 to get that done. I think we can do that sensibly at 6.56. So good evening. This open meeting of the Arlington School Committee is being conducted remotely consistent with Governor Baker's executive order of March 12, 2020 due to the current state of emergency and the Commonwealth through the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus. In order to mitigate the transmission of the 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 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 such participation is required by law. This meeting will feature public comment. For this meeting, the Arlington School Committee is convening by Zoom as posted on the town's website. Please note that this meeting is being recorded and that some attendees are participating by video conference. Accordingly, please be aware that others 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, except for any executive session materials, which there are none, are available on the Novus Agenda dashboard. And we recommend the members and the public follow the agenda as posted on Novus unless I know otherwise. I will introduce each speaker on the agenda. After they conclude their remarks, I will go down the list of members inviting each by name to provide comment, questions, or motions. Please hold into your name as called. Please remember to mute your phone or computer when you are not speaking. Please remember to speak clearly and in a way that helps generate accurate minutes. For any response, please wait until the chair yields the floor to you. State your name before speaking. If members wish to engage in colloquially with other members, please do so through the chair, taking care to identify yourself. So finally, each vote taken in this meeting will be conducted by a roll call vote. So, let's go ahead and see who's here. Okay, Ms. Exton, are you here already? Wow, okay, yeah, I see her. Mr. Cardin. Yes. Dr. Allison Ampey. Yes. Mr. Thielman. Yes, here. Mr. Schlickman. Yes. Mr. Hainer. Yes. And then Dr. Bodie. How's that? Dr. McNeil. Here. Ms. Mason. Here. Mr. Spiegel. Here. Ms. Keys. Here. And let's see. Ms. Exton, can you hear me? She's maybe not here yet. Okay, I see Mr. McCarthy. Can we, yeah, perfect. We just need to make sure we can hear you. I see Ms. Donato. Hi. And Ms. Parrots. Hello, everyone. And Mr. Amade. Pleasant. And Mr. Hanna. Here. And Ms. Zurchikov. And Mr. McEnany. McEnany. Good evening. So I just want to wait a minute until we see Ms. Exton. Ms. Exton, can you hear us? Yes, I can. Okay, so it's seven o'clock and we've done our remote introduction and the first item on the agenda is public comment. And I wanted to, so tonight's meeting has generated extraordinary interest, which is not surprising. And a large number of comments that were requested to be read. Every message was sent to the school committee and the administrative team, and we have had an opportunity to read all of them. In order to continue to move forward with our agenda, I would like to keep public comment as close to the 20 minute threshold as possible. And we have 10 people lined up to speak over Zoom. So I'm going to limit, so my suggestion, and I'm looking for the support of the committee to move forward in this way, is that in-person comments will be limited to two minutes each. And then I will be summarizing the written comments briefly, sort of with one sentence each. And then I will read the 16 pages of comments into the record at the end of the meeting. We are, I am just concerned that we need to continue to move forward on our agenda. And so I'd like to try and keep moving. So I'm looking for the support of the committee to go this route. I can certainly, they're all queued up and ready to go. So if we want to read them all, I can do that. But I'm proposing the alternatives. I concur with the Chair's suggestion. Is there a motion to move forward with public comment in that way? Don't move. Second. Discussion? Well, Extin? Yes. Cardin? Yes. Allison Ampey? Yes. Spielman? Yes. Flickman? Yes. Heiner? Yes. I am also, yes. So I will be reading these, all of them at the end, but I have summarized them down to one sentence. And so I'm gonna read them now. So the first one, Jenna Fernandez is a 13 year veteran educator at the Audison. She was advocating for a phase in plan to begin remotely. Stephen Kay has two children that would like to attend school in person, but he has a lot of reasons to support remote learning for all. Rose Bray Sheehan wants the focus to be on what is best for students and wants to understand the triggers for moving between plans. Sarah McKinnon has questions about METCO, children with IEPs, as well as concern about remote learning, not reaching families equitably. Ari Gomez is in the English department at the Audison. She would like a remote start with a gradual reopening. Eliza McDonald asked about interventions for students who need them. Claudia Donut would like a remote opening and also referred to the packet that we received from the Special Education Alliance. Ryan O'Hagan would like a tiered start by age and flexible use of buildings. Dave Roger has two high school students and would like a remote program for the year. Tony Sidal has a student at Brackett. His son had a good experience at art camp working with teachers and Tony urges creativity and flexibility for our educators. Amy Yeager would like to know about the consistency between the hybrid and all remote models. An anonymous letter writer had questions about high needs students and facilities. Randy Flynn is a special education teacher at the Audison and would like a remote start with based reentry. Robert Brakowski has two students at Brackett and would like different options at different levels. Janet Marsden would like six foot distances and wants the school committee to meet in person. Tara Lamont is a Pierce kindergarten teacher and would like a remote start or a half day option for kindergarten. Mark Petrazino is a high school science teacher and would like a remote start for the high school. Christine Griffin works in a hospital and would like schools and teachers to be essential as well as more timely communication from the district. Michelle and Brett Lambert had questions about how the district could and would move from remote to hybrid if we ended up starting in remote in September. Cindy Ravel, Raveli has two high school students and supports a remote start. Tom Roby and Karen Edwards highlighted the importance of in-person for younger ages. Jim Connerney would like virus metrics used for all decisions. Karen Mollering is emphasizing routine in shorter days. Susan Lucas is a working mother and wants children to have the option to attend school in person. Danuta Forbes had questions about testing facilities, mass compliance and the structure of different models as well as would like an opportunity for students in remote by choice to meet their teachers or have a virtual backed school. So there are 10 people signed up for public comment. The first one on my list is, so just so that the public knows, we don't, as a matter of policy, we don't respond to public comment during the meeting. And typically we like to give people three minutes if possible, but tonight we can only do two just because we have so many people. So the first person is Kate Bracta. Is she on here? Which not great. Kate, are you here yet? Okay, let's move on to Kimberly Sarah. I can see her and then we'll come back to Kate. Hi everybody, can you hear me? We can, thank you. I don't have video for some reason so I can't really do anything about that. That's okay, you're doing great. So I'm Kimberly Sarah, I've taught at the Odyssey for the last seven years and I'm urging this committee to choose a remote start to the school year with a phased in reentry plan. There's a lot of reasons for this but I wanna highlight just one. I don't know how many of you have had personal experience with COVID-19 but I'd like to tell you mine. In April, my dad actually contracted the virus and he lives in New Jersey and my mom passed away a couple years ago, my brother's in Florida. So it was really on me to go down there and take care of him. I was there for three days before he had to go to the hospital. It went from, he seems fine, it's just kind of like a cold to meeting immediate care. In those three days, he was isolated in his room and it was exhausting putting on all the PPE, going in there to do vitals, taking it all off, washing my hands, changing my clothes, all while teaching remotely and it progressed so quickly that on the third day, the choice was either I drive you to the hospital or we're calling 911 in less than 72 hours. He was in the hospital for eight days and he doesn't remember most of it. I had to call several times a day in between meetings and classes until I could reach someone that knew what was going on. He lived through it and I'm so grateful for that but he is no longer the same person. He came home on April 26th and it's now August 10th. It's been almost four months since he has had any contagious COVID-19 symptoms but he's still living with the virus. His energy levels have still not bounced back. His heart is still being monitored for issues and he regularly starts a sentence and loses it midway through. It's so important for students to be in the classroom but keeping the community and health, keeping community health and safety is more important. A lot of people are talking about death rates and reopening schools but that's not the only issue with COVID. There's lasting effects on the virus on people that get it, even people with mild cases and all of this information is coming out now about the lasting effects whether you were hospitalized or not. And it's my opinion that if we go back to school in person at any capacity right now, we might look back on this time in a few years and say that it's so sad we went back too early and these six people died and these people still have no energy and these people still can't finish a sentence. It just doesn't seem like it's worth the risk to the community members when we have a remote option available if that option is chosen now. Because if it's chosen now, we have the time to create a robust curriculum for the students and do a phase in reentry that is best for the health and safety of everyone involved. So thank you for your time and thank you for your thoughtfulness when considering which plan to choose. Thank you. Ms. Fractal. Hello, my name is Kate Fractal and I'm an Arlington resident and also an Arlington public school teacher. I teach computer science at the Odyssey. I'm gonna keep these comments extra short because of respect for everybody's time but they can see the longer version that I submitted. I presented about integrating social emotional learning with computer science at the National Conference. Some people are advocating for a turn to in-person or hybrid learning with the idea that it will promote better social emotional learning. Social emotional skills are very important and they are also all significantly impacted by traumatic experiences. The COVID-19 pandemic is a traumatic experience for basically everyone. So I wanna talk for a moment about trauma-informed teaching. The first step and the foundation of trauma-informed teaching, which would enable us to do social emotional learning is to provide a safe environment for students both physically and emotionally. Without a safe environment, learning can't occur because the brain is prioritizing survival. Trauma-informed teaching tells us the teachers need to feel safe themselves so they can remain calm and responsive to students. This will give the students the critical sense of safety from which to build the rest of their learning. In a hybrid model, based on the survey results from Arlington, some teachers will be asked to return who do not feel safe and comfortable. They're gonna be very stressed and despite their best intentions, unable to provide that emotionally safe environment for our students that those students so desperately need. If you sacrifice teacher safety for student learning, I believe you will lose both. As an alternative, let me point out the remote learning will be much better in the fall than it was last spring. Teachers have a time to repair and learn how to do this well. I could go into more detail, but in respect for your time, I'm just gonna encourage you to start with a remote-only learning option with a potential phased in hybrid model. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Stephanie Carlson. Hi, can you hear me? Okay. And thank you. Thank you. My name is Stephanie Carlson and I teach at the Audison. Thank you for allowing me to make a statement today. I want nothing more than to be able to go into school next month like normal and get to know and teach Arlington students. But this is not normal and I am, but this time is not normal. And I am among many who are very nervous to go back in the current situation. Make no mistake, if we do go back physically, I will be there and I will give it my all like every other year, but I will be scared and on edge the whole time. For months, I have seen many adults unable to follow simple protocols of wearing masks appropriately and sticking to one-way aisles in grocery stores. How can we expect children and teenagers will adhere to these protocols as well as many others? Please consider what any in-person school would look like right now. It would be markedly different from what students are used to. All the best parts of many students' days would cease to exist. No working together, no sitting together anywhere, no lunch with friends, no walking a class together. There would be no hands-on work, experiments or activities where you move around the room. Instead, students will be forced to sit and rose, stay away from their friends, work independently at all times and move about the building in a regimented fashion. I urge the committee to consider making the least bad choice, which would be to start remotely with a potential phase in. I am asking this not because I don't care deeply about our students' educational and social-emotional needs. I'm asking because I do care deeply. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Carlson. Ms. Beter, Beter, Beter, Emily Beter. I can't hear her. So we're gonna go to Brenda Mahoney. Are you on? Is it her either? We gotta work on. Mr. Phillip Tedesco. Thank you. It's increasingly apparent that it's not safe for our kids or teachers to return to school in person this fall. And we really need the Arlington Public Schools to join many other communities and focus its time and efforts now on making remote learning this fall the best it can be. If news becomes better during the year, we could transition to a hybrid system. But right now, cases in Massachusetts have been rising, even as schools have been closed since March. And we get more news every day of the alarming transmission rates among children and the risks and dangers of reopening schools in person. While a hybrid option seems to have the superficial appeal of offering the best of both worlds, many of its apparent benefits seem illusory. Teachers will be six feet away behind masks and face shields and unable to meaningfully conference with students, check in with them while they work independently or comfort them while they're upset. And children will need to be spaced apart until not to physically interact. But this system would nevertheless require putting children, teachers and families at risk. It seems hybrid learning is also very likely to result in all remote learning in any event, but only after risking or enduring an avoidable tragedy. From the start, quarantine protocols will have groups of students and teachers all remote for weeks at a time. And once cold and flu season begins, there will likely be kids every day in every class presenting new COVID-19 symptoms. Providing high quality, all remote learning will also keep the buildings much less crowded and therefore much safer for schools to be open in person for those who need it most. We believe in the Arlington Public School. Can you hear anything though? Is the sound? And now we in our entire community are relying on you to keep us all safe and to use the time we have to focus on remote learning so that all our kids have what they need to grow and develop until we can all safely return in person again. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Emily Beeder. Beeder. Yes, can you hear me now? We can, thank you. Oh, good. I was using a school-issued computer before so I couldn't talk. So my name is Emily Beeder and I'm both a math coach and a parent of two elementary students in Arlington. Two weeks ago I voted for the hybrid model but now I have a lot of questions. When I voted, I was thinking about last fall but that is not what the hybrid model would be. Students will have to be six feet apart and face forward in their desks. There can not be any partner or small group work. They won't really even be able to socialize. My son misses playing kickball with his friends at recess but how would he be able to do that? And what about the three days that children are not in school? Who will be teaching them during those three days? Are students going to be working for three days asynchronously? And if so, who is creating those videos? Are they gonna be taught by another teacher? And if so, has this teacher been trained in all the curricula we have in Arlington? Will students only see their teacher through a mask on the two in-school days? And what happens to teachers on their three home days? Sorry, what happens to teachers' children on their three home days? Certainly we don't wanna put them in a situation where they would be exposed to more than one group. As long as the pandemic lasts, no model will get us back to last fall. But the remote learning also does not need to look like last spring. The all remote version could be more like a normal school schedule if students meet with their teacher synchronously for set blocks through the day in each subject five days a week with maybe some asynchronous introduction or review. Our teachers who have been trained in our curriculum would be teaching them as a parent, I would know their teacher was telling them what work to do and watching them do it. The district would provide math manipulatives and workbooks for students to use at home. This summer, the math coaches worked with 20 K-5 teachers to learn about ways to get real-time information on students' understanding while teaching remotely in order to give feedback in those sessions. We know this work will take a lot of preparation, but if the rest of the teachers have time for sufficient training and could teach from their homes, the remote model will not only be safer, but I think it will provide a better education than the hybrid model. Since I only have two minutes, I'm just gonna say that my daughter tested, I was in the class that had someone test positive for COVID-19 and I just wanna read what the district sent out at that time. Health official stress that they were not exposed to the virus because the individual was not contagious at that time. And we now know that pre-symptomatic people are contagious and I just want us to think about what we didn't understand five months ago and what we still don't understand about this disease. So I just wanna end by saying, I have so much admiration for all of you on this board. You're volunteering your time and I'm sure when you decided to run for this position, you did not ever think you would have to make a life and death decision. I don't envy your position. I just ask that you think about which decision you can look back on and live with. Please protect the safety of everyone in the community by starting the year with fully remote learning. Thank you. Hi. This is Kirsten Allison Ampey. I was asked by Ms. Morgan to open the next speaker who I think is Brenda Mahoney. Brenda, I can see your name. I see you're not muted, but I don't hear you. Okay. I'm gonna move on to the next person until I can hear and try Brenda again. Allison Nittle. You need to. Sorry, that's my problem. So next is Ms. Brenda Mahoney. We can't hear her. Yeah, we can't. Ms. Mahoney, we can't hear you. So let's move on to Ms. Lauren Bellin. Hi, can you hear me? Are you able to hear me? We can, thank you. Okay, great. Hi, I'm Lauren Bellin. I have two APS kids arising seventh grader and arising fourth grader. And I'm speaking tonight on behalf of the Arlington Special Education Alliance's 200 plus families. Because Desi's guidance prioritized special education quite clearly, many of our families felt surprised to hear administrators repeatedly say during recent school committee meetings that they were primarily focused on planning for tier one students before they felt they could start robustly planning for higher need students. We believe that strategizing for special education should be robust and happening completely in tandem with tier one planning. We've submitted six pages of frequently asked special education questions that have been coming up in our group with very little time to speak tonight. I'll highlight just a few of the questions, but we do request that any additional upcoming written plans and forums address all of our parents' questions thoroughly. Regarding remote versus in-person determinations, we request additional written clarification explaining how the district will decide which students outside the high need designation and possibly outside the moderate need designation will be offered priority for in-person services. Will parent input be a part of determining which students quote unquote cannot engage in remote learning due to their disability related needs as described on page 31 of the district's proposal that they released today. Additionally, most discussions of moderate to high need students have assumed participation within person learning. Please confirm that families will be able to choose remote instruction for their moderate to high need students without jeopardizing access to the services and accommodations outlined in their IEPs. Regarding those services and accommodations to inform our decision-making, we'd like sample service delivery schedules for both in-person and remote learning. And we want to hear how some of the most standard common accommodations will be delivered safely in person and effectively during distance learning. Examples include things like lunch bunches, body breaks, alternate workspaces, staff switch-out, sensory diets, reduced problems sets, homework check-ins, specially designed instruction and support for transitions. We also wonder if there will be staffing and facility space available for students with disabilities who need more frequent than scheduled mask breaks. Regarding masking, compliance, safety and discipline. At the July 30th school committee meeting, a teacher said that the district needs to embrace a quote unquote level of strictness in our schools that we've never had before regarding masking. And she framed doing so as being at odds with prioritizing social and emotional learning. We empathize and we share the concerns for staff and student safety. And as an earlier speaker tonight noted, we worry about the impact of traumatized anxious teachers attempting to calmly discipline or scaffold for students who have disabilities and also have difficulty with the masking expectations. And Desi's Fed guidance has been realistic as was the district's own document released today stating that there will be students whose disabilities make masking challenging or impossible regardless of how much work parents do to support the social contract in those goals at home. We would like reassurance and details about what approach Arlington plans to follow and will they follow Desi's guidance explicitly focusing on trauma informed supports and practices scaffolding additional PPEs for staff working with kids who struggle, attention to the safety of other kids, teacher safety and training and problem solving versus a simple reduction to strictness in place of SEL for students with disabilities. Regarding executive functioning and distance learning, before the pandemic, the 2017 to 18 lab assessment commissioned by Arlington Public Schools found insufficient lacking direct instruction in executive functioning skills throughout Arlington's middle and high school level academic support classes. Recognizing that this was already a serious programmatic weakness and deficit, we requested detailed description of how the district will quickly ramp up EF support instruction during remote learning in particular so that students who were lost last spring can regain their access to a free and appropriate public education. We note only two mentions of executive functioning in the 133 page proposal put out by the district both of which are fairly incidental. We submitted many more questions than tonight's time constraints allow related to topics like school and work refusal, liaison officer involvement, evaluations and procedural timelines, compensatory services, services prior to the late school start, MCAS prep plans, support for world languages and other graduation requirements. Once the district does vote and determine its full reopening model, we strongly urge immediate communication with all families of students receiving special education. We believe that collaboration should help inform determinations about which students need full in-person services and which students may need to be learning remotely. Thank you all for your work during this incredibly stressful time. We are so grateful to your commitment or for your commitment to our kids and to all of the children in our district. And we strongly endorse the goal of keeping our district's educators and staff safe and well supported. Thank you. Next, let's go back to Ms. Brenda Mahoney. Can you hear us, Ms. Mahoney? So we can't hear you yet. So let's go next to Katel Golek. Hi, thanks. And we can hear you. You're welcome. Thank you. So I wanna also thank everyone who's putting so much time and effort into figuring out what the system is for our students and our teachers this year. I'm a parent of a rising third grader at the Pierce School. I'm also one of the co-chairs for the Towns Diversity Task Group. And I wanted to ask something a little different, I think for the committee, which is I'm kind of assuming that we won't be getting back to normal like we were last fall for quite some time given the trajectory of the pandemic. And so given that, whatever the committee and the district decides for our students and teachers, I would like there to be very specific interventions for students with special needs and for other students who can't reasonably access remote education. So there are students, even though for none of our students or teachers is it ideal to do remote education, there are students who will be able to access that style of education. There are many students who cannot. And I'd like to hear very specific plans for how we will teach those students, whether they're on IEPs or for other reasons who cannot reasonably access remote education. So it really won't suffice to hear that we're gonna meet students where they are or whatever we were doing for them in the spring. Spring was a time of crisis. And so I'm really hoping that we will hear much more robust plans for how to make remote education work for students who have proven that they cannot access it. And the last thing I will say is we all, all of the caregivers and all of the adults who care about students and teachers in this town really appreciate when we are spoken to in honest and heartfelt ways and not in platitudes or... And so if it's not possible to accommodate certain students, then we would like to hear that. Or if it's not possible to deliver remote education in a way that's gonna serve all student needs, then I would like to hear that and not be told that it's all gonna be fine. I want our teachers and our students to feel safe. And if they can't feel safe in the classroom because of the virus, then I would like there to be some acknowledgement of the real challenges we're facing and to find out specifically how we're gonna address them. