 So thank you everyone. Welcome to the first remote meeting of the Arlington School Committee. It's a preliminary matter. I have some things to read written by the town council. Thanks to Doug Hyme for putting all this together for us. I'm Len Cardin, chair of the Arlington School Committee. Please permit me to confirm that all members and persons anticipated on the agenda are present and can hear me. That is a requirement of the open meeting law modification for remote meeting. So let me go through the list. Mr. Hainer. Present. Ms. Morgan. Present. Dr. Allison Ampey. Present. Ms. Seuss. Yep. Hi. Present. Mr. Schlickman. Mr. Schlickman, you're muted. Sorry. Present. Present. Present. Mr. Thielman. Present. And staff members, Dr. Bodie. Present. Dr. McNeil. Present. Mr. Mason. Present. Mr. Spiegel. Present. Ms. Elmer. And Ms. Fitzgerald. You were here earlier. Great. Thank you. So good morning, good afternoon, good evening. This open meeting of the Allenton School Committee is being conducted remotely consistent with Governor Baker's executive order of March 12, 2020 due to the current state of emergency in the Commonwealth due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus. In order to mitigate the transmission of the COVID-19 virus, we have been advised and directed by the Commonwealth to suspend public gatherings. And as such, the governor's order suspends the requirement of the open meeting law to have all meetings in a publicly accessible physical location. Further, all members of public bodies are allowed and encouraged to participate remotely. The order, which you can find posted with the agenda materials for this meeting allows public bodies to meet entirely remotely so long as reasonable public access is afforded so that the public can follow along with the deliberations of the meeting. Ensuring public access does not ensure public participation unless public participation is required by law. It's not required by law, but we do allow public participation by our policy, which I'll get to in a minute. For this meeting, the Allenton School Committee is convening by video conference via Zoom as posted on the town website, identifying how the public may join, and we're also being broadcast by ACMI. Please note that this meeting is being recorded and some attendees are participating by video conference. Accordingly, please be aware that other folks may be able to see you and take care not to screen share your computer. Anything that you broadcast may be captured by the recording. All of the materials for this meeting are available on the Novus Agenda dashboard and the public can follow along through the town website. So now some ground rules. We are now turning to the first item on the agenda. Before we do so, permit me to cover some ground rules for effective and clear conduct of our business and to ensure accurate meeting minutes. I, as the chair, will introduce each speaker on the agenda. For each agenda item or sub-item, I will go down the line of members of the committee inviting each by name to provide comment, question, or motions. Please hold until your name is called. Further, please remember to mute your phone or computer when you're not speaking. Please remember to speak clearly in a way that helps generate accurate minutes. And as I said, if there's some urgent need to be recognized, please either raise your hand in Zoom or wave at me or, if necessary, just unmute and interrupt. And hopefully we will have a well-run meeting following these rules. So for the first item in the agenda, before I want to open the meeting first by acknowledging that the very stark circumstances facing the world, our country, and our community, I want to thank all the doctors, nurses, health care professionals, all the fire police, EMS, and other first responders, and all of the essential employees in our grocery stores, pharmacies, and other essential providers for all that they are doing at this time. I also want to thank our district teachers, administrators, custodians, and support staff for all of their efforts as well. Our first item on the agenda is public participation. Because of the remote nature of this meeting, we did request the comments be emailed in advance. But Karen, unless you've received any in the last few minutes, I don't believe you've received any. Is that correct? That's correct. OK. But because this is our first meeting this way, and in case people did not see that item, I will see if there's anyone wanting to speak now. So if you would like to speak, we do allow up to three minutes for a total of 20 minutes for public participation. Is there's anybody who would want to speak? Please go off mute and take turn stating your name, and I'll make a list. Is there anyone for public participation? All right, great. Thanks. So the first item is? Sorry? Hi. My name is Neal, and I'm a parent of a student. Is this the right time to participate? Sure. So let me just check if there's anybody else besides Neal. This will be your last chance. Anyone else besides Neal? This is Lynette Martin. I raised my hand. I don't know if you're using the right answer. Oh, yeah, sorry. OK, yeah. So Lynette and Neal, great. All right. So Neal, why don't you go ahead first and again, three minutes and start when you'd like. OK, thank you very much. Yeah, we're dealing with a very serious situation, and it's unprecedented. I have a daughter who goes to Gibbs, and we see the enrichment material on the website. But I was wondering in terms of using Zoom, if that's possible for the teachers just to do review material or go over enrichment material. We're using it now. I'm using it. I'm working from home. I use it for my work meetings. I think that will help with a sense of security for the students to see their teachers and interact if possible. And just for a short time, maybe 20 minutes for each core class. And I think that will help maintain a schedule. So I just wanted to mention that. Thank you. Great, thank you. And I'm sorry, can you just give us your full name for the minutes, Neal? Yes, Neal Saunders. Neal Saunders, great. Thank you. All right. And the next one is Lynette Martin. Go ahead. Sorry, I was on mute. Hi, Lynette Martin. I was wondering if we'll be sending out a technology survey like I've seen done in some surrounding communities such as Somerville. I want to make sure that I know that there was an offer for Chromebooks, which was great. But I feel like a lot of the turnaround for this stuff has been quick. And I'm just wondering what supports our families need. I want to make sure that everybody has access to the enrichment materials. I know that there are some Asilee families in Arlington that have very limited access to email only on cell phones and stuff. And I'm wondering what we're doing to communicate with and reach out to these families. That's all. Thanks for everything I'm sure you guys are going to do right now and doing. So also just appreciation. Thank you. Great. All right. Thank you all. Thank you both. And so the first item on our agenda is, of course, the COVID-19 update. We have a few sub-items that we had asked Dr. Bode to be ready to address, the first one being meal distribution. But Dr. Bode, if you want to give an overall update or however you want to handle it, please go ahead. But you're on mute. Sorry. Dr. Bode, you're on mute. I got it. Well, thank you. And thank you for the appreciation of all of you to the people who are out there working on our behalf and also thanking the administrators and teachers. It has been an unprecedented time, as we all know. It's a time when we're all sort of struggling to manage all of the different things that are in our lives, including the kinds of meetings that we're doing remotely. And all of the communication often take a lot more time than we were used to having people together. Let me begin with talking about just sort of an overall view of where we are philosophically and then get into a lot of the nitty gritty questions that people have had. And I've had parents email me also with questions which I will hopefully be able to address, including our two speakers this evening. This has been unprecedented. And one of the things that the commissioner has said and we have said is that it's not really possible to replicate what goes on in schools every day. The connection between teachers and students, the supports that are offered to our students, the connections, the school lunches and breakfasts we offer, while some of these has been able to be replicated in some respects, it is not that we are in school in a remote learning environment. There have been a lot of conversation, both in the media and in emails about whether schools should be trying to do that, trying to do a replication in having schedules for students. There are 12 districts that have been in very close communication over the last couple of weeks. And this week we put out a joint statement talking about our philosophy around school closure with an emphasis on trying to maintain the connections between student-teacher, which is very special and important to students, as well as looking at how we can promote and continue remote learning. Now, I think one of the things that has been a little bit confusing is the term remote learning. What does that mean? Today, the commissioner gave the Department of Education recommendations for how to support student learning and holistic needs. And the one thing that they emphasize in this document is that we're not going to replicate and that remote learning should be looked at from a variety of ways. Some things that teachers have students connect to in terms of learning activities, things that the students pursue on their own, reading, of course, physical activity. There's a range of things that the Department of Education is encouraging districts to do to promote remote learning. That's not the same thing as continuing in class as the way we have been before, advancing the curriculum. And I think that one of the underlying principles of this is the issue of equity. And Ms. Martin alluded to that in her comment that we have a lot of families who are not able to equally access all the materials that we have available. They do not have the technology at home to do that and something that we have been addressing, which I will speak to. But remote learning, from the point of view of the Department of Education, even in today's document, and the view of all of these districts that have been working together, is that what we need