School Committee: August 20, 2020

Transcript captured from YouTube auto-captioning. No speaker labels; proper names and dollar figures occasionally misheard. Click any timecode to jump to that moment in the source video.

3:11 it was telling me the host was not allowing people to unmute themselves well now you are a co-host you may unmute yourself at will all right i see nan is on did you all coordinate collaborate um i did not get it would not allow me to access her slide so i’ve made her a co-host as well so that she can share her slides all right

3:43 i do love a seven o’clock meeting i know you too

4:00 usually you can’t make this up i had a nasdaq meeting with tony bent one of their representatives he used to be superintendent shrewsbury and he said is susan mcginnis working with you in marblehead and i said oh no um she was the other finalist in the search well i read something in our local paper that she was happy to be able to support the work that you’re doing there and i said well that’s very odd because i’ve not seen or heard from her but all right i am going to admit people

4:52 emily we emily we we are live streaming just so you know right now so

5:20 does anyone know how you change your like when you turn your camera off and there’s something right now it’s just a big orange j and i think it’s obnoxious and i’ve seen people that have really nice things as they’re i don’t know emily and david have different pictures on theirs

5:46 that’s right i forgot that they can’t immute themselves

5:59 all right i’m giving you guys co-host abilities so that you can unmute yourself yeah so you can you can go into settings and pick you know pick a picture or you can do a virtual setting or um you know it’s when when you get that first there’s that first login that says you’re in a zoom meeting usually that that’s where that’s where the settings are

6:41 dan you should be able to unmute yourself hi guys hi guys hi man good evening i love that picture behind you is that dartmouth

6:58 you win very good man absolutely that is a black and white from 1961. love it love it of the dartmouth green exactly with baker library nice

7:16 was a christmas gift that i had matted nice what did you um graduate undergraduate yeah i’m class of 87 87 okay great yep john i figured it out oh sorry go ahead you go to settings under the zoom uf okay okay uh no i mean uh references preferences

7:53 wait i just and profile do you see that i don’t okay so where it says zoom oh but see i i’m on a mac it might look different zoom preferences and then it’s under your profile okay i don’t know if i can do it while i’m in or were you because i could yeah

8:18 or i can anyway i’m gonna figure this out

9:27 so nan i’m not sure if you heard me say um i couldn’t open your slides so like co-host abilities you can share your screen when when you’re ready and and bring them right up perfect and it you know depending on how we’re doing on time i you know i may or may not okay sounds good

9:59 actually sarah since it’s just us can i just practice sharing the screen to make sure it’s working sure yes we are live streaming right now but yeah you want to share your screen

10:23 okay yep okay yep perfect

10:31 14 people in the waiting room is much different than 638 yes do you want me to help help uh let people in because i can ever all of us can do it sarah fox i gave you co-host abilities too so that we can all unmute ourselves then okay do you ever hit admit all or is that bad news no i hit admit all the time okay all right

11:40 and we are also live streaming this at this point too where is it live streamed sarah it’s it’s on a youtube page that i set up through my marblehead schools account um so i need to do a little bit more work on it on how to get it so that it’s more accessible um does it live there i’m sorry i know i’m the worst at technology like it’s embarrassing um does it live there like can people go back later on and watch it not live yep okay yep and then the one from last time is also embedded onto the back together mhd site oh that’s wonderful okay and so we can try to do that with this

12:27 one too if it ends up making sense um and i think you know the the our website discussion tonight that that also would be a good place to try to incorporate it in okay

15:13 foreign megan maybe you could play some youtube music in the background for uh while we’re waiting next time i’m just gonna have bono play personally

15:26 i swear there’s been a bono reference every single meeting since march that’s why i keep it up

15:56 i’ll give it another minute or so before calling to order got some people trickling in

16:50 okay i will go ahead and call us to order at 7 03 p.m welcome everyone um if anyone wants to make public comment uh please um raise your hand use the raise hand function and i will call on you so i’ll give people a moment to do that sarah i wonder if we should just explain to people how to do that because i i don’t know if everybody’s as well versed at zoom good good call so if you go over to your if you if you go over to your participants bar if you push participants at the bottom of your screen and then you hover over i believe it’s if you hover over

17:35 yourself there should be an option to raise your hand if anybody needs to correct me go ahead because i’m usually the host on these and so it’s a little different so at the bottom of the participants windows where i’ve always seen the raised hand but it may be different on different devices okay so currently i don’t see anybody’s hand raised does anybody want to make public comment this evening raise their hand if so

18:25 sarah for some reason it’s not on mine anymore tonight oh interesting huh it’s because it’s because you’re the co-host there oh yeah function all right well i don’t see anybody’s hand raised so we will move forward so john that brings us to the superintendent’s report and the reentry update i will let you take it away sure thank you um i feel like we could have a school committee meeting every night because there is new updates and new information coming in i think yesterday i referred to it as a tsunami of information because the governor made

19:11 the announcement about vaccinations or flu shots rather as a requirement for all students in public schools so there was a lot of interest generated from that and then athletics updates on fall seasons of play and what sports would be offered and how so i won’t steal greg’s thunder we’re going to have each of the committee chairs do a brief presentation to the committee this evening but lots of information some updated information forthcoming on remote learning and parameters for that i have said a lot that we are in a classic chicken or egg situation right now and i so

19:59 appreciate that parents desperately want to know more specifics and more details of information on if they choose fully remote or they choose the hybrid plan um i have heard the rumblings out there that people are going to maybe indicate one choice and then jump and switch uh to another and i would just ask that you are very honest in your choice um we unlike other school districts are not holding families to that choice for the year some districts are saying what you decide now in august will be your learning modality for the year um we are making uh choice points uh in the

20:44 quarter for the trimester for families that may pick fully remote and then feel better about sending their children back after having seen how the hybrid works or vice versa people might start out in the hybrid and not feel comfortable or things will change so they want to make that transition so i would just ask our families to take the information that we’re able to provide now back to my chicken and egg scenario we’re in that place where it’s hard for us to get into too deep on the specifics when we don’t know the numbers and so right now we have about half our families who have responded to the surveys the principal or to the survey

21:29 the principals did their listening sessions on tuesday and i continue to be surprised and i don’t know why but hundreds of families took advantage of the opportunity to participate in those listening sessions and those were masterfully guided uh by building principles um you know facilitating questions uh that honestly some of which we don’t yet have the answers to but i feel good about the opportunity that we provided families to ask questions to seek clarifications and i know they worked this morning on kind of a master faq and each principal sent something out to families

22:15 synthesizing all of the information from their listening sessions so that is also posted with the recordings of the listening sessions on the backtogether mhd.com website um the survey continues a lot of questions about safety and what uh we mean by that in the governor’s kind of stoplight highlighting system of green areas and yellow areas and red areas there was a superintendent today that posted that his community in a 24 hour period or in a day and a half went from being a yellow

23:01 to a red to a yellow to a white based on information and their public board of health was saying something that was different than what was posted on the state site and so i know that that can be a source of frustration for people to look and say look at the mem look at the numbers in marblehead john you’re missing it we could go back and for me it is not that we could go back is it how we go back safely and i have tried to make that clear that we want to spend those three weeks educating students and families for how to be in schools and classrooms that will look and operate nothing like they left in march what we understood school to be

