're trying to gather those voices because there's some concern and what different ways can we support and at least let it be known. We're also working on goals and our mission statement and last meeting we had Dr Gaveta from the family center come and let us know all the amazing ways that program is supporting our families and we're trying to connect with how we can support that. We have a meeting tomorrow it's our working group meeting on the first Wednesday of every month from 6 to 730. Thank you for this time. Would my co chair, fabulous Mr Harrington like to add anything. Oh, that was solid. Pretty, pretty satisfied with it. Hi. Harrington. And then my update is about the joint labor management safety committee meeting where we'll be meeting Friday at 420 I believe it's already posted on the ARPs website. It's viewable through YouTube and I think there's another means but that seems to be a pretty solid way to go about it. The agenda is also posted. If anybody wants to check that out. Really exciting stuff that goes down there. They're all welcome to join. You're all welcome. Sorry. Mr Harrington, can you describe a little bit of some of the changes that you all have made on the jail emissy. Oh, Dr Morris. Sorry. Just this is an agenda item for later in the meeting. So, I mean, I'm not trying to constrain Mr Harrington at in the least, but since it is an agenda item, it might. It might allow for a more full dialogue at that point when we're just in the region. That's great. Thank you for that reminding me of that. Great. And either Mr Sullivan or Ms Lord. I know that the CES collaborative for educational services board has met once or twice. And I was just wondering if you have any update for the committee on that work. No. I could just say we've gone over. We had the budget. Presented an annual audit and annual report. They're thinking about a new strategic plan and the biggest announcement is the executive director. Who is fabulously loved and has done amazing work bill deal has retired is retiring and there'll be a search for a new executive director. Thanks. Thank you. Mr. Damley. Yeah, monthly CPAC meeting special at parents advisory advisory council is this Thursday night our first Thursday night meeting switching from Friday mornings. Thursday night that's 630 to 8 you can find more info at orbs.org slash CPAC. Or just email CPAC at orbs.org. It's a packed announcements night. Are there any more. Great. So we'll move on to our new and continuing business and our first item is a resolution on regarding the MCAS testing and possible vote. I think Mr. Demling shared that circulated that earlier this week so hopefully folks have been able to read through that. Mr. Demling, are you able to share your screen maybe and so folks can see it again. Maybe not. I can try. I can try. I need to find it. I've got it. If you'd like me to display it. Yeah, go ahead. Chairman McDonald, do you want to give me, do you want me to give a little intro to this? Sure, please. Okay, so this is basically a combination of the MCAS, the M-A-S-C resolution that passed a few weeks ago and Joe Cumberford's bill of a similar nature that we talked about last time that we sent the links out. What I tried to do is basically copy and paste from that and then just hit the main points that both of them were hitting on. So those first three whereas are just straight from the M-A-S-C resolution talking about the inequities that happen with remote learning and the social emotional impact and then the lack of in-person instruction. So then there's the bullet points of what this has resolved for and so I separated them in case there is committee support for some but not all of these items. So the first one is for the students who missed their 10th grade MCAS testing last year and not be required to make it up this year or ever as a requirement for their graduation. The second bullet is a three-year moratorium on the MCAS as a graduation requirement. The third one's a little hard to describe. It's a moratorium for three years on high stakes decisions about students, educators, and districts. In both the Cumberford bill and the M-A-S-C resolution, what exactly constitutes high stakes is a little ambiguous. There is a state model for evaluating districts that has a few different components. There's obviously staff evaluations depending on how we choose to use that. It's unclear whether there is high stakes for a student other than a graduation requirement. You do hear this a lot with the rhetoric particularly from the MTA and some other state level advocacy groups when they're talking about wanting to suspend the MCAS. I just my two cents. This is probably the bullet item I feel the least tied to just because we haven't really had a broad discussion about the role of standardized testing in educator and district evaluation. We've been more focused so far in discussions about its impact as a graduation requirement. And then the last call is straight from the Cumberford bill establishing a commission to look at piloting alternatives to using standardized testing and these various methods. So there you go. Thank you, Mr. Deming. I feel like the resolution as you've drafted, it really captures a lot of what we discussed at our last meeting. So thank you for pulling that all together and sharing that back with us. Any comments or thoughts, questions from the committee? Ms. Spitzer. So thank you for putting this together. I'm going to go back to the general, like you said, I definitely supported in light of everything that's been going on with COVID. I'm also happy to take out some of the sections that you said we haven't had as much time to discuss. But as it's written, I generally would support it. Minor minor things the last sentence. And finally we call for the establishment of a statewide commission. I think it should be approach to goal setting student assessment and evaluation and not for. And then I was just comparing it to, you know, quickly Google MCAS and Joe Cumberford. So it looks like in some of the documents online for her, she's asking for a four year moratorium. So I'm curious about why we have it as a three year moratorium instead of just curious about the thought you had on that. Mr. Yeah, so the the MASC resolution calls for three years and Joe's bill called for four scientific one. No, that's, yeah, that was arbitrary. I mean, I just, I just, I just sort of picked that arbitrarily. The one thing I did to I didn't point out is that is not here is it doesn't. So this this resolution and neither does the MASC resolution of the Cumberford bill explicitly say it doesn't specifically say the MCAS should not be administered. It talks about what it should not be used for. Right. So even the MASC resolution doesn't say don't don't run the MCAS. It says don't use it for XYZ. So that's kind of interesting. There is there's one subsection in the Cumberford bill where she says call upon the federal government to waive the requirement for standardized testing, which would then allow us not to have to administer it. So it's kind of implied, but hey, this opens the door to not having to do any standardized testing. I think that's a bigger, much bigger discussion about not doing any standardized testing whatsoever for any purpose rather than tying. This is a graduation requirement. So, but it wasn't even in that bill anyways. It's not in there. It is just audible because if you look at it this quick, you might feel, oh, it's an anti standardized testing resolution and that really isn't what either the Cumberford bill or the MCAS and the ASC resolution is. Any other questions or comments? I'll just add that while I agree that we haven't had a big discussion about how the MCAS is used for other high stakes decisions other than for actions other than require graduation requirement. I'm comfortable with the way that you've worded it here. And, and knowing that there's other bills and resolutions that sort of detail that more clearly. I think, you know, it's, this is about stating our beliefs and our, and our values about this. And I think that we agree with that. And so this is, we're not the ones that have to write the bill that then has to have all the details to, you know, not the giant loopholes for, that people can get through. So we have the luxury of not having to worry about that to a certain extent. And I, I feel like that that statement there expresses the values that we were discussing and expressing last week or two weeks ago when we last met and talked about this. Our, would folks like to move to make a motion to support this resolution? Ms. Spitzer. I will make the motion. I just want to clarify. Do we need to make a motion for Amherst and a motion for the region separately? Okay, so I'll start with Amherst then. So I move that the Amherst school committee approve this motion that, sorry. This resolution regarding MCAS testing. Move by Spitzer. I'll second that seconded by McDonald. We'll take a roll call vote. Oh, Mr. Deming. Yeah, I was just going to say, Mr. Spitzer, if you would accept a friendly amendment to approve the resolution as amended by Ms. Spitzer. To grab that type of sure. So I will accept that amendment. Thank you, Mr. Deming. So we'll take a roll call vote of the Amherst school committee. So Mr. Deming. Mr. Harrington. Miss Lord. Lord I. Ms. Spitzer. Spitzer I. And McDonald I. The motion