to do right now is to promote deeper learning and practice of concepts that have already been learned, and there's certainly much that can be done there, as well as provide enrichment exercises so that students can continue their learning and be able, at the end of this time that we are in closure, to be able to come back into a regular school setting as we've had. Now, that's where we are right now. The governor has now had schools closed until May 1. We will be returning on May 4. That's where we are today. And we are planning as a district to meet our students' needs during this period of closure. So I will talk to a number of the questions that have been asked. But let me start with the issue of equity and what we are doing for students who cannot necessarily access. We have put a technology distribution plan in place. We went very quickly last weekend so that we would be able to push these computers out for people as fast as possible. We had over 400 people sign up to get a computer for some technical reasons. Some people did not get some follow-up information as to where to go. We had about 60 people that did not pick up a computer. We are going to have another distribution. And certainly, the people who've already signed the loan agreement will be able to get a computer. We're probably looking at next Wednesday, though that's not hard and fast at the moment. And as well as people who still need some devices at home in order for students to be able to access different resources. So that will be happening. And another invitation will be sent out to all parents again tomorrow. Now, to the point, if some parents may only may have issues with understanding, we've tried to do some translation for parents. We've done reach out. Our office has called a number of parents to make sure that they are getting emails and they understood what was being said in the emails. I know that different principals have been reaching out and calling a family as well. And that kind of outreach will continue as we go forward. So we do know that, for example, at the elementary level, we have only really one parent who does not have email access. And we've already talked with that family. But that's not a good indicator of whether they have adequate internet or access to devices. So this outreach will continue so that we can maximize it for families. But then there's other issues, too, with equity. Some students in our schools, when they have any kind of learning activity, get a lot of support from teachers, from teaching assistants. And that type of support is not as readily. In fact, it's very difficult to provide online, though I can tell you a little bit more about that in my presentation. But there are also children that are living where parents are working at home. And it's very difficult for them to be able to say, at 10.30, we're going to be on a particular call. In fact, teachers that have been doing this are reporting probably half or less of the class as able to come on to those conversations. So what we have been looking at is having much more asynchronic types of outreach in involving students. Meaning by that is that if we were to put a resource up or a video up, we wanted to be able to be accessed at any point in the day, not at a specific time. Let me address the issue of the Zoom meetings. I will have to say there has been a continuum of outreach by teachers. There have been some teachers who have been doing a lot of outreach and there's been teachers that have not been doing a lot of outreach. In fact, I've had a couple of parents that I haven't heard from my teacher. And so we span that range. And as now, we've finished these two weeks that we've had, which came on very quickly. We recognize that. And over the last week, we've been working on providing resources for parents, making sure we have lunches for our students that need them, making sure that we get computers distributed, certainly encouraging that outreach. We put on our website mental health links and resources. We have created an FAQ frequently asked questions for parents. We have reached out to parents who have emailed us that they can't once they got the computer, they didn't know how to log onto the computer. We've provided those instructions. We've talked directly with some of those families. So there's been a lot that's been going on. Now as we end this two weeks, we are looking at next week and being much more explicit about outreach, about contact with students, and assignments for students. So this has been supported by the teachers union. They very much want to also have teachers remain in good relationships with their students. In fact, I was to say that I heard anything more this last two weeks is concern always expressed by teachers, administrators, and other support people about the welfare of our students. So I do want people to know that, that this is really on everyone's mind and trying to adapt to an environment that I think none of us expected was going to be like this. And we're all trying very hard to support each other, to care for each other, and to make sure that our students continue in learning and continue to feel supported. So next week, there will be some changes. I will be writing parents tomorrow about some of the things that they can expect. And one, of course, is going to be that there's going to be explicit that the teachers can reach out and should reach out. And there's going to be some changes. So I'm going to go ahead and share with you some of the things that I'm going to talk about with the teachers union. That teachers can reach out and should reach out. And there's going to be a variety of ways that that can happen. Our first speaker tonight mentioned Gibbs and the Zoom meetings that have been going on. There have been Zoom meetings going on throughout the whole district. And one of the things that our IT department is concerned about are a lot of the privacy issues around Zoom that we are going to be addressing. So for the moment, we're not going to continue Zoom, but we do have Google Hangout, which is very similar to Zoom, which is part of our Google suite. And while we're not mandating the teachers use the Google Hangout, it is certainly a tool that they can use. But what we are doing is that we are doing some crash courses for teachers who do not use Google Classroom as a way that they communicate with students that that is going to be expected of all teachers teaching students in grades three to 12. We've already had a lot of teachers sign up for professional development today, and there will be some tomorrow and then a Monday. It's a much more common tool that you see at the secondary level, but not as well used at the elementary level. So what parents can expect from that is that we will be reaching out to let them know that what Google Classroom is, how to access it, and students in those grades from grades three to 12 all have a spyponder email. Our students pre-K to two do not. They have a way to get onto the system, but they do not have an email account. So students access the Google Classroom through their email address. It is something that's very common throughout using, as I said, in Gibbs, the Odyssey, and certainly the high school. So the other kind of feedback I've had from parents is that all the resources you put on the website are just overwhelming. I don't know what activity to pull for my second grader or for my eighth grader. What math review exercises should I be doing? And the intention of this is a resource that is not chronological in terms of concept taught. In terms of differentiating instruction, there may be some students who need a particular skill reinforced and others a different one. So the whole panoply of resources are there and available. But we hear what parents are saying. They're not educators and not sure what to do. So one of the things that will happen next week is that teachers will be suggesting particular activities by their grade, by their discipline, and asking students to do some learning activities that they will, the products of which they would upload, and teachers would get feedback on. So I think you're going to see next week a lot more direction in terms of the resources that are available. It's also possible that teams of teachers at a grade level or in a discipline at some shared course will also potentially create some content, again, that's enrichment or focused on deepening the learning of already taught skills. We are not advancing the curriculum at this point. I'm not saying that that may not happen down the road, but that's not where we are at the moment. Nor is it where the Department of Education is suggesting districts adhere to. All right. Let me go get your notes here of the different things you want me to address. One of the things you wanted to know was about the supply. Do we have enough computers, the Chromebooks to distribute? The answer is yes. The Chromebooks that have been distributed were clean before they were distributed. And they were also, people were given a charging cord for them as well. But I think, I don't know, some people opened it and just didn't know how to get on. So all of, I think that is been cleared up at this point, though I suspect with more distribution, there are going to still be more technology questions. And we will put some more FAQs about that. There are some right now on the district enrichment website. When I first started, I was talking about the issue of equitability for students that often need support as part of being able to learn in school. One of the things that we're going to be doing more of is, it already is on the website, is having more collaboration about when an assignment goes out, that any accommodations that might be appropriate or we could give online, we will do. If you go on the district enrichment site right now, you will see that a certain suggested activities will be accompanied by some kind of an accommodation such as a graphic organizer. To the extent that we can, we will provide as much support as we possibly can. Another question had to do with, will the outreach to parents, are we going to need to buy more Chromebooks? Well, we have, the answer, a short answer to that is yes. We're going to buy more Chromebooks because Capital Planning Committee is allocating money for next year. And we have a cycle that we go through in terms of upgrading computers. Right now, we are still giving a Chromebook to the students in grades K to two. Whether we debated whether we