23:46 to be to be is nothing like it will be in september and i think having 400 students in the first cohort show up at marblehead high school on september 14th would be a recipe for disaster so i’m hoping that starting in remote learning we get remote learning right i’m asking teachers to be in their classrooms and to be doing remote learning for those three weeks and then we will transition to the hybrid model for students in grades 3 to 12 on october 5th i was able to get some of our youngest learners back in early and that updated timeline is on the back together mhd website as well so we’re able to bring our

24:32 kindergartners our first graders and our second graders back earlier um i heard that loudly and clearly from you and through the listening sessions and so it is kind of a nice update that we’re able to do that um some good news uh we’re gonna have marblehead masks uh which will fit very nicely into what was the front page story in the paper today about normalizing uh mask wearing and since that will be a major part of safely being in school for all of our students pre-k to 12 wearing a mask along with the social distancing and the hand washing and other safety measures but we have obtained

25:19 designer masks for all of our students and that will be part of the three-week period as well when students are coming in meeting their teacher building relationships picking up materials for the remote learning phase that we will give them these masks the backpack drive again such a celebration of this community we set a goal of if we were able to raise two thousand dollars an anonymous donor would donate an additional thousand dollars and like that we raised the two thousand dollars so we have met uh that goal and over a hundred marblehead students will benefit from this back to school backpack drive school calendar is

26:05 is is i think fairly set at this point i have been working with it and doing options and counting days and circling dates and it involves some bit of math which i’m not particularly good at so i’ve done it about 17 times now i think we have finally landed day one of school is september 14th that was the easy one what the last day of school after a bit will be june 14th and i picked that because it’s my birthday it will be a celebration across the district that the last day of school is also my birthday and then we will be publishing for families those quarter and trimester dates which we have

26:52 identified will be transition points that if you want to go from fully remote to the hybrid or vice versa so we will be getting those out to families as well what i published in this memo i think has moved slightly so i will update those dates and get them to the committee as i understand calendar is a topic of great interest here so i want to make sure i get that right communication campaign uh we have really and by we i mean kate thompson has really done an amazing job with communications some of the stuff that we are able to do and produce and the metrics uh that we’re able to follow

27:39 is is really outstanding and so you see just some data points 53 tweets thousands and thousands of views and that’s getting the information out there and i attended a communications workshop professional development about five years ago and they said if you’re not telling your district story somebody else is and i feel very good about what we have been able to do in the midst of all this reopening uh stuff that we’ve been able to get it out there and communicate clearly and even when people don’t agree or are not pleased by the information that we’re sharing i get email after email that appreciate

28:25 the transparency and the availability of information for families some information on the fireside chats um kate shared something interesting in the communications meeting this morning that nearly 80 of the people who watch my weekly updates watch it from beginning to end and she said in the corporate communications world ceos would be astounded by a data point like that that people actually watched or engaged something that was put out 80 of people from start to finish so i’m pleased by the work that we’re doing in communications i would like to give opportunity for the reopening committees

29:11 reopening committees reopening committees to share with you the work that they’ve been doing this summer because it’s so specific and so nuanced and so for me as the superintendent to try and synthesize nine subcommittees and what they have done literally putting in hundreds of hours of work but i would open it up to questions if you want to ask me questions or you want me to move into the subcommittee reports put that out there megan yeah i don’t have a question but john i just really want to thank you for um going back and having another look at the early learners um i just i really appreciate that and i think where you’ve come out is a really great solution so um i think one thing that you mentioned

29:59 in your update is the piece about using time during those three weeks of remote learning to really help train students and probably parents too and i think that’s a really important component to that that i you know i think it was great for you to clarify because to be honest that was something that um you know i’ve mentioned to you like i wasn’t i wasn’t 100 sure um how that was happening so i think that’s that was a great clarification thank you and i can’t wait for the birthday party in june megan i want to dovetail on that because that’s something i’m getting a number of emails and i know that assistant superintendent murphy is getting them as well parents are desperate for how they can best support their learners at home and i’m not i’m

30:45 not sure that schools have done a great job of that other than saying okay these will be remote learning days at home so i think that we’ll be collaborating in some subcommittees about doing parent outreach or perhaps videos for how to keep your student focused and engaged while in remote learning because we’ve spent so much time working with teachers and students but we’re asking parents to be educational facilitators at home but not giving them any sort of training or tools or skills skill development work in that so that’s something that will be coming down as well yeah that’s awesome thank you thanks megan sarah do you want to did you have something yeah i took a few notes and when you were talking but just to to follow up on

31:31 what you just said i think that you know we talk about the professional development but if there’s a parent development night i think that would be wonderful um and and i know that that’s something that’s you know being talked about and in the works but i think that that will really be welcome in the community so a few notes i took when you were presenting things um i just want to clarify so it’s really obvious that you can’t go from remote to hybrid except at the quarters or trimesters but if someone is in a hybrid situation and just feeling you know their child’s not embarking on safe behaviors some there’s a new dynamic in the household that creates something can you go from hybrid to remote is it a one-way street

32:16 or no not at all yeah i think that’s a fair question sarah and i think we’re going to have to be very contextual with those decisions and determine it on a case-by-case basis if somebody’s family had a medical tragedy or a significant event and they felt very unsafe sending their child back to school um i wouldn’t want to be in the position of saying no it’s not a change point for you but i wouldn’t want to broadly say yes the it’s a one-way street for one but not for the other okay i just wanted to clarify because i i think that’s a really good point that um you know obviously there are exceptions to every rule but this is this is a rule and that p honesty is definitely in these surveys going to set us all up for the best success

33:02 success success um and then the oh one question you’re talking about the the speaking in the class of teaching from the classroom um one thought is for the teacher that is the dedicated remote teacher um and you don’t have to answer this right now it’s just i’m thinking as i heard you say it would that behoove us to have that person teach from home for a few reasons it frees up a classroom which gives us more space um since that person will never ever have students in that room um also it you know the reason for teaching remote may be a reason they can’t be in the building but um also just you know for those kids that are seeing a teacher in the hybrid mode you want to see them

33:48 in their classroom i understand that but um for the kids that are never entering in classroom this year i wonder if it will be every day when they see a classroom just like a little pin like look what you’re missing and it might normalize it more if everybody is kind of in a non-classroom atypical environment and that’s just me thinking and again you don’t have to answer it was just a thought i had no i can jump uh on that it gives me another opportunity to commend joan miller and the executive board of mea for their collaboration and work with us sarah and i sat down with them earlier this week to continue conversations on um people that are electing to be fully remote this year and i you know there

34:33 will be some people that just cannot come back into the buildings and so they will be dedicated remote teachers because they have to stay at home and how those decisions are made is still in process but i would say that i don’t even want to give a number most of our teaching faculty my expectations are back in school and back in their classrooms

35:01 and my last question is the quarter and the try um is it is it that you’re figuring out will it be quarters or try or if if you’re a school that’s on the trimaster situation you come back at the try that’s okay

35:24 all right john um how would you like to call on the facilitators um i i sent them out a an order list today but i will introduce each of them and uh have them uh i’ve given them very specific parameters three to five minutes because with nine subcommittee reports we could be here all evening so to set the example my colleague in crime my co-host nan murphy the assistant superintendent will talk about teaching learning pre-k to 12. all right and meg can unmute herself so okay well good evening everyone um i i am excited to be giving you a little bit of a background this evening i can’t even

36:10 believe dr bucky that we have been together seven weeks and all we have accomplished as a team in seven weeks um so i want to have i want to give a little shout out first and foremost to the team members the this here is compiles all of the people who were part of helping to create our teaching and learning reentry plan so all of these folks teachers union members school leaders parent population all of us came together there were 34 of us came together sometimes weekly sometimes three times a week sometimes two times a week and we