passes unanimously five to zero. I will make a similar motion for the regional school committee that we that we endorse or approve this resolution as amended. As amended by Ms. Spitzer. Is there a second? Second. Move by McDonald seconded by Spitzer. Any further discussion? Seeing none. We'll move to a roll call vote. Mr. Deming. Mr. Harrington. Miss Kenny. Kenny I. Ms. Lord. Lord I. Ms. Sieger. Sieger I. Ms. Spitzer. Spitzer I. Ms. Dancer. Mr. Dancer I. Mr. Sullivan. Sullivan I. And McDonald I. The motion passes unanimously nine to zero. Thank you. Thanks for sharing your screen, Dr. Morse. And now our next item is future agenda planning. We don't. We keep referencing that document that I'm wondering if there's a way that we can sort of get dates up onto the website showing as tentative. Plans because they know that some folks in the community. Have been looking for what are our future meetings sort of beyond when we actually decide to post one. I don't know if we share this document or just sort of list the possible dates with sort of a note subject to change. It might be helpful. But right now. So in addition to the four towns meeting that the regional school committee has on Saturday morning. We had a placeholder for an Amherst school committee meeting next Tuesday, December 8. I believe the only item that we may might have would be the coming on days lottery and sibling policy. If we were to meet next week. So I might recommend that we not meet next week and instead. Look to the January 12th meeting. That would potentially have the budget update on the Q2 of this fiscal year. As well as the coming on days. Policy in January. Are folks okay with that timing for the lottery. Mr. Emily. Yeah, and we could probably, if we're getting the MSBA enrollment letter in this month, then that could also go MSBA update could also be on the January. Amherst meeting. Yep. That's great. We, we haven't gotten to this agenda item for the regional school committee, but we will have so for the following week, December 15th, we will have. Or hopefully we'll have the vote on the MOA with the AFS CME. So we haven't gotten to that part of the agenda to say that we're not voting on that tonight. So, ideally, we'd be able to have that on December 15. Dr. Morris, I see you've added access testing. Can you describe what that is? Sorry, I'm having some connection problems. So I missed quite a bit of that. Ms. McDonald. Oh, I'm talking about the December 15th proposed next meeting for the regional school committee. And sure. So, at that point, hopefully we'll be able to vote on the, we'll have an AFS CME MOA, which was on the agenda tonight, but it's not ready. As that body has not come to a vote itself at this point yet. We talked about perhaps putting access testing on there. They've now expanded the window when we're supposed to receive some more guidance. Oh, relevant that will be. So there may be other items like the one Mr. Demling talked about or other things people want to add, but those are the only two that I had listed at this point in time. That's what I was wondering if we wanted to take that time to start the to talk about the in school planning is that which Mr. Demling, you brought up earlier. Well, I think it'd be a good one that we could review the 410 meeting, which is a financial but also talk about, I mean, that'll start to kick off a broader conversation perhaps about FY 22 more generally. Not just the fiscal year, but the academic side of things as well. That sounds good. Okay. You mentioned in talking about the budget, the all the uncertainties and planning FY 22 budget being one of them being the many contracts labor contracts that are expiring this year and we don't have that information. Is that a topic that we need to do we need to appoint new. Believe we have all of our bargaining numbers. I think we do. So, unless one of them, unless there's a desire for change from one of the members is currently there. I think we're, I think we're covered on that one. If not, I'll let you know. We may actually want to have an executive session. We may want it may choose to do that in December, just to start talking about all those contracts that are potentially expiring. I'm glad you you raised that. That's sort of where my head was going. I think it might be that early. Yeah, and even if it's just to talk, I mean, obviously it would occur and executive session, but just about timing and just having some of the preliminary conversations. So the committee can get its be able to have that conversation sooner. Any other miss Dancer. I'm wondering, are we anticipating that we won't then meet again until January after the 15th of December. That's that's the proposal. Okay. Did you want to meet it? Are there any other thoughts about ads for December 15. Or January for the Amherst school for me. Obviously there's time for both of those. So if anything does occur to you. Send them my way. Okay, with that, we'll move on to our next item, which is a warrants report. Oh, Dr Morris. And just one thing to note is that AFSCME has been done this year in the MOA has been done by Miss Cunningham primarily who's done a good job with it. But I think as we're looking at a successor contract, perhaps it might be good for a school committee rep to join that group doesn't need to be decided tonight. But just, I was remiss in saying that because I think it's been the MOA has been managed, you know, by staff but I think if we're looking at a multi year contract particularly as we're looking at multiple multi year contracts, at least not MOAs based on COVID but more functional contracts that aren't specific to a pandemic. It'd probably be good to have a school committee rep on that group as well and historically we have so again, not for today but just that might be something that we talk about in the near future. Yeah. Could be at our December meeting. Okay. Any warrants. Miss Spitzer, I don't know. I have three of them. So, if you'd like me to go first, I'm happy to go for it. Um, first one was an annual scholarship payment which I authorized by my signature on November 17 2020 in the amount of $1,000. I authorized by my signature to payables in the amount of $714,680.90 and 92 cents for a warrant dated November 18 2020. This included general fund expenses of $713,380 and 92 cents and revolving fund expenses of $1,300. And I signed this on November 19 2020. I authorized by my signature to payables in the amount of $941,435.80 for the warrant dated November 20 2020. I also included general fund expenses of $416,267.87 revolving fund expenses of $4,859.16 grant fund expenses of $519,812.64 and other funds in the amount of $496.13 for capital. And this was signed and dated on November 20 2020. And that's all. Um, so speaking for the Emmer School Committee, I authorized by my signature to payables the amount of $141,399.32 for a warrant dated November 20 2020. This includes general fund expenses of $72,661.24 revolving fund expenses of $417.90 grant fund expenses of $4,205.58 FEMA fund of $11,779.50 school reopening fund in the amount of $3,523.30. COVID relief grant, oops, nothing. CARES fund act money of $48,519.38. And a gift to the school of $292.42. And I signed that on November 20. And I also authorized by my signature to payables the amount of $30,879.22 for a warrant dated November 23 2020. It included general fund expenses of $3,810.81 revolving fund expenses of $3,051.81 grant fund expenses of $15,942.72 FEMA fund of $7,770 CARES Act fund of $303.88 gift to the school of $292.00. And that was also signed on November 23, actually November 20. Sorry. And then last, I authorized by my signature to payables for the payroll in the amount of $697,568.82. And I signed that December 2 2020. Actually, the payroll is dated December 2 2020. I signed it December 1 2020. With that, you have next is gifts and I don't, we do have two gifts for the Amherst school committee. I will just continue with the motion and I'll move to accept gifts as follows from Martha over number 995854 to support Crocker farm at the principal's discretion and the amount of $10. Another gift from Martha over number 995900 in to support Crocker farm at the principal discretion in the amount of $10 for total of $20. Is there a second? Second. And moved by McDonald's second and by Spitzer. And we will take a roll call vote again of the Amherst school committee. Mr. Demling. I. Mr. Harrington. Harrington I. Ms. Lord. Lord I. Miss Spitzer. Spitzer I. McDonald I. Mr. Harrington. Motion passes five to zero. And somebody from Amherst want to make another motion. And move to adjourn the Amherst school committee. Lord second. Move by Spitzer second, and by the Lord, there's no discussion will call vote Mr. Demling, Helling I. Mr. Harrington. I miss spitzer spitzer I and mcdonald I the emmer school committee is adjourned and now we move to the regional school committee topics we have our first order is approving minutes but I don't believe I saw them in our packet debate. Okay, so we will skip that item. And we will move to public comment and we do have a couple public comments for the region and so I will share my screen. And as a reminder for folks watching at home. This document is posted on the arts.org website on the regional school committee agendas page. Sorry, started midway through. Okay. So as mentioned earlier, we do not have the memorandum