would give iPads out, we are doing that for preschool. But parents of students in K to two are going to help to help them get on. But we thought that the power of the Chromebook would be preferable to what we could give students in the way of an iPad. And so we've decided to make that adjustment. But I will be perfectly honest and say that our K two students have had very little experience with that and will need some support. We will revisit this if we find that parents are finding this challenging for them. And as in all of these things, it's a fluid situation. Some things change by the hour, certainly by the day, as we move forward and we learn from things and try to improve upon what we've been doing. So let me see. I think those are the main points that I wanted to say right now, but I will also say that for parents, there is an FAQ on the website. And we are happy if you send questions. We're always trying to update that. And you can even tell when you open it, it will say it's updated a particular day and you'll know what the new material is. So let me just open it now. I'm sure there's probably a lot of questions, some things that may not have addressed it. You'd like to hear more about. And I will unmute. All right, great. Thank you for all that. As I said, we'll go through the order. We've sort of normally do at the table. So starting, I also, I wanted to mention that Mr. Levy from the AA had notified me that he was not going to be able to participate tonight. So he is not on. But Mr. Heyner, you're up first. Thank you. Dr. Bodie, could you, I don't know if it's possible, could you address the, you made a statement about problems with either security or privacy with regard to zoom. Can you talk about that? Or is that something that you can't talk about? Just a little bit. I mean, what I can say is this, what we have done this year is enter into individual contracts with any of our apps. So any apps that we offer, we know that the students data is protected. Now zoom has a, we'll not sign that, but they have, they have on their website where you can sort of. Agree to their privacy agreement. So we are looking into that under federal law students under age 13. Parents must give permission to go on, on some of these different apps. But if a district agrees to it, then that we do it in absentee of parents. So long answer, but we want to look into this. We wanted, I'm not saying that we're not going to use zoom going forward, but right now we do have this Google hangout as part of our suite. And there's pros and cons to both of them. Thank you very much. Thank you. Dr. Allison Anthony. Thank you, Dr. Bode for that update. You've addressed some of the questions that I had, but I've got a few more. First, what is the need for Chrome back Chrome books versus what we have and how sure are we of what the actual need is? Cause I'm concerned about how many. The. Email and the response time had very limited windows. And I'm not sure we've. I'm not sure we've heard from everyone who actually needs something. I agree. I don't think we have heard from everybody despite outreach. We're going to widen that window a little bit. We'll be putting it out tomorrow. And probably close it on Monday night sometime. We found from this experience of this week, we really do need a day to ramp up. We were racing to get everything done. People work last Sunday to make sure that they were ready to go. We also want to decide whether we're going to have a few locations or multiple occasions. So there's a lot of decisions will be made on Tuesday. And then we'll tell everybody where to go. But to your point, I think was underlying is, do we know we're going to get even with this second distribution? Reach everybody. We know we're, we're working individual families to see if what we can do. Some, some on Monday, we're, we're delivered to families that couldn't even come out. And so we're, we're trying to do that. And I know that the high school has plans to do some, but for some people who, who are quarantined, they can't leave are going to make sure that we, we able to provide them with some kind of devices, which will, by the way, be very clean when we get them back. But what is the need for Chromebooks versus what we have? Oh, we have plenty. We have almost a one-to-one environment in all schools, but we just don't let students take them home. I think that's something that we might think about in the future. In some schools it's more iPad, which was what Straton and Thompson primarily. But in the last few years, because of MCAS, we have been purchasing more Chromebooks for grades three to 10, actually even beyond that they had to do retest so that we have enough computers that we don't, we're not moving computers between grades in order to do MCAS. So we have been investing heavily in the last few years. So we do have enough. So that's my concern is really more about how do we reach everybody who needs it? Okay. And that's our concern. That's good to know. The first, I don't remember if it was a school committee email or if it was a parent email, but it said something about 400 Chromebooks to distribute. And that didn't seem like it was going to go very far. But that I'm glad to know that we have enough and I'm glad that we're working on more distributions. And I'm glad to know that. I'm glad to know that. To that point, I'd suggest. I think there, although parents may have access to email, some parents may have access. Via work, via community Wi-Fi, things that are not working well right now. And I wonder if we would want to consider a robo call. And maybe not just to address this, but as we move into the next phase of what we're doing it for remote learning. Yep. In fact, we were debriefing about this. I did do a robo call last Sunday morning. To all parents. And apparently. I heard later that I never got your call. I got a call. I got a call from my dad, people or parents. And. I T went look to see what happened. Apparently it hit one caller. And the whole system went off. So. Some people got the robo call and some dins. I'm going to do another robo call this time around as well. Probably as a reminder. You know, I'm not going to save a Sunday night or Monday in any of the other classes. But yeah, there was. They don't even know what happened. It set up the system and it hit somebody's phone. And then left. It just broke down. Okay. Yeah. I was one of the ones who didn't get a robo call. So. Then another thing that I noticed as. The. You mentioned about the issues with log with logins and stuff, but if there can be both something supplied about how to get tech support because the elementary school parents are just, I mean, a lot of them have it, or some of them at least haven't ever seen a Chromebook before. And so they get this home and they have to log in and they don't have the logins and they don't and their kids don't have an email and it was people are already anxious and this just made them more anxious and I know that there's ways of dealing with it, but the parents were, you know, it's let's try and make it easier for them if we can. I totally agree with you. We're trying very hard to do that. And some parents were actually called and walked through it and others, you know, we sent instructions and just double checking. But I'm pretty sure we have it on the the enrichment activity section. Mr. Dr. McNeil is on this. He probably one of the architects of it. Yes, it's on there. If you go on to the online resources. I added it today with the information is one of the updates. If you go on under online resources for parents, it will you'll see where it says spy ponder account information. Yep, it's right. It's literally right in the first. This is all done by date. So it's in the March 26 update. Okay, I'm not. Yeah, I think it sounds like you're doing work on this already, but I agree that things need to be a little bit more organized. But, you know, I know that's under a work in progress. So I think let's wait and see how that goes. I had two other quick suggestions. First, I think it would be really helpful to have an overall email that addresses to parents, which addresses the things that you just told us today. Kind of the approach, the timing, the timeline to expect information from, you know, when should you be expecting contacts from parents when she are from teachers. What's, you know, what's the ramp up going to look like. Yeah, that's a great. In fact, that's what we are working on. That's going to go out tomorrow and sort of an overall statement of parents and then linking the back into, you know, some of the information here, but no, I we totally agree that the parents need to have some in expectation because we need their help to on this because some many students know to go on to their, their Google classroom but this is going to be somewhat new for elementary. And what we're going to have to do that is really quite various throughout the district, it's going to be very new but it's a great tool. And we're so when we go out, we're going to have to have parents help in terms of getting the students to, you know, to go to their to that. And we'll give directions as well as we educate everybody and how the kids elementary students can access Google classroom. Okay, and then the other one is the suggestion that as the teachers go forward, thinking of enrichment activities and such. First, if there's any need for volunteers and I don't mean in person but you know, either people who need, if they need help finding resources or if they find resources are useful. If there's a place that we could be sending them. And second that as teachers are working on things if they could plan activities that involve the community. For example, there's been some around here someone organized a shamrock hunt, everyone who heard about it put a shamrock in their window and then as kids would take their daily walk. They tried to see how many shamrocks I could find and it makes things are really strange right now and it gives them some interest and something to do and you know there's ways of if you had people just post a letter in the community members a postal letter in their window. Kids can go around they can you know kids can use it for math they can count them they can do grant the older ones can do graphs you know there there's a lot of ways or they can try and the younger ones can try and see the whole alphabet you know it's there's different ways of doing some things over time that are there help you know it's both