36:57 really worked very diligently to create the plans that we’re going to be welcoming students back into their school communities with and i am forever grateful i can’t imagine ever putting forward this kind of work to somebody who’s new in a position to come in and facilitate a group of 34 different people to try to get such an important task completed and yet it was not only something we completed successfully but i think everybody really felt that the the work was enjoyable um and we we enjoyed getting to know each other i want to share with you some of the driving factors around all

37:43 of the work we did we really anchored in on certain priorities student and staff health and safety of course being number one student and staff social emotional needs and well-being so as we created these plans all of these points drove decisions that we made when we would draft a plan we’d go back and we’d anchor all of these components against the plan and if one of them was an outlier the plan got changed so maximizing face-to-face equity and access special education services all of these things the parent hardships and what we’re hearing from parents and continue

38:29 to hear from parents were consistently considered and part of the process

38:37 so i thank everybody for having the right perspective in entering the work now that all of our plans are in place and we are ready to move forward the work is continuing we have broken up into six subcommittees we have advisory committees for principals as well as two additional committees one is focused on social emotional preparedness of students and staff and referring back to what john’s comments were about really supporting our parents at home with remote learning we have a subcommittee working on that they are tasked with doing some research pulling articles we want to

39:23 help have kate help us create a page for our website that that has continually puts up new information for parents about supporting their students we’d like to have um we are going to have a remote teaching learning opportunity teaching our parents how to use zoom how to use google classroom and how to use um some of the other platforms so we’re working on those recordings but it’s been an absolute honor to be part of this work and i feel privileged to have gotten to know so many wonderful people in the marblehead teaching and learning community and feel really encouraged about the people that are moving this work forward so with that i’ll open it up to questions

40:10 if there’s time if not we can move right along madam chair i defer to you george does anybody have any questions no i just want to say that this has been one of the most collaborative experiences i’ve ever been part of i’ve been very impressed

40:37 all right thanks nan all right john who’s up next we’ll have todd bloodgood who will do a facilities and transportation update all right let me find todd and i will unmute him

41:07 all right todd you should be unneeded i am unmuted thank you good evening everybody um so i’m i’m going to start off by saying that uh all the people that we’ve we have on our our subcommittee have just been wonderful they’ve had great ideas um definite uh you know uh needs that they have thought of that we haven’t uh which which is exactly what we needed and the the input has just been wonderful um so i’m going to jump right into uh what everyone has been uh you know concerned about the most is our is our hvac systems throughout the school district we are in process

41:55 right now of having a computer control company adding some different mechanisms so that every school that is computer controlled uh the outside aired dampers on the large units up on the roof at least at minimum every two hours will open 100 to dump fresh air into these buildings uh for 20 minutes minimum there’s also going to be on this program a uh an actual red button so if i press the button we can do that at any time that we feel we need to um so that that’s part of it we also have contracted with um a company we’ve used in the past for our

42:41 asbestos abatement monitoring they also have an engineer that is a professional at the determining hva systems their efficiency for all the flow that we require the indoor air quality testing is what they’re working on the filtration air flow patterns different pressurizations different rooms nurses in the isolation rooms will require different pressure pressurizations than the rest of the schools those have to be more of a negative um once they are done and they come through and they do their air quality testing it will probably be

43:27 a two-step process they recommend highly that it’s done prior to and after there are people in the buildings so they can get the levels of carbon dioxide from people just breathing in in these buildings and see how the flow is going with those when i met with them we spoke at great length they asked me everything that we’ve been looking into and also doing which includes all the exhaust fans on all the roofs all the filter replacements and uh just making sure that all that that stuff is working which we are going through piece by piece making sure if we have to

44:13 replace an exhaust fan we’re replacing it if it’s a belt or just a motor whatever it is we’re just getting right at it and uh where we can in the older schools they’re not computer controlled and do not have these rooftop units what we’re doing is replacing the exhaust fans with larger units so we can draw more air out of these buildings and the whole trick is to get as much fresh air into these buildings as we possibly can so that being said we’ve also uh acquired some air purifiers that are going to go into the isolation rooms as well as in nurses offices which have a hepa filter as well as a charcoal filter built into them that can be changed

45:00 we’ve also uh acquired i believe enough signage uh for all the schools including for you know the uh spacing you know there are stickers you put on the floor for please stand here we have arrows for the directionals we have hand sanitizers being installed throughout we also have mobile ones that we can put where we need if we need more in certain areas we just move them with signage hand washing signs mask wearing posters uh you know for uh entry doors you know do not enter this premises without a mask on so and then outside what we’re i’m trying to get well not trying we are

45:46 going to get is uh stencils that we can paint under the ground using the uh turf paint which is water-based product that wears away and washes away naturally quickly uh in the shape of a magician so we’ll space them out six feet apart for the entryways we are still working on getting the tents uh michelle and i were were talking about that today um you know how many we’re going to need at each school we’re going to need different two different sizes you know one is say a 20 by 20 for the outdoor classrooms the other one is a 20 by 40 for the kids to line up under when it’s raining or snowing or what have you

46:31 we’ve also worked on some people have already gotten their masks fittings for the n95 masks some of the nurses some of the bus drivers we still have to get some of the special education people fitted as well as the bus monitors

46:54 water situation water situation we are going to be turning off all of the water fountains and it was discussed at great length and uh i think sarah fox i think you came up with the the winning note on why we are going to be going with water bottles instead of dispensers because even if it’s a touchless dispenser if a student shoves their bottle up into this unit it can spread so we will be handing out i’m working with richard kelleher so we can make sure we have enough and the proper sizes not every student needs the big bottles and some of them only require the small bottles but we are required to

47:39 provide drinking water so we’re working on that as well once we have uh

47:49 finished with our engineers and the recommendations that they make we’ll be able to continually monitor uh with whatever they suggest we will do on how to continually monitor the air quality in the buildings so i think um michelle unless you have something else uh i think that’s about it for the buildings for the buses we are we like i said we’ve had the bus drivers fit tested the spacing we’ve already figured that out maximum between 20 to 23 on our 62 seat buses can fit on the smaller buses that transport the special education students

48:35 we will only be able to transport approximately four children at a time due to the fact that there’s a driver and a monitor on that bus and then even our biggest bus which has no wheelchair lift in it is 72 seats we can only fit 25 on that so we will be running i’m sure multiple runs when need be but we also have a new bus on order so that will give us four large buses to try to accommodate um getting all these kids back and forth in a timely manner and of course safely so uh if any i’ll i’ll end it there because i can keep going forever but if anyone has questions please feel free yet megan

49:21 yet megan yet megan um just on that bus todd do we have any idea when it’s scheduled to be delivered we probably won’t get that till november uh they take three months to build i wish we could go to the to the lot and grab it but yeah we have to specify things like this the newest one will also have a wheelchair lift that way we’ll have three large buses that have a wheelchair lift so even if say one had to be put out of service for repairs we still have two other large buses with the wheelchairs left in them right okay all right thank you yeah sarah um

50:07 to follow up on what you just said about not having it till november are you confident we can cover everybody until november we will just have to be running multiple runs and that’s and initially what we thought we might have to do anyways because we did you know we we can’t have a pile of kids waiting at the bus stop number one and then we can’t also pack them into the buses like we normally would you know they’re made to hold that many children but so we’re gonna have to figure out uh some timing issues we’re still working on that but if we’re only transporting say half of the student population on any given day that would also help