of agreement went for AFS CME for tonight. So we will skip item 14 on our agenda and move on to the winter sports discussion. And I see that Miss Stewart joined us welcome. Thank you. And so I want to do a little bit of framing on this one as well so I think last time, the regional school committee did vote on one of the sports girls hockey. Since we met last we've had multiple conversations got additional information from Robert Roy Clark our facilities director about ventilation we've also had conversations Victoria more than me but I've been in part of one of them. And so we're going to come by and what Mr was going to present is our revised presentation with much more information for you all to consider tonight. It's been publicly great. You can see the some of the public comments, you know, we put this up yesterday. At some point with some recommendations and really the recommendations are coming from the conversations with both of those people. Primarily with Mr agon but also that's informed by the conversations on ventilation and air changes. I want to really appreciate Miss Stewart who has. This is not an easy gig to have at the moment we know how much sports are valued we know their particular value in a situation where to be very blunt I don't anticipate secondary students being back in in person school this winter. Maybe something will change but I think there's no evidence right now that would point in that direction, and we know that social connections are incredibly important. And, you know, our approach and you'll hear this tonight has been to follow the advice we've got from the public health professionals. And that's the way we approach thing that's the way we've approached things throughout, you know, multiple processes and I think as it relates to athletics, you know, there's there's additional variables that make it that much more complex. And, you know, just want to share that and, you know, what we'll ask at the end of the night is to consider all the sports to get your feedback. And I know you're in a very precarious situation in terms of voting and there's really strong feelings on on multiple strong feelings about sports and we've heard some in public comment. I know I've heard from other families and Mr. Richard from even more. But I think what we'd like to do is just kind of reset things. Last time I think we didn't have even the MIA pieces. We, I think we only have the EC pieces. So there's a lot more Mr. We'll share I'll be in charge of slides and do it will be mostly doing the communicating and then we can pause at the end and see if there's, you know, we could pause throughout, but then at the end see if there's broader questions that we have. Anything else to add before we before I display started displaying things, Victoria. No, I think that's everything. Yeah. Okay, so let me do that. Just let me know when you want to advance slide. Okay. All right, I guess we could advance there because you gave it a little introduction but I added some snowflakes. So it looks a little different for you guys. Very nice touch. Yeah. Okay, so, like Dr. Morris said, now that we've got a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of more said, now the modifications are out from the border directors. And with that announcement, a couple things have changed since we last met girls ice hockey actually has been pushed back again to December 14. This is only this only applies to girls ice hockey and all their sports still remain at the January 4 start date as of now. Again you guys saw this before but basketball hockey or high wrist sports, according to the a guidelines Al pine and Nordic skiing. skiing are also our low risk sports and then swim and dive are moderate risk sports. So that hasn't changed. But when we go on to the next slide, you will see that the MIA actually moved indoor track to the floating season, the same season as football. So I don't know, we'll see what that looks like. I don't know if it's going to be indoor or if they're thinking we can actually go outside, but they actually moved it to the floating season as well. So we're looking to have it there. Alpine skiing. So a couple of the modifications that you'll see is masks need to be worn at all times. This is something that you'll see on all the sports that I will present. Workouts also need to be conducted in pods. So that'll be like what they're training that they do in the weight room or anything else. Also the starting line, everyone needs to be six feet apart. And right at the end of the conclusion of the event, they need to disperse and leave, go to their buses and get ready to go back. And then also the course can actually be previewed for Alpine skiing. So that's a little bit different than cross-country. So that's just something to keep in mind. But there's not that many modifications there. What do we pause this? Is there any questions? There may not be, but any questions about Alpine before we go to another sport? I'm just curious how many, if you could give us an estimate based on prior years, approximately how many students or athletes participate in each of these sports, that would be helpful. And all of them or just this one in particular? All of them. Okay, yep. As you go through. Yes, so Alpine, it's a lot smaller. I would say it's about 14. It's a smaller one, so the pods aren't going to be an issue at all. And I'll just get that up too, to have all the numbers. Ms. Spitzer? Just wondering if the pods, only during the workout or just for travel, transportation, do they need to be potted too? No, not for transportation. That's strictly for the workouts. I think it is worth noting too that the weight room has been, the ventilation testing has been completed and it satisfies the four or above air changes per hour. I think it's just an important note because you'll hear more about ventilation throughout this presentation on a variety. Obviously the primary sport is done outside, but the weight room is not outside. So, for basketball, we are looking at, you know, same thing, mass need to be worn at all times. There's no jump ball, so instead of a jump ball, it's going to be like football, or there's coin toss, and then that team has possession first. That's in the beginning of the game. The free throws, that situation is a little bit different. No one will be at the line on the first free throw. The other free throw is falling. If it's the last one, there will be four people instead of six. Their ball won't be taking out of bounds below the hoop to avoid clustering underneath the hoop. It'll be at free throw line extended, no halftime, so there's two minutes and 30 minutes between each quarter. And then the team benches also need to be six feet apart, so it'll kind of look like, I don't know if any of you guys watch the NBA, but they kind of have the staggered chairs, so that's something that we could also do. And then the process for the intentional fouls at the end of the game, that's going to be a little different. So, you know, when you're down two and you want a foul, so they can shoot the free throw and hopefully miss, the coach is actually going to be able to call out the foul. So, if you want a foul number five, the coach will call out, I want a foul number five instead of the kids actually going in there and fouling when you know it's going to happen, so the referees will call that then. And the air quality of the gym right now, it's still being worked on as well, so just to keep that in mind. Yeah, if I could add, Mr. Orch, do you mind if I add to that? No, that's probably fine. Yep, we alluded to that I think last time. So, it's been tested and Mr. Roy Clark is in the process of securing three very large space air purifiers that will bring it above four air changes per hour, or yeah, four air changes per hour. And that is, they're slated to be here prior to the start of the season in January. So, we think we'll actually be well above four and we'll get it retested. But we feel confident that we'll be able to get the gym above four and that's not only useful for basketball, that's going to be useful for other uses of the gym that might happen in the future as well. Again, I don't think we're going to be in a COVID-free world anytime super soon and gym classes happen there, many other activities happen in there, so we feel like it's a worthwhile purchase from our capital funds, not just for the enjoyment of kids who play basketball, but for general use of the gym as well. And we're looking at 33 kids there too, just to keep the number in mind for boys basketball. For boys. Is there girls basketball also? Yes, but I was just going to say that when we talk about girls, but girls is 20. Okay, several questions. Start with Ms. Lord and then Ms. Dancer. I'm curious about what the attendance in terms of observers or spectators would be. We were playing on no spectators, that was our discussion with our board of health director as well. Thank you. Ms. Dancer. That was also my question. Thank you. Mr. Harrington. That kind of raises a question for me. Are you planning on doing any sort of streaming of games, something like that, like how they do like AAU tournaments and all? Yeah, just a little bit, probably like maybe like a Facebook live, not as advanced as those other streaming services, but yeah. Any other questions? Okay. Okay, so then we have hockey. So for the hockey