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Mahoney. Can you hear me? We can, yeah. So sorry, I hope this will be worth it. Well, thank you for all your diligent and thoughtful work on the biggest crisis to affect our country and school children in modern times. These are tough choices and tough questions, but I do come to you tonight from the perspective of having a rising third grader and starting school with the hybrid learning model. The choices we make now have lifelong consequences. This is our duty and it is an opportunity to choose how students should learn and teachers teach this coming year. The mission is laid out by Desi is to return as many students to school safely as possible. I believe we can and should follow the guiding principle while taking into consideration the COVID case data. We should not operate now on what might happen later. If we get to that point, we change course, but not until such time. Let's give our students the best and most proven way to learn. In person, where they can be engaged and interact with the curriculum, teachers and students. It will be different than before, but that is not the reason that we should not pursue it. It is not safety alone upon which we should be basing this decision but balanced with what is best. Let's give our young people the chance they deserve. In person, part time or more for our youngest and higher needs and let us follow the health precautions that have gotten us this far in our reopening strategy. Let's prioritize education and let society know that we value the role of our schools, teachers, staff and students. And I leave you with just a summary quote from Commissioner Riley on the initial fall school reopening guidance. We can mitigate the risk associated with COVID-19 for in person school programs and prevent the significant consequences of keeping students out of school and isolated. It will take all of us working together to make this successful. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Mahoney. Mr. Dean Karman. Thank you, Madam Chair. Confirming you can hear me? We can, thank you. All right. I wanna take a moment to thank all of you, our school committee members, school administration, principals, teachers and support staff for the great work you've done over the past several months to prepare us for a return to school. As the finance committee's representative to the school committee, I've witnessed firsthand for many years the great and thoughtful work of this committee and its professional staff. Since the start of the pandemic, I've watched every school committee meeting and it's clear to me that you're all doing an outstanding job. For the school committee members, I'm proud to have each and every one of you as my elective representative guiding our school department, your extraordinary leaders who have risen to the occasion. For our amazing professional staff, who've been working on a return to school all summer, I'm equally proud of you. I'm blown away by the thoughtful and careful way in which multiple professionals, including but not limited to our principals and teachers, have been carefully formulating plans to reopen school at each grade level. They should be proud of their work and as a community, we owe them a debt of gratitude. When you're in the day to day, grind of trying to achieve an important objective such as reopening school during a pandemic. It's easy to miss the big picture because you're overwhelmed by the details. The internal work product being created, new data and research being published almost daily and fielding what must feel like an unlimited stream of constituent concerns, suggestions and occasional rude emails. Standing far outside this minutia, I can assure you that you are all doing an outstanding job. So that's all I have tonight. Thank you for your service. You're doing a great job. Keep up the good work. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Cunluney. Ms. Keyes, can you hear me? Sorry. Go ahead. All right, thank you. Hi, everybody. As president of the Arlington Education Association, I just wanted to update you for a few minutes on what we've been working on the past couple of weeks. Since the district plans were released, there's been significant new information that has changed how a lot of our members are thinking. First, there's the district survey and we see that parents overwhelmingly want in-person learning, but our staff is increasingly wanting to stay fully remote until it's safer to return. Second, there have been several new studies released in the past week about children in COVID-19. Some of the highlights are a study from Children's Hospital in Chicago found that children five and younger who develop mild to moderate COVID symptoms have 10 to 100 times as much virus in their noses as adults and children five to 17 also with mild symptoms have the same amount as adults. A study from Trento, Italy found children 14 and younger transmit the virus more efficiently to other children and adults and their risk of transmitting was 22.4% more than twice that of middle-aged adults. And a CDC study of a summer camp in Georgia where everyone tested negative before starting revealed 76% of those tested were positive only days later. And I want to add in today 97,000 children were diagnosed in the last two weeks in July. That's more than a quarter of all children since the pandemic began in the past two weeks. Third, case numbers in Massachusetts began to rise sharply after being fairly level for most of July. The percent positive rate has also increased above the 2% warning level. And finally, there are two huge data points right now that we're going to gain in the next few weeks that could dramatically alter decision-making. One is that schools around the country are beginning to open and we can see what works and what doesn't so we don't repeat their errors. And second, college and university students are returning to the Boston area from all over the country with the potential to spike the virus in this region. Given the fluidness of this situation, making a decision now for the start of school in five weeks seems really unwise. And we are proposing a slightly different path, a phased-in plan using the best ideas from all of the first three plans. We are proposing that you begin remotely for all students and there are myriad benefits to this. It gives us time to learn from what other states and districts are doing. We can start planning now for a remote start. We're concerned that if we choose hybrid now, data is gonna force a change just before or after opening and we'd be unprepared to quickly shift modes. It gives us time to implement and maintain health and safety protocols to make sure they work before we bring kids in. It gives us time to fully evaluate all of the safety improvements in the buildings before the kids arrive. It gives us a breather from the hot weather when we're not gonna be able to use fans in the classroom and those classrooms are regularly in the 90s in September, even with fans going. It separates the stress of returning to school from the stress of returning to the building, which will be good for everybody. And most importantly, the early days of school can focus on building relationships with students, not enforcing strict routines that might permanently damage that relationship. Starting remotely allows changes and corrections to be made to student schedules without endangering cohorts. It's an adaptable schedule and it avoids the trauma of opening too early and then having to rapidly shut down due to exposure. With a remote start for most, we can bring in our highest need students for in-person learning, followed by our youngest students in a hybrid model if community health and building safety benchmarks are met. And then these students who would need the most time to adapt to school could do so in mostly empty buildings. Then if all is going well, we can start to bring in the rest of students until we are operating in a fully hybrid model. It is better to start slowly and work towards our goal than jump in all at once and regret it. I started thinking today about walking into the Autism with 450 people on September 16th and almost had a panic attack. We can get there, but we don't have to start there. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Keith. So I'm just gonna get started. So that concludes our public comment, both are written and in-person. So we're gonna move to our first agenda item. And I just wanted to start by saying that this, the purpose of this meeting is that this committee has been tasked with voting on a recommendation from our superintendent about a plan for schools in Arlington in September. And as a committee, while we don't always necessarily agree with each other, we share a deep respect for process and for the collective will of a majority and for our obligation to the voters and a deep commitment to the education of young people. We are not necessarily always unanimous, but we can still be united and we are committed together to doing the next right thing and to communicate the intent of the district moving forward to our community. We have received so many messages. I talked about this earlier. They were all read and they're all part of the collective direction and record. We are so grateful to everyone who participated in a survey, sent an email, requested a phone call. Your hard work on these critical issues makes our work better and we couldn't do it without you. As all of you, with many of us, sit with the discomfort around the uncertainty of what September looks like. Please know that this school district has very real health, financial, contractual space and time constraints. Because the feedback you provided is not integrated into the very early plans that we're evaluating does not mean that administrators or teachers are not trying hard enough or they don't wanna make things happen for students. And your school committee is working hard to keep our school leadership teams accountable for the challenges that can be addressed while accepting that there are some things that cannot be overcome. So for those of you who may be new to watching a school committee meeting, I suspect there are many of you for this may be your first one ever. I think this framing is important. So this committee cannot meet by law in private. So we do all of our deliberation on issues in public. We have not met to plan this meeting. Maybe you can tell. Maybe you'll be able to tell by the end of it. So if you sense members or attendees frustration, trepidation, anxiety, concern, uncertainty, confusion, your sense is probably right. If it feels like people are working on something in real time, it's because we are doing all of this in front of you here in public. And that's how we do our work. And I understand that that might feel unsettling to some of you. So I just wanted to provide that sort of framework as we move forward. And I'd like to start by hearing from our superintendent, Dr. Vody about her recommendation. Thank you, Ms. Moran. We have a PowerPoint that Dr. McNeil, could you put that up? And while he's doing that, let me just acknowledge all of the speakers today. This is what we're facing together is a very unprecedented. We've heard that term used many times. But I think it's not overused because as people have pointed out, studies are changing. Every day there's new information that we're trying to absorb and work into the thinking that we have to do to make a very important choice. Over the summer, there have been thousands of hours put in by all administrators and certainly the school committee, department heads, curriculum, teachers. We've certainly had a lot of correspondence from people which have all been read and a lot of questions. In fact, this evening you heard questions, all of which are good questions and are questions that need to be answered and worked through. Many of them we have begun to do, as you can see in the plan. But as we have been tasked by the Department of Education with beginning in June, was to develop plans that would bring as many students back as possible in the fall. And in that process, one of the very first things that we had to do was do a feasibility study to even just take a look at our schools to see what would be necessary. We began that process with looking at desk place at three feet. We've looked at how many desks could come into a building, into a classroom, at a six foot distance. We've looked at cafeterias, gyms. We have done a complete analysis of our space, which is in the report that you have today. I don't want to, I hope people won't think that I'm trying to not answer all of the various questions. I don't think that that is possible this evening, but I want to acknowledge that we understand the issues, we understand the concerns. And one of the things that we have done this summer is to reach out in the way of surveys. We've had surveys with students, with parents, with staff, to really understand and get feedback about where people are. And even in the last couple of days, beginning on Friday with Governor Baker, the information just is constantly changing. So we are faced with three choices, really, whether we're going to bring as many students back as possible, which is all students that will be back in the building. And we have looked very carefully at that in the feasibility study. And right now, I can say that we cannot make that recommendation that we would have a full return to school for all students. So we have then been spending a lot of time looking at the other two possible options, which would be a hybrid opening, and we're going to talk more specifically about what that would look like at each grade. And we've also been looking at what a schedule would look like for remote learning. So Dr. Meniel, can you move this slide to the next one? So the objectives tonight, and again, I acknowledge, I cannot answer all of the questions that have been brought up, is that we want to talk about what these plans look like, what were the values and priorities that we were behind our thinking throughout this entire process. I'm not going to do an exhaustive relaying of the survey data. There are some important key points that we do need to talk about. What the plan development process was, what is the plan recommendation, and the caveats for that plan recommendation. The key features of the proposed plan, we'll look at some of the schedules, and we're also going to, as part of this, have a facilities update by our director of facilities for town and schools. So moving on, there were three plans, and I've already talked about the first one, the in-person with all safety requirements, and I want to point out here, the safety has been one of our top priorities. We have been looking out of our buildings to make sure that they would be safe. We would have looked at what we need to have for PPE. This has been a major priority as we've been looking at whether what we could do to accommodate students and staff back safely. But we have ruled out the possibility of in-person all students back in the building. Hybrid learning is sort of a mix of in-person and remote learning. And we'll go over some of those schedules. We have looked at whether we should have alternating weeks, whether we should have morning and afternoons, or we have alternating weeks. So we've gone through quite a process of thinking through what makes the most sense in terms of setting up a hybrid schedule. And so we've also looked at whether we would be able to have a remote option for parents, and I will talk about that as well. And then of course is the remote learning. And this model is a learning plan for students who cannot return in person and for all students in the event of the information we know about the spread of COVID at close to the time that we are opening. And it could also be a plan that begins when, and if our governor closes schools as what happens in March. So these are the three plans. And right now we are not recommending the in-person learning. Now, in terms of the values that were behind all of our thinking this summer, first wasn't the health and safety and wellbeing of our students and staff and our families. Equity was a major priority as well to make sure that we designed learning programs that were going to support all of our students, particularly with attention to our most vulnerable students, our students with high needs students. We have spent a lot of time this summer looking at how we can support both students and staff for the social emotional wellbeing. And in the document that we have presented to you this evening, you will see many sections and one of the sections focuses on exactly this. We realize that there are pros and cons to any plan that we pick. And we have actually, if you look in the preliminary plans that we had presented to you well over two weeks ago, you will see with these different plans, the pros and cons that we have been thinking through, there is no good choice. And I say that again, really all of these choices have problems with them. It is not going to be a return to school as we've known it. On the other hand, there is a value, and this is a value that's been expressed by the Department of Education, that learning in person is an effective and is important way for many students to learn. Not all students that we learned in the spring do well in a remote setting. And people have alluded to this, how do we deal with executive functioning issues? How do we manage screen time? How do we have a whole school day entirely in a remote environment? And those are things that we've also been looking at. We also need to be very flexible and fluid as been alluded to, we are in a very dynamic fluid situation in our state increasingly and in our country. And we have to be able to be able to move potentially between different plans as we move forward. And we also need to make sure that the plans are sustainable and take into account all of these aspects of the mental, physical, social, emotional needs of the school community. And importantly, we understand that how important it is to prepare our teachers for whatever plan we have. There are, even in the hybrid plan, there is remote teaching. And while we had some experience with that in the spring, we have had a focus on it this summer. And you've also heard the mention of different learning opportunities that teachers have had this summer. And I will talk about one of the things that we also need to think about as we move into the fall with respect to teacher preparation. So the next slide, please. All right. So pretty much we have, I've addressed these issues of what were the values that we had with respect to the thinking behind this. So I want people to understand this has been a very thoughtful process, a process where we have challenged ourselves, where we have thought a wide array of opinions as we've been thinking this through. And I will also have to say that we are not finished. What we are gonna be presenting tonight still needs a lot of work over the next few weeks to make sure that we have a very smooth opening in a hybrid or potentially if we get into the fall, a remote for all students. So we did reach out to families and looked and asked a variety of questions. And I will tell you, all of the data from those surveys are in the document in the appendix that we have provided to you. But in that survey, albeit it was several weeks ago, over 65% of our families would prefer a hybrid model. But we also have, here, our elementary parents, we have 620 parents, families, guardians, caretakers who have said that if given the choice of having a remote option or being in a hybrid or being in person, they would choose a remote option. So we have 620, which is around 25% of our parents. Actually, it's a little bit less than that. But at any rate, at Gibbs, we had 89 parents. We had an oddison at different level, seventh grade, 97, the eighth grade, 79. And so we have basically close to a learning community, a number of families who would like to have a remote choice. At the high school, you can see the numbers here. We also have a substantial number over 200 families that would be interested in a remote option at this time. So how did we go about this? There was a lot of organizational thought in terms of the process of thinking all this through. And as I said, we've had a lot of people involved in the process, and that we had a core steering committee, but there were meetings that went on in smaller groups throughout the summer, all day long. But anyway, this was the structure of how we organized in different categories of things that we needed to be able to cover. And certainly there was, I don't think I need to really go through all this. This diagram is available in the document as well. But we had a number of people representing a variety of different roles in the school district. Certainly you'll hear from Mr. Feeney this evening at Director of Facilities, Director of Nursing, Director of Food Service, Transportation, MedCo, our security and homeless liaison, and certainly Julianna Keyes, who is the president of the Teachers AEA. We had principals on the committee and our director of the afterschool program. So it was a group of people who had different roles, important roles in the development of this plan. Where we are today is that as an administrative team, we would recommend that we begin school in a hybrid model with the strong provision that the status of the COVID-19 cases in Arlington, the state are within the metrics that are provided by the governor and the Department of Secondary Elementary and Secondary Education. At this juncture, I will be honest, we do not have those metrics, what they would be in terms of a decision. I'm expecting to receive them sometime in the next week or so. But this is very important. I think that as we watch the situation develop in the state, we have to be very attentive to what is the rate of infection and put that into a consideration of where we're going to be five weeks from now. I want to address some other recommendations that are part of this. Well, first