educational and also kind of involves both the community and the kids. It helps them be a very observant. Yeah that too. That too. Right. Okay, that's all. Thanks. Thank you. Miss. Hello. Thank you miss your next. Okay. Hi. So, you know, I, I do want to acknowledge that is the district isn't a lot with some very difficult circumstances, and something that we couldn't have predicted, obviously, months ago. I have gotten a lot of questions from parents as I'm sure you have about things that other districts are doing that other states are doing. And I guess I'm still and I know it's still being worked out but I'm still not clear what how things are going to look different. So the new recommendation is that there be some sort of meaningful and productive learning for approximately half the length of the regular school day. So I think one thing that parents have found frustrating is that they feel like they're just getting links. And I think that raises real equity issues because some parents are able to take those links and be robust with them and come up with a curriculum on their own. And other parents aren't so just just to sort of, I just be curious to know how this is going to look more teacher more district more curriculum leader driven type of instruction rather than parents are meddling around. You know, not just Oh, go to these links and now look at page three and four but something that's much more robust is I think what parents are looking for and what the new recommendations. I also note that the new recommendations, do you say that in some cases in high school level, you could introduce new new curriculum are you saying that you're not doing it, even though that's sort of allowed at this point. And I think the parents have expressed concern to me are on things like math where it's really sequential and so if you sort of don't finish a certain amount of algebra this year you sort of don't have the skills that you need for the next year for for algebra too. And so I just want to know, are there any plans to change the recommendation to do some new material at the high school level in the middle and maybe the upper middle school level as is now being allowed to loud by the new recommendations. The Department of Education is from my understanding and the districts that we have had the strength statement is that they are not suggesting advancing the curriculum because of equity issues for students now. There are some, there are, we'll have a call tomorrow with the commissioner and we'll learn a little bit more about that. I'm not saying that this is not how we're going to evolve at the moment that's not what we're doing. There's a lot of material that can be done, looked at and, and not everything is a link on that on the district enrichment. There's a lot of the stuff that can be printed. And I will say that last week, we spent a huge amount of time getting packets for anybody who asked us for one of paper, you know hard copies of a lot of these activities. And one of those packets was an inch or so thick, and we mail them to people we mail close to 400 I think over 400 of these paper packets, which is something that other districts honestly have not done. So, yes, we're very conscious of the issue of equity and be and will all students at the high school that are in an algebra class be able to be on continue their learning without the kind of support that they may have or be on be able to see a video. We are probably moving in that direction of creating videos that that is a synchronic so that you went into Google Classroom. You could see a teacher, you know, just talking about something, some concept could be reviewing in more depth, some lessons and math that they've already had. So we're really are going to be encouraging videos that the students can can look at. I think that that is a very valuable way to do it rather than just we don't. You also see in the desi regulations they're really trying to discourage green time to. They don't want kids sitting in front of a computer for hours and hours every day that's not the intent of remote learning. Yes, we may be we're all trying to adapt to our circumstances right now. And I can tell you that that's not what's going on in the districts that have that joint statement right now we are. We are looking very carefully at what might happen should we actually have closure longer. I think that is an important issue that we're going to have to address. But for right now. This word we're approaching it way I described. Just what I think would be helpful to the community is to get is for parents to get a sense of what the next few weeks will look like and how that differs from what we've seen so far. As facts in the grounds change as recommendations change the new recommendations are that there should be meaningful and productive learning for approximately half the school day so that that's just going to look very different. I just think be helpful to get a real clear picture to parents. You know this is what we've done so far. This is you know we've it's taken an extraordinary effort and it's been great and people really came together. I know that things have changed on the ground. Here's what we're going to do and just make it very clear. How does that look how does it differ from what we've seen so far. And again I do want to sort of emphasize that there are equity issues when it isn't like directed by educators or learning some directed by educators because then leaving parents to start go through materials and figure out how to craft instruction on that or something some parents can do better than others. So there's real equity issues about that. That's true. There are there are many equity issues trying to address all of these issues in a fair. It's really what we are working toward. We have we're constantly talking about this is what we're going to do. We've had we have meetings that are going on at all levels of the school district planning. So we're very conscious of this issue and we and yes we're going to have a letter out to parents as to what to expect differently next week. Thank you. And there'll be opportunity for more questions of the round if we need if we if needed. Just want to interject though. Dr. Boaties so that the the new guidelines just came out at noon today so that it may actually be a two probably will be a two step process right so whatever you were planning for next week you are already planning on and probably already have that email to parents written, but what the what Desi is suggesting and doctors with Mrs mentioned the half day of learning the possible advancement of the high school curriculum, the direction by the teachers, maybe something that you still need to work on and roll out the following week. Roll out what the following week the we're not doing advance. What's suggested by Desi and what you're what you're rolling out next week doesn't match up 100% with what Desi is recommending. In what aspect you say you've not see that being the case. Are you requiring teachers to plan a half day of learning for each student. They are we just got this read this information. The idea is to give students activities and things that they can do and have student choice the encouragement is definitely to have that amount of time it will be very explicit about that. Now is anyone assignment going to be, you know, three hours in the day know the ideas that the commissioner has pointed out with things with the kids actually do exercise to that they, they do walk. It's, there's having expand the horizons on what constitutes learning is something that's very much part of this document. I was just saying, our teachers are prepared to next week, make sure that they are getting some assignments out that they will, they will give feedback on they're not going to grade the assignment, but they will give feedback. Okay, thanks. I'll save my other comments for my turn. Mr film in your next. Yeah, thank you Lynn. I took the questions that I had, but I want to echo what everyone else has said this is an extraordinary situation. And I don't think any district can can can be prepared for something like this. So I my kudos to those in the district were working very hard to try to continue engagement between teachers and students, which is actually the most important thing I think at this time. My questions are these first of all, has the district or have you Dr Bode given some thought to the question was alluded to earlier what will happen. How we will make up 30 plus lost academic days. So for example, let's just say you have a student in algebra one in the eighth grade at the out of some middle school and that student hopes to either hopes to do geometry next year. How, you know, how are you going to make up those those lost days or let's say, you know, whatever, whatever class it is. I'm just wondering, to what extent of this is new, maybe haven't thought about it's probably probably may have people working on a, maybe just talk a little bit about the work that's being done and the thinking that's taking place on that kind of an issue. How do you make up lost work. I have a question and something that we have been thinking about what what will happen we come back may force if we're if we haven't gone forward with the curriculum that would be part of an algebra one. One of the things that we're going to have to do and we've already been talking about it is creating some teams of people to look at what are the essential things that still need to be taught for that course in the in the balance of the year. I think, I think most many students, not all students benefit by deepening the knowledge of what they've already learned, so that they're able to learn newer concepts in a, in a faster and a deeper way. So, no, we have been looking at it. I don't have a quick answer for you on what we're going to do exactly. There's been uncertainty as to really when we're going to come back we now know it's May 4, and we'll be planning accordingly to that but it does. And I do wonder whether we're going to be looking at looking at further, further closures, we don't know. And I think that's the uncertainty of all of this, but meanwhile you have to plan. What if if this happens what are you going to do if that happens what are you going to do and that's the kind of where we are right now I will say though the last two weeks. We've been just trying to run quickly to deal with all the other things that we need to do in terms of getting getting resources