modifications, the MIA also came up with no math, they need to wear masks at all times. The benches, we also have to make sure we have, we're six feet apart. What hockey rinks are doing right now is some are going to be on the bench and then some will be behind the bench at the hockey rink, at the conclusion of the contest. Coaches and players just like Dr. Skates and then go to your buses. There's the face off, everyone has to wait until the referee calls you in. The people that are doing the face off and stay six feet apart until the referee just blow the whistle. One person a penalty box at a time, if another player ends up getting a penalty, they just had to stay on their bench until the penalty box is empty. And then there's again, there's like a time, I don't know if you guys know hockey, but when the pox against the board is called scrum, they have to wait. What happens is normally the referee will let you play it out. Unfortunately, this year they could stop it and there should only be two people at that moment in time there. So that's the same rules for a girls hockey, which will be the next one too. We're looking at 32 players for ice hockey and three for our girls hockey team. And Victoria, do you mind sharing what you found out from the rink in terms of ventilation? Because I think that that'll relate to recommendations later, but I think as we're doing sport by sport, it's helpful to have the comparison. Yeah, so I reached out because I know we know all about our gyms and stuff like that. So the hockey rink is looking at one ACH about an hour and we are trying to get to four. It's just a little different with hockey rinks and spaces in general. But yeah, that is what they reported. Any questions on hockey before we roll through them? Again, the last slide or second or last slide, one of those will have the full list of recommendations, but any hockey specific questions at this point? Mr. Sullivan? No, it's actually not hockey specific. It's more about basketball. Why can we only have scrums with one person from each team with hockey, but there's no mention of the, let's jump ball tie ups in basketball where you could have a number of people going after the ball at the same time. Why had they chosen to just go after hockey? I think because in hockey, they let it play out a lot more. Jump balls, they rest normally call it anyways. And from watching a lot of games, they call it even earlier, which can be frustrating for a coach, but it would make a lot of sense this time. Mr. Denley? So that one ACH that you mentioned, is that at the one rink that the boys hockey team plays at? Is it the most common rink? And then how does that relate to the ACH at the rink or rinks that the girls hockey team would be playing at? So I don't know the ACH levels of where the girls hockey would be playing at. I definitely can look into it. A couple of those rinks, it's a little bit harder to get the contact information all out, but I will look into that. There's a lot more that the girls would be going to. And another thing to keep in mind, which I was gonna go at the end of the last slide, we're not recommended to travel anywhere that doesn't meet those requirements anyways. So I would have to figure out all that information. So that's the same for basketball. If other courts do not meet those requirements, swimming is gonna be different because it's going to be virtual, but you'll see later on, if the courts don't meet those requirements, we are gonna have to be at home. So that would be the same thing for hockey, except that our home rink right now is Greenfield, because Amherst is not renting out this year. Mr. Harrington. So I'm assuming there's no playoffs in any of these sports, are there playoffs? Is that that's accurate? Yeah, no playoffs. There's no tournament. It's just gonna be bubble competition and then the end of the season, yeah. I'm sensing a lot of general questions. So maybe we'll let Ms. Zurich go through the rest of her presentation to the recommendations that we can keep asking questions. So Nordic is very similar to cross-country. Mass need to be worn at all times, staggered starts, what you saw in cross-country, waves again, the skiers must be spaced out six feet apart and then 14 feet apart from the other schools, the three-minute stagger between the waves and then the skiers must leave right after. So that is exactly the same as cross-country had a fall this fall. So those modifications are identical. Swimming, swimming, we are in the process of figuring out the air quality in there. It's looking good though. All muscular mask at all times when not swimming. Other than that, that's when they have to wear their masks. At the end of each race and event, they need to exit the pool on the opposite side. So they start on the starting block, they're just gonna get an extra lap in and get out of the pool that way. The only difference is relays. Relays, they're gonna get out of the pool instead of staying by the block, which is normally a rule, they actually can go to the side, put their masks on. The visiting team, those two, that line is irrelevant. There's gonna be no visiting team. The PBIC will come out that all swim meets are going to be virtual this year. So that's gonna be, remain the same. And then another thing to keep in mind about the pool is that it still needs to be filled. It takes a couple weeks to be filled. It's also finances are also involved with filling the pool. So we just have to keep that in mind when going forward. As far as recommendations go, this is all after consulting with our public health director. And her recommendations for sports this year for this winter are Alpine, basketball, Nordic, and swimming. Basketball and swimming are contingent on the ventilation results and improvement in these spaces. We have four air chamber. The swimming pool was designed to have well over four air changes per hour. And many of the rooms that come as that designed we anticipate will be over four air changes per hour. So that's good and promising. There will also be more home games, like I said before, for basketball games unless other schools show that they do meet those recommended air ventilation requirements that we are looking for. The only, unfortunately the only sport that our health director does not recommend is ice hockey with air quality being a prominent factor in indoor sports. We are looking, we cannot ensure that the four air chambers per hour that is recommended. In addition, she's also concerned with the recent clusters associated with the sport of hockey itself. So that is what our Board of Health Director recommends. If you guys have any questions, I am more than welcome to take them. Ms. Dancer. I'm wondering if I know that before the rinks were closed and cleaning was done and they reopened with new guidelines, whether there have been additional clusters and if so where, I know early on before all of that that there had been some cases, but as you could see in the quotes from the governor, a lot of the problems have been because of the, not the hockey rink and not the people, the kids playing, but the people who have attended. So I'm wondering, do we have current data since they've reopened the rinks about how the infection rate has been? So the documentation that our Board of Health Director gave me had states such as New Jersey, which you may have heard of that just got shut down. And then Minnesota as well. And then the recent one in Vermont, I believe it is. So those are the ones that she has given so far. So we have no data about Massachusetts where our kids would be playing. Well, she did mention just the recent, like what happened beforehand as well with the whole cluster. All right, thank you. No problem. I'd be curious to understand sort of building on Ms. Stanser's question. How much of that those other clusters and other states were similar to the experience in Massachusetts where it was families or not the players and not arising out of the gameplay itself? Because in thinking sort of similar to what one of the commenters said in the public comment is that the play and sort of the MIA guidance on the play of hockey is such that A, if there's no spectators, you're not going to have the spectators congregating around either in the rink, around the rink, at the rink and that the gameplay and the exposure is limited to the on ice time. And there's 10 kids on the ice at any one time, two of whom stay at opposite ends of the ice and only occasionally see first contact and intermittent contact. So at most they'd be there for an hour and a half inside the building, even with practices. So that sort of gameplay suggests that the potential for contact is very, very limited compared to sort of that the pre-shutdown experience. And we know that those cases, at least in Massachusetts, so I'm curious about the other states. It comes from activity outside of the ice, off ice activities, off ice gatherings, family gatherings, parents and coaches gatherings. So I liken this to very similar to sort of, our argument for in-person schooling and education that we've created a very safe school building and protocols and procedures that we're comfortable with, the safety of students being in there. And so how is that different when we have all these safety structures and really are we looking at the right data to evaluate whether it could be