of all, there's been mention of high needs students and what would be the criteria for who would be in this group of students. We are looking at our students, as Ms. Elmer mentioned on the last couple of meetings, that we're looking at students that have 25% more of their services and special education. We're looking at ELL students. We're also looking at students we've identified for extra help this summer through Title I. So we have very definitive categories and criteria for who would be in this group. And we would be advocating that these students attend school four days a week. And this would be true whether we are in a hybrid plan or remote plan. The other important feature of this is that a lot of parents want to have a remote option program and we are going to provide that. In fact, we actually do need to have a commitment from parents on whether this is something they're going to choose because it has major ramifications on gasoline space teachers that would be in classrooms or potentially teaching in this program. So next week, we are going to ask parents and guardians to commit to whether they want to have the remote option program. And we will be sending out more information about that. We will send out to parents samples of our remote program which is going to parallel very much the program that we would have remote all for students should we go into remote. We start remote or evolve into remote at some point this year. They however are going to be very distinct programs. The remote option program, people will commit to doing that and they will have an opportunity to ask and request to come back into the hybrid program but with a certain amount of notice but it will be on space availability because we're going to be making some important decisions around staffing based on what people choose. But this is going to be an option and we are going to staff it with primarily Arlington teachers. There may be some remote aspects to it but principally it will be Arlington teachers. A few last week the commissioner announced that he had a recent agreement with the teacher unions in the state that district should have at least 10 days to be able to help teachers prepare for whatever choice the district made. And it was mandated that they could have up to 10 days but what the caveat that student instruction would start September 16th. In Arlington we begin the school year on Tuesday, September 8th. And between the eighth and the 16th that only allows us six days for the collaboration and professional development and planning time that is going to be so important to a successful year. So one of the things I'm asking the school committee tonight is to approve that I apply for a waiver so that we can have three additional days for preparation during the week of the 14th. If we do, if that waiver is accepted what that would mean is that we would start school on September 21st. And we would have an elementary phase in, particularly we're looking to phase in our youngest learners so that they can be in the school by themselves and then we'll have a phase in for the other grades as well. At this point we are not suggesting a phase in at the secondary level. So, but with that one of the things that we have done this summer and as I said, Mr. Finne is here tonight we have been looking and evaluating the ventilation systems in all of our buildings in order to maximize the flow of fresh air into classrooms. As you know from the safety, the protocols that have been suggested by the Department of Education we wanna certainly have windows open we're not gonna be putting classrooms, classes in rooms that do not have windows but we also wanna make sure that our system allows as much fresh air into classrooms as possible. So, having said that one of the things that we have learned and it's probably no surprise to anyone because we're building a new high school that we need more time with the high school to evaluate the system. And we have a report that has been a high level report but we need now to have to hire mechanical engineers to actually come in and do work in the high school and identify the rooms that we know that they are at the level of ventilation that we feel is appropriate. So, the high school because that work is likely not gonna be able to be finished by the 21st of September is going to start remotely. And at this point I do not have a date at which we would project when they would move into hybrid because that is the goal for all of our pre-K to 12. So, we're hoping that the pre-K can be much more in-person as we move into the fall. So, the other is that the after school programs are going to are being planned and they will be following the hybrid schedule. We at this point do not know if there will be a program it gives it will depend upon parent interest. We certainly know that there will be a lot of interest at the elementary, but it would be the after school programs would be tied to the hybrid schedule for that student. And then the other important recommendation actually announcement is that the Board of Health in Arlington is arranging a testing free testing for all of our educators and staff before school opens and as well through the year as needed. The testing is going to be done in Arlington and the lab that is going to the tests are gonna go to are going to have a 24 to 36 hour return on the results. So, that is going to be in place for teachers and staff before school opens. So, those are the main components that I think are what people want to know a little bit more about at this point. There's certainly a myriad of details that we will address and probably through an FAQ is probably the most efficient way to do that moving forward. So, at this point, I know that there are a lot of facility questions, a whole list of them was delivered to Mr. Feeney and he is here this evening. I'm not sure if I don't, is he here, Ms. Morgan? I'm looking. You're looking. Mr. Feeney, if you're in the attendees list, could you raise your hand, which will bring you to the front? He's in the regular. He's here. Hi, I'm here. Can you hear me? Oh, good. All right, and then following Mr. Feeney, we're going to, Dr. McNeil is going to talk about the room, excuse me, the hybrid and the remote schedules. So, and Dr. Bode, I think before we, so I definitely want to hear from Mr. Feeney now because I know that his time is a little bit tricky. So, I want to make sure that we address what we want to with him and then I just, I want to get a, I want to have an opportunity to connect with the committee and just make sure that we're in agreement about how, you know, how we're going to keep moving forward in thinking about this. So, after Mr. Feeney's done, we're going to circle back and then go to Dr. McNeil, if that works. So, Mr. Feeney, you're up. Sure, so I would just like to echo what Kathy just mentioned that, you know, facilities department, we certainly have lingering concerns about the status of the mechanical equipment here at Arlington High, given its age and condition. Well, we do believe the equipment itself is certainly suitable for the provision of fresh air ventilation. That determination is really premised upon it, operating as originally designed. And, you know, it is imperative that its condition and operation be physically verified before releasing the spaces it serves for occupancy. We just really can't make any assumptions with equipment of that vintage is operating as intended. You know, we're still trying to find the right mechanical contractor with experience with older pneumatic control platforms who has both the resources, manpower and, you know, desire to go through this building and really take apart each piece of mechanical equipment that moves air and ensure that it's operating as intended. We do, we recently received favorable responses from a few vendors. You know, we're hoping to enter into further discussions with them this week to see exactly what manpower they may be able to provide and when they may be able to provide it. So beyond that, we are continuing to progress through the remainder of the district, but we certainly have some strong lingering concerns about the conditions here at Arlington High. Beyond that, since the last meeting, one other thing I would like to report is that we have been carefully surveying and inventorying our screen portfolio throughout the district. We do have three school buildings being the Bishop, Audison in Arlington High that are primarily unscreened. So the windows were not necessarily designed or provided for screens. We did have one outside vendor in for a site visit this week. We have two more outside vendors coming in tomorrow and yet a fourth vendor who may be interested in coming in later this week. So we have identified a simpler means for screening the openings that are either casement or awning style that traditionally present a challenge with screens that would slide up and down in order for someone to operate the handle. What our goal is presently is to choose two operable windows in every classroom to screen. And we believe that by using a number of vendors simultaneously it will be able to achieve that goal by mid to late September. So I believe those are the only two substantive updates that I would offer since the last time we spoke. Great, thank you, Mr. Feeney. So that we can let Mr. Feeney go. He graciously answered a number of fairly technical questions for us. Over email. But let's see what questions people have. So Ms. Ecksten. You answered most of my questions but I'm just wondering if any consideration has been given to ordering HEPA air purifiers for rooms that don't have adequate ventilation. So we have placed an order for HEPA air filters for all of the nursing suites in each and every building in the designated isolation room. We've also ordered HEPA air purifiers for the Parmenter building given some concerns about age of equipment there. We have not considered ordering larger numbers of equipment. We're more so looking at areas that may not be adequately ventilated or don't have windows and advising that those rooms be avoided for occupancy. I'll admit that we've placed large orders for pieces of equipment and I placed some orders back in May that are still just trickling in for some of our occupied town buildings. So we've placed a couple large orders but we're still waiting to take delivery of products and it seems that delivery dates continue to get pushed out. Thanks. Mr. Cardin. Thank you and thank you for the answers, the written answers Mr. Feeney. I guess in your written answers, I mean, I think you indicated downtown's house, the links building is also much newer than the rest of the building. So I'm just wondering for the remote, the in-person programs that we need to start on September 21st, will we have space in that complex for those programs? So at count today, there were 22 classrooms, I believe in downs that given the style and type of equipment, we have a high degree of confidence that would be operational and provide more than sufficient ventilation. There are a few classrooms in the links building but as we did an initial tour with a consulting mechanical engineer, we discovered that a lot of the fresh air baffles at some point in the history of this building had been blocked over and that was primarily due to frequent freeze ups on the heating coils on those units. I guess that sort of Millbrook Drive, sort of as I understand it forms a bit of a wind tunnel and when you get that chilling outside air, it was coming in those fresh air louvers and causing freeze issues in those units. So at some point in our history, it's been the fresh air intakes have been somewhat baffled over. So unless and until those were removed, I would not advise we use the link spaces on the upper floors that have been baffled over. Okay, and in the written plan, Dr. Janger referenced a count of 52 classrooms that we thought with these repairs would be usable. Is that the correct number? So 22 plus 30 additional? The only figure based on my own personal analysis and the analysis of our team over the past couple of days that we have a high degree of confidence in is the downs building. So we have not necessarily been into those other classrooms just yet and it's sort of a manpower issue on our end. So we're hoping to get, as I mentioned, some mechanical vendors in to help us look at those spaces. But generally speaking, it is a lot easier to service and get operational a cabinet unit ventilator serving a classroom that draws fresh air directly in from a louver on the other side of the wall. But that the equipment on the roofs or in crawl spaces that may have been exposed to weather may have yet additional repairs that are far more challenging and more costly. But really we won't know until we've got those additional resources to really visually inspect and confirm the operation of all the equipment. Okay, and then I had one other question that I've been seeing your response. When we switch on the heat, which I guess we can delay until late October, but when we switch on the heat, and this is for all of our buildings, what then happens to the fresh air intake? Is it, are we still okay? Or will there be issues then? You know, so if we were running 100% outdoor air on our systems in the fall, in late fall we would start to run into comfort issues because the design capacity of our heating systems isn't necessarily to preheat in heat that much cold outdoor air. So in the fall we would run into comfort issues but in the winter where freezing temperatures would come for those systems that are served by hot water heating coils, not necessarily it wouldn't be an issue with steam but those hot water heating coils could start to see freeze ups with that much really cold air passing over them. So we would have to start dialing back those outdoor air dampers and probably only partially rely on the opening of exterior windows to a smaller extent to keep that real cold air from rushing into the classrooms. Okay, so I guess there's still some, there still seem to me in my mind some uncertainty about what that means for air quality issues. If we're limiting the fresh air intake that generally sounds like it's not a great thing but there's nothing else we can do so. So we would only be able to dial it back to its current setting or perhaps plus an additional 10 or 15% additional outdoor air. We can never turn off outdoor air entirely. The various codes require us to provide a continuous source of outdoor air. The current code requires 10 CFM per occupant and 0.12 CFM per square foot of space. So that's sort of the design capacity of all our systems. But I would add that the minimum ventilation settings on our systems are based on a full occupant loading. So if there were some lesser amount of students in a classroom, you would still be, if it were half, for example, you would still be receiving twice as much fresh air ventilation than is required by code per student. Okay, so just one comment is that for the high school, we really need more information as soon as possible as to, is it even repairable, right? And how many classrooms can we get up beyond the 22 that we know of? So we really need a count of how many kids, assuming we can get somebody to repair the equipment, how many rooms can we then use? Because I think Dr. Janger was indicating that he might be coming up short, right? So that affects a lot of planning. If we can never get a full hybrid model, if we can never get half the kids into that building, then that affects an enormous amount of planning on our part. So as quickly as possible, obviously, we need to get that information. Thank you. I know you're working as hard as you can, but it's critical information. Thanks. Thank you. Dr. Allison Ampe? My question was very similar to Len's. What I would, what I think would be really helpful is to have a spreadsheet showing by school, the classrooms, what the desi recommendations are, what work's been done or is being done and how close we are to meeting desi recommendations and then timing on what's left. And especially, you know, I understand this is making work for somebody and maybe just focusing on the high school to start with, because partly it's hard to hear all these things and bits and pieces and have a sense of what's really, you know, what the big picture is. And this might be something that we should discuss at a future facilities subcommittee meeting. Then my other question was just, how are we going to maintain building security if we're using all these screens, especially if we're using screens overnight? Thank you. Sure, so in speaking to the screens, you know, I wouldn't necessarily be in favor of leaving windows open overnight given the security issues you outlined. What we would be considering doing, and as I understand why folks would wanna keep windows open overnight is to sort of, I guess, pre-cool a building prior to occupancy, that the sort of current ASHRAE guidelines for ASHRAE being the, you know, the leading industry organization for the ventilation of buildings, you know, recommend that we start our, really any system that moves air, both exhaust ventilation and fresh air ventilation, two hours prior to occupancy and then we run it for an additional four hours post-occupancy to essentially pre-flush and post-flush the buildings, you know, as we're bringing in that fresh air into the building, we would achieve that sort of same level of cooling that we would get if we had left windows open overnight. So, you know, as it stands today, I would just advise that we use the windows during the occupied periods that it would not be necessary to leave them open, you know, all night. Mr. Delman. Yeah, thank you. And Jim, earlier today, you answered about 15 questions that I sent by email. I'm not gonna go into all those details, but there are a couple of points that I wanna make. One is that you made it clear that there are no state standards for ventilation. There's a third-party organization called ASHRAE, which has certain standards for ventilation, which are in effect at the time that a piece of equipment is purchased. So that's just the way that industry has evolved. I think there are two things that people wanna, and the public might wanna know about. Jim, one is if you can speak to the air conditioning units that will be in the high school during the rebuild. And the second thing, if you could speak to, people have raised questions about tents and what it would take to get tents in and around schools. And maybe if you can speak of that process. Sure, so to your first point regarding the potential introduction of air conditioning units, we were targeting the Fosco building here at the high school, given our concern about the ability to open the windows in that building due to dust and noise from construction on the front lawn. So, not only would those units provide some cooling, they would be designed to exchange air and draw in fresh air, but also essentially provide some noise cancellation or white noise. So I know there's some ongoing discussion about exactly what type of unit and where to place them. And I'm still waiting to hear, I think Ballot was gonna, the consulting engineers were gonna make some final recommendations. In terms of tents, because we started to hear from principals many weeks ago regarding this issue, we do know that they're in high demand. There are a lot of districts and willing to get the same number of tents. We're fortunate that we received an early commitment from Taylor Rental here in Arlington to serve. Arlington's needs, before they would start serving needs in other communities. So we have reserved at least eight 20 foot by 40 foot semi-permanent tents that would provide the appropriate lateral stability, have the right flame spread riding, basically that there would be professionally installed, we would get permits for them and we could put them proximal to eight schools. We were thinking about targeting the seven elementaries and the Gibbs to start. And we're also seeing what other vendors may be available to provide tents of other sizes. But in speaking with principals, they're also interested in some have already procured and some PTOs have assisted with getting some additional, what I'd call tailgate style tents that you would maybe are 12 by 12, 10 by 10, 15 by 15, that they would quickly erect if outdoor conditions were suitable that day for specialized activities and take down at the end of the day because they wouldn't be secure enough to leave overnight where they could be displaced by wind or subject to vandalism. Okay, thank you, Jim. Mr. Schlickman. No further questions. Mr. Heiner. Thank you for all the work you and your people have done and between members of the committee and yes, as you've given, I've got nothing more. Thank you. And I, all of my questions have been answered except for the, I just had one was the question of the ticketing system for facilities tickets within the building. I understand that at least we're getting reports that this has been a challenge in the past to close these requests out. And I was wondering what the plans are for addressing those and what would be sort of an indicator that we could use that would indicate that that system is meeting the needs of our teachers and staff. Sure, so I think the system you're referring to is what we somewhat affectionately know as school dude. It's a software package that the district has had for some time. It was originally procured under the leadership of a prior facilities director and then the following facilities director for one reason or another shelved that product and then in collaboration with Mike Mason we started to relaunch that program in the winter. Training was ongoing and then we abruptly experienced the COVID shutdown. So again, without folks in the building we're again receiving phone calls, text messages, emails, et cetera for the various requests. But we do hope that once we're have somewhat of a return to normalcy that we'll be able to use that software again to its full advantage with what I would hope to see though and just here for an interim tenure we'd always look to the average time between a ticket is opened to its closure. That's typically the best metric but again from Mike tenure here I think that metric will always be somewhat disappointing somewhat disappointing given that as of today we only have five craftsmen in the maintenance department serving all 11 public schools and another 29 or so town buildings. So we're constantly putting out fires and just generally woefully under staff. So I'm afraid that metric if we're readily available would be I think disappointing to most. Thank you Mr. Feeney. So I guess before we move on I wanted to hear from the committee about sort of where we're at, how we want to think about what we're here to do. And I know we have Dr. McNeil to hear from and I also heard from Dr. Bodie that she needs some guidance from us around the application for a waiver and our intent of a school start date. So it sounds like we need to consider that piece as well tonight, which is fine. So again, this is the piece where we don't talk about this before. So we got to figure it out here. So how do people want to move forward with this? I see Mr. Heiner, I see Mr. Thielman. So Mr. Heiner. I just want clarification. We're talking about the recommendation as a hybrid model, but after hearing from Mr. Feeney and Dr. Bodie and stuff, it will be all remote at the high school and is it remote at Audison as well? Initially, I just want to make that clear. So I have a question to get clarified. Okay, so Dr. Bodie, do you want to take that question and then we'll move to Mr. Thielman? Yes, it is correct that the high school would begin remotely, again, with the goal of moving into a hybrid at some point. We don't know when that will be yet. Depends on what Mr. Feeney was talking about in terms of the analysis of the rooms. As far as the Audison middle school, at some point before the heating season or maybe even between Thanksgiving and the holiday season, we can do the work then, but there are some leaks in the system, the air system that need to be fixed. And Audison right now is you have to manually change the dampers, they can't be just automatically done. So we can get the dampers open for full airflow and it's, but then when the heating season comes, we really need to make the repairs to have a comfortable building. As you know, we've had some issues with the rooftops and we've been in a capital program to replace those from the time that the first one failed a couple of years ago. When it'd be more practical to go remote at the beginning, get the fixes done and then go to hybrid at Audison? That is an option, yes. Okay, thank you. Mr. Thielman and then Mr. Schluppen. Well, my thinking at this point, the meeting was to put a motion on the table that would respond to the superintendent's recommendations. Explain it, if there's a second, explain it and then we have a discussion. What I've, a motion that I've written responds to the superintendent's recommendations with specific guidance and guidelines, including deadlines for a report on