50:53 in that sense till we get that new big bus okay and then do we have um dedicated bus drivers i know sometimes we share between the janitors in the buses is just the the load on the janitors is so much higher this year than ever before do we have dedicated bus drivers we actually have we this district only has one true dedicated bus driver we have three others that have uh i’m sorry two others that have their licenses for the large buses and where we have right now on school spring we’re looking for two part-time bus drivers so that they can just come in morning or afternoon whatever we need

51:38 you you are correct there’s so much more on them this this time and yeah you know uh i can’t say enough good about my staff they they’ll just they just do whatever they have to they’re very good and they’ve worked so hard this summer so i’m very proud of them thank you chad we’re setting them up to for success and we’re not over taxing anybody but i just also want to on the water bottle thing before i get 100 emails from sustainable marblehead that i broke their heart um i i think that the message will should go out much like it did to at bell that kids come to school water bottle um and since they’re only there for half day you know hopefully we’re making we’re getting through on that full water bottle so you

52:25 know we’ll have water at school for kids but this isn’t a novelty everybody gets a bottle such situation i just put that plug in because i know my mailbox will be full from system oh no i remember when we were talking about it and we were discussing that it would be such a waste and such a huge step backwards for recycling uh that’s why we were initially talking about the uh the touchless dispensers but in the end just to keep everybody safe as possible unfortunately and hopefully it will only be for a short amount of time you know we would go with the giving up the bottles of water if they need it if they could bring their own that would be great

53:10 even if they brought two with them to school that would be wonderful but we have to supply them and i think that using these uh handing out the bottles of water is the safest way right now

53:31 thanks todd um i know you asked michelle if she had anything to add i’m gonna try to um okay michelle you’re unmuted did you have anything you wanted to add no i think todd pretty much covered it all and i just cannot um say enough about how todd has been working on this 24 hours a day and our entire committee so i really want to um say thanks for that um and and the feedback we have got has been tremendous and you know has really helped us so i want to thank everyone who has contributed to this venture

54:05 great thanks michelle and thank you very much todd um assuming nobody else has any questions for todd all right all right looks like we’re ready to move forward john who’s next all right we will hear from uh kathy hennessey and the technology committee all right kathy let me and you you should be able to go kathy okay great thanks very much sarah so thanks first of all for letting us all speak tonight it’s um i think it’s a good way of just kind of sharing what we’ve all been working on um i was very fortunate with the tech subcommittee we had 14 members two of whom were um incoming freshmen and seniors at the high school we had um five parents four four of whom were also

54:50 staff members teachers or even in my department um we had representatives from all the levels so we had um three people from the high school michelle carlson susan schatfed henry christensen um the middle school we had elizabeth lutwick and the new gal julia ferreira who jumped right in she just started working and she was a member of high committee um from village we had jonathan heller and kate felling back um and then from glover school we had uh janet muller and diane gora and then um gretchen langton and heather rosado both their children and then deborah laramie was the parent and and it was very informative for me to hear all of the um the different suggestions and a lot of the teachers this summer took um pde

55:37 courses with salem state collaborative and online courses and then henry christensen was he she had a number of the um slides and whatever recommendations of software that that his um instructor was sharing and so those are just additional tools i guess so to have at our toolbox we have looked at um probably 12 to 15 software packages where we’re still in the process of getting um information from each principal just you know they’re polling their teachers to say okay you know we know you like to use you know all of these applications or programs but we really need to pare it down and you know just so we have standardization across the district so that we know that all grade

56:23 two teaches all grade three teachers are at least using the same basic list and then if they want to enhance that they can um this is a lot of work involved we’re working right now um besides getting the numbers because because we you know as the enrollment numbers change a lot of the subscriptions are based on student enrollment so um as we get the more you know um static i guess uh enrollment and this so we can you know get a good idea because we don’t want to pay for numbers that we don’t have but we want to have enough for the students that we do have um we kind of are we addressed our um committee just kind of looked at kind of four areas um software hardware communication and then the technical support piece um as it has

57:08 been mentioned it’s it’s so important for the technical support um professional development not just for the teachers but also for the um the students and their families um it’s a great idea to have um uh not really an open house night but i got you know a pd night for families for those people that would be interested so that’s something that we certainly would be pursuing and um it would be great to have on this the website just like a tech support portal more or less that would have the um information with videos from the different vendors or videos that the teachers produce or whatever that would be instructive and ideally just shot little you know just to get people started and that they have questions you know sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know you know to ask um there was a great suggestion from both

57:54 um superintendent man about developing a tech glossary because a lot of times we become immersed in all this lingo and we don’t we don’t realize that people don’t always understand what we’re referencing so that is something that we’re working that with we’re working on and we’ll definitely plan to have on the website just to explain to parents you know what do we mean when we say we’re going to get you know a platform called clever you know what does that mean what what does it entail what’s going to be on it so those are the things that we’re working on um is f that’s the software piece as far as the hardware certainly addressed the requisition from staff members um a lot of them had didn’t always have a good device to go back and forth from school to home so that that’s being addressed unfortunately like everything else supply and demand um has really cut

58:41 into what’s available so you know we have laptops as you know for the um staff on on auto um and then once they come in when they deliver you know like the tech department will have to work to um get them configured inventoried and then distributed so that’s something that we i can’t say looking forward to but we are looking forward to the arrival of those devices and the same thing for students right now i’m still in the final processes of of gathering back the devices that we load out um in the spring um just so we have a chance to um first of all clean them evaluate them and you know and then we’ll have a better idea of what we have on hand for when students are in school as well as what you know and then ideally with john’s survey that that will the results from that will give us a

59:27 much better indication of what the needs are for the family um in terms of you know devices you know doing more than one device what happens with it with their internet access at home um we’re in the process of evaluating trying to get numbers on what exactly what’s the bandwidth drawing how much how much is needed to support one session of a video conference and so we’re in the process of trying to get those numbers to be able to extrapolate out um and then um you know and then as far as you know i mean there are just different um pieces of the uh the network we had we placed switches at the high school this year to improve our network at the high school i’ve actually contacted um comcast trying to see if there’s some kind of a

1:00:13 partnership that the schools could farm in terms of with the with comcast’s uh internet essentials program that maybe that would be something that we could you know because sometimes we also looking at hot spots but sometimes the hot spot might solve like an individual problem but it doesn’t improve the overall you know capacity when you have more than one user in the house so that’s um what we’re working on um a lot of work we’ve enjoyed working together it was a good group um they shared about what they what they liked what they didn’t like about a certain and of course you know different suggestions coming in from teachers so um i guess that’s my summary any questions

1:01:03 um thank you kathy so much i actually wanted to give you accommodation i i’ve been i’m just amazed at the amount of hours that you put in in the last year particularly the last few months to make sure everybody’s up and running and i know that’s appreciated by everybody one question i do have i liked on the survey how it said um give you an idea of what was what what a good device would be you know seven hour battery and things like that but i think there’s a lot of parents out there myself and included that don’t know what we don’t know um and could the tech committee release an faq about you know to have multiple children live streaming for a period of time this is what your internet should look like because i don’t want to you know i

1:01:48 know the school side of things is looking into that but for these children that will be remote learning um where it is going to be much different than the spring and there might not have been as much live simultaneously screening screening um of multiple devices if we could release an faq to families what we can be doing on our end to maximize results um because i know with comcast and verizon there’s a lead time to kind of up up our game if we need to thank you so that’s a good question i mean and that’s something that we’re working on i mean i’m we’re trying to figure out what exactly you know does um happens in the house you know when you have you know a parent working from home and two or three children that are trying to do their you know either a