safe? I think the other thing I would add is that, similar to what one of the commenters commented, is many, if not most of these kids are playing club hockey on the ranks, the very ranks that we're talking about. And I was curious to see the GSL, Greater Springfield League data or experience in terms of the number of cases they've seen. Because I haven't seen it, the league that my son plays in plays all over the state. And I think somebody else mentioned that too. So in terms of exposure, his team has had zero cases and the like. So I think having the right data and understanding the data is really, really important to understand the risk. So I don't know if we know that from the others. Ms. Spitzer has her hand up. So if it's okay, I'll go with her first and come back to you. Ms. Spitzer? Fine, thanks. So I'm gonna, I'm a slightly different point of view on all of this. And it's, I really appreciate the fact, first of all, that we got the health director's input because I think it's essential that we listen to the health guidance. And so, if anything, I'm feeling more conservative than what's being recommended and have a lot of concerns based on the fact that our teams aren't just playing in our community, that we're bringing folks into our community and then our children are gonna be going to other communities. And right now we're experiencing an upward trend in both positivity rates and overall numbers of cases. And this is especially true in Hamden County, which I believe some of our, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that our kids would be traveling to these communities in order to play. So I think it's great that we're talking about only playing in places where we are able to assure that the air changes or the standards that we would want in our schools are being the same in other schools. So, you know, at one of, based in hospitals right now, people aren't able to have visitors in the hospital. The number of cases are at the, people hospitalized in the hospital right now it's at the same levels that they were in April. And I realized this is Hamden County and not Hampshire County, but the fact is that with the positivity rate there is about 6%. And it's been that way for over averaging that for a week. So I guess my biggest concern is the high risk, not that it's in our community right now, but that sports inherently involve a lot of travel and we don't have ability to control that. And it's really unfortunate. I wish things were trending downwards. So I think my gut is to go with what the health director is recommending and to, you know, because if anything, I would be going more conservatively and like indoor basketball, indoor swimming, they both make me nervous, but I think I'm gonna go with what our health director is recommended and what I'm assuming what our coaches and administration have recommended as well. So it's really hard, but I'm wondering if we can, is hockey a sport that could be moved into that shoulders? I forget the term that they're using into that other season, that football and indoor track is that and maybe in February, things could be trending downwards. We might be having much lower cases in our hospitals and in our communities and it might be a different picture because today I think this makes sense to just rely on the health director and their recommendation. Dr. Morris. Yeah, a couple of things and responding to the questions. So I think one is that I know there are other communities who are opting not to have hockey this season. So I can't promise that there'll be another season, but we're not alone, you know, in both Hampshire and Franklin County. I know there are school committees who have made similar decisions. Some, so the same reasons as we're talking about here, some because some of the hockey teams and some of our other sports are co-ops which I'm comfortable with, but not every, you know, athletic director or superintendent co-op meaning that there's students from multiple schools who play for the same team because some of the small schools don't have enough students to make their own, their full team. You know, I think to the point about the health director is certainly it's the school committee's will to do what it chooses. And I understand the competing viewpoints on hockey. I think, you know, I think it's the only sport on here where we can't control the ventilation and the environment. And I'll just say for me, based on my conversations and our conversations by our, I'm including Victoria in this, with the health director, that's a cause of concern. You know, we can say, well, we're not going to play basketball in any gym that is X air changes per hour. We don't really have that capacity. We don't have a hockey rink in our district. And my understanding, although I am far from an expert, is the ventilation in a hockey rink because of the humidity and the temperature is sort of, it's a hard one. Whereas in the swimming pool it's the opposite. You actually want to have really good ventilation because otherwise you get really stinky swimming pools just because nature of chlorine and water and all that. So, you know, I think for me, I won't speak for Victoria, but I think we're in the same place on this. There's an element of loss of control with that sport that's not necessarily true as with the other indoor sports where we can choose not to play in other gyms. And that might have consequences. It might mean less games if schools are unwilling to always be coming to Amherst but we have more control. And, you know, I know from the health director's viewpoint, that was important to her as well about the ventilation piece and Victoria finding out the ventilation and up in Greenfield. Again, I don't pretend to be a public health expert, you know, like everybody else here, we're reading a lot and trying to know as best we can. But her, you know, Victoria can expand on this if she wants, but her feedback was very direct about hockey and her concerns about hockey. And so from my perspective, you know, she's a health professional we rely on. And, you know, I know the limitations of my knowledge, but that's sort of where, you know, the loss of control, the ventilation concerns and her perspective made us come with this recommendation to you all. And obviously if the committee is in a different place and it's in a different place and we'll move forward, but I just wanted to explain at least our thinking and where it came from, you know, and what Ms. Dragon's thinking was on this as well. Victoria, did I capture that pretty accurately? Yes. Okay, thanks. Mr. Demling and then Ms. Kenny. Yeah, so just to, did you want me to go ahead? Yes, Mr. Demling and then Ms. Dancer, you had your hand up earlier. So then Ms. Kenny, sorry. So just in terms of process, I feel comfortable voting on every sport except for hockey tonight. And then I don't know if this is practical, but we were talking about an agenda planning of having a meeting on the 15th. I feel like what I'm starting to hear from comments and in addition to the information provided by Ms. Stewart and Dr. Morris is that so much of the hockey decision has weighed on the input from the Amherst Health Director. I would like to hear from her directly to be able to make that kind of decision. I don't feel super comfortable saying no to canceling the hockey seasons now, given that they're not starting till January and we could potentially have another meeting. And so that's one in just in terms of process. And the other point I wanted to make is when we talk about creating a safe environment for our kids, right? And sports is a little different because we're not talking about staff and we're talking about students opting in and whatnot. We're talking about distancing masks, other factors like adult behavior and then the air exchange. And obviously the ideal is to have every one of those factors at an optimal level, right? Six or more feet, masks all the time, air exchange for more and no other variables. In terms of practicality, I don't feel like it has to be every single one of those optimal levels in order to green light something. So that's where I'm a little torn on the hockey thing is that I understand that you can't guarantee for ACH in a hockey rink, but when you have something like, where the distancing and the masks and the other adult behavior is so regulated, it suggests the ACH doesn't have to be that optimized, right? And whether or not there's transmission going on to any degree within a game or not, what I think can be definitively said is that there is not definitive evidence that there is transmission from players on the rink. Like it might be going on, but it's certainly not been established, right? And so I feel hesitant to vote and cancel that kind of a season. Particularly when Mr. Sullivan brought up a good point, I feel I'm also uncomfortable at the shot goes up, there's a rebound and four people are converging. There's not gonna be six foot social distancing on the convergence of a rebound in basketball. And even if your ACH is four or five or six or seven, you're gonna get people right next to each other. Multiple points to the game. And so if we're gonna green light that, I feel like we're starting to get to a point where the decision to potentially green light hockey with sub four ACH is about in the same ballpark. And so those are just my two