from out there. The districts tell me they actually been happy because they've been able to take some of them and help. And that's great. Getting food getting packet that you just it's just been quite a big effort but I do think we're going to have to look at this and be planful. And you're right, you're absolutely correct. Those are exactly kind of things we're thinking about too. Yeah, and I realized past two weeks have been crazy and there's there hasn't been a lot of time to think about so I'm not assuming you've figured this out, but I'm glad to hear that you're you're thinking about it. So, I mean, it's clear to me from all the recommendation from all of the guidance from the commissioner that we cannot advance the curriculum. It's also clear that we're not going to be grading work for credit. But you know what happens if you get into a situation in which, you know, a student is not doing his or her work not handing anything in. What are the, you know, what are the ramifications and how do you even, how do you even enforce that I just wondering how you approach that. So you're getting the top questions we're trying to deal with to in fact have several conversations about that with some members of the AA today what what will we do if we have students that are not responding. We're not turning in any work to get feedback. I think what we what we will do is we will out, you know, do an outreach to parents but there's going to be a limitation to what we can do about that and we're not going to be, none of this work is graded. So the some some students respond to the leverage of a grade that's not on the table right now but what is on the table is down the road whether they're going to get credit and no credit to that's a little bit more of a lever at the high school. We're not, we're not very yet because we're not giving. I'm not saying we're not going to be there but we're not there at the moment. No, you're absolutely right. What do we do. The students is not like you can, they're sitting in front of you and you can do an intervention. We don't have a good answer for that other than we will continue to reach out to parents and to the students. And will you, you know, will you be able to accommodate every, every individual education plan in this kind of environment where where student work won't be graded but it will be or won't be accepted for credit but it will be reviewed by teachers. Are you confident that every it can be accommodated. During this time. No, not at all. And in fact, that's one thing that's been clear from Department of Education, we're not in school. And so therefore we are not going to be providing a responsible for writing all the accommodation everything that's been a student it. Are we going to try to do some support. Absolutely. We've never been trying to do that. But no there's. This is not, this is not a replication. Now what will happen is will be certainly when we return will be looking at teams will be convening to take a look at IPs to see you know what what where we go from there but no. And in fact, when we talked about the district, this is exactly the issue that everybody is struggling with. How do we support some students and some that are going to be very challenging to do that. I'm assuming that the district has data on for the name, you know names, confidentially, obviously the names in every student who doesn't have internet access or access to technology, at least the elementary school teachers would know that for sure. But I guess my question is do you have that data for all the students. How large is that number and what's the strategy for making sure they get access. Well, I'm not sure our data is entirely accurate in terms of who has it or not because an email address isn't isn't synonymous with having internet. We have people who know this from talking with some of the principles that they know of people who really don't have it but are not responding to outreach on this issue. We are trying to find out that is exactly what we're trying to find out to make sure that they do now. But again, they have to be able to understand it and how we get it translated for them to know how to get internet service. A lot of the providers right now are giving free access to internet. But on the other hand, you've got to get somebody to your house. I mean, there's a lot of technical things that have go on in order to say that you're going to have internet. But we it is one that we don't have a totally accurate picture on. We have a good picture on it. But do I think the people we don't know. Yes, I do. Okay. And this is my last question, Mr Chairman. I'll take a lot of time. Have you have you and Michael and started an analysis of any impact. This shutdown or suspension of onsite learning will have on our budget favorably or unfavorably have you have you have you started to think about that at all or does not even. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Can you share your thinking with the team. We're in a very fortunate position that we're going to be fine. We're keeping track of all of our expenses that were due directly to the coronavirus. But, you know, as you know, from our budget discussions before we were projecting a surplus that was going to be put into special education. We also have some revolving accounts that will be very helpful but of course one of the issues that we're also facing is that we're discussing is what do we do about fees, because a lot of our programs and people who take after preschool, community education, music lessons. There's a whole, there's a lot of services we provide that are based on fees daycare preschool that are the gen ed students. So, what are we going to do about the fees for those programs during time of closure I don't have an answer for each night thinking about it. And then, what is the impact on the, you know, monies that we have to support those programs and people. One thing we've made a commitment to as a district is that we are continuing to pay everyone, including all of our hourly people, everybody, even, even long term We had a sub that we had had just hired and we're beginning to do the work we're we're covering everyone as we go forward. And fortunately, because we had a projected surplus, I think we'll be fine but we'll be able to tell you more as we move forward. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr Chairman. Thank you. Good questions. All right, Miss Morgan you're up. Good. I think Mr Schlichman is actually before me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yes, that's right. I'm forgetting the table order. Mr Schlichman, you're next. But you're on mute, sir. Okay. Thank you very much, Mr Chairman. Bill, say hello to Bonnie. And so let me, you've gone through most of the questions in terms of connectivity and the actual technical use of the Chromebooks at home. Have we found cases where folks don't have internet access and we've been able to make connections through one of the providers. I think I know the answer to that question if we have or not. I think we're going to find out as the personal contact with people. And I do know that some, some contact like that is definitely happening to find out. And so it's very important for us to figure out who needs this because it's just simply not going to be able to access, you know, any of these resources or teachers other than through email and we can certainly upload videos to email, but watching on a phone isn't the most desirable way to do it. I'm just getting the Chromebooks out. I know there are a couple of providers who are offering low cost connectivity for low income families and, and I hope we're able to make connections so they're available to that. By the way, we did look into buying hotspots. And they didn't have any. Okay, they had gone to just wiped out. So maybe they're getting more. Because we would, we would be willing to get those and put them with a Chromebook if we could get them. Okay. On the challenge for users when they're getting the Chromebooks and as far as signing into Google Classroom. I've often found that having a cheat sheet with screenshots working people through the process is is an important thing to tuck into the packet along with that. The things that we really, I guess, are going to have trouble connecting to and figuring out. I hope everybody is doing well our teachers are doing well our students are doing well. But even if you're healthy through this. There's a lot of stress and involved in the social isolation. And I'm wondering how we're working maybe with our social workers or through other supports for people who might need some extra support through this, particularly if we have any teachers who live alone. What are the teachers of the students actually both I mean we were responsible for both I mean, we have to care for our caregivers and we also have to be able to provide resources for students like we normally would I know that we have social emotional. We're looking at the social emotional needs of our students on a regular basis and that we certainly would need to during this period as well. Well there's a lot of I can tell you from looking at the, the email there's a lot of going on building level. Mr. Spiegel sent out, he can talk about the hobby, how you would access resources if you were to need that we have. We're looking into another provider to give some mental health support in situations because right now a YCC has a wait list of about a month. And the director of nursing and I have been looking at a possible provider, but these are all things that take time to sort of ramp up. I think in terms of individual teachers I think that's happening more as a building level in terms of definitely outreach and bringing into meetings and talking. Certainly I'm pushing out messages, but that's not quite the same thing as reaching out. We are concerned and it's been actually a fair amount of conversation about you know, for the effect of this on anxiety and just mental health and, and the effect on that with health is, is how we are going to support those students in really more of the conversations than about who, who may be experiencing a very difficult time right now. And there, there are have been and there will continue to be outreaches in that regard. Yeah, please communicate with the staff that the full committee I know is grateful for their work and cares about them in that we're partners with them and we hope that they come through this healthy and well at the