1:02:34 session with your teacher or just doing their regular work and um it i know i have seen some um documentation where they’ll say okay fine the average um zoom or or meat might require three and a half mips you know so in order for a family to accommodate that they have to have a certain speed router you know and so they have to look to see what you know what they’re uploading their download speeds uh that kind of thing so it’s hard we can certainly put an faq out but i don’t know um we can’t change it you know for families we can’t improve it we can just find put out there what other people have have discovered but that’s certainly something that we’re walking working on an faq um about a lot of things never hurts right yes i think a lot of parents might think they’re okay but when they see

1:03:19 your data and and compare it to what they have um they would be the distracting student you know because their technology isn’t working that’s a great suggestion thank you

1:03:33 all right thank you kathy megan you’ve got a question it’s it’s not a question it’s just kind of to support some of the work kathy i mean you mentioned across the board at least for buildings or grades looking at standardization across applications so that’s one piece you know i think i’m really happy to hear i know for a lot of parents that was a struggle in the spring the lack of consistency across that and then you know the multitude of applications that were used so i just you know want to stress that work and appreciate that you’re heading in that direction and also you know that we mentioned earlier with john the kind of assistance to parents and training on those pieces so you know i appreciate you continuing that work in the

1:04:18 technology side as well so i just wanted to stress those points they’re important ones i think so thank you no they definitely have thanks yeah that clever um platform is is really a neat thing that i think is going to allow teachers to really use a lot of the things that they want to use and then allow parents not to have to keep track of a whole bunch of things so it’s i think that there’s a lot of promise in that and i’ve listened to kathy do updates um on the oversight committee and so it you know kind of listening to it takes shape it’s it’s kind it’s a pretty cool program emily did you have something i just want to say that um what kathy had said about on the website having a tech what a tech support portal

1:05:03 support portal support portal i think that is a must and if there’s a way that people could actually email in a question right there so instead of having to like figure out who to email it to and then i know that adds extra work but just as a way to get the support like um you know directly sure i mean oh yeah no whatever would be on the website we would certainly have an email address that would say you know if you have questions or you know click here and then we would get the emails and do the best we could to um and having little videos i think that’s great of what you know where they say like circle like press this and we’re circled with an arrow like to go through the steps like

1:05:50 of all the different programs like the screenshots i think the more that’s on there for parents and students the better well i think that’s great that’s and that that’s where we benefit from the expertise from the teachers um because you know the tech department as a group we don’t use you know like a program you know like like brain top or something like that but the teachers that have been using it with their with their students they’re the ones that we’re going to lean on i know diane gore has spent some time with me just running through seesaw you know because i had never seen it um so we we tend to get involved just in the technical setup part of it but it’s good you know okay so just to kind of draw on the experience from the teachers and have them whose nan said draw those videos so

1:06:36 anybody else anybody else okay okay thanks very much i think that’s it kathy thank you all right as a new superintendent i’m very appreciative of the learning curve that i’ve had on facilities transportation and technology and so a big shout out to the facilitators of those perhaps no more important subcommittee in the midst of a pandemic is the health and safety and so i will shoot it over to deanna mcmahon to talk about the really great work that that group has been doing with deanna hi everybody so let’s see i just want to start with saying that i feel very blessed to work in a community where so many people are willing to volunteer

1:07:22 their time to work productively using research experience and discussion to create a plan that would help marblehead navigate through this covet 19 time there were 21 members on my committee with all types of work and life experience there was the nurses from the all the public schools deb cullen beth stanigev megan calpin myself deanna mcmahon elizabeth rostrin amanda rivers and karen doherty the teachers on my committee were lea bordeiri who is a teacher at the high school maura dartly rocco who was a teacher at the veterans school sally chevry who is a teacher eck lover and the parents i had were diverse i had dr jill diamond dr daniel blander vanessa evans shepard leanne homan

1:08:09 steven susan spencer sandra callahan carrie ann driscoll mckearney susie shiowitz jenny kalichman board of health member michelle gottlieb and administrator lindsey page and i want to thank them all i don’t know if any of them are here but i want to thank them all because we did all work and put our heads together and had back and forth many times to try to figure out a plan that was going to work for our school system um since we were working with grades pre-k through 12 our committee divided up into three groups and i broke everyone down into groups separated by pre-k to third grade and then because we have third grade at village i also had another group that was third grade to sixth grade and then the final group was seventh grade to twelfth grade we met over several weeks and worked on the health and safety plan for the district keeping in mind that we were

1:08:55 compiling information and creating a plan meant to keep families students and staff of all ages safe we are using the cdc and the local board of health along with massachusetts department of public health to structure our plan and we’ll continue to do use them as reference uh because things are ever changing every single day i’m seeing new stuff uh john can attest to that because i’m shooting it to him and saying should we talk about this can we so i apologize for those um this is by no beans been easy because of the numerous unknowns and moment-to-moment changes that we need to keep up with and even now and into the future our plan will be pivoting along uh as we work to keep the community health and safe uh keep the community healthy and safe and informed uh the

1:09:40 next few steps are to create a health certifying screening tool that will be used for everyone before they head into school or work and to create strong teaching tools through professional development video signage um in order to reinforce the safety of the community and keeping everybody up on the changes i am also planning on putting together some scenarios for the marblehead public schools website so that people can see like if you are a person who was um in contact with someone that you know is a positive case with what you would do i also want to post some definitions because like i see a lot of the words that come from covet are just not words we hear all the time and i think the definitions will help people i’m going to create this to be a

1:10:28 piece of competency for the staff and to help people feel comfortable i want them to know that the nurses in the buildings do know what we’re talking about and that we are informed for comfort and i want the community to be able to go to this website and be able to say okay this is what i do of course we will also be available for parents to reach out they reach out all the time and i don’t think that at this time it’ll be any different so thank you does anyone have any questions for me i’m sure that some things might come up

1:11:05 i don’t want to head down to rabbit hole but i did because deanna mentioned something um they updated guidance yesterday that originally if a coveted positive person were in a classroom all of the students in that classroom would be considered in need of the 14-day quarantine they have updated that i think they were trying to be helpful but to say if you were within six feet of someone for 15 minutes or longer and i was interviewed by the paper today and they’ve already put this up so that’s why i’m addressing it with school committee tonight um as a parent that’s probably not very comforting to me to

1:11:50 say okay my child was seven feet away for only 11 minutes so it’s okay and so as that guidance has been updated i think that it’s going to cause anxiety for families and so deanna will support this i’m sure while we do use the cdc and that local boards of health can uh impose a stricter or a stronger scenario or a condition which schools will operate and so even though they have updated that guidance i think the health and safety committee is going to want to look at that and see if that’s the staff or that’s the scenario we want to use in marblehead yes we are planning on using the description of contact tracing very

1:12:36 firmly just because it helps people kind of get back and and out of the rabbit hole it is that you are in in contact with a person for more than 15 minutes six feet or closer and it is even when you have a mask on so it will be different depending on the elementary schools where the kids are staying in the classrooms consistently uh because the contact is that entire class that they’re sitting there um it will be who is sitting near them so we are asking for assigned seedage so that for the most part we can know who was within what kind of spacing with kids and then when you get to the high school it would be a little bit different even if veterans a little different because kids are moving so it’s still going to be based on that greater than 15 minutes within six feet and when you are masked you are considered a contact because the