thoughts on that in terms of the process in terms of how we make these decisions. So I told Ms. Dancer earlier that I would come back to her before, but I apologize, so I see Ms. Dancer and even Mr. Harrington and then Ms. Pitzer. Okay, two things. One is just to say, because I have two grandsons who play hockey and they've been playing hockey since the fall and I'm not aware of any difficulties that they've had either before the changes in the middle of October or since. So I would approve playing voice hockey. The other thing is I have a question. We already approved girls hockey. So now how can we turn around and say boys can't play hockey, but the girls can. They're going to be traveling way more and encountering way more different people in Hamden County. They're gonna be always in Hamden County. If anybody's concerned about Hamden County, they're gonna be playing with kids from eight other schools and they're gonna be traveling all over the state. Our kids playing here are not gonna be doing that. So I don't know how we reconcile that. Dr. Morse? I just want to respond to the process part of Ms. Dancer's comment, which is the recommendation we're making is would be for the school committee to reconsider the prior vote for girls hockey, given the updated information and the recommendation from the MSL director, which we didn't have last time. That's for your consideration, but I think I want to acknowledge and just support your point that I think it should be the same or considered similarly for boys and girls. I'm sorry, I should have been more clear with that earlier. My apology. Okay, thank you, because that was not said. Yep, you're 100% right. Ms. Kenny? So one of my concerns was exactly what Ms. Dancer said that we had already approved for girls to play ice hockey. Therefore, it felt wildly unfair to say that boys cannot play ice hockey or the Amherst team can't play ice hockey. I feel like I'm going to say the same thing I said in the fall. Our students have lost so many things. And after speaking, my daughter played volleyball this fall and those were her best days. What sports bring to our students is the connection and the community and the team and an opportunity for them to see people that are not in their house with them all the time. And I think those are really important things that also need to be considered. Like the mental health and the physical wellbeing for a lot of our students, the sports is where they find those. And I think there were also some of the public comments that mentioned that where we're already having a divide between the have mores and the have less, this is going to be one more place where that is going to be happening. So where our school can help provide outlets for more students to be able to access things for sports, the kids who can't afford to go to the club teams or the private, whatever's, there's going to be more disparity that's just going to continue forward, right? So if I can only afford to play ice hockey through the school this year, but my counterparts can afford to go to the club teams, they're going to continue to get better and have the opportunity for future scholarships or whatever that may be. So I think while I appreciate and understand and I really do appreciate the health director being a part of all of this decision-making, I think we have to think about our students' mental wellbeing as all. In addition, so I would clearly be in favor of voting for all sports to be played, but I also appreciate Mr. Demling's recommendation if we just hold off on hockey, if people are having more feelings about that and to have the health director come talk to us, but otherwise I think we should have as many opportunities for our children to play sports as possible. Mr. Harrington. Yeah, so I generally try to wear one hat at a time, but I'm just going to go ahead and clear the hat rack on this one. So as basketball coach, one of my concerns here would be, let's just say for some reason, we lack the ability to have a season, right? Is there like a contingency? Are we thinking about, I don't know, having practices like we did with the football team, running like skills clinics for these players? So I know there are skills clinics in the area, these sorts of things for younger players, but it seems like the cutoff is right at high school. So I'm kind of wondering about that. And then the facilities, the engineering nerd side of me, I guess, I kind of wonder, did you get any kind of indication from the folks at the rink, the facilities folks, as to whether or not they're trying to work on increasing, you know, the air changes per hour or bringing in some sort of a supplementary system, like kind of like a supplemental system, kind of like what has been talked about at the gym in the high school, those are my two. I can do the first one, Victoria, and then you can take the second one if that's okay. So in terms of the first one, we're recommending a season of basketball, you know, for some reason that wasn't to take place with the school committee was to vote against it. I would have an interest in, you know, given that the health director at the current time is recommended or supported the recommendation to have that, that we do some level of intramurals, but the recommendation that the administration is making based on the health director would be to have basketball as a season. And you're absolutely right in terms of where all the recreational opportunities, they absolutely cut off after eighth grade. I actually had a conversation today with, or communication I should say with LSEC or Amherst Recreation, I believe it's now being called about that, about where their age limits go with their, you know, some programming they're trying to plan for in the winter. So I think you're spot on. But I'll defer the second question because then Victoria was directly in contact with the rank about that topic. Yeah, I don't see them improving that. However, I don't know, I don't think, I think a lot of these places that aren't gonna require that, like schools also aren't gonna have the same air changes per hour, right? So we have to keep that in mind. They can still run that rank. It's not like it's a rank that should get shut down because they don't have four-aid air changes per hour, similar to other schools that we could potentially, well, we wouldn't play at if they have less than four. I hope that answers. At Mr. Sullivan, you haven't spoken yet and then Ms. Spitzer. For anyone that's never been to the Moyans Collins Arena in Greenfield, just picture an old-school hockey rink where it never gets, the temperature never gets over about 60, that would be hot. It is just one of those really cool old ranks, like an old state rank and it's, you know, so I don't think they could get any more air exchanges out of it, but I personally believe that it's a parent's choice, whether they let their child play hockey or not, not ours. Ms. Spitzer? So I'm curious about the timing of things since Mr. Demling brought up the process of delaying things. So if January 4th is the start date, is that the start of practices? Is that the start of, I know we're not doing full-blown tournaments, but is that when the bubble competitions would start? Practices, yeah. Okay, so if we were to delay a decision and when it actually delay practice for kids right now, is that correct? Yeah. With the exception of the girls' sport, the girls' hockey, which I think starts in the 14th, if I remember. Yeah. Okay, that would be a day delay then with the decision on the 15th because the practice wouldn't start until the 14th at the earliest, is that what the new... Oh, they'll be two days they would miss a practice essentially. Okay. And then just a final two kind of thoughts is, you know, we're talking about the sports and I hear what everybody's saying about the really strong importance that sports play in folks' mental health. I know that my mental health is a lot better when I've exercised and I don't wanna, you know, take that away from any kids. I'm just wondering are there creative ways we can start opening up opportunities? So maybe the kids who were going to play hockey might be able to enroll in Alpine skiing or the kids who don't actually play varsity sports. Maybe they could join a... I know this isn't under your purview but I would just be really nice if we could go on Mr. Harrington's point, think about other ways to increase the number of intramural options for all of our kids because I think it's, I just really agree to the point that exercise and mental health are tied and we should be encouraging it even if we can't encourage it in the ways that we have in the past. Ms. Kenny, and then I saw Mr. Demling's hand. My question is just about the girls hockey. We've already voted yes on that. So if we delay this vote until the 15th, they get a day, right? That vote has already happened. Therefore, they're in, right? So then we would be going and taking away their season from them after they've started. That was more articulately raising the concern that I was trying to raise a minute ago about the timing and the potential conflict for student athletes. Mr. Demling? Oh, sorry. Yeah, so on the girls hockey, so I was gonna make that point about the sequence on the girls hockey. The other factor with the girls hockey is that we're talking about, what is it, is it two? Two