facilities, including a deadline for a report on a revised reentry plan based on conversations with union leadership. So I wanted to, that's what I was gonna put on the table but I don't wanna jump the process here and do something that people don't wanna do. So let's hear from Mr. Schluppen because I saw his hand was up. Thank you, Madam Chair. I wanted to make a statement before we went any further because I wanna put my thoughts out in the portion of the meeting where it be the most deliberative. I'm facing the most critical decision I've made in 18 years of school committee service. This has the potential to be a life or death decision for students and staff in the Arlington Public Schools as well as their families and the rest of our community. I wanna describe the context of the decision this committee is being asked to make tonight. There are 7.8 billion people on earth, 331 million people who live in the United States. Massachusetts law prohibits me from discussing this decision with only six other people, my colleagues on the Arlington School Committee. The open meeting law prohibits us from deliberating outside of a public meeting. I can't talk outside these meetings with the six colleagues with whom I will share this decision. Unfortunately, the meetings leading up to this night have primarily focused on the school administration talking to the school committee with only a limited opportunity to ask questions to the administration. And we now find ourselves hard on a desi deadline with little or no opportunity for the committee to discuss our decision among each other. The key word here is decision as the voters of the town of Arlington have elected us to make decisions on their behalf. Our role is to decide, not ratify. Sadly, we find ourselves on the track to ratification of a hybrid plan without evidence that's safe or educationally sound. In my view, we cannot build any plan without a foundation built on the health and safety of our students and staff. We closed our schools last March because the governor shut down the state because the risk of COVID transmission in our schools was unacceptable. What is the probability of COVID transmission in September if we adopt the hybrid model? I can't answer that question, but I am confident the probability of bringing the virus into our schools is greater than zero. What happens if COVID comes into our schools? Again, there's no certainty, just the matrix of probabilities that we still can't quantify. We are told that younger children are more likely to be asymptomatic. We know that asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic people spread the virus. Without a robust frequent testing program, we won't know we have a problem until we see the virus generate noticeable symptoms. By that time, we could have a major outbreak in our schools. When we look at the entry and spread of the virus into our schools, it's unrealistic to expect the probability of zero, but I would want that number to approach zero. The lack of testing, the lack of precedent, the lack of proven models, and the lack of reliable data places us in a position where we cannot calculate the probability of sickness spread in our schools. I believe the wisest course is to open and full remote plan and reconsider as we are able to collect evidence of success from other districts. There will be other Massachusetts districts similar to Arlington that will start with various hybrid models and we can learn from their experiences. We can observe the public health data from these districts. Going forward, this committee needs to deliberate and discuss the steps going forward. As I mentioned earlier, the open meeting law prevents us from discussing the school committee business with our colleagues. The state has determined that answering email in which it is possible for other members to read their responses is due to serial deliberation as a violation of that law. To that end, I would ask for information requested and required for our work to be provided in a timely manner. I would ask for documents we request to be provided without question or objection in a timely manner. I would ask for meetings to be structured to allow us the time to talk to each other as we work together to guide the district through this pandemic. I believe in science and I believe the extraordinary efforts of the researchers and public health professionals will lead us towards a full reopening before the conclusion of the school year. This won't be easy, but we will get to a better place. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Schuchman. Anybody else? So should we go back to, I mean, we can go back to- Why don't I, there's no objection. I'll put this motion forward. If there's a second, I'll speak to it. If there isn't, then we move on. How's that sound? Is that okay? Sure. Okay. So moved that the school committee accepts the superintendent's recommendation to open the Arlington Public Schools in September of 2020 with a hybrid learning model for all students at all levels as recommended in her fall 2020 reentry plan submitted to the school committee on August 10th, 2020. Subject to change as circumstances regarding COVID-19 evolve or if the governor issues orders closing schools with the following eight conditions. Number one, the plan shall include a remote learning option which shall be taught by Arlington Public School teachers with limited exceptions for some courses approved by the superintendent and which shall be available to all students and families who wish to choose it. Number two, Arlington High School will implement a hybrid model, meaning some in-person instruction but currently plans to begin instruction remotely because of issues with HVAC and the facility. Accordingly, by no later than Friday, August 28th, 2020, the superintendent shall prepare report on the high schools reopening plan, including a projected date to commence the hybrid learning model. Three, by no later than Friday, August 28th, 2020, the superintendent shall prepare a report to the school committee, summarizing any areas in any school building where there are HVAC or other issues that may impede opening, the number of students and staff impacted by physical plan issues and a plan to remedy any such physical plan issues, including a remote learning plan which shall be in place until such buildings are ready to receive any impacted students and staff. Number four, by no later than Friday, August 28th, 2020 or sooner, if mandated by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the superintendent shall prepare a revised reentry plan to the school committee addressing any new information on the impact of COVID-19 in our region, including a revised schedule for reentry into any APS school if such revision is necessary. Five, by no later than Friday, August 28th, 2020, the superintendent shall present to the school committee a report on health metrics provided by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts or another recognized health authority which the district will use to warrant a transition to each educational model, remote, hybrid and in-person. Number six, the school committee supports a waiver application for the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to permit APS teachers to have three additional professional training and preparation days from September 16 to 18 which allows for a 171 day school year commencing no later than September 21st, 2020. Number seven, the superintendent shall periodically survey and provide reports to the school committee and the public throughout the 2021 school year on parent and staff experiences with all learning options, remote, hybrid and in-person. And number eight, the superintendent shall notify the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education of the Arlington School Committee's decision to resume instruction in September with a hybrid learning model as specified in this motion. If there's a second, I'll speak to it. A second for the purpose of discussion. Okay, let me speak to the motion. So the first part of the motion basically says what Dr. Bodie says, which is that we're gonna have a hybrid learning model subject to change as circumstances evolve with COVID-19. Number one, point number one states that all families can avail themselves of a remote learning option and also specifies that that learning option will be taught by teachers of the Arlington Public Schools though there may be some limited exceptions for courses approved by the superintendent. Two, speaks to the issue that Dr. Bodie raised about the high school. It says we'll begin with a hybrid model but I'm sorry, we'll begin with remote instruction but by the 28th of August, we need a specific plan targeting a date to transition to hybrid. Number three is a facilities report. I mean, we've heard a lot tonight on facilities from Jim and other people. We need to know, I think what Percy said earlier, a matrix that answers our questions about each building is important to have. I think the public needs to do that. Number four requires a revised re-entry plan by August 28th. That is an opportunity for the superintendent to come to us by August 28th and say, I want to begin remotely in the following schools or the following situations for the following number of days with a specific plan to begin hybrid by a certain date. So that gives her flexibility but she's got to come to us with a proposal. Number five is we need to report on health metrics so we need to know what the metrics are from the Commonwealth or from another authority that are gonna be used to make decisions about each phase, each model. Number six is a support of the waiver application. Number seven is the requirement for a survey and then number eight is to transmit this to the desi. So I wanna, I hear exactly what Paul is saying about how big this decision is and I wanna, I think all of us are concerned about the health and safety certainly of our own children and certainly of teachers and administrators in the schools. None of us wanna be, wanna see an outbreak of COVID-19 in our schools. None of us wanna put teachers or students at risk. I think the reality is that the coronavirus is gonna be with us for a long period of time. We all have our, we all read different reports. People that I know who are actually working on this solution and some of the companies in biotech in this region have said that in a good case scenario, an optimistic scenario, we might have something by the end of the school year but best case scenario some are saying could be two years. In other words, we could have two years of a situation in which we're living the way we're living right now. We don't, we won't have a vaccine. That's a high likelihood, that's highly possible. So we have to figure out a way to live with this degree of uncertainty that will infect our kids' lives for two years. It means the junior and senior year of kids in the high school will be vastly different with what others have experienced. It means children entering seventh grade right now at the Addison Middle School may never really know that building and those teachers. So this is a difficult time. This is a virus that we're gonna have to live with and manage. We're gonna need protocols in our schools and our communities to open and reopen and close and reopen schools. That's just a, I think it's just a fact of life right now, unfortunately. The third point I wanna make is that I was hopeful for a long time that we were gonna see receive quite a bit of a federal support that never really has materialized. And I think at the local level, we're all gonna have to give a little and work together to come up with solutions that are in the best interest of our kids. I always like to go into work situations assuming that people have good intentions. And I think that everyone who spoke tonight does. And I also think everybody on the school committee side and the administrative side does as well. I think that our kids have lost a great deal. That's the bottom line and we've lost a great deal. And I think the whole world in one way or another is mourning in some respects. We've lost, you know, kids have lost sports, they've lost music, play dates, plays they were gonna be in, camp. It's a sad time. And if we don't contemplate that if we're not reflecting on that, we're not human. And I think most of all, kids miss seeing their teachers and friends in a school building. I'm not expecting that we're gonna get back to what we had on March 10th, 11th and 12th before we went remote. I don't know one believes that anymore. But I think the hybrid model gives us the best chance to have a solid education for more students. I hear what people are saying about remote. I think we let a lot of people down. I take ownership of this as a member of the school committee. I think we let a lot of people down with remote learning in the spring. I do and I take ownership of it. I don't think it's something that we pass off to teachers. And I think teachers work very hard, but we didn't deliver. And the reason why we didn't deliver is because on the other side of the remote instruction are 6,000 kids, multiple learning abilities, multiple learning issues, multiple households facing all sorts of different pressures and tensions. And that's a hard equation to be successful in. I appreciate that right now we have a situation in which 75% of parents in the town want remote or even in-person instruction and a significant percentage of our teachers don't want that. And that's a hard situation. But I think that we can work together to develop safety protocols. I think we can work together to develop a phased-in opening. Clause number four in this motion gives the superintendent room to do that and to come to us with a specific proposal, which I haven't heard tonight. There are examples of committees act in Boxborough, different committees where people had different views and they've come together to rally around a solution for kids. And I think we can do the same thing in our own. So I would urge people to support this motion. I think it gets us started. It has very specific deadlines. It meets what Mr. Schlickman said a few minutes ago about deadlines for reports. I don't think there's any good solutions. I think that I don't think there's any perfect solution. I don't think there's any perfect solution. And I appreciate all of the fears and concerns that people have. I have those fears and concerns as a parent, believe me. But I think the model, the hybrid model is the best way forward. I think this motion gives us 18 days to do more planning. And it gives the superintendent, her staff, the teachers union time to talk about different options. I think it's the best way forward and I think it's a solid solution. So that's where I stand. I'll stop talking and we'll go from there. Madam chairman. Yes, Mr. Schlickman. I'd like to ask to divide the question to separate line items six and seven from the rest of the question, please. I'll second that. All right. Well, should we talk about that? You want to pull out six and seven from... Create a second motion. All right. So you want to pull out the supporting of a waiver application to desi to permit teachers to have three additional PD days and the survey and reports to the school committee on parent and staff experiences. Yeah, I'd like to pull those out and vote those separately. Okay. How do you feel about that, Mr. Steeleman? Fine with that. All right. Mr. Cardin. Thank you. So I agree with Mr. Schlickman that one of the things we haven't had a lot of time to do is have a discussion. We used to have it at a table in person. It was a little bit different than on the screen but we have not heard much about each other's perspective about reopening. So unfortunately tonight is our decision point and so we're having that discussion now. And my point is that whichever option we decide on there's still a lot more detail that needs to be filled in that this group, our subcommittees can work on improving things. Cause there's a great deal of improvement that I think still needs to be done for any plan that we go forward with. So as the teachers union has recommended maybe we phase things in a little slower. So maybe the first week of school, half of cohort A attends on Monday, half of cohort A attends on Tuesday. There's certainly other ways to phase it in but I do think the point of 400 kids joining up at Audison is something to consider. There's definitely a room for improvement but what we're talking about tonight is the general direction and the general direction that I'm comfortable with is agreeing with the superintendent's recommendation to move to hybrid, open with hybrid, except where there's some HVAC or health issue that we can't do that. And where I come from on this is that in-person education is an essential service for many students. We've heard from many of the parents who the spring did not work for them. And I've spoken to some of them about that and clearly even an enhanced synchronous learning and some of them did have teachers that tried that is not gonna work for their students. So we don't really have a good way to stiff doubt whether it's 20% of our kids, whether it's 50%. So I think we need to move forward with offering that to whoever thinks they need it. As far as the health issues, obviously we're all very concerned but me as an individual school committee member, I can't place, I've been reading lots of articles. I've read almost every article that people have sent. I've read more that I found on my own endless articles all over the board about this issue. But I can't substitute my judgment for our State Department of Public Health for our Massachusetts chapter of the Academy of Pediatricians for the National Academy of Sciences for the Harvard School of Public Health which all have published guidelines suggesting that with metrics we have today we should be prioritizing in-person school. So as a result, I'm pleased with the recommendation and there's lots more work to be done to make this work but I do support going forward with a hybrid option. And one other point, a lot of the parents, unfortunately there was some bad information that went out about what the remote option would look like. I am committed and I think this entire committee is committed to having a robust remote option available to anybody who needs or wants it taught primarily by Arlington teachers. There may be tools that are offered. The State just told us what they were a couple of days ago. There may be tools, the asynchronous lessons that may be helpful for us to purchase but all of that will still be led synchronously by Arlington teachers. And some of the emails were pitting the remote parents against those who want the hybrid option. And unfortunately, that's not a good way to look at it. We can do both. We've got 6,000 students, we've got at least 1200 that likely will opt the remote option. We need to make sure that both of those options are robust and the administration, we need to make sure the administration develops puts the leadership in place so that we have a director of the remote academy as needed or whatever structure is necessary to make both options robust. I think that's all of my points for now. Thank you. We can come back for a minute to you. Dr. Allison Ampe. Okay, so I have two, I also have a statement. And also we need to, I feel we need to wordsmith topic number five on the current motion because it doesn't quite say what it should say, but I'm gonna make my statement first and then we can wordsmith. So I, to cut to the chase, I also support a hybrid option, but I'm gonna go through all this. I wasn't sure when we would be making statements so it's kind of not exactly at the right point, but I realized that the American Association of Pediatrics has recommended that school be held in person. But I know the recommendations regarding risk and benefit have not been updated since June 25th. They also issued a release, news release on July 10th stating that local school leaders, public health experts, educators and parents must be at the center of decisions about how and when to reopen schools taking into account the spread of COVID-19 in their communities and the capacities of school districts to adopt safety protocols and making in-person learning safe and feasible. I also realized that the Massachusetts Association of Pediatrists also recommends that school be held in person. I've looked at the citations provided on their website and none of these address the current, the type of risk-benefit analysis that we're being asked to do tonight. I wanna be very clear, our difficulties today are not a fault of our school administration nor of our school committee. We and you, our families have been shortchanged by our federal government, by our state government and by our department of elementary and secondary education. Ultimately, this is not just an educational decision. It is a public health question. Our federal government has not given clear guidance about the needs of schools and has created confusion from the highest levels where there should have been leadership. Our state government has not supplied easily accessible metrics such as average new cases per 1,000, per 100,000. We have to go to the New York Times website to find that on a county level and is not available in a consolidated fashion for towns at all. Our states have worked with their major universities to model consequences of going back to school under different plans. Betsy has also failed to deliver the suggestions for metrics leaving us to make these decisions. The question that should be, has been being asked all along was, what do we as a state or we as a country need to do to make it possible for school to be back in session? And then do it. That said, we'll still likely have to make this decision tonight. Given the lack of state or federal guidelines in terms of metrics, I'm relying on the Harvard Global Health Initiative path to zero guidelines. These guidelines were created by a consortium of institutional partners including from Harvard, Georgetown, the Rockefeller Institute and the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. They suggest that given an average daily case incidence of one to less than 10, the priorities are to open pre-K and special education, then grades six through eight and then grades nine through 12. For us to do this, we would have to open in a hybrid model. We don't have the space and my understanding and I may be wrong. We don't have the space and staff to bring all back simultaneously and still be safe. At this point in time, Arlington's case incidence is low where Middlesex County has been around five for the past week. I think we need to look at both of those given where Arlingtonians shop and play and where our staff lives. Both metrics are consistent with reopening school in person. And I've been watching these. I was much more worried two weeks ago when the cases were rising. Over the past, they peaked around August 8th, August 5th and they've been plateaued or going down in the different counties nearby since that time. I don't understand why the governor made a big deal of things on Friday. I was panicked 10 days ago. And yes, we need to be looking at what the positive testing rate is, but that's just one of the things that we need to be looking at. I think the case incident, that's kind of looking, are we doing enough testing? What the case incidence rate is really how much virus is there out there in people? Then to continue my statement, but there is another component to the guidelines. The expectation in the Harvard Global Health Initiative guidelines is to also have COVID testing results and contact tracing available in 24 hours. If we're able to achieve this and it sounds like we are from information that we were given tonight, I will vote in favor of the hybrid plant at this time. And I lost my other page. Okay. I had another paragraph just that things change. I mean, if we hear more about how, more about how transmission or contagion or anything is significantly different and affects how we should be doing school, then I would consider changing my vote at that point. Thank you. Anybody else? Ms. Eksten. I'm also planning to support Mr. Thielman's motion. I think that a lot of thoughts that have not already been shared are the thoughts that I have. I think it's important to remember that it's never going to be 100% safe. And we need to think about risk reduction strategies, which include physical distancing, mask wearing, frequent hand hygiene, well-ventilated spaces and rapid testing and contact tracing. And so I agree with Dr. Alison Ampe that we need to maybe work on number five specifically. But I think with specific guidelines for health and safety and for specific measures that hopefully we can get from DESI that we can make a determination about how to proceed in a hybrid model. I have a lot of concern for our special education students or for our youngest learners in a remote model. I think it's incredibly challenging for them to learn in that way. And so as Mr. Cardin mentioned, tweaking what the hybrid looks like and what phasing in