1:13:21 regular typical person in the building is not going to have n95 the nurses will have n95 there will be a few staff people that have n95 and those are not considered close contacts because n95 is fitted and sized and that’s to keep us protected for being in contact taking care of kids that might be longer than 15 minutes closer than six feet

1:13:47 great thank you deanna thanks sarah do you have a quick question yes john’s rabbit hole statement brought me to my question um he was tricking me i almost didn’t i um i i do have concerns about this idea especially at the elementary age groups of this 15 minutes because then we go outside for a mask break and then you know we’re in the hallway and we’re walking and it gets gray really really quick uh johnny was two rows over from sally and so it was i just think it gets gray really really quick um so that that is a concern um definitely and then contact tracing

1:14:33 i know as it stands now a person has to agree to contact tracing and they cannot be legally compelled is that different in the schools will the school be contacted to do the contact racing themselves or if johnny is positive will it be up to johnny’s mother and the honor system to tell the state the the con uh the the contract trades or at the state who sat next to him and give give a release to release that ability to talk to the school because i know there’s a lot of stigma that people worry about and my concern is if johnny’s mother says no i’m not playing ball can the school release the information

1:15:19 okay so for your first question the illness is considered a air droplet so an air droplet is i sneeze i cough and that comes out of my mouth and it may travel six feet but if i have a mask on it’s not gonna travel six feet because i’ve got my mask on but potentially it could travel six feet and drop to the ground this illness does not float around in the air and like end up in other spaces other than those people that are within six feet of that positive case does that help you at all no i i completely understand the science behind it what i i also i have five kids under the age of 10. oh okay so i also know that we float around much more freely than than droplets

1:16:06 yes that’s what i don’t trust they touch everything they they walk by they touch johnny’s desk even though they’re not like it’s the kids i actually don’t trust yeah and that’s true um there’s not a lot of research that people are getting sick from surfaces although we will be having extra disinfecting going on and high touch surfaces will be taken care of as well going to your other question it’s kind of a two-fold the nurses in the school will be helping with contact tracing but we will be working along with the local board of health because any positive case that comes from marblehead is automatically being identified to the board of health i spoke to tracy gorilla the nurse at the border pelt this morning and she told me that she’s been getting results on positives before the doctor’s offices are even getting the results and when this all first started the

1:16:52 nurses in the system we all volunteered and worked with maven for contact tracing so we all know how that works um yes if we call someone they certainly can say that they don’t want to answer our questions we’ll hope that they will and try to educate educate them as to why we need to know the contacts but it’s also another reason why we’re going to have signed seats so that we can kind of manage what we would some of it will be guesstimating that’s just the way this whole illness is um how long were they actually next to each other um but again it’s a collaboration between the school and the public health it’s different if a person is a staff person and then they live in another town that goes to their public health and then

1:17:39 we as nurses can ask them their contacts that they felt like they were with closer than six feet for more than 15 minutes during the school day and then it will work along with their board of health if it ends up being a situation a medco student who doesn’t live in town or a student tuition in those kinds of things so we will be involved in it working along with board of health

1:18:05 so um because we’re running a little long the committee chair for communications yours truly will cede my time to the good senator from food service mr kelleher to talk about the food service subcommittee

1:18:21 all right richard you should be unmuted i am sarah thank you very much um it’s been uh fits and starts for us waiting for a firm plan to develop but we’ve put together a pretty good plan with the help of a number of members of my staff michelle cresta and mark zimmerman a parent who brought a great deal of knowledge experience to the plate um so that’s all been a great help what it looks like we’re gonna do is we’re gonna open two kitchens and deliver food to each of the buildings the parents uh who are remote will be able to pick up their meals uh from 10 45 to 11 45 the

1:19:07 the the in-school students will be able to pick up from noon to 12 30. uh this this will keep maintaining the distancing maintain separation between the groups and uh

1:19:24 hopefully allow for smooth delivery of meals we’ve developed a google form so that parents can order for the entire week at any time during the week they can order from monday to friday uh the forum includes information uh to school cohort fully remote allergies religious uh concerns relative to food ingredients i think we’ve pretty much covered all the bases on that so hopefully that’ll be sent out every friday um for the for the following week in order to get the get the menus and everything into the folks hands um transactions

1:20:11 transactions transactions we’re not going to be doing any cash transactions at all um thanks to michelle we’ve been able to add an e-check

1:20:24 payment method to the through my school bucks which is less expensive than the using a credit card or debit card the fees are lower and then we’ll still accept checks in the schools we’ll be putting lock boxes at each of the schools so checks can be dropped off

1:20:46 so that pretty much covers it we sort of had to wait until we had a firmer plan which uh and i thank to john and michelle for their guidance and advice it’s been invaluable in getting all this done

1:21:01 does anybody have any questions thanks richard any questions anyone

1:21:09 it’s a thank you to richard i just i’m a richard fan so we all are well thank you very much it’s appreciated and i do have to say how impressed i am i’ve been doing this a long time and this is the first time i’ve ever been party to or witness to the basic rebuilding of a school district in effectively eight weeks um it’s an impressive group that i’m very happy to be part of thank you richard thanks for that update all right that brings us to our uh last but certainly not least i joked uh this morning in the communications subcommittee that as much as schools are

1:21:55 about teaching and learning there is nothing that beats an athletic controversy to bring people to a school committee meeting and so the released guidance yesterday about fall sports and what districts will be able to do greg’s job got a lot more interesting and i’m just very appreciative of the work that the uh athletics and uh student activities subcommittee has done so greg you are unmuted great thank you yeah it did get exponentially more complicated yesterday so i just want to give a quick shout out and thank you to our our committee that we have um it’s a great combination of teachers and administrators uh parents and kids as well we have dan bauer the high school principal matt fox the vet’s principal mark tarmy our assistant athletic director

1:22:42 old days are dan our athletic trainer mike giardi a high school teacher and multi-sport coach andrew scoglio our lead music and course teacher annie madden village school teacher and coach john dormer a parent and coach kristen jellison a parent muffy paquette a parent booster president julia ferreira veterans middle school assistant principal sarah fox a parent and school committee member rob day is a parent and uh um youth soccer president in town merle shell who’s a member of the cpac and we have caroline and brent caroline brennan and will shell who are both students at the high school so we have a great mix of kids a great mix of of people on our committee and it’s it’s been it’s been awesome um and kind of like john said unlike other committees we kind of just got

1:23:28 really going yesterday with the guidance that we got from the state we have been having great discussions about you know possible scenarios paying attention to what you sports are doing in town and surrounding towns uh talking about how we can try and make fine arts happen anyway since they can kind of happen a little more easily for remotely um and discussing ways to keep our kids and coaches busy and productive uh some highlights from from the meetings that we’ve had uh the miaa who is the the governing board of athletics in the state they created a cover 19 task force and have been working very closely with uh the board of directors the miaa as well as desi so kind of taking what recommendations they have given and trying to break those down to see what we can do with those talking about the pluses and minuses of

1:24:15 cohorts within athletics and fine arts and how we can make that work um really actually talk about the growing concern for club sports and pay-to-play opportunities and how we’re going to try to work around that discussing ways to promote our student athletes who are trying to play at the next level and how coaches can help them remotely uh really there are three major areas of concern that we’ve kind of come up with now are transportation limitations like todd talked about it’s going to be very very challenging to work with those to try to come after school runs to try to get our kids to any of our our surrounding towns that we’re going to play against our student safety obviously as well as our athletic training how that’s going to work and finally having our coaches be more like policemen here when they’re trying to worry about the rules and regulations