end. One of the things that's been interesting in our meetings when people are at home. Some people have young children and you know their home with their children to as they're trying to navigate their learning and stay professionally connected. And that's not an uncommon situation for many of our teachers who are young and have young families and so it is, I know they're experiencing a lot of stress and that will say, could you mute because you know they've got the children and so I think everybody is being stressed, but the willingness to be very hopeful about all of this is bringing up some of the best and people to in terms of the caring and compassion that people are showing. Thank you. Can I add that. Kathy referenced the employee assistance programs we offer through the whole town so any town employee has a couple different options we've had employee assistance through all one health for many years. And then we also the GIC, our health insurance provider offers their another employee assistance program so our employees have access to both of those for different employee assistance resources and the GIC one has a devoted line for coronavirus so people who are concerned about it have have anxiety about it or other reasons they can call that line and I did send out an email to our entire staff today about that. And I know that our director of school counseling and social emotional learning Sarah bird has been very active with her department to make sure that they are providing the resources they need for students and staff I know our school counselors and social counselors are working with the students outreach students in their buildings and sending emails to staff about resources they can they can they can access as well. Great. And thank you. Thanks. All right. Now it's working. Now your turn. So thank you. And, you know, I've been thinking as we've been sitting here talking, you know, Dr. Buddy you started tonight talking about this sort of philosophy and this vision around how we were going to move through these weeks of school closure and, you know, I've had the experience of being a parent of, you know, four children, one very young middle school student to fifth graders. And, you know, my feeling has been over the last two weeks that, you know, the reality of it is is that you need us parents more than you've ever needed us before this school district needs these parents. We now have thousands and thousands. And I don't want to call us employees because we're not being paid. And we're certainly not educators because we're not very good at this. But we are having to implement what you know what the what our teachers and our, you know, curriculum leaders and what that you know the highest levels of our, you know, of our administration want to have happen. And I think that this is a district that really does a good job generally of communicating with its staff and with the, you know, the people who work, who work under you and through you. But, you know, I think that we, we need to provide more to parents and to families because we now are not dropping our kids off and picking them up and making sure that they brought their lunch or not in my case. We're, we're doing this, we're doing this work and, you know, I think there's a lot of information that the FAQs are are excellent. And they're, you know, they're really a good start. But I, you know, as we move into next week when there are going to be different expectations and it may be harder frankly for parents to meet those expectations. I hope that, you know, we, I, I've always had this sense that we're kind of kept a little bit at arm's length, you know, that we're sort of just, you know, just like just wait, just wait, just wait. And I think that that we've done that and I, and, but I also think that we need to acknowledge that in this situation, we are playing this absolutely critical role in the education of these kids and, and that we're really, really necessary. And so I'm looking forward to moving through, you know, this two week period and then into the next period to, you know, to see how, you know, we're all going to work together to be able to do that. I have a couple of really specific one, one specific thing that came up tonight was that you were talking about the use of Google classroom, which I think is fantastic. I have a middle school daughter. It's great. It's easy to use. She's basically independent on that. Fifth graders do not have email. They can log into Google classroom, but they do not receive emails. I have two fifth graders. I tried to log into their email account when we were on the meeting tonight and they don't have access to email. So Google classrooms a lot easier to use if students can actually receive email notifications about what's on it. Hopefully that's something we can get turned on. I fully support fifth graders, fourth graders and third graders not having had email up until now seems like a good idea. I fully support that. But I think if we're going to be expecting them to engage with Google classroom, they need to have some way of being notified that something has been posted. I'm assuming that the family FAQ will be updated after you email or as part of the communication to families tomorrow. Is that true? Yes, that's correct. Okay, and then we'll information like Mr. Saunders question and I've had this dozens of times, you know, really clear communication about the use of either Google Zoom or Hangouts. Can we provide that? You know, the FAQ seems like a great spot for it. It's really easy to navigate. I've seen so many different emails from different teachers from different parents that have conflicting information about this. I think that's reasonable. It's been, it's only been two weeks. But I'm hoping that, you know, something can be written and vetted. And, and, you know, again, we're the people on the ground who are who are implementing this like I am for my seven year old he can't he can't zoom. Maybe we'll be by the end of this, but we really need to have that information to and it seems like it's gone out to faculty, but it's, it has to get to us more quickly because of the nature of the relationship that we have with the kids right now. And then the really easy the question that I had asked over email that I didn't hear was, is there a plan to. So this is actually my only question that I needed answer to, or even I don't know what the answer is, is whether when students will be available to students if they want to pick that up, or has that already been done. That was done. It was done the Friday, the 13th, actually. But if there's somebody has medication that they did not pick up, they can notify our school principal and our director of nursing and we can, we can make sure that happens. But no, that was an offer out there. I can't include that in the FAQ just that if they have medication medication. Yeah, just this is the kind of time when people who have, you know, inhalers. Maybe they didn't realize on Friday that they wanted it. So I've heard from a couple of people with questions about it so hopefully they've already solved those issues but it would be nice to have one that the FAQ is great and is really easy to navigate so it seems like a really good repository for this kind of stuff. Yeah, I think it is too. Yeah, we've had some even kudos on it from outside the district too. And then we'll just keep updating it and highlight things that are new if you want, going through it all the time too. Thank you. Okay, so a lot of my questions and concerns have been covered. I just want to go back to communication and structure. And I think everybody understands that this was sudden and unexpected and things are evolving. They may be evolving more quickly here than other districts clearly there are other districts that are also evolving more quickly than us. I think we're probably in the middle, which is okay, as long as we continue to evolve. So the two things that I think parents are looking for is structure and communication. So it sounds like, and I did see a staff FAQ that I went out today. It sounds like teachers are now going to be giving assignments, which is good. That's definitely something that the parents want. It sounds like for now it's just once a week as a minimum. That doesn't seem consistent with the new guidelines from the state. So maybe that's something we can evolve as we go forward. But I think, but I think what we need is a plan, a remote learning plan. I, you know, I don't think an FAQ structure is going to get us all the way there. There should be FAQs like about why aren't we doing virtual classrooms or why can't we, why can't we advance the curriculum? Why can't we do this? There definitely are some FAQs that need to be answered. But the basic structure of what we're doing as a district in the next week, and then the week after that is it evolves and changes should be in some sort of, you know, two or three paragraph document. It's going to contain within the Lexington letter what Walton has put out, what other towns have been doing. Just so parents can know that either maybe it's maybe it's just once a week for now, for next week it's just once a week. Maybe after that it will be two or three times a week. Their students can be expecting assignments from their teacher, which they're expected to turn in will not be graded but will be corrected. So I think that kind of cadence and that kind of clear structure is what people are looking for and it should be, you know, communicated to teachers and to parents that everybody's on the same page about what's happening. So I know you're putting out, you know, an email tomorrow and that will have some of this content. It's unclear to me, I mean that the state guidance says we have to develop a remote learning plan doesn't say we have to, you know, submit that to the state or anything but and a program doesn't actually say written plans and so maybe it's not required but I do think that a written remote learning plan again doesn't be a multi page document just a three or four step, three or four step thing would be very helpful to get everybody on the same page forward towards that. So that's sort of my suggestion and as we go forward. I guess we'll go around for for another set of questions because he builds raising his hand. Mr. Hayden I go ahead. Thank you. One of my concerns are I've been following along with Jesse and everything they keep using the word recommend. They have the power to enforce. It's very unusual