might look like is something that we can continue to talk about. But overall, I really believe there are a lot of children in the Arlington Public Schools that need to be in an Arlington Public School building to receive their education. I think, again, our goal of getting students into the buildings, I'd have liked to have seen a little more flexibility in the plans as they were coming along, but I'm hoping that we can continue to work on that specifically supporting preschoolers and kindergarten through second grade. But, and this plan that, this motion that Mr. Thielman has presented offers an option for remote model, remote learning model for families that would like to opt into that. And I know how hard the Arlington Public School teachers have been working this summer to make that a robust, thoughtful, really full program. And so I feel that the students and families who decide to select that are going to have a positive learning experience. As well. Thank you. Mr. Heiner, are you raising your- Yes, I am. Your cloth, your wound didn't have- Oh, yeah. I am so grateful for the intellect that surrounds me at this group. I see myself at the bottom of the rung. You've all said it well. I need to be secure in the fact that if things go south, we're able to shut it down again. I don't want that to happen. I agree with what Mr. Hexen said. The kids need to be in school. It's an important thing. So I will be supporting this as well. Thank you. So, my thinking about hybrid versus all remote, because that feels like that's the sort of decision that we're at a crossroads for right now has a lot to do with options and keeping our choices open. And I can understand that for some families and certainly some teachers, many teachers that the idea of still not being, not having strong certainty of how things are gonna play out is certainly challenging. Like Mr. Cardin, I am deeply committed to a robust remote by choice. That's what I call it. I call it remote by choice. Other people call it other things. I call it remote by choice option for families who elect to do so. That is the option right now, depending on how we proceed tonight, but that would be the option that right now would create certainty for families if that was their choice, right? If they decide to go remote by choice, that option is going to be available to all students on September 21st. So the way that I've framed this, I've actually, I think of myself sometimes as being a very, I try to be a sort of tactical person and I don't want to eliminate our options. And we have this whole slate of administrators on this call who are going to be charged with working with their teams of staff and teachers to implement whatever model we move forward with. And my concern with moving forward in an all remote is that it sets itself up at the beginning of the year, potentially very, very differently from a hybrid model. If we went back in all remote, we could schedule kids in classes and cohorts very much like we did last year, right? Where there are four Gen Ed teachers in the Bishop third grade and each student gets assigned to a teacher and then we would go into a remote model and that would be their educator. And that model doesn't hold up. It doesn't transition back into a hybrid at all. You just, you can't do it, right? Because unless, so what we need to do as a community is go through that really painful process of making the choice between having hybrid as an option and being remote by choice. Families need to go through that painful decision. And I think that it's really hard because you may make a different, some a family on your street may make a different decision than you do. And it's really painful and it's really hard. And it's gonna be a really hard process for our educators as well to move themselves into a remote by choice or a hybrid by choice return group. But I really believe that in order to move forward and in order to keep progressing towards coming back in some way at some point during the school year that we have to do that work now. The two things that are really important to me are metrics around health and facilities. Either one creates an easy no-go situation, right? So if your facilities aren't ready, you can't go. And if your health metrics don't support it, you can't go. The health metrics and whatever, and I put testing in there, testing is very important. And but I group that in there, maybe somewhat unfairly but the health metrics are gonna be a district-wide situation, right? We're gonna get a go-no-go with that. But the facilities is gonna differ by building, right? Because it sounds like we certainly have a situation with the high school where there are very real concerns and not a clear timeline at present about how we can make those repairs to get the kind of ventilation that we expect. But the facilities piece can be done by level. But it sounds like the teams are working on thinking about what kind of a sort of slow roll-in would look like also by level. So I feel comfortable moving forward in planning for a hybrid return, but I also recognize that it's six weeks from today is September 21st, which is the date we're circling around. And I understand we haven't committed to that. We can pull it out as part of this motion per Mr. Schliffman's request. But that's an eternity in COVID times. It's a really, really long time. And so I think we can use that time to, and what I like about Mr. Thielman's motion is that I feel as though it really sets us up in terms of figuring out how our decision process is gonna go. So I would like an option for kids to go back to school. Next year, I am open to different kinds of starts at different levels based on the needs of the facilities, but we just need a lot more clarity about that. And this motion seeks to secure that for us in a timely way. And so that's kind of where I'm at. So is there Ms. Keyes? Hi, thank you. No offense to Mr. Thielman, but I take a lot of offense at this motion because the only thing that this is going to do for staff is create 18 more sleepless nights and days that we can't start planning. Because by punting these decisions down the line, like maybe we'll know this in 18 days, that means like we're still in limbo. And that's really hard for people who haven't slept all summer, for people whose families are on the line, for people who are wondering if they have to quit because they're not gonna be able to adapt to this new situation. That's really hard. And that's pushing us so close to the start of school. Teachers will start school that next Wednesday. That's too close for us to be making these decisions. So if you're not sure right now that we can go back into buildings on September 2nd or September 21st, vote a phase in remote start. It sounds like you're all talking about that anyways. Agree to start that way and then tomorrow we can start planning. Even if you wanna shift into hybrid two weeks after that, if the metrics look good, that's great. In October 28th, you can start planning that hybrid moving kids into the building for a week after the 21st or whatever. Give us some security because this has dragged on since March and we are tired and it's ripping people apart. So if you could tonight, just say, we're gonna start remote for a week or two and then we're gonna bring kids in hybrid if everything looks good and we're gonna figure out exactly how that's gonna work out by August 28th. Everybody in the district could breathe a little bit but by punting this down the line, all you're doing is extending the stress of our staff and our families. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Keys. Anybody else? Mr. Cardin. Sorry, I just wanted to respond to that. I view the motion as a little bit different. I mean, we're putting a stake in the ground for hybrid and whether it starts on the 21st or the 22nd or the 28th, we're going for a hybrid. And we need probably 75% of our teachers to come into our buildings to teach in the hybrid model. 25% perhaps, depending on what the final signups are will be able to teach remote whether that's from their school classrooms or their homes will be determined. But this is saying we are going with hybrid as soon as possible. In some schools we may find, unfortunately we don't know the data right now. We do know for the high school but not for not as much information as we need. The exact date for kids to be in the building is going to be uncertain. The kids will be assigned to a hybrid model or a remote model starting on September 21. And then as soon as they can, they will start going into the buildings according to the schedules that we have. And if we decide to phase that in over a couple of weeks because the teachers might be more comfortable or because of negotiation issues or because of trying out the buses or for whatever reason, we have that flexibility. But this is saying that, within a few weeks we are going to be implementing the hybrid model. The other point I wanna make is just, I'm sorry, Jane. Mr. Thiamen, would you like to raise your hand first? Yes, Jane, sorry. Mr. Thiamen. The other point I wanna make is the superintendent's free to come back to us before the 28th. It was to give the district leadership time to consult, talk to people, think this through and come up with a more concrete plan. The other thing I wanted to say is Dr. Allison Ampey said the language in paragraph five was not specific enough. And so if we're gonna vote this, we need her amendment or we need a better wording. Sorry, Dr. Allison Ampey. I'll do this first and then I'll come back to the other stuff. Can I share my screen? Mr. Mason, can you, actually I think you should. Do I just hold the button and then, whoop. Oh, it gives me things. Sorry, I've never done this. It's like, I've never, okay. It's hard to pick the right thing to share. Yeah, sorry, sorry, I don't. Okay, I'm sorry. Dr. Allison Ampey, if you identify the thing, if you put the thing that you want to display on your screen, you open it up and then you hit the green arrow at the bottom of your screen, share screen, then that the thing that is on your screen opened up right now will be highlighted and then all you have to do is click on it. Okay, well let's see. The problem is that it's showing, I wanna share word and it's not showing me word. If you want to, you can just email me what you wanna share and then I can share it for you. No, because I might have to. Does that, did that work? Are you seeing, no. No. Oh, I see, I have to do, okay. I'm just gonna read it. I'm sorry, it's too much, too, I have to do, there's no way. Okay, I'm just gonna read it because I have to change system preferences to well machine screen to be shared and I'm not gonna do that in the middle of the meeting. Okay, so I will email this to Karen but I would suggest that the motion should read by no later than Friday, August 20, 28th, blah, blah, the superintendent shall present to the school committee a, shall, I'm saying, shall develop, or just a second, sorry. Okay, shall present to the school committee criteria informed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts or another recognized health authority and based on public health metrics to determine which warning model in-person hybrid remote will take place and when to transition between models. And the reason I'm saying that is that Mr. Thielman's motion is missing the criteria part, otherwise she was talking about norms, so. Ms. Morgan. Yes, Mr. Thielman. I accept that as a friendly amendment, that's fine. Mr. Heiner. Is that limited just to that one time? Or would this be done periodically? Dr. Allison Ampe. That would be part of the criteria is how often do you revisit your decision? Okay, because the statement said August 31st, so. That's when she has to have it worked out. It's like a, it's a decision tree. Thank you. Ms. Eckstyn. I just have a question about the testing. Is the testing on an as needed basis or is it gonna be like surveillance testing for the teachers? Dr. Boley. Oh, yes. I think she's asking you. Yeah, all right. I think that that's something, I think that that is something that can be worked out with the Board of Health and how that will work. What they're going to be using is COVID funds and to have. So I think that we can have it be available at any time. And in fact, right now anybody can go to different sites in the state. None of them are particularly close to us. They're not that far, but you can go and get a test every couple of days if you want. So that does exist. And I can tell you more details later, but I don't have more details right now. So what you mentioned as being available in Arlington for teachers before school starts is just a one time thing? No, it's going to be all year long. That option will be open. I thought you were asking me, is there gonna be a regular schedule for this? And I think it's not going to be, I don't know yet for, because all the details are being worked out right now. If they'll say, you can do this every week or every two weeks, but it's going to be available all year to teachers and staff. Okay. I'm just trying to figure out if in these metrics, in this piece that something about regular testing for teachers could be included or it would make sense, or maybe that's something that we can come back to when we are looking at these metrics. But I, again, as what's recommended, regular testing is sort of recommended as this risk reduction. And so I would advocate as much as possible for it to be something. As someone mentioned, you can read lots of different literature that have very different viewpoints on what is appropriate, regular, just as though it just involves any part of this. There's different studies that support different points of view. But what I will say is that the university, some of the testing is going on every three or four days, five days. I don't know if that's the right metric for doing this. This is something that the Board of Health will be providing more details about to the committee and to teachers and staff as well as we move forward. I don't know what that appropriate level is. Certainly you can be, right now, you could test negative, but in a few days I've contracted it. So you should be tested every three or four days as they're doing someplace like Northeastern. I don't know if we have that capacity to do that either. Right, and I recognize there's funding pieces too, but I just wanna make sure that it's something that we're continuing to talk about. Yes, absolutely, absolutely. Dr. Allison, can you, I'm gonna, I wanna hear what you have to say, but I need some, can we, can you reread? Cause I would like to see the word testing ideally in this motion somewhere that, I mean, for me, you know, when I, like I've landed on my two things, right? Like I want kids back in school, I care, I'm interested in facilities and I'm interested in public health metrics, right? And for me, as I said earlier, testing falls within that, but, you know, if we don't see the word in the motion, then, you know, I, I don't know. So can, Dr. Allison, can you read us where we're at now? My motion does not include testing because it's not intended to, or my revision of, of Mr. Sam's motion. Okay. Cause it's really intended to be looking at what the case incidents is of in Arlington in same middle sex county or whatever communities. I think it would be totally appropriate to have another motion, which talks about testing. And I think that would be more clear because if you stick them both in the same motion, you're really talking about two different things and it's just making it confusing. One is trying to say this, I mean, we need to have the testing to go forward. And so we need to know how the, you know, what this, how we're going to get the testing done, but looking at the metrics is a different thing. Okay. Okay. Do you want me to read it again anyway? No. Mr. Thielman and then Mr. Cardin. So thank you, Ms. Morgan. I think Ms. Eckstein could make a motion apart from this that directs the superintendent to give a report on the participation and amount of testing that is offered to our staff over the course of the 2020, 2021 school year. That might be the motion and that way there, we received periodic reports on, not we can't receive test results, but we can certainly receive reports on how's it going with the participation rate is that sort of thing. Mr. Cardin. So I was just going to add it as another contingency, another contingency like Cambridge did. Either way works for me. Dr. Allison Ampe. We're not looking for the participation or anything of testing. That's a different thing. What we're looking for is what are the plans for making testing available? Yes, that's right, agree. That's certainly my intent. I imagine it's Ms. Eckstein's intent too, but she can speak to that. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I would like to see regular three testing available to teachers in Arlington. I don't want them to have to be going to Everett and Chelsea to access testing. So, I mean, I guess in terms of making a motion or adding it as a contingency, I also hear Ms. Key's angst and feeling like this is being put off and I don't want testing to make it us have to change course. I support this moving forward with hybrid. So I don't know if adding it as a contingency or making it something separate affects the full motion. We're doing really well. Dr. Bodie and then Mr. Thielman. I can assure the committee you'll have more information from the board of health on this issue. What I do know is it will be in Arlington and if it's ongoing this year, it will be in Arlington and it's just working out the final details on how this is going to work. And as soon as that is established, I will let the committee know. I don't know if this is going to be a limit and how frequently it can be done, but that would be part of the report I would give you. Mr. Thielman. We could simply add a number. Well, since we divided the question, it would be number seven. By no later than August 28th, 2020, the superintendent shall prepare a report to the school committee on the plan to provide testing within the town of Arlington for our teachers and staff. Ms. Eksten. Yes, what he said. You want me to? Dr. Allison Ampe. You repeat that. I was trying to write my own mission. Oh, Dr. Allison Ampe. Okay. So number seven will be by no later than August 28th, 2020, the superintendent shall present a report to the school committee on the plan to provide COVID-19 testing to our teachers and staff within the town of Arlington. Okay. Mr. Heiner. Just going on with what Dr. Bodie said, if it comes down to limited funding, I'd like the committee at that time to address it. I'd like to know that if that comes down to there. That's all. Mr. Thielman, you look like you have something to say. Yeah, no, the one other thing I just want to add is to what Mr. Schlickman said earlier in the evening. To get to this point, it would have been helpful to have like a subcommittee meeting beforehand. So as we plan the next couple of meetings of the school committee, when we get those reports, it might be good to allow a day for subcommittees to meet to craft these sort of things. Cause you can, you know, you work it out. It's easier to work out in a subcommittee. That's all I wanted to say. Just, I'll leave it. Great. Mr. Heiner. Going on with Mr. Thielman just said, as soon as the superintendent gets this information, share it with the appropriate subcommittee, not sticking to that one date if possible. Dr. Allison Ampe. Now I'm going back to ways. I would like to offer a friendly amendment to motion number one. It says the plan shall include a remote learning option. I think it should be changed to remote by choice learning option because it's getting very, I'm just having a hard time keeping track of what remote things we're talking about. And then, so that's a friendly amendment. And then the other point is, it seems to me that no matter what we do, we can do it under, no matter what we do on the first day of school, it can all be under the hybrid umbrella. It can be everyone's doing hybrid remote for a while. And then they come back and they're all starting to do remote. I mean, not every, there's the people who have chosen remote, you know, the remote by choice people, they're off, they're chugging, they're doing their stuff, right? Go on. But all the other people start hybrid, but perhaps like the high school, the facility is not ready yet. So they start their hybrid, but they're doing just remote, they're just doing the remote section of hybrid. But because they've been set up in a hybrid fashion, when the building or maybe sections of the building are ready and waiting for them, then they can start coming in, right? And it also, it makes it easier if we transition, you know, if suddenly there was a spike or something near the start of school and we need to do remote for a while, it makes it easier to transition. If we just say we're starting remote and don't pay any attention to how we've allocated everybody, then we've got to do all this figuring out when it comes time to sending them back. So I think we start with the hybrid umbrella and then the next thing is figuring out who's actually in school or not. So that's all. Okay, so I... I accept the friendly amendment from Dr. Allison Ampe to add remote by choice learning option. Great. So I see we have a, so I am mindful, so we are sort of moving forward in our process. I would also like, especially because I'm hearing, you know, Dr. Bodie talk about remote by choice and that we're going to need to ask families to make a decision about that. I, you know, I certainly want to make sure that we have time. I want to hear more about what hybrid and remote by choice look like. I know Dr. McNeil has something for us on that. Do we, I guess I defer to you, Mr. Thielman, should we, do we want to move forward with this motion now and then take some time to, I mean, we've had a chance to digest the information in the draft, but the community certainly hasn't. So I want to make sure that they have an opportunity to hear about it tonight. And, you know, we have our administrators here. So, you know, should we, should we finish with this piece and then move on to that? Does that make the most sense because we've had such a long conversation about it? Yes, Mr. Thielman. My suggestion would be to take a vote now. We have a divided question, so we've got to take six and seven separately. And then here, Dr. McNeil, that would be my suggestion because the motion actually is on the table. Okay. We moved in seconded it so that would be my suggestion. Okay. All right. So, are we any more discussion seeing none? So let's go ahead and vote six and seven first. So, or, or does that make sense, Mr. Thielman? I would vote one through five, what is eight? And then what Dr., what Ms. Ekston added about testing first and then, great, let's do that. So, so for Mr. Thielman's motion, one through five plus eight plus the new six, right? Yes. Yes. So let's go ahead and do that. So, Ms. Ekston. Yes. Mr. Cardin. Yes. Dr. Allison Ampey. Yes. Mr. Thielman. Yes. Mr. Schlickman. No. Mr. Heiner. Yes. And I'm also yes. So now taking six and seven, which are the waiver application for the 21st and the periodic surveying. Which are now a separate motion with parts one and two. Ms. Ekston. Yes. Mr. Cardin. Wait, there's a hint. Sorry. Oh, sorry. Dr. Allison Ampey, let's hold on. Yep, sorry. So I hadn't seen this, I thought we had taken this kind of off the table. So I wasn't just- So let's, let's, let's, Mr. Schlickman, would you be able to make this motion so that we can, and if there's a second, then we can discuss these two pieces and vote on them. Dr. Allison Ampey's right. I'm sort of jumping the line here. Well, parliamentary procedure would have the motion separated so that you would vote, vote either the whole motion or the separate part. So these are still part of Mr. Thielman's motion, but they're being voted separately than the other components. So we, so it is permissible to vote on, on these two as a separate vote under the motion. Are we able, Mr. Schlickman, to have a conversation about it? Of course you can. Great. Let's do that now then. Dr. Allison Ampey. Okay. I, I'm sorry, I haven't figured out a, how to fix this, but the one which is numbered seven, the superintendent shall periodically survey and provide reports to the school committee and the public on parent and staff experience with all learning options. I would like to be hearing about how these are being addressed, not just what's going on. And I don't know how to fix the motion to do that. I don't know what you mean by being addressed. Can you- Any problems that are arising, especially with regard to remote. Okay. Mr. Thielman. I mean, we could just add to that. The, the superintendent shall periodically survey and provide reports to the school committee and the public throughout the 2021 school year on parent and staff experiences with all learning options and the district's response to concerns raised. I'd see a thumbs up, Mr. Thielman. Another one for Mr. Heiner. Okay. Oh, one from Mr. Schluckman too. All right. Okay. More discussion on these. Anybody else? All right. Ms. Ekston. Yeah. Mr. Curtin. Yes. Dr. Allison Ampe. Yes. Mr. Thielman. Yes. Mr. Schluckman. Yes. Mr. Heiner. Yes. And I am also yes. So that was a really long pause, Dr. Bodie. But worthwhile, I think. So can we now go back to Dr. McNeil and remote by choice or whatever it's called in this and telling us more, mostly telling the community more about the hybrid option. Right. So we have some sample schedules and both the hybrid and what the remote schedule would look like. We also have building administrators here who can answer questions of the committee. So Dr. McNeil. Okay. Can everybody hear me? Okay. Perfect. So I do want to just provide some context that I've heard and I just want to correct any misconceptions in the community that we have been working on remote instruction, studying best practice, looking at online tools since March, early April. We've had two study groups convened since then that is comprised of teachers, administrators and teachers from various grade levels. We actually have two study groups. We have the elementary study group that has teachers from different grades, special education teachers, EL teachers, ELL teachers and service providers as well as preschool. And then at the secondary level, the same type of composition. So we've been looking at online instruction. We have 54 educators, administrators that are taking in a course that Harvard's professional development, the arm of Harvard's School of Education which is focused on professional development. We have 54 educators who are taking a course that is currently taking place. It's a four week course on strategies for online instruction. We're looking at the hybrid model. What I have is I've put together some slides that can show examples of what a hybrid model would look like at the various grade levels. So I'm gonna begin with preschool and we have here preschool but I'm not gonna go through each one in detail. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna give you a high level view of the different things that were considered as we thought about a hybrid model of instruction. And part of that, and I'll just skip ahead to element kindergarten, part of that thinking was looking at the requirement, the distancing between students. So in a hybrid model, we are able to distance the desk within the classrooms by six feet. And that's because the student population at each school would be divided into two cohorts. We'd have a cohort A and a cohort B, if you will. Based upon the hybrid model and within that hybrid model, we've had educators, principals, administrators look at the different structures that a hybrid model could take place. So I'll just display this right now. So we've looked at A, A, B, B model in which the students in cohort A would go to school, be in session in school on Monday and Tuesday. And then students in cohort B would go to school in session on Thursday and Friday. Now the Wednesday would be reserved for all students would receive there, would participate in a remote program. And on Wednesday, that would consist of synchronized instruction. Teachers would check in with their students, take attendance and there will be asynchronous learning activities in the afternoon, which provides teachers an opportunity to participate in professional development, have faculty meetings and also to have an opportunity to collaborate and really assess the program and the teaching that is going on at that particular time. So Wednesday across the board at all levels will be reserved for this type of activity. So looking at the K through eight models, we would utilize an A, A, B, B model where again, cohort A will go to school on Monday would be in session on Monday and Tuesday and cohort B would be in session on Thursday and Friday with the Wednesday being an all remote day for all students. So that's a high level view, like looking at the days for remote instruction. We're looking at a blend of synchronous and asynchronous instruction. And we're also looking at structured learning activities because based upon the number of clock hours that we have to have that is devoted to instruction, we still have to meet those clock hours that are set by the state. So on all days, students would be participating in synchronous instruction, asynchronous, have access to asynchronous videos and also have structured learning activities. So I'm just gonna display, this is what a kindergarten schedule would look like. And then in the elementary study group, we've looked at how this may evolve over time. So we're looking at the beginning of the year, looking at the early elementary, looking at kindergarten in first grade. We're looking at the different things that we would have to do in order to acclimate incoming kindergartners into a hybrid model. So that would look different. So you're looking at the beginning of the year where you're focusing on routines, teaching kids about the online tools that they're going to have to utilize and then just getting them used to what the routine would look like and feel like in a hybrid model. So we've done a lot of thinking about how this will evolve over the time of the year. So the hybrid model or the schedule that we're presenting right now at the beginning of the year may look differently based upon how kids at the early elementary would mature throughout the year. So this is why we've broken out the elementary schedule into kindergarten, first grade, and second through fifth because we're looking at what's developmentally appropriate for those different age groups. So looking at the kindergarten model, this is what it could look like. And then first grade, I couldn't get the whole schedule onto one slide. So this is what the morning would look like for first grade and then, excuse me, sorry. And then this what the afternoon look like for first grade. Now this is looking at in session. And then on the right-hand side, you're looking at the remote session what that could look like. So I just want to, let me just back up a second because I do want to make sure that I'm being clear about that. If you look at the kindergarten schedule, Monday and Tuesday is a sample of what the in-school model would look like. And then on the Thursday, Friday, gives you a vision of what the virtually at home, what the cohort that is not in session, this is what their day could look like. So I just want to back up and make sure that I highlighted that. So again, this is kindergarten. And then this is what the first day again, looking on the left-hand side of the screen, you see the Monday and Tuesday, you see at the top where it says in-person. And then on the right-hand side, you see what it looks like for the remote model. And then we're looking at second through fifth grade, the same thing at the elementary level, right? I mean, I'm sorry, the left-hand side, I'm sorry, I'm looking at the screen, left-hand side looking at the in-person model and then the right-hand side looking at the virtually at home. So this is what it would look like at Gibbs. At the secondary level, you're looking at the Gibbs, AABB hybrid rotation and then the hybrid and the remote model will be very similar. But again, you're looking at the left-hand, you're looking at what the in-school schedule would look like, but then the remote model would be comprised of asynchronous learning videos, asynchronous videos and structured learning activities with a designated staff member checking in with students at the beginning of the day, taking attendance. Now I wanna say that looking at the difference between the spring and the fall, all the work that the students are completing is they're gonna get feedback, grades are going to count, attendance counts. So it's much more structured than what we're looking at, what we provided in the spring based upon the amount of time that we've had to really think about this critically and be able to plan. So I just wanna make sure that I'm letting everyone know that the structure is going to be there in the hybrid model. And so this is Gibbs looking at some of the keys to some of the terms that are utilized in the schedule. And then looking at Addison. At Addison, they did not put in the particular subjects into the language, but I want everyone to know that we're still covering the same content areas. And we're also looking at specials on the in-school model. But again, Addison you're still looking at for the remote model, you're looking at a blend of checking in, asynchronous videos, structured learning activities, a designated staff member checking in with students at the beginning of the day and for that cohort who was virtual on any particular day. And then looking at Arlington High School, they devised a schedule that will be the same whether or not we were in school, hybrid or remote. And you're looking at a four by four schedule, which means you would have three content area, you would have two content area classes and you look at the 80, that's the time for instruction for that instructional block. And so you're looking at an elective and PE. So that means that kids would have four classes a day and then that would switch, those classes would switch at the semester. And then these are the remote plans, but I won't get into those. I will stop here at the hybrid and I will ask any building administrator who would like to maybe give a little bit like to add to the explanation that I just gave about the hybrid. And then we can open it up for questions or comments. Dr. McNeil, can you call on the principals as you see fit? Sure, so I'm gonna ask any elementary principal, Ms. Peretz who did a lot of work with the kindergarten teachers and anyone else who would like to talk, we'll start off with the elementary principals if anybody would like to comment on the hybrid model or if we also have our director of preschool here, if she would like to say something about the preschool hybrid schedule. So we'll start off with elementary. Thank you. I just wanna highlight a little bit of what you said about the schedules and the way that they're going to start out. I believe it's very important for all of us and for the teachers who worked on these schedules that everyone understands that these models are not what the schedules would necessarily look like on the first day of school. That it would be a slow phasing in to use those words as the first few weeks of school go in. In elementary school, we use something called the first six weeks of school, which is part of our responsive classroom approach. And it means that even with the academics, a lot of that is helping the students to really know and understand the expectations. And so for kindergarten, the one thing I think that I would add Dr. McNeil is that our intention is that the academic work for our youngest students in kindergarten would be in small, that we would build towards really working only in small groups. That whole class kinds of times would be social meeting kinds of times, but that even after the children have been introduced to the school year, that the academic learning specifically would happen in small groups with children. Thank you. So next up we have Dr. Hannah, if I can get him to say something about first grade. Yeah, I just wanted to emphasize actually there was a Straton faculty who was a representative on this schedule. And so I just wanted to speak more generally about the degree to which all of our professional faculty were involved in this design. This was a large group, not surprisingly our Arlington educators, many of them were interested in designing this schedule as part of the larger charge of creating really strong remote learning experiences, synchronous teaching. So I just wanted to make sure that everyone was clear that this was a very collaborative effort to create all of these schedules. I also wanted to just reinforce what Ms. Perez said about our first six weeks launch. One advantage of this model is that we'll actually have at most half of the cohort, it probably a little bit less, that will be experiencing those first six weeks anytime they're on site. So when we split the cohort of total students, aggregate of students into halves, we'll be able to do a lot closer coaching and relationship building with each cohort as they come on site for their two days of on-site programming. Thank you. And can I get a principle to talk about the lunch situation for when kids are in school, in session, how will lunch be provided to students? Anyone? Okay, I believe that the hybrid model will allow us to have students eat in their classrooms and still have the six foot distancing. So that will be possible. And that's one of the benefits of having a hybrid model that the number of times that kids have to rotate from one classroom to another will be limited. So we're looking at trying to make sure that we're focusing on putting kids in cohorts and then keeping them there for the mass breaks and not having to travel to the cafeteria and mix with other cohorts at that time. Dr. McNeil, could I just add something? Sorry, this is Karen. Hi, Mr. Nato from Thompson, coming in strong. Well, I think I was waving at you, but you probably can't see me, so. I can't, I can't, I can't. I just wanted to add that we're also looking at using outdoor spaces as much as we can while the weather is still good to take groups outside to have their lunch as well. And I was, since at Thompson, the food services is working this summer, doing the collaboration with getting food to families who are in need. I did talk with Denise Boucher, who's the director of food services. We were talking about, you know, possibly how we're gonna get the food delivered to the classrooms for students who are ordering lunch and the ways that that would be like a grab-and-go situation where we're trying, like you said, trying to limit the amount of time that students are transitioning other places in the building, such as going to the cafeteria and things like that. So yes, and in the classrooms is where I think most of us are planning on students having lunch. Yes, thank you for that. So I'm gonna move to the Gibbs and I'm gonna have Ms. Pierre Maxwell, if she wanted to ask her if she wanted to add anything. Ms. Pierre Maxwell. I can't hear you, you're still on mute. I'm muted because I can't see anybody, so you have to. Yes, I was, I was still on mute. Good evening, everyone. So we work closely with our special coordinator, the assistant principal, Ms. Salvatore, who experienced what the schedule looked like last spring for the children and with our ELL coordinator to really take into consideration what would be a rigorous schedule, whether we are physically in the building with the children or when they're at home for the two days, they would be remote. So as you notice, the schedule is identical, whether the children are physically in the building or whether they're at home. So we're looking for them to have the same experience with or without the teacher when they are taking their classes. So we will be working on our asynchronous lessons to make them more engaging and looking at some of the suggestions from the Department of Education to make it so it's not just the children working from worksheets all day long, they will start every day with advisory and they will have check-in, they will have small groups. We will be using all of our support staff in different capacity to support the children while they're home in that asynchronous learning time. So these are of course details. We will be working on knowing that the hybrid is being recommended. So we're going to give you more specific of what does that gonna look like. At the Gibbs, most likely the children will be staying put in the classroom while the teachers circulate to the children and they will be having lunch in the gymnasium and the cafeteria. So we hope to have our children sit in the same assigned seat every day when they go to the cafeteria, assign numbers and practice all that with them. Just like the K-to-5, we are also responsive classroom school. So the social emotional will definitely be highlighted at the beginning and embedded for the rest of the year so we can continue to model, remind the children and help them get accustomed to not only the health and safety protocols, but also connecting with the staff. So I think these are the things that need to be highlighted with the schedule and the fact that the numbers, as they stand right now, we would still need quite a few students making that choice of remote in order to be able to execute the schedule as it stands to have enough space to keep the children six feet apart all day long if they are coming into the school with this hybrid model. Thank you very much. And I'm gonna move on to the Addison schedule and I'm gonna ask Mr. Merringer if he would like to add anything. Make sure you all mute yourself. You know what, Dr. McNeil? I'm gonna jump in before Mr. Merringer because it is 9.56 p.m. Okay. So I'm looking for a motion. Nobody? I move the 10 p.m. roll to how much longer? This should not, we're just gonna go very briefly over the, you know, the rest of this presentation shouldn't take more than, I'd say five to 10 minutes. And then there are gonna be questions and comments, of course, after that. I'll move it to 10.30. I'll move it to 10.30, Ms. Moore. Yeah, we've also got 11. I think we just need to go to 11. I'm gonna keep, the fire is lit. Mr. Thielman will keep moving, but I, otherwise we're just gonna interrupt. Okay. I'll move it to 11, 11, 11 p.m. Thank you. Is there a second for 11? Second. Axton. Yes. Carden. Yes. Alison Ampey. Yes. Thielman. Yes. Shukman. No. Heyner. Not, I'm staying. Morgan, yes. Okay, carry on, Dr. McNeil. Thank you very much. So Mr. Merringer, would you like to jump in and just give some comments on the hybrid schedule for Addison? Yeah, sure. So ours is very much like the Gibbs. We'll have people in either Monday, Tuesday, or on Thursday, Friday. Wednesday will be a lot of remote teaching in which you'll be able to get group A and group B, hopefully together. We're looking at our usual, you know, math, English science, social studies, world language, elective, PE, band, orchestra, and chorus, what that would look like. You know, it seems tonight what the school committee really talked about was to give parents who wanna be fully remote the option to be fully remote and to give parents who wanna be hybrid a hybrid situation. One of the things that I think Miss Pierre Maxwell and I would definitely echo right now is just knowing how many people will take those options because at the Addison that could be as many as 225 to 240 kids who are gonna be in the all remote and we're gonna have to make sure that we're scheduling both kind of an all remote and a hybrid situation. So I think the basic tenets of the hybrid situation is kids are learning in school for two days. They're out of school asynchronously learning for two days and hopefully coming together in a remote situation on Wednesday. All right, thank you, sir. And next up, Dr. Janger is on vacation. So we have Mr. McCarthy who is the assistant principal at Arlington High School. Mr. McCarthy, would you like to say anything about the schedule? Thank you. I just wanted to touch on a few pieces. You know, one of the biggest concerns we've had is just trying to make sure the students feel that they're cared for in the building and it's not just a question of here's the expectations, here's the teaching, here's the discipline. We really want to talk about everyone's social-emotional well-being. And so this schedule really came out of a bunch of conversations between administration, staff and students. And I did want to applaud and thank those students for being part of those discussion groups and giving us honest feedback, which was incredibly helpful. I know there's gonna be a lot of questions about the high school and how we've changed the schedule from a seven period year-long program to two semesters with classes going to 80 minutes. Some of the pieces we're gonna be talking about that we're writing up policies for will be how the cafeteria will be used because obviously we won't be able to hold lunch in the classrooms. So we are looking to change the cafeterias and spreading those spaces out to the cafeteria and potentially the red gym with single seating. We'll also be looking at hallway time, making it set up so that one class dismisses and other classes not dismissing at the same time to limit the number of students in the hallways and creating one-way stairwells and hallways. We also have the added bonus of the construction going on, which as Mr. Feeney spoke to earlier, we will be putting in air conditioning into some of those windows, which will help with the air circulation. Wednesday will be a key piece of this development. Wednesday will be a time to reinforce educational pieces that have come up, questions that students might have, office hours. Obviously, if we're doing a semesterized system, it'll also be an opportunity for students to review world languages or their AP curriculum. We're not too sure how College Board will be rolling out those exams in May. So we wanna give students the opportunity to review those materials as often as they want to prior to the exam. Thank you, Dr. McNeil, for the time. To explain that a little bit. Yes, sir, thank you very much. So I'm gonna pause here, Ms. Morgan. I'm gonna stop sharing my screen and then I'm going to open it up for questions or comments. Yeah. Oh, good, that's much, that makes it a lot easier for me. So I'm looking for anybody with questions on the hybrid I see Mr. Cardin. So go and Dr. Allison Ampey, Ms. Extin. Okay, Mr. Cardin. Thank you. I actually have one at each level, but I'll try to be quick, they're so mature. So at the elementary level, for example, on the remote days, the math block says A slash L. So is it asynchronous? Is it live? Is it some combination? Can you tell me what's going on in that block? Did you say the remote part of it? Correct, the remote days. So looking at the remote days, there's still some things that we have to work out because if you're looking at the hybrid model, you have the students who are in session, so they're meeting with their teacher, their classroom teacher. So now we have to think about, okay, so if we're going to have synchronous instruction or check-ins throughout the day for those students who are remote, right? So if cohort A is in session and you have cohort B remote, that's where some of the thinking that still has to be flushed out as to who's going to be that person that's going to check in with those students throughout the day. We know that it's needed and we wanna make it happen, but we need to see what type of staffing needs we'll have to explore in order to meet that goal. Okay, so just a comment. We can talk about this more at subcommittee hopefully on Friday, but parents can't make a decision without that information. They need to know what that day off, that day at home is going to look like for their child. Well, it's generally gonna be, I can answer that. It's generally going to be asynchronous videos, structured learning activities and starting off the day with someone checking in with students, reviewing what the day will look like, checking on the world, the social emotional wellbeing, but the number of times that those check-ins are going to happen can vary based upon the amount of staffing we have available. So I could definitely say that the majority of the day for the remote days will be asynchronous videos blended with structured learning activities where students will be completing independent activities. Okay, so I mean, I think we need more support on those days. I mean, if we need to bring in more staff, then that's what we have to do. If we can redirect the math coaches to do that, then that's what they should be doing. But we definitely need just saying that, especially at the K through five level, that those kids are on their own all day, two days a week, I think is not really acceptable for me. But we can work on that more at committee. So at the middle school level, again, on the remote days, I think what needs to be in the plan is a full schedule for like cohort A, like they did at the elementary level so that the parents can understand, my child is in cohort A, this is what they're doing Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. So again, it sounds like on Thursday and Friday for cohort A, it will almost entirely, except for the advisory block, the asynchronous learning, is that correct? Yes, we're looking at, again, we have to figure out the staffing piece of that because you have teachers who are teaching kids who are in session. So you still have to understand that we have to look at who's gonna provide those synchronous instruction, who's gonna provide those check-ins throughout the day. We can definitely do the check-in in the morning with the advisory period periods, but looking at what's going to happen throughout the day, that is something that we still have to flush out. Right, and that's an important piece of information for the parents to make their decisions. So like to chicken and egg