1:25:01 rather than focusing on teaching our kids proper techniques and teaching our student athletes how how to uh you know play the game and and teach them the best that they can like they’re supposed to be doing um again like john said just monday the mia task force brought recommendations to desi almost all for fall sports are allowed to go and play under eea guidelines which is good however they’re going to be a lot of modifications made those are all being worked on right now by each individual miaa sport committee and those are due to the mia ace on tuesday interesting they’re going to make a second fall season which is not going to be in the fall at all it’s going to be february 22 to april 25th

1:25:47 that’s going to be mostly geared for football and cheering in some other schools who are not able to have a fall season um once we hit february 22nd we’ll see how much snow’s on the ground and i guess we can go from there uh and then the spring season got bumped up a little bit to april 26th and that’ll go through july 3rd for a state championship if they have playoffs moving forward uh i’m meeting with the nec ads tomorrow morning and then uh again with ads and principles on monday morning just to kind of talk about what our lee’s going to do and try to be together as a unified front uh we are working with coaches and hopefully get some pd opportunities for modifications for their sport once they come out on tuesday uh working with state guidelines on music arts and drama to try to figure

1:26:32 out how we can make them work whether it’s remotely or if it’s going to be possible outdoor venues uh meeting with all the fall captains on monday morning as well to discuss updates on what’s going on uh and finally i wanted to give a huge huge shout out to our student athletes and our coaches as we came within a half a point uh it came in second place within a half a point of earning another dalton award which is the best winning percentage in division three in the state so a huge shout out to them if anybody’s listening it’s a big crap to them and i think if we had a spring season we probably would have would have taken it home but is what it is so any questions

1:27:14 thanks greg any questions a lot of moving parts greg absolutely uh greg’s did a really great job too of balancing the discussion of not just athletics but um the arts and other activities and there’s been a lot of contribution across the board he’s he’s been very um equitable for for activities across the board i’ve been impressed thank you sarah

1:27:44 all right anybody else all right thanks greg thank you john did that wrap us up i think you said it does that’s the end of our uh subcommittee uh reports so i appreciate everyone uh kind of updating the school committee on the work uh that has happened so far and it’s not over the committees are continuing to meet and subdivide into work groups and task forces as new information becomes available so i am indebted to them for their professionalism and their expertise on helping us develop that reopening plan that we submitted absolutely yeah and thank you to everyone for coming and and giving us the overview tonight it was really helpful to hear from everybody

1:28:30 can i ask you one communications question john i’m sorry about my visitor here um do you know when or if you might be releasing the results of this survey about how many parents are going hybrid and how many parents are going remote i just think that there’s some interest in the community on that sure

1:29:02 yes okay um we will be releasing the information the deadline uh for the survey is friday um i am not confident that we will have um all the responses by friday but we have uh emily dean is working with our english language learner family eric oxford and cpac are reaching out to make sure that those families have contributed to the survey so um i would say maybe mid to late next week we could give some kind of 30 000 foot overview of the survey results because they are also informing

1:29:48 teacher assignments and class lists that i know people are very anxious to receive and in working with the principals they have said that we should be able to publish produce promote those august 31st so that would be the teacher’s first day back in the buildings and so probably by end of day on august 31st uh the teacher assignments and class lists and things will be made available to the public that’s great that’s really helpful to know for a lot of parents

1:30:23 all right so that john that we do have the um the calendar revisions as a vote uh right now do you feel confident in the dates that you would like us to vote or do would you rather us wait until the next meeting um i think if you’re comfortable taking a vote knowing that the first day is september 14th and the last day is june 14th we’re not changing any of the pre uh voted on professional development days or religious holidays february vacation april vacation those are all remaining as originally voted it is just the change from deci the 180 requirement to 170. so that gives us the september 14th start in the june 14th and

1:31:09 and and if you’re comfortable voting or if you would like to see that in calendar form before you vote um i can put that together for you um well i’m comfortable asking for a motion for so i’ll ask for a motion to approve revisions to the calendar for a first day of school start on september 14th and a final day of school with no snow days for um yeah june 14th so moved so moved megan moved it it sarah second

1:31:55 sarah second sarah second any questions or anything on that do we have to make up snow days this year because we have a remote learning platform in place like our is june 14th hard and fast please say it’s hard and fast i really want it to be a celebration of my birthday so i’m going to say it’s hard and fast but i imagine desi will trump me on that and put out guidance uh as to how districts will handle snow days so i can’t really give a firm answer on that they haven’t touched on that yet i know like rhode island wiped them away already okay so i just have a question on um the conferences that we had in like november december and i don’t have the calendar in front of me right now pulled up so just bear

1:32:41 with me but do those will any of those change because i do think we had some half days or some days off in there um the conference days that were right in front of scheduled uh we’re december 3rd and so that is past the first quarter at vets in the high school and is right as the first trimester will close uh in the pre-k to six buildings so i think that teachers will have sufficient information to still hold those parent conference days but does it affect so were they half days or days off yeah they’re half days they’re not days off so we’d still have the

1:33:27 you know for in a hybrid still we’d still have the school day okay there will be no such thing as a half day hybrid half day like like we’re not cutting down beyond four okay no that’s one variable that i just can’t take on

1:33:54 all right any other questions thoughts all right we’ve got emotion has been moved and seconded um i will call for a roll call sarah gold yes emily barron yes david harris yes megan taylor yes sarah fox yes all right that motion carries five zero note two that we we did talk about we’ll get in deeper on on calendar at a different time this is separate than the big picture calendar picture correct this is just the calendar revisions for the 2020 2021 school year

1:34:37 all right that brings us along to the schedule of bills so that was in everyone’s packet with all of the scanned invoices so can i get a motion to approve the identified schedule of bills totaling ninety four thousand seven hundred and twenty six dollars and 32 cents

1:34:59 sarah moved sarah moved second megan second

1:35:07 uh any questions for michelle on that michelle i do just have a few clarifying questions that won’t affect my vote today but just as a heads up i’ll be in touch okay sounds good david david well and i i just like to say i think it’s it’s um nice that the way the schedule bills are laid out there’s supporting documents that are included included in the package and um just provides a lot more clarity so thanks for that michelle yeah absolutely

1:35:49 all right um so i will call roll call sarah gold yes emily baron yes david harris yes megan taylor yes sarah fox yeah all right that passed as 5-0 thanks everyone um that brings us along to the operating protocol again i will let you open that up okay sure so um this is kind of the third time i think we’ve seen these now so um from our retreat on friday we had a long discussion about them there were um you know i made three changes as a result of that um one was a minor change to point number five on how we govern

1:36:35 just taking out the um one little sentence there i updated under communication the social media piece so just adding in a reference to the masc social media guidelines and then the other one that um we kind of had a long discussion about on friday was which number is it here under how we communicate point number three um channeling requests for information through the superintendent um for district staff and town officials so the what i did there my understanding from our conversation was that the committee wanted that line nuanced a bit um i’m not the softest person around so

1:37:22 what what i did was i only it had referenced um channeling those requests through the superintendent and or the school committee chair so sorry i hope you don’t mind actually took the school committee chair out of it just because i felt like that was another layer that maybe wasn’t necessarily pertinent you know the point of this protocol is really to make the superintendent as effective as possible so that’s why channeling requests for information through the superintendent um made sense from our conversation with john and dorothy and the committee on friday so those are the only changes made okay thanks megan um so those were sort of the requests so just so that we can open it up for discussion