or maybe three, two or three students. So I think three. So if the concern is increased community spread, it's obviously less of an issue with an order of magnitude number of athletes, right? When you're talking about two or three people. So regardless of how this conversation ends this week or next meeting, I have a pretty hard time just, and I'm hoping to change in my mind, but right now, as it sort of feels, I have a pretty hard time putting up the participation of three individuals in a pretty wide open activity and calling that a concern about community spread. As to the question about like, can we get alternatives for, if some of these things don't happen? I mean, absolutely we should be exploring all these alternatives. The thing that's impacting my decision-making here is that I look at this ultimately not based on principle, but of like, should students be playing hockey or not? I look at it in terms of pragmatism through that lens, which came through public comment some other people said this evening, which is, should students be playing high school hockey or club hockey? And even if you just look at through a strictly fouchy minimized community spread lens, right? Our decision to not have high school hockey may not have that much of an impact on community spread or on risk of virus, because we're not telling these students that they can't play hockey because a lot of them will be playing it anyway. So that also my thinking there as well. I was gonna build on that. I appreciate that sort of pragmatic thinking as you sort of coined it, Mr. Demling. And just for full disclosure, yes, my son plays hockey. He's an eighth grader and we were, to understand that there's no JV sports. So he's not impacted by our decision other than the fact that there's club teams that are continuing that because there's no JV hockey. So he's already impacted by that. But I think a couple of things important because it's been on my mind too in terms of the equity aspect, there are student athletes that don't have the opportunity to play club sports. Their sports outlet and their family sports outlet is through the high school sports or through recreation sports. And once you're in high school, your LSSE options are slim to none. So by taking away high school sports of any sport, we're taking away that option for students that don't have the means or just the physical logistic capacity to be able to drive and support their kids or multiple kids attending and participating in multiple club sports. So that would be a conscious decision on our part because you're absolutely right, Mr. Demling, that the students, that athletes that are able to participate in club sports will absolutely be continuing to play at those club sports. And they'll be, as Ms. Stanzer studied earlier, they're going to be playing in the same ranks that we're saying don't meet our standards, but they're also going to be traveling all over the state. And not my kids team, but there are others that are going outside of state also for to play games or bringing teams inside, even with the new restrictions. So I think, I feel like we should be asking ourselves, what are we trying to achieve by not offering one particular sport? Because as Mr. Demling pointed out, we're not going to be impacting potential communities spread because it's going to happen with the kids of means continuing to play these sports, but all over the state. And also, we don't have in-person school. We're still in all remote school. And even if we were, you know, not would fortunate enough to get our high school kids back into some hybrid learning, it's one day a week. So school districts that have canceled all sports, like Connecticut, they're doing that to protect their in-person schooling and their students attending school and to be able to keep their schools open for kids to attend classes in person. We don't have that. So we're purposely or consciously going to be taking away an in-person activity that frankly might be safer because it's going to be limited to a Pioneer Valley League as opposed to statewide and in exchange for no impact on our local community spread or the health and safety of our students because they're going to be participating in that anyway. So I just think that's really important for us to really think about and reflect on why would we be making that decision and what impact are we hoping to achieve or what outcome are we trying to achieve by skipping and canceling a sport. And the other one, and I hate to say this because again, full disclosure, I have a swimmer. He hasn't decided what he wants to do from high school swim team, but I know that his friends are very excited that MIA voted for swimming. But at the same time, hockey would be the only sport where we'd be canceling a season altogether. And because football, we didn't have a fall season, but we at least pushed it to the shoulder season. We know that many of the other, the leagues are doing that. So do we really want to be in a position that we're singling out a single sport for a non-high school competition and non-high school interactions? And practically speaking, I don't know that it would be even practical to move it into that shoulder season. I know that there is football and hockey overlap. There's also hockey and lacrosse overlap. That's a different season, but I don't know that even pushing hockey to a shoulder season is a feasible opportunity. So I find it really, and I'm not going to advocate that, well, if we can't have hockey, we shouldn't do any sports, but I do want us to be thinking about sort of, what are we saying and what is our statement by cancelling one whole sport for that is going to be happening no matter what we decide in our committee. So for that reason, I almost would say, I really like the idea of having, continuing this discussion again, in two weeks with the health director and maybe some additional information about sort of what other school districts are doing and then actually tabling the vote on all of the sports until that time and not because I honestly, I would really hate for us to be singling out a sport at that point. So if folks are okay with that, that would be my recommendation. Sorry, I glabbed for a long time, I apologize. Ms. Dancer. I would support that recommendation and would hope that we could have more information. From the health director about recent COVID infections. Ms. Kenny. Okay. You think I'd be able to turn the mic back on by this point, but apparently not well. The other thing I wanted you brought to mind that sports are voluntary. This is not a requirement. This is not something children or families have to participate in. This is something, if you choose to do this, you can, right? So I have a hard time with taking away options from people where they're not required, right? Like this isn't something, oh, you are in 10th grade now, you have to play basketball after school. That's not how it works. Like if you want to participate in this, it is a choice for you. So taking away choices from families and students, I have a hard time with that. Are there other comments or thoughts? I'm sort of sensing, I think we're aligned on sort of pushing this to our next meeting and not voting today and inviting Ms. Dragon to join us to share her findings. If we have an update on facilities, if you want to handle that or if Mr. Wright-Park would like to join us, that's welcome to as well. Mr. Dr. Morris. So I think the only concern about waiting, I don't want Ms. Stewart to jump in on that, but particularly as it relates to the pool, is we might need, we can't just turn on the pool. As Ms. Stewart said, it's a couple of week process. I think it's going to be tight to get done to be very blunt in time for the early January. So I think I want to just at least check in so that Ms. Stewart can give a directive or we can give directives to the facilities department to start working on that because that's one that is going to be a hard one to do. So let me put it differently. Is anyone opposed to us starting the process to filling the pool? Because as Ms. Stewart said, there's a cost involved, there's labor, there's resources. And I think if we're waiting two weeks, then we're essentially pushing, but season that's already being pretty short and making it almost, I'm just concerned when it would get to the point of not being worth it, quote unquote. And I mean, worth it in terms of the value of swimming, just wouldn't be enough weeks. Ms. Stewart, I don't know. I want to check with you to see if you agree with that. And if you don't, it's okay to say in public, we're good. And if there are other sports like that, that a delay would cascade some challenges. No, I agree with that. Ms. Spitzer, did you have your hand up? Yeah, I just had a question because of the cost issue with the pool. I know it's been, I don't know if subsidized the right word, but it's been a source of revenue for the school because we've rented it out to other swim teams. And I know the community uses the pool as well. Would those revenue streams be available to help cover the cost of filling the pool? Even say, maybe even then in the spring when we're not competing, I'm just wondering if there's been any thought to how we're going to help cover that cost, given that the budget is such a tough one this year and next year. Yeah, so we have had conversations