and I appreciate it. The problem is one, the state recommends one community gets very active has a lot of technology does a lot of things and things start going and my neighbor talks to another neighbor in another town. There needs to be consistency. Easy to say from sitting here on a school committee hard to do as a superintendent hard to do as a state hard to do as a nation. I just need to know that we're trying to do all this. I agree with everything everyone has said before we need consistency. The state also needs to develop some consistency and said they have yet to make a decision whether they're going to require mcast or not. They have. I worry about seniors that have not passed it. If the state turns around and doesn't require it. Do the universities and colleges accepted what happens. We are in limbo. And I just want to thank you all all the support staff for doing what they've done. Thank you. All right. Since we're going around again. Dr. Allison Ampe anything. I was wondering if I don't actually know how many homeless students there are in our district and I realize now that's I should know this, but I'm wondering if we have any and if how we're making provisions for ensuring continuing education for them. And this is a concern is how we're going to to do that. And in some cases we're going to have to reach out individually if they're in DCF care. And that's it's done an individual basis. But this is I have to say this situation we're in is just unprecedented and trying to figure out how to reach all the kids that normally we just come into our school building and then we have all the people that support the that are there and trying to, you know, support them in their mental health emotional social academic. It is challenging when any research to realize really how special schools are that people come to them because it's really difficult to provide everything that students need in this kind of situation and it's not going to be perfect. But doesn't mean we're not going to keep trying and trying to think about how we can do better and how we can reach more kids. Is there any I guess when I along with that first I'm glad that you're trying to reach these people individually that's great. I'm also concerned that this situation has the potential for increasing basically the achievement gap but I'm not talking so much about test results as the actual knowledge base and everything and that we don't want we're trying to minimize that and this situation has the potential for exacerbate exacerbating it. And I'm wondering if there's anything else we could be doing as a district do we actually have additional staffing needs or is there anything else we can do as we figure out the next few weeks because I'm with you I'm concerned that it may well be beyond May 4th and and that we need to be kind of thinking longer term and doing the absolute best job we can. Is there anything else we need to be setting up to make things as best as possible especially for high need students. That's certainly been a focus. There's been many things being looked at. One thing just the example I gave earlier where we're asking special education teachers to work with teachers together on assignments to begin and so the accommodations are part of it not not as impact. Little things like that but we are also concerned that this could exacerbate the achievement gap because some students who have resources and are also don't are are sort of very self motivated and will find different things that they interest them and have the resources to follow those interests could be in contrast for students who do not and do not have the resources and do not have the support to to continue deepening and learn deepening their learning. So all these things you said are absolutely correct and and all those things are being discussed and we're all trying to look at what ways we can make a difference in that regard. But we are limited we're limited in so many different ways and certainly the we're coming to see how important connections are digitally for some of this and that is what we are looking at and we we've given you know some stuff out the elementary but it's really hard to we'll try to do some of that a little bit at the high school too for students that need it but there's a lot of limitations in the situation we're in and no doubt about it. Okay, thank you. I'm sorry about that. I was on mute. Miss Cease you're next. You're on mute sorry. Sorry, hi. I thought I did that. Just to reflect many things that Dr. Allison Ampe mentioned you know it's been a very fast and ever changing changing situation in the last couple of weeks and that we expect more of the same and whereas a week ago we were told we couldn't do new material now it's allowed but not encouraged that very well at the high school level very well in a couple weeks might be encouraged and so I just want us to think to start planning for that. Also just to start planning for what next year is going to look like and how we can make sure that students who are have not had access to the same resources for whatever reason right can sort of join their peers and just sort of being very thoughtful and creative about how that looks starting in the fall. You know I think we do have to plan for the possibility that students do not come back this year. I would love for everyone to get back together in May but I think we just have to plan that that may not be possible. Great thank you. Mr. Thielman. So I think you know I think the whole world is grieving right now I think this is this extraordinary situation we're facing and so I want to thank the district and leadership for working trying to find as many solutions as possible the situation we face. I would you know my council would be for what it's worth would be to try to document as much of what you're doing now and try to create systems and strategies to move to remote learning in the future because I think this may be the new normal. I think there may be you know I said to somebody I think this is like the adult Columbine. People are experiencing something they've never experienced before and we're going to have to as a society get used to moments where we're going to have to go remote and use distance learning and so I don't know I think this is something that may happen more often in the future and in our lives and we would like to think and so I just think it's important to document everything you're experiencing to think about how can we do this next time and then to think about how can we continue learning in the future when this sort of thing occurs because I just think this may be the beginning of a new normal. You know years ago in education if you had told us we were going to have active shooter trainings we thought you're crazy right well now we have that so I don't know I think it's something we just have to be prepared for and accept and document so no question let's just whatever my thinking thank you for all you're doing and then thank the staff for all the time and effort they're putting I think this is not an easy situation it's not easy for parents not easy for kids not easy for educators not easy for anybody it's totally disrupting everything in our lives Mr. Superman do you have anything else here in mute? Yeah I just want to concur that I'm in awe with the hard work that everybody's done to pull us together on short notice keep on keeping on and we're here to support you and help us in any way we can. Miss Morgan anything else from you? Alright so the last thing for me is frustrating I think to parents when you know they look at West End and Cambridge and other districts that are taking a didn't sign that statement and are taking a bit of a different approach but I know we're not willing to do that but the one item that did appeal to me is that they are taking the work that's being assigned for purposes of a participation type grade I don't know if there are going to be any grades issued for fourth term I don't know if they don't go back anyways but that might be something to consider it does seem allowed by the New Desi guidelines and it may be to motivate students to at least tell them well if you don't turn anything in then your teacher is going to be calling you to find out why you're not turning anything in because otherwise I think it's still going to be hard for parents to get their students to do anything for the next four or five weeks that they consider and thank you for all your work and your team I know they're they're doing their best under very difficult circumstances it's hard not being in the same room to discuss things it's hard not having the same schedules it's hard having your kids and families all in the house so thank you all for all your hard work any last remarks Dr. Boddy? No you've all, you've expressed a lot of things and what we are dealing with it's unprecedented time what's happening is disruptive for all of us and for some families this is a very difficult time in terms of worry about love ones too and so that's a factor as well as anybody tries to focus on you know learning something more about a long division it does put our lives in a different perspective as well as we go forward but the one thing I would want to just conclude in saying is that I think parents would be very heartened to hear how much teachers and administrators care about their children and are trying their very best to provide to them educationally as well as in other ways as well Great thank you The next item on our agenda is to staff the AEA negotiations subcommittee this is we had left I had just I left it open because I did not anticipate the start of negotiations until next year I still don't anticipate the need for a committee Dr. Boddy has been working cooperatively with the union but I did note that you know in Brookline they did have a formal MOU meeting activities during remote for remote learning and I thought it would be good to form to staff the committee just in case it's needed so I asked Mr. Schlickman to serve and I thought I would serve as well just a two person committee I did not I do want to note that Mr. Heiner also volunteered to serve but again given the very short timeframe and the hopefully unlikely need for the committee my recommendation is a two person committee with myself and Mr. Schlickman so is there any motion or discussion I moved approval of the committee suggested by chairman Carton second great thank you is there any discussion I'm not going to call names for this