thing, you need to know how many parents or how many kids are staying remote, but I think we need more information about what support will be available. I mean, we've had some students 25th to think about this. So somebody... We've thought about it, we've thought about it, but we have to hire, I mean, you would have to hire, like, are you gonna hire classroom teachers? Are you going to hire PAs? I mean, are you gonna do that? Does the budget allow us to hire? It's a proposal from the administration. I mean, that's what we need to get into, but we'll work on that in subcommittee. Okay, on to the high school. So there's a concern about classes that are typically just one section. So maybe an AP computer science or something like that. How are you going to split that between the remote only and the hybrid kids? Or is that not gonna be available to remote only kids? I'm gonna direct that to Mr. McCarthy. Well, our priority when we are developing the remote will be the core classes. Then we will have to take a look at staffing needs. And unfortunately, I know it's not the answer you want, but it's gonna come down to a number of students who are doing the remote piece. If there is a way to bridge the two because we have one section of the course, then we will obviously try to do that. We wanna make sure students can access all the curriculum that each of the courses and curriculum they want, but it's really gonna come down to how many students participate in the remote academy and what our staffing ability is at that time. Okay, so there wouldn't be a concept of live broadcast of an in-school class. We're not opposed to that. As I said, there might be a way to bridge the two together if it is a single section. In most cases, we are trying to create two sections of those courses so that there could be a remote option if we have the numbers planned out for that. But as of right now, until we have those numbers, I can't say definitively. Great, thank you. Okay, I have a question and then I know there are others who do. I also, you know, I think this touches on what Mr. Cardin was asking, the piece, the parentheses A slash L, those are really different, right? Like asynchronous versus live. So to the extent that we can get more clarity over what that is, it's a very different experience for kids. So I think that that will be helpful to have a sense of what we're looking at. My other question is for all of the asynchronous stuff, who is producing this? Who's gonna make these? We're getting Steven Spielberg to come in and do all the asynchronous videos. I hope so. That was amazing. If anybody could do it, it would be you, Dr. McNeil, but we're really coming more. We are, so thank you for that. So we've had time over the summer to look at various tools that we can utilize in order to produce these type of videos. We have Screencastify, we have online tools that we can utilize. I mean, we can use that online tool to produce the videos. And then teachers have had a lot of time to study this and to understand how to, what are the important parts of a video and definitely how to make the videos. I guess I wasn't asking how they were gonna do it or what tools they were gonna use. I actually wanna know who's gonna do it. So it's going to be a mix between our, at the elementary level, it will be a mix between the coaches who are going to assist with the planning and help with the creation of some of the videos. But this is some of the things that teachers can work together in order to create videos that they can share amongst themselves so that it doesn't fall on one person's shoulders. So some of the things that we've experimented in the spring is having one teacher in the grade level maybe take the ELA videos and they will produce those in that particular grade level. And then another teacher could do the math videos. So we're just looking at sharing that responsibility amongst each other and then doing the same thing at the secondary level as well. So it's between the teachers working together to create the asynchronous videos and then having enough to also create like a pool of videos if you will. And we've done that and we've talked about how that can happen amongst teachers by looking at the shared drive and looking at the online tools like one teacher could create a video using ed puzzle or Pear Deck. And then another teacher could take that Pear Deck video that was created in a particular subject matter and say, hey, I see that this teacher over here created this video on this particular unit and I can utilize that for my class as well. And then I can customize it to fit my style of teaching. So, looking at the various online tools and being able to utilize them and then pool the resources together so teachers could work together to create those videos. So you ask who's going to do it at the elementary level or looking at the coaches, the teachers working together and then at the secondary level, you're looking at the teachers working together utilizing the various online tools that we've invested in like ed puzzle, Pear Deck, screencastify and utilizing those tools to create these asynchronous videos which are actually very interactive as well. So it allows students to interact with them. Which is great. And I hope that that's an opportunity where this is one of the upsides of doing our own remote by choice program that this is a place where the teachers who are within remote by choice are gonna connect with our teachers who are in the hybrid by choice piece. And I hope that, because we wanna take the best of what we have and not remake the wheel because that's just, that's too hard. And also, I mean, the cool thing is, is that I personally think we're still gonna be doing this in some form in April and May and June of next year, unfortunately, and so there will be some resources. It's always nicer the second time around. So once we get to the spring, we will have already done it before. So that's helpful. I wanna make sure that we're making reasonable choices about how we're gonna create these recorded lessons that are gonna be used asynchronously. And I think that was, I still need a lot more information. The elementary hybrid, by choice, not at school days or make sense at the elementary level. I just need a lot more six through eight in terms of understanding what that looks like. I could look at elementary and be like, oh, yeah, yeah. Like I can see where this might fall apart for my family, but like I can see how it generally like comes together. But I guess they need more of that six through eight. Ms. Eckstad. This is along the same lines, but I just wanna acknowledge the amount of work that this is going to be for teachers in a hybrid model. The curriculum that they've been teaching and the way that they've been teaching it is going to have to change. And so there's gonna need to be a lot of preparation and preparing and thinking about how they're gonna deliver content that they have been delivering in a really new way. Meanwhile, half of their class is at home and they're having to somehow connect with them or provide them with things to do at home. And that sounds a lot like two different jobs. And so whatever the school committee can do in terms of supporting, whether it's additional staff, whether it's CAs, I'm concerned that the amount of prep time that teachers have in a regular situation is never enough for the amount of work that they need to do. And now it feels like we're asking them to do two separate jobs and with the same amount of prep time. So as Mr. Cardin said, we can talk about it in subcommittee, but I am very, very aware of the amount of work that this is gonna take for teachers. Thank you for that. And that is a very accurate statement. Dr. Allison Amby and then Ms. Keys, yes? Okay, great. Dr. Allison Amby, first. Okay, I agree with Ms. Ekston. I'm glad you brought that up. I think concerned about the amount of work that we're talking about and I'm still concerned. So like three questions. First, in terms of the pre-K hybrid model, remote hybrid, does it match best practices for remote education? For example, I looked at the first grader schedule and while mine are no longer first graders, I'm having a really hard time picturing a first grader doing what that schedule says and especially not independently. So your question is, is it developmentally appropriate? Is it best practices for remote education? Because it's like taking the regular day and just putting it remote and I'm not sure that's best practices. I don't know what best practices are for remote. Dr. Hanna too has a hand up, Dr. McHenry. Well, I wanna say one thing with that. We're gonna have to rethink about, and I'm gonna, I just want everybody to understand that the best practice is for everyone to be in school right in session all day, every day. That's best practice, but now we're faced with the pandemic that has had us to think about what is, what can we, how can we take best practice and adapt it as best as we can to a hybrid model or remote model? So when you talk about best practice, I think you have to think about the context of what you're talking about. So in a hybrid model, we're looking at, trying to give students, then we have to incorporate all the health protocols into that and you're looking at mass breaks, looking at the breaks, you're gonna look, and that's what some of the teachers are talking about that when they're talking about what is the education going to look like, even in session, it's going to change because now you have teachers who have masks on, they're going to be, have the anxiety about kneeling down and conferring with the student one-on-one. So when we're talking about best practice, it's going to look differently. So we're going to do the best we can to adapt best practice into the current context. And Dr. Hanna, can you go ahead and speak? Okay, but what I was talking about was best practices for remote education. I understand that none of this is according to best, what we would do in an ideal world, right? Best practice, yeah, best practice would be for early childhood is to have directed instruction be no longer. They understand that. I'm not questioning that, but that's not the world that we get to live in now, right? And what I'm saying is there are things understood about online education, remote education. And I mean, the schedule is matching best practices for remote education. And I understand, Desi is telling us, we have to do this many hours. But what I want to know is what is best practice for remote education, especially for the lower grades, because I'm not sure it matches the number of hours that Desi says that we have to do. And I can't advocate for what's best for our kids under this circumstance, unless I know what it is that is the best thing to be doing, not what Desi's saying, but just people have been doing some remote education elsewhere, they've been doing stuff. And what do they say works the best, especially for younger kids? So looking at the schedule, you're seeing like a block of instructional time. But what you don't see is where we've put in, like what that block of instructional time could look like. So you're looking at maybe 10 to 15 minutes of direct instruction, giving the kids an activity, doing like different breaks inside of that activity. Maybe you would rotate between the different small groups. And you could say, okay, this group you go off and you do this activity you'll sign back on at this time. And then I can work with this small group here. If we have Zoom and we're implementing utilizing Zoom, then you can break the class up into small groups. You could have a TA at the kindergarten level, which we have and they could supervise some of the groups through the independent activity, but we're also looking at limiting the amount of screen time. So that is where some of the online tools come in as well. It's trying to make the different activities as engaging as possible and using a lot of, you know, like movement breaks and then breaking up those chunks of instructional blocks into smaller pieces of time. So that's what we're looking at as it relates to developmentally appropriate instruction. So Dr. Hanna. I don't have much, I just have things to say to compliment what Dr. McNeil has mentioned that, but to your point or your question Dr. Allison Ampey about best practice, you know, given what we've learned through the kinds of courses that the district has provided and that many people are engaging in over the summer on remote learning, for our youngest learners, it would be frequent check-ins, but brief, and in smaller groups. So we anticipate that and have loaded that into the design and I just reiterate that our early childhood educators were present in large numbers in the design of the schedule, many of whom were indeed part of those learnings and PD that we've described. So, you know, we won't get it absolutely perfect in a one-to-one alignment to best practice, but we'll keep calibrating and fixing and I really think that it'll be as closely aligned as possible to best practice for remote learning for our youngest learners. Okay. You're talking about chunking blocks of instruction into smaller pieces and a lot of scaffolding with the younger students and giving them those breaks. Okay, thank you. Let me move on to my next question because I want to take up all our time. So for Ottison, so first I saw that Gibbs is doing, they're doing like seven courses a day, but they're having the teachers move from class to class. The kids aren't moving from class to class. So that minimizes the hallway transition, but for Ottison, why not do block scheduling like the high school is going to do? My concern is that I'm just imagining all these kids coming down into the hallway and I don't see that. I just don't, it's not making me happy. So I guess the thought when we did block scheduling was just when we talked about having kids in one place for so long who are, you know, 13 years old. So you would have to have 80 or 90 minute blocks. So you have 12 kids all facing forward in one room for 80 to 90 minutes. And we just thought that that was a long time for a middle school kid to be in one class doing the same work. And so yeah, we could go block scheduling. There's probably five or six schedules that we could do with either hybrid or remote. But the reason we went with this at this time was just we felt that already we're asking our kids to kind of go back to a little bit of sitting in rows and sitting, you know, quietly, which is what we've been trying to get away from in education for the last 20 years. We've been talking to teachers, not to just put kids in rows and have the sage on the stage talk. And now we're like, all right, we're gonna do that for 45 minutes. In fact, we're gonna do it for a block. We're gonna do it for 80. And I just don't know if the education is worth having kids in one place like the high school for that long. I just think the middle school attention span, it just won't be good quality education. That was our thinking. I think things are evolving quickly. We're gonna look at other things, but right now the decision was made to have more frequent classes than the longer blocks just for the attention span and what we know is best for that age group. And I also might add that I know Mr. Mayor, you were trying to make sure that the hybrid model resembled like an in school model and not having teachers really adjust their pedagogy at the same time, you're going to a hybrid model and you're trying to study online instruction at that time. So there's pedagogy, there's professional development that goes with elongating the block. And it's not just saying we're gonna elongate the block, but there's a science to the instruction that goes along with it that we have to provide to teachers so they know how to actually utilize that 80 minutes in a very efficient manner. Because we have looked at some of those schedules where, I mean, very easily you could go with Monday could be periods one, two, three, four, Tuesday could be five, six, seven and an extra help, you could have Monday be four classes and Tuesday being four classes as well. Like you could do it that way, but then you're having four classes and with the time and learning that state is saying those classes are gonna have to be 80, 90 minutes. I guess I would like to hear more about exactly how the hallway transitions will be managed because I'm thinking about the halls of Audison and just I'm seeing lots of kids. And then my final question is under any remote plan, whether it's remote by choice or the remote hybrid section, what is APS thinking about working parents or essential workers and how are they going to deal with their kids? And their kids' education. Are we doing any, and I don't just mean art, I mean, I'm concerned about our teachers and their children, but I'm also concerned about just the regular parents out here who are essential workers and if they don't have someone at home to do this, what are they supposed to do? I'm gonna defer that to Dr. Bodie. Okay, I believe that essential workers can be in school on the four days that we have our hybrid program. That is a possibility. We also, there's still, it's still out there right now. I don't know where the state is going with this as to whether teacher children can also be in school every day. So there are still some unknowns there, but I do believe, in effect, we've had a couple calls from essential personnel. And yes, we would accommodate that. Thank you. Ms. Keyes. Hi, I just wanna give you an example because I actually do this. So I thought it might, for those of you who are saying you want more specifics, at the middle school level, I'm still planning lessons for five days, okay? So I see kids for two, they're gonna be home for two and then once that magic Wednesday. So in a normal pre-COVID time, I would be planning Mondays, we're gonna do like introductory for the week, we're going to discuss current events and maybe we'll sort of get started. Tuesday, we're gonna do direct instruction. Wednesday, we're gonna do a group activity. Thursday, we're doing a map. And Friday, we're gonna do some sort of like multimedia working with charts and graphs and images and building some skills. So I can take that plan and say, okay, which days do I want the kids with me? Probably the discussion day and the direct instruction day. Like this is stuff that the kids are gonna have questions about on the spot that I need to answer. What do I wanna do on asynchronous Wednesdays when I can actually get all the kids together? That's when I wanna do group work because they can actually work together on those days and I can supervise it. And then what can they do at home on their own? They can do a map and they can do our like multimedia charts and graphs thing. And then that stuff that I can grade in the next couple of days and when I see them again in person, we can go over it. So I don't know if that helps you at all but it's changing the pedagogy of how we work like in the classroom is gonna take a lot of time to adjust but planning out the week is still five days of activities that I have to plan out. So I don't know if that helps you in like figuring out what this is gonna look like. My other comment way back to the beginning when looking at all the schedules, we can't do kids at home and kids in the room at the same time. If we only get two days with kids in the room, we have to be focused on the kids in the room. And that means we can't be trying to deal with technology. We can't be trying to like, oh, hey, kids on the camera. Well, I've got kids in front of me. It's not gonna work. So I just want you to be aware that anytime it says that like there's a live advisory or a spire or morning meeting, it's not gonna be the same classroom teacher who's in class with the other kids because that's a step too far. That's dividing your brain in half in a way that nobody has time to do at this point. So thank you. Thank you. Okay. Anybody else? I just, Ms. Morgan, yep. There's one point I think it's very important over the course of the year to document our experience and where there are gaps in our ability to meet the needs of students because I think we have to build a collective case, school committee, teachers union, school administration, parents for where there are gaps and where we need more funding. And so you got a really over time document any areas where we can't meet need because of staffing and resources. Well, we will do that, Mr. Thielman. You can best believe that we will document. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Okay. Do you wanna see the remote schedules? We wanna see the remote by choice. We need that. So I need to ask Dr. Bode if we can distinguish that because when you have remote by choice, what we did is we developed remote schedules and I wanna make a distinction. So you have the remote by choice, you have the opt-in and then you have the remote schedule where the governor shuts everything down or we locally decide that we're gonna start off remote where all students are starting off remote. We have- I want remote by choice. Opt-in. I'll defer that to Dr. Bode. Well, essentially there's not a lot of difference between the two but they will be once students are in the by choice program, they will follow a remote schedule. It's, we've done a lot of thinking about our remote schedules over the last month at all of the levels and to your point earlier about best practice that has informed what these are gonna look like. So I don't see them essentially much different. They're going to be a regular day with synchronous and mostly synchronous there'll be some asynchronous because you can't have students on the screen from at the elementary level from eight 10 in the morning to two 30 in the afternoon. That is really not good practice whether it's a choice program or a remote for all. So what you're gonna be seeing with these sample schedules is really they're not much different because they shouldn't be much different as we go forward with this. But if we were to go into a remote for all for whatever reason as Dr. McNeil mentioned this is the kind of schedule that we would have. So you can take a look at this. They are different because they, as pointed out with the hybrid you have teachers teaching the AA and the BB part of the week. So there is more asynchronous and other structure learning activities on the remote day whereas when in a remote plan basically you're in a school but remote in a school. So piggybacking on what Ms. Dr. Bodie commented when you look at the remote schedule and I will point out the differences. So we're looking at continually to think about staffing as it relates to servicing the students who are at home in a hybrid schedule but if you have a remote schedule then kids would receive synchronous instruction on a daily basis except we have that Wednesday where it would be early release so that teachers could participate in PD, collaborate and have faculty meetings and department meetings. So when you're looking at the remote schedule you're looking at synchronous instruction on a daily basis. So this is an example or a sample of what a kindergarten schedule could look like in a fully remote learning environment. And again, we're looking at, if you look at the 915 academic blocks to what Dr. Allison Ampe was talking about, you look at it of a breakdown of you have small group work and you have the different things that can happen within that academic block. So we're still looking at scaffolding instruction, chunking the instruction, making sure that we have those movement breaks, screen breaks and making the lessons very engaging by utilizing the online tools that we're investing in. So, and at each level you would look at, we're going to have synchronous instruction that will resemble what an in-school day would look like but again, you're looking at a blend of synchronous instruction, asynchronous videos and independent structured activities. So we wanna be cognizant of the fact that we don't want students sitting on the screen for six and a half hours a day but we wanna have a structure where they do have times that they have synchronous instruction with their teachers but that synchronous instruction, that block of time could look different and we can get creative of how we're gonna spend that time. So I'm just gonna scroll through this and what I'll do is I'll back up and I'll start off with anyone who would like to say something. I know I didn't, I know we have our director of preschools here, she wanted to say something about the remote learning schedule for preschool. Sorry, I guess when we just, we're also trying to live at the screen time and make sure that the online time is 20 minutes at the most. I've had some teachers that have been doing ESY remotely and have found that about a 20 minute time at most on the screen is how long the kids can attend. So that's where we are. We would do a mixture of synchronous and asynchronous learning remotely. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you. Yeah, the after-school would be more interesting. Right, so there's the afternoon preschool. I couldn't put the schedule all on one slide. And then here's elementary, if any elementary principal would like to comment on the remote schedule. I think there's a piece about the asynchronous and the live that we wanted to comment on too, that's about, you know, where sometimes on the schedule it might say that it could be live or it could be recorded. And I think that's to allow for a little bit of flexibility in a couple of ways, is that it could be live, it could be a recorded lesson for everyone in general, but also to be able to have some flexibility for meeting with particular students who, you know, within a small group or even one-on-one might need, you know, a little bit of that extra attention based on, you know, the data that's being collected in that particular week. So, you know, the A slash L on the schedule when we were looking back at the hybrid might have seemed confusing, but it's the same thing here. It's that the amount of time that's live or with a teacher may change depending on the needs of the students. And so that's just a little bit of where some of that came from. I just wanted to throw that in. Thank you very much. So we have the first grade, what a remote schedule could look like. Again, I just want to keep emphasizing that those instructional blocks does not mean that the student is on the screen the whole time, that there could be, you know, we could break those blocks up in order to make the lessons more engaging and include independent activities, movement breaks, asynchronous videos. Then looking at the second through fifth grade, you know, really looking at also the amount of time that we spend on a direct instruction so that we were limiting it so it's not taking up the whole time. Dr. McNeil, could I just chime in on that for a quick second? It's Karen again. Hi Karen. I just wanted to say that I wanted to acknowledge that a part of our big discussion at this group for the second through fifth when we were creating the schedule, we really felt it's important to acknowledge that there are gonna be families that aren't going to be able to join in on the lessons as they're directed as live. So we're thinking of ways that we can be mindful of whether we're doing some asynchronous lessons where we are recording them so that they are available to families later in the day because as a principal, obviously in town, I have children at school, my husband's a teacher. So we are gonna be looking for ways to be creative in accessing some of the materials that my kids are gonna need help with while I'm doing my work at school. So that was a big consideration for this group and I still think those are part of the details that we also are still searching to organize a bit. Yes, and also I want to add that the asynchronous videos allow those students that need extra support to replay the direct instruction. So the asynchronous videos can be accessed at different times. So it not only benefits those students who can't sign on at that particular point in time because of, you know, extenuating circumstances. However, it also provides those students who actually can sign on it at that time. And if there's asynchronous videos that they can access at a later time to rehear a direct instruction so that they can help to resolve any misconceptions or misunderstandings about that particular teaching point that was being taught during that direct instruction time that they can access those asynchronous videos at a later time and hopefully they can also resolve any, help them to understand the content a little bit better. At the Gibbs, Ms. Pierre Maxwell, would you like to say anything about the remote schedule? Yes, Madame Pierre Maxwell will be happy to oblige. So I guess I'm learning as I'm listening, I think there was a comment made earlier about the schedule in looking at the elementary school schedule with the details. And I think one of the school committee members want to have it somewhat more similar to the elementary school schedule. So the reason that our schedule does not itemize the activities for the students, because I guess shifting from fifth grade to sixth grade, the way the lesson plans are written is a little bit different where the teachers typically start with an activator where they engage students into what the lesson's gonna be about. It could be a questions to check their knowledge on the subject itself. And then they move by exploring, they use the five E's when they plan their lesson, which is still the practices we would want the teachers to transfer from where the students are in front of them to when they're at home. So now I do understand, I love that Ms. Piers gave you that example on what the day look like or the week look like at a glance for a teacher's and which part of that week she would select to assign for the asynchronous day and which part of that she would do physically with the children. So we could go in the schedule and put under a science class, the teacher's gonna engage, explore, explain, elaborate and evaluate within those five E's, they will differentiate, they'll get to the point where they think about the different level of the children for that unit based on their formative assessment, what lesson they're gonna assign to different children. So the same thing they do physically when the children are there, it's the same thing they're gonna create and it's gonna take time as everyone have said. So I know that all summer, I don't think anyone has mentioned that but the department heads have been working within their subject with the teachers to create those lessons. And then we're grateful to have those extra 10 days. We're gonna be collaborated within the learning communities interdisciplinary and within the subjects to really figure out the best way. So the teachers had a chance to look at a true asynchronous lesson last spring where they organized it and assigned to the children and now they're going to do it better. Even when I'm not with the children what is that gonna look like? So when the teachers create their actual lesson for the rest of the summer and in September, we will be able to give you, this is what a lesson plan look like in person. This is what a lesson plan look like when they're not in front of the children and how are the two connected? Yes, it's gonna be a dense to be choreographed with the teachers within the learning team. When we're with the students, this is what we're gonna do and when they're not with us, this is what we're gonna do. And I gave looking at the project block learning, that's one opportunities for us to create interdisciplinary projects that can be short-term or long-term for the children to do. So I did not think of putting all that details into that because typically we're not putting the day under a microscope for someone who's not a teacher or somebody else to see it, but certainly I wanna be clear on what am I bringing back next time I come back? Do you want a simple of every subject so you can see this is how we break it down for math, for science, for English, for ancient civilization in a middle school setting versus an elementary school setting. So I guess that's what I would like some clarification on because this is the work we intend to do in collaboration with the teachers, the special education teachers. I'm spending a lot of time with my special coordinator, my ELL coordinator to talk about what's that gonna look like even from orientation. We want our ELL parents to come in because language is already a barrier. So we want them if we're able to under premises to do all that. So yeah, that's all I have for now. Okay, thank you very much. We're gonna move to the oddison. Mr. Merringer, did you wanna say some comments about your remote schedule? Sure, so I think it might be best. I think Julie did probably a good job of explaining it from a teacher's point of view. So I might give that a crack. So every day, first of all, from a student's point of view, they are going to three or four synchronous classes. What we wanted to do was to have synchronous classes but the limit screen time so that kids weren't getting burnt out with screen time. So if I'm a teacher looking at this schedule, I am Monday, period one, I am teaching a synchronous class. Period one on Tuesday, I am available to any of my period one students but I am not necessarily teaching a synchronous lesson. Wednesday, a synchronous lesson, very short. Thursday, a synchronous lesson. Friday, I am once again available for help from 8.45 to 9.30. I'm online but I'm not necessarily teaching in synchronous lesson. So from a kid's point of view, they're going to three to four synchronous classes a day. For teachers, they are responsible to be online five periods a day. Some they are synchronously teaching, some they are giving help or working in small groups. So this was seen as when a group that I know Dr. McNeil had together this summer, they were looking at some online schools and what was successful and they found out that the access to teachers is something they need to. They need to have a blend of synchronous and asynchronous lessons. Thank you very much, Mr. Merringer. Mr. McCarthy, comments on your remote schedule? Mr. McCarthy, are you still with us? Sorry about that. There you are. I'm still on mute. I always forget to check. Hi, Bill. Hello. So our remote schedule, the biggest piece on our schedules was we wanted to design something that would give us the ability to move fluidly from hybrid to remote and back again. Because we weren't too sure how things were gonna fall out in the coming months. So our remote schedule is very similar to what we have designed for the hybrid system. The biggest change which we've been looking at, we haven't settled on this yet, would be changing the order of the days a little bit so that students didn't have longer gaps in their education. But as of right now, as you can see, this is very similar to what we've already done with the hybrid model. The benefit of doing a semesterized system would be, we would be able to open the gates in the end of the semester in January if students wanted to transfer back in or transfer out. But once again, we want to take a look at those numbers of students requesting remote in order to go from there. Thank you very much, Mr. McCarthy. So Ms. Morgan, I am going to stop sharing my screen at this particular point in time. I just put into the slide deck some resources from the state that we utilize in order to help guide our discussions and make specific decisions and also definitely use as a foundation for our planning and then just letting everybody know that the individual preliminary plans can be found on the district website. Thank you. Okay. Thoughts from members. I see Mr. Cardin. All right, Mr. Cardin. Thank you. So there was a little, I don't want to say conflict, but discrepancy between Dr. Bode and Dr. McNeil about whether these plans that we just saw would also work for the remote by choice. And I know that's not what they were intended for, but that's the information that parents need. So I would ask the administrative team to go back and check. Now that we have remote by choice, is this what a student is going to get or do I have to modify it a bit? So we need to do that quickly so parents can make their choice. About that, I mean, I do think by the end of next week, it's very aggressive. We can talk more about that at subcommittee, but we're gonna have to put together packages of information at each level. So the elementary package is gonna have to be very clear that this is hybrid. This is, you know, on the two days you're not in school, it's mostly asynchronous. But if you choose remote, then you get synchronous every day. So there has to be enough information so that parents can make an educated choice and have more than two days to think about it. Thank you. Anybody else? Dr. Alsmanpe? Just agreeing with what Mr. Cardin said, that's all. I also agree too. And I'm glad that the curriculum subcommittee is meeting this week. So I think that'll be important. And I think it'll be helpful for us to potentially seek some feedback from people who aren't as familiar as we are with the plans and get a sense if somebody could, you know, get at least circle around a decision based on what we can provide them. Because we definitely, you know, I think this is one of the really hard, this is gonna be a really hard decision. And to the extent that we can, that this district can provide as much information as possible but have it be easily digestible and really understand the difference between the two options other than obviously the location for two of the days will be really important. So thank you guys for bearing with us and getting through this. And I learned, I, you know, I spent a lot of time. So for those who are still listening at home that this presentation is based on a reopening document that's available in Novus on the town of Arlington website. If you go to agendas and search for this meeting on the 10th, you'll be able to find the documentation. And there is a, I think it has grown to 133 pages, Dr. Bodhi. Reopening plan that has been put together by this team that has information that was shared tonight as well as sort of a narrative explanation, which I think goes a long way in helping us. But for me, having read it and then coming and seeing it and hearing about it was really helpful. So thank you. Okay, so my sense is right now that for tonight, given that it's 10, 53, we can close out the discussion and fall plan approval reopening piece of this meeting. Is there any, we don't need to vote on it, obviously, but is there any, anybody who disagrees with that? Dr. Allison Ampe. Did we need to approve the district's plan? Not just the choice, but the plan. Dr. Bodhi, do you need us to approve the plan? I think what it said in the motion that we passed was that the district would return with another, sort of another revised plan by the 28th. Is that right, Mr. Thielman? That's correct. That's correct. I think we should have some subcommittees meet for that. So we're good. Dr. Allison Ampe, yeah, okay. All right, Mr. Cardin, did you have something? Or you were just gonna- Oh no. Okay, all right. So, Dr. Bodhi, can we have a, I wanna make sure we may need to move the time, which is fine, but I'd like to get to the policy read for these three policies. Did you have anything for the superintendent report? Just the kindergarten numbers were today 485 with an additional 19 pending. Okay, thank you. So, consent agenda, there wasn't anything, right? Oh gosh, there is. Warrant. Yeah, I'm on it. All right, all items listed with an asterisk are considered to be routine and will be enacted by one motion. There will be no separate discussion of these items unless a member of the committee also requests in which event the item will be considered in its normal sequence. Approval of warrant, warrant two, one, zero, one, two, dated seven, 28, 2020, in the amount of 4,627,000 dollars. 4,627, four, six, two, seven, one, one, eight, dot, zero, three. Okay. So moved. Thank you, sir. Do we have a second? Second. Any discussion? No, we're not going to discuss it. Exton. Yes. Carden. Yes. Alison Ampey. Yes. Thielman. Yes. Flickman. Yes. And I am also, yes. I also wanted to note that Mr. Heiner had to leave us this evening. He had surgery today on his wrist and he gave us his best self for as long as he could. So, all right. Policy first read, Mr. Schlickman. Okay, we have- Oh wait, did we forget? We just skipped over Mr. Mason's financial report. All right, let's do Mr. Schlickman and then we'll go back to Mr. Mason. We have three policies for first read and let me just bring you very quickly through the draft minutes of the policy committee. EBC is a supplemental policy issues for the pandemic which was recommended by MASC, which we put forward even though there was a little confusion in conflict between a couple of provisions. We'll contact council for that. BEDH and BEDH, BEDH-E, we discussed again, please look at it. We're trying to get that in line with the native school committee versus Spalding. BEDB, Agenda Format Preparation Dissemination. We're trying to tighten things up further so that it's our meeting and we have more ability to deliberate. FAB, we talked about, we're still not doing anything with that, JJK schools, logos and trademarks. In that case, we're making a couple of tweaks, noting that Dr. Janger is working with students to come up with a new logo for the high school. We are ready for him to present something in the policy if adopted, we'll be there. We were presented with the face coverings policy, EBCFA. We were not sure why we would need to do that so we didn't take any action on it. And there's this huge policy whereas ACAB harassment which was forwarded by MASC and we really want to get canceled discussion before we go there. That's the report. Thank you, Mr. Schliffman. Mr. Mason, financial report, sorry, sir. No worries, I wasn't sure. No, just for some context on this, this was a report requested by Mr. Schliffman outlining some of the expenditures and incumbrances related to funding around COVID-19. And so here we are. Thank you, Jane, for framing that. And so the report reports on expenditures and revenues that has been posted to our financial system as of August 7th. And it includes the funding sources such as municipal cares fund, elementary and secondary education emergency belief funds and as well as the school committee budget expenses that we currently have not found the funding source or yet which we intend that there might be. Mr. Mason, I have to interrupt you because it's 11 and that's as far as I have authority from this committee to go. So where are we at? Mr. Thielman. I move that we extend the 10 o'clock rule to 11.15. Second. Ms. Exton. Yes. Mr. Cardin. Yes. Dr. Allison Ampe. Yes. Mr. Schliffman. Yes. Mr. Thielman. Yes. Yeah, and me. I'm yes too. Okay, sorry, Mr. Mason, please carry on. Yeah, no problem. I'm going to try to wrap this up as quick as possible for those that are not seeing the memo just trying to explain it. But basically it reports on two federal, different federal funding sources that we currently have received funds on the town side and on the school side, the ESSER funds, which is elementary, secondary education, emergency relief funds, are, is a grant that's managed by DESI. We're anticipating to get funds from CBRF, school reopening grant, which is another DESI related fund managed grant that is a federal funds as well through the CARES Act that will allocate dollars to us to, for help us reopening. Once again, that's the funding source for $225 per pupil, which is based on the FY21 foundation enrollment of 6081 students. That enrollment was based on the October 1st numbers in 2019, October 2019. And so in those, you will not see the FEMA funds or the CBRF funds because we have not necessarily received any yet. So there are some funds that are on the school committee budget or the school budget currently that will be moved over to those based on the reimbursements that are approved. So the FEMA, we anticipate 75% of the expenses that we did submit will be placed onto that fund. But we've been, we actually put on, we put expenses to the municipal CARES funds first and then try to go for the 75% reimbursements of the municipal CARES funds with dollar-to-dollar. And we anticipate to do the same thing for the CBRF and we will be applying for those funds before August 30th, which is the deadline. And we'll have a better idea of what expenses that were posted in FY21 that we'll be putting on that on top of the anticipated expenditures. The CBRF funds have a limited timeframe. So currently it's from March 1st to December 30th for expenses that we can use on that grant. So it'd be good to free up some of the funds on the general fund so that we can use it for expenses that are beyond that timeframe. But I'll be, I'm open to answering questions right now. I don't think- Mr. Schlickman. Thank you for doing this. This is very helpful. I'm very appreciative. Because there's school committee appropriation tangled into this, is there any reason why we should split this into a fiscal 20 and a fiscal 21 report? Will that help us to see anything? And I'm asking your opinion, Mr. Mason, because I don't wanna make you go do something if it's not gonna give us any value. Actually, I think it might help because the, right now you're seeing both years tied up together. In FY21 I would probably move those expenses because FY20 is kind of, we're closing out the year. And so that's all said and done for. Yeah, I realize that the grants can move across fiscal year because they're not necessarily tied to our schedule but noting that we have our own budget line items in there. Yeah, okay. So I'll take that as advice to, I'll adjust this report slightly to separate the fiscal years for you now. Thank you. Mr. Carded. Thank you. So I just wanted to note something that I had emailed Mr. Mason about. What I'm anxious to see is how much money we have to spend on all these needs we've been talking about. I mean, if we can put the CVRF funds to personnel, that's 21 teachers we can hire. We should be in the market to hire those teachers as soon as possible. If there's other needs, if we need custodians then we need to figure that out. So hopefully we'll be working forward towards that. Thank you. Dr. Allison Ampe. I think we'll have a budget subcommittee meeting scheduled in the next week or so. And we can discuss all of this. I'm also interested in knowing what needs we have in terms of budget for staff or other that we can't meet at this point because I spoke with Mr. Carden, Mr. Karman today and he's very interested in knowing there may be the potential for obtaining additional funds. But we need to know what we need to ask. So it sounds like that ask might be coming sooner rather than later, Dr. McNeil. So that's good. All right, anybody else on this one? Okay, subcommittee and liaison reports budget. Yes, sir. Yep, community relations. Mr. Heiner is not here. CIA. So we've set aside hopefully Friday morning for a subcommittee meeting to work on additional issues with the draft plan and the process moving forward. Not officially scheduled yet. Facilities? I was gonna, I think if we're gonna meet if we're gonna deadline of the 28th, sometime it would be good to get that report and then have a meeting, I think. I don't know, Dr. Allison Ampey, what do you think? We can't hear you. Sorry, I couldn't hear Mr. Thielman correctly. I said that I think we have to meet once we get the report. We've set a deadline of the 28th. I'd like to get that report first before scheduling meeting. I think that's what I'm saying unless Dr. Allison Ampey has a different impression. I'm wondering if we shouldn't meet with looking at a draft version because I think we're putting ourselves behind the gun if we wait for the report and then we meet and then we have recommendations and then end. So I would suggest meeting at some point when we think we can get a draft like the 21st-ish or so. I'll connect with the superintendent and with Mr. Feeney and see when they would have something and what's a reasonable time. It would be great for the 28th but the motion does say the 28th so they actually have until then. But let me just ask him and then we'll set it based on that. Policy, Mr. Schifman. You got our report. Obviously we've got more work to do. Oh, the other thing I want to make mention of is we're working on a policy for temporary signs and banners. I know that the chair and I have both had extensive conversations with town attorney Hyam. There's a draft policy that we may be able to introduce in the subcommittee report that's in the packet. The big concern facing us is that if we allow folks to post things on our fence or on our buildings without our consent, we are creating an open public forum which would mean that we'd have to allow everybody to do it because if somebody posted something that we found to be objectionable and took it off, we'd have a legal issue surrounding that. So for the folks who are thinking about the banner that was removed at Pierce, please hold off until we get a policy put together and then we'll work things out. Thank you, Mr. Shipman. And yes, indeed, I did talk to town council Hyam about this and I'm looking forward to him being back from his well-deserved holiday so we can keep moving on this or so that your team can keep moving on this. Arlington High School Building Committee. We're good. We had a good meeting. We're making progress and it's going along great. Super. Okay. Search process committee, Mr. Shipman. MASC has prepared a report on the focus groups and the surveys. We should be getting it to the point where we can distribute it to the process committee and set up a meeting very, very soon. Thank you. Liaison reports, announcements or future agenda items. Okay. Seeing none, I'm looking for a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. Ms. Ecksten. Yes. Mr. Cardin. Yes. Mr. Dr. Allison Ampe. Yes. Mr. Thielman. Yes. Mr. Shipman. Yes. And I am also yes. Thank you. Thank you all very much. Thank you for your time tonight. We appreciate you.