that I think at this point, it's down the town, which is one of the primary usures of it in terms of LSEC or Amherst Recreation. Sorry, I got to start getting that right. I think they're still weighing, considering their comfort level of renting the space out and for us to rent it out to other clubs. I think what I heard was a higher comfort level of having our team with our coach who there's some stakes to following the rules more than opening it up more to the general public or to other clubs and teams. So that decision's not fully made, but I think it's the right question to ask. We've asked that question and right now, the answer's uncertain. Mr. Solomon. Having grown up on the ocean south of... Turn that spigot on now, otherwise that water's going to stay cold until next summer and you're going to have icebergs floating that. You've got to get that water in there now and give it a chance to warm up at least a little bit. You swim faster in cold water though. I would say the shortage of available pool space and time and pool space with starting blocks is such that if there was comfort level, I know that there would be high demand. The club teams are scrambling and scrunching for space. So do we... Ms. Stewart. I just want to clarify. So girls hockey's fine to go that first day then. Okay. What more do we need to fill the pool? Do we head nod or...? I think that's good enough. I just wanted to at least raise the issue. So if the committee wanted to be swayed on the swimming, particularly on swimming, that they had an opportunity. I didn't want... Because even if you're waiting to vote, by not voting tonight on swimming, you're essentially voting tonight on swimming. Otherwise we're going to have a pool filled with water and no kids in it. And that doesn't... That's not a good use of resources right now if that's what we're choosing to do. Ms. Dancer. About the pool, how often do we empty and then refill the pool? I mean, is this something that happens every year or was this done for a special reason? And so the water that goes in now would be there presumably next summer, next fall? Or would you empty it again and fill it again? Stuart, do you have clarity on that one? That's a little... I have no idea about that answer. I have no idea about that answer. I could totally figure that out for you that one, send you an email. I know it's been... It was drained in this particular instance because the pool was closed and all our buildings were closed and we didn't want stagnant water in buildings that were going to be closed for a long period of time. So I know that part of the answer, what I don't know is the answer to your broader question of how often the pool gets drained in general. Yeah. Mr. Denning. I just want to mention quickly a process. I'm comfortable waiting two weeks. I didn't mean to say that this is what we have to do. If people want to vote tonight, people feel free to do what they want to do, right? I mean, I was just throwing it out there as a process option if people were feeling like they needed more information when they come to a decision point. So right as we get to closure, Mr. McDonald. Let's just open it back up again. Ms. Kenny. Oh, I was deciding if I was going to say something, but I'm comfortable voting tonight if that is a way we want to go or if people feel like they would like to wait till two weeks from now. But the head nod to the swimming to say fill the pool sounds a little bit like a vote without voting. Ms. Seeger. Yeah, I guess I'm personally feeling really mixed on this and personally not qualified to fully understand the ramifications of all of this. What I really feel uncomfortable with is making a decision after the girls hockey team starts practicing. That feels really uncomfortable to me that if we do come back and we say no, they've had one day of practice, they've probably amassed gear. That just feels awkward to me. Well, at the same time, like I don't know sort of the right path forward. I'm truly in support of the kids playing sports. However, if there is a COVID cluster because of it, that's gonna feel awful too. So personally, I'm pretty mixed. Dr. Maris. We could also come back a week from tonight if we're not doing an Amherst School community meeting on the 8th, and that would be before the girl season would start. I can check with Ms. Dragon to make sure she's available, but that might address Ms. Seeger's concern. I mean, it depends on what the group thinks, but, you know. What if folks think about that suggestion? Thumbs up, Ms. Spitzer. So we will hold and we will, instead of meeting on the 15th, we will meet on the 8th, and we'll just move those topics up. Of course, now, with, I guess it'll still be TBD on the MOA vote, not that we moved that up one week, and we'll see if we can get Ms. Dragon to join us next week. Any other final thoughts or comments? No? I don't wanna call you out, Ms. Grigko, but you've been quiet. I don't know if you want to add anything from a student perspective on this. I don't really play sports, so I don't have anything to say about this. Thanks. Okay. So we will move on to our next item, which is our JLMSC update. So coming back to that and Mr. Harrington or Mr. Sullivan. Yeah, I'll go ahead and roll with it. So we met as a complete body, not last Friday, the Friday before, and so there have been some significant changes, I guess, to the format. So we still meet for the full 45 minutes. It's just the first 20 is somewhat of a closed session, a private session, just in case we bring up topics that involve specifics that we wouldn't necessarily wanna make public, like regarding personnel mostly. But then we have the 25 minutes of public meeting. And also I realized I have said something wrong earlier. I said that the public has the opportunity to observe. For those 25 minutes, they have the opportunity to observe. And then afterwards they have the ability to, via YouTube, make comments and ask questions that sort of way. I think those are probably the most significant changes. Currently, sorry, am I missing anything, Mr. Sullivan, Dr. Morris, I'll read you guys. Now, the last time I had to sit out that first 25 minutes, which worked out, because I had to reboot my computer so that the audio worked, but am I still shut out of that first 25 minutes? Or am I allowed to join that? I believe you're allowed to, you can be there too, I believe, yes. And my other question is, they were asking about classrooms in the high school that were not even in the high school. I mean, there's a few people, but it was my understanding that the only classrooms in any building that are being used by students, staff, or administration are those that have met the four exchanges or more. Is that true? I could answer that one, which is the 13 students that we have in distance learning at the high school, as you note, are all in classrooms that were in phase one. So they were tested long ago for that. So anytime there's a student working in a classroom with an adult, and you might say, oh, it's only 13 students, but they're spread out among many, many classrooms, but they're all in the phase one already been tested. We'll have phase three results soon, but I think to the point, I think that was implied, we won't have phase three of students isn't happening anytime soon. Maybe if I misread you, Mr. Sullivan, I apologize, but I think that's what you were getting at. That's exactly what I was getting at. Ms. Seager. Back when we were asking the APA to renegotiate and to come to the table and talk to us, there were some issues brought up there that I don't think were fully ever clarified, some concerns about not meeting the contract through the MOA. And I'm just wondering if those have been brought to the JLMSC and if any of those have been resolved or I don't know, maybe Dr. Morris, if you've heard of something, and if anyone can speak to that. I'll let Mr. Harrington start and I can jump in. Yeah, it's kind of a, I don't want to give a cloudy answer, but a lot of what we talk about in the meetings are issues with things that are kind of encompassed in the MOA. And that's kind of the function of the JLMSC anyway. So yet there have been issues brought up and there have been resolved issues as well. And I won't speak to whether all of them were resolved, but that's about how it's worked out so far. Yeah. And I think even just to Mr. Sullivan's point earlier about phase three rooms, which we'll have some data on, I think it's just the concern of some teachers working from the buildings and they would want to have that information even if students aren't in them. So we're trying to get that as soon as we can. But, you know, I think that's the productive part of the conversations as Mr. Harrington indicated. Any other questions for our JLMSC reps? No. Okay. Would somebody like to make a motion? Move to adjourn the Amherst Regional School Committee meeting. Step one. Move by Spitzer, seconded by Stanser. I mean, we'll have no discussion and move to a roll call vote. Mr. Demling. No discussion. Right? Isn't that? Yeah, it is. I'm just teasing. Oh, it's only I. Mr. Harrington. Erin, good night. Ms. Kenney. Kenny, aye. Ms. Lord. Lord, aye. Ms. Digger. Digger, aye. Ms. Spitzer. Spitzer, aye. Ms. Stanser. Stanser, aye. Mr. Sullivan. Sullivan, aye. Go Hurricanes. And McDonald, aye. And the motion passes unanimously and we are adjourned.