but just go ahead and steal the floor if you have anything to say I think it's a good idea to have the committee set up and I think that's great I'm glad you guys are willing to serve great thank you all right so we'll do a roll call vote if there's no further discussion okay Mr. Heiner hi Dr. Allison MP hi Mrs. Seuss yes Mr. Thielman yes Mr. Schlickman yes Mr. Morgan yes and myself yes as well thank you and the next one is a waiver of policy BDA basically I not necessarily we don't necessarily need to waive it it's I mean I think legally speaking our officers we continue to serve until new officers are elected but it does say that our term is for one year so I just thought it would be to waive the policy so if I could get a motion to waive policy BDA until the new officers are elected so move I hope to waive second my second bill's motion great thank you is there any discussion go ahead Mr. Heiner I just think Dr. Seuss ought to get an increase in salary for the remainder of your tenure 20% right to do any further discussion okay we do have to we are doing all of those by roll calls and Mr. Heiner hi Dr. Allison MP yes this is yes Mr. Thielman yes Mr. Schlickman yes this Morgan yes and I am also you take this thank you again alright so is there anything else Dr. Bodie that you would like to report on the superintendent's report yes yeah well as always we have a high school building project update all of that work continues we had a building committee meeting on Tuesday we had the experience of also doing this virtually so you learn a little bit about what works well and what doesn't work as well and one of the things we discovered with length of meeting hasn't an issue as we do this so the committee should be aware of the vote that the building committee did take on Tuesday night with regard to geothermal wealth we had a very robust discussion a lot there were four options and even some of those options were broken into parts about what we could do because as you know I reported the last time in the practice field which is the area behind stop and shop that was going to be the site for most of the geothermal wells when they got down into bedrock down close to 100 feet it found some contaminant and brought some of it up for checking but we don't know what the spread of that is there's just a lot of risk that will go on with continuing on that site in fact in all these different options I won't go through all of them but you know I think the committee you certainly welcome as a public document to see what the options were but the range was from about a million roughly to about five million of the different options that we could entertain the site going off into the softball field looking at the parking lot down off of Milbrook the area potentially in front of the school they looked at all of the different options and there were not only costs associated with all of them there was there was delays on the project because for example later on you these buildings were built for design for geothermal but now you have to change all the mechanicals on them to go to a different option so all in all after much discussion and much looking at this the committee has decided to not go with geothermal wells as an option for part of the HVAC system the committee is still committed to an electric building and also perhaps the increase of energy from photovoltaic cells and then on a motion actually by Dr. Alton-Hampy we're going to be taking a look at if we do have some savings what would that look like and maybe some things were on the V-elistics to come back that's all very indefinite at this point the issue in front of us given this particular crisis that we find ourselves in you know it's really hard to see what's going to happen Summerville I believe is stop construction and as soon as you have a disruption in the cycle we're just not known at this point but that was a decision that the committee made not happily I might add a lot of us were in fact the committee was very committed to wanting to have this happen but there's just so many reasons why it's just not going to work on this site it's a tight site we're trying to do so much on this site and it's just too tight to do everything we want so I just wanted to let you know that was happening I think Mr. Cardin you were on at least on the list of people around the watching the media I was on for a little while to see how the zoom meeting was going to work if I could add one thing Len how do I raise my hand? So Kathy summed up perfectly exactly what we did the other night and I also was conscious that at about this time as I was running the meeting about 8.15 I started getting texts from several members of the committee telling me to try to move it along so I'm conscious of that the one thing I want to add is that right now work is taking place so the Parmenter School renovation project is going forward we have 10 to 14 workers on site now and we are planning in mid-April to have workers on the front of the building obviously doing some of the pre-work pre-site work to begin the excavation and the foundation which is supposed to take place in June but obviously you know we're in unknown territory we don't know if everything will continue as scheduled right now that's correct great thank you is there any questions from the committee? Though you had your hand raised but I don't think you're really meant to raise your hand okay sorry consent agenda I'm pulling out the public hearing until we consult with town council on the procedure for holding a remote public hearing which might be different so I'm removing that from the consent agenda the other items are considered routine and will be enacted by one motion or request in which event the item will be considered as normal sequence approval of warrant number 2-0-3-2 dated 3-17-2020 in the amount of 6-9-1-6-3-9-dot-9-2 both to approve as amended second all right Mr. Hayner hi yes yes yes and I am also yes I will quickly go through the subcommittees budget doesn't have anything to report but I do have a question I don't understand under these circumstances are we supposed to continue trying to do business as usual or are we only supposed to be doing kind of emergency business and specifically I'm thinking about the athletic fees stuff do we try and figure out how to make that move forward or do I just table that for now so bear the original guidance was to suspend cancel all meetings because we would not be able to have a quorum now that we can do remote meetings that guidance was never rescinded but think important business can be continued is my sense I don't know that that falls under important business but I don't know how other how the rest of the committee feels Mrs. Oh um yeah I think that that was also my sense to pause that especially since we wouldn't do anything without a pretty robust outreach to the community which it's just much more difficult to do at this point so my gut says that that should probably be unhauled I would agree that was also my sense I just wanted to bring it up since it is something that we were I should be working on that right now so I think other than required business it probably makes sense to suspend what we can suspend including that okay nothing else from budget community relations CIAA nothing facilities policies and procedures did the building committee calendar committee election any liaison reports or announcements Mr. Heyner under announcements I'm sorry to report two of the student mock town meetings have been cancelled and it's unlikely that the other two will participate I'm sure they're going to be disappointed too can I have two announcements also one has to do with our distribution of lunch program we have decided I actually I have no role in this the Arlington eats and our food service are evolving this program differently from their experience this week that we that some families need actually more food than what was being given at the lunchtime so it's changing tomorrow I think it's the last day to grab and go and it's evolving into another way to distribute food and I do want to mention this phone number I don't know if anybody would be listening that would this would be helpful but if you had the number and you knew somebody or could call for them that would be terrific so for the Arlington food hotline the number is seven eight one three one six three four zero zero that's three one six three four zero zero and you can you can just say what the need is how many people in the family location and bigger bags of food are going to be provided the second announcement is that I believe we're going to go ahead with finance committee on Monday night they set the plan right now doing a virtual meeting I'm not quite sure how that's going to play itself out in terms of documents or presentation so Mr. Mason and I are in communication about that issue but I'll send you any of the links to the virtual meeting should that still go forward. All right great any other announcements Mr. Thielman. You know I don't have an announcement I just have a question I mean first of all Len this may or may not be your last meeting so I think it's you're going to keep sharing the meetings are we going to meet on Thursday that next the ninth correct so yeah so I plan to keep our scheduled meetings and if there is no need for them as we get you know within the two-day window then I can cancel them I think however at least a brief check in every two weeks is probably going to be required just to cover the evolving updates. Yeah I would say one is we should meet on Thursday the ninth and secondly I want you know usually at the last meeting of the year which was going to be tonight which isn't right we thank the chair for his work for her work over the course of the year so on behalf of all the committee I want to thank you for being a great chair doing a great job treating all of us equally and fairly and I appreciate that so and for who knows yeah two months yeah so we get to stick with you so okay so we are going to meet on the ninth thank you I want to clarify anything else anything else all right can I get a motion to adjourn so move second thank you roll call Mr. Heiner yes Dr. Allison Ampe yes okay Miss Seuss yes Mr. Thielman yes Mr. Schlickman yes Miss Morgan yes and I'm also yes if I may it's the first time in the history of this committee we've all given the same answer thank you good job be safe everyone thank you everybody stay safe stay safe and sane yeah I like that take care