1:38:09 i will ask for a motion to adopt the standards of practice norms and protocols so moved so megan moved second uh david i heard you sorry emily all right david second so that’ll open it up for conversation just done that number five megan i just reread the the one from last week and say i can’t find the difference and it could be that i just read so many things in the last day but you said you changed something i i don’t see it i don’t see anything it was the line about no one person shall monopolize the conversation so that was the best okay okay i just i missed it i’m sorry that’s okay there’s a lot of words here sarah

1:38:55 um um and so how we communicate number three we still have in there that any communication or request or any request for information for town officials need to go through the superintendent okay i do just want to say i’m still uncomfortable that i think we’re all you know citizens we’re taxpayers we’re independently elected um i i know that a lot of times you know serving on these subcommittees particularly budget it was super super helpful if i had a question how cherry sheets worked or things like that to just be efficient to pick up the

1:39:41 phone and ask my question on on that um i am very concerned about this idea that i will not have that freedom anymore also because we’ve we’ve come so far in the last year with building that bridge between our town officials and our school committee um and school officials and i just don’t want to see a siloed again i think that one of the benefits of the of everything we’ve been through in the last two years is we’ve really broken down those silos and i feel like in some ways this is putting them back up that’s my take on it

1:40:17 i offer my two cents there and then i’ll leave it to everybody else but i take your point sarah i think where we are now with having john and man and you know a solid central administration it’s actually time for us to put some structure back in place um and i think we’ve got the team to do that i think this doesn’t you know the language in here is very specific about requests for information so it doesn’t preclude relationships with anyone else it doesn’t mean you can’t pick up the phone and call you know whoever jason jackie ben emily whoever you want to it doesn’t stop the relationship but it the reason at least my thought process on it is

1:41:04 john is the ceo of the school district and it’s important for him to know the types of questions and information that’s being requested from both sides and it will make him more effective if he is that point person he might already have the answer because he’s having regular meetings with staff and with town officials and i just think from my perspective we i want to make sure that we’re setting up john to be as successful as possible and making sure that that process is efficient

1:41:38 yeah and um sarah i definitely think your point is well taken too because we certainly have zero desire to ever go backwards um but i think i think it’s you know i think it’s a step in the right direction to move move the trust forward also that putting this language in there is not meant to construct silos it’s simply meant to sort of structure the way that we communicate and and how that communication goes and you know i could easily see a situation where john doesn’t know and and encourages a call or he reaches out and then encourages a call after that um you know i haven’t in my

1:42:23 short work with john but i haven’t felt that he’s you know limiting any contact with anyone at this point um you know every time i’ve asked i don’t want that to be implied in any way shape or form but i also know that john is under um under constraints like every other superintendent that they’ve never ever seen before in history and his workload is something that they’ve never ever seen before in history so if i’m looking for a piece of information that i can turn around like i use the exam uh the question about cherry sheets because that was my most recent one if i can turn that around in literally five minutes i just i just think you know what i should do in that situation is get my answer and then also simultaneously say john i had a question about cherry sheets this is what my question was this is what my answer was

1:43:10 just looping you in um but i think you know reaching out to john and asking him to hit pause on all this reopening stuff and then wait a few like i’m not saying a few days he’s he’s a tremendous communicator i’m just saying you know he has to prioritize what he’s doing and that’s to get our schools open right now um and so it is you know through the the ed reform act i keep going back to the budget because that’s that’s our biggest job for um one of our biggest jobs right now and i just worry that that we’re we’re actually not going to be less efficient um if we have to wait for that turnaround because he’s under this this rock of weight from something

1:43:56 that’s never been experienced before um so it’s just it continues to be a sticking point for me it’s a small sticking point i agree that at all times you should know what questions are being asked but i it’s a sticking point for me

1:44:13 so i tend to think too that if you know the that that i can understand that and everything um and if if this gets to be too burdensome i think you know at the bottom of it all of our signatures are there and any one of us can bring it back up and to say you know i’ve i’ve had a few questions and it’s taken too long you know i’m wondering if we can revisit this obviously you know at least for this current committee we’re all going to remember this conversation um and so i think it would you know it wouldn’t be the most difficult thing to revisit in the future um kind of in an attempt to sort of get back to the state protocols that are recommended from masc i think that’s a great point sir i know i said i wouldn’t say anything else but

1:44:59 there is you know we’ve got those pieces in here about you know what happens when things go wrong and making sure that we’re reviewing these for you know from uh from a committee perspective too so yeah you brought up a really good point there when you talked about the masc thing um i i am concerned that we went from the maasc protocols and we literally doubled them um i i wonder if you know we’re we’re making things harder than they

1:45:49 i think sarah’s frozen a little i mean i’m a little disturbed this is our third meeting

1:45:56 about this and you know the biggest thing i need to do with how can we be setting up a student um and so i i happy

1:46:15 i just i just wanted to say that you know as an example i mean these are these are not about building relationships because we all build relationships throughout our tenure on various committees and we’ll be talking with people on the phone and [Music] uh seeing people at meetings and the like but i you know i could see something like you know let’s say we wanted an update on enrollment and whoever is responsible for that at the district office at woodrow road you know you know john can i get an update on enrollment from nan or um and i can see that email just being forwarded off the way technology goes and john could say could you please repo reply to david’s email and

1:47:02 that’s it and i don’t really see it being anything anything more than that and like we say we’re just we’re just keeping keeping john informed and um i think i think it’s appropriate and then and then if you if you actually are on a committee or a subcommittee or a working group i’m sure those lines of communication will change um you know much like um you know we’re on the building committee and michelle cresta is on the building committee and jason silva is on the building committee and you know dr bucky’s on the building committee and jackie belf becker’s on the building committee well we’re a committee so the committee’s all going to talk to each other so i think i think

1:47:48 they’ll probably be far and few between these times when it’s going to be really um uh challenging i think to get the information that we need but i i think it’s a good protocol to have and um we should uh move forward with it and also to your point david about how the you know if if you’ve got a question about enrollment you know it might be a question and you funnel it to john and then john funnels it to the rest of us and i think that’s really important too that you know i think if we’ve got a question about the budget it would be good for all of us to be able to hear that instead of just sort of the the one-way channel um if we’re each individually picking up the phone yep emily

1:48:35 just real quick so as um i helped megan put these together um or help edit it and since i’m new to this whole thing i was researching other districts protocols and the one that we have there’s many other districts that have exactly the same list of protocols so this is nothing new and so i think it’s good that we kind to know that it’s not something that we like put together just for us like everybody’s kind of doing using this same um i guess like a template of how they work together so just a little bit of research yeah that is good to know i think i had out and froze before when i was saying one of my concerns was we

1:49:21 took the masc protocols and we doubled them well i found these on the msc website also i don’t know if there’s like updated protocols but this document is also from

1:49:42 so so that’s good to know

1:49:48 all right so we do have a motion that’s been moved and seconded um i will call for roll call vote at this point sarah gold yes emily barron yes david harris yes megan taylor yes and sarah fox no and it’s simply that language that i i thought it was a sticking point all right

1:50:17 so the motion passes at four to one okay so i am going to attempt to share my screen briefly because that moves us on to the website update um let’s see

1:50:41 sorry sorry i might not be able to share it um hold on

1:51:00 so last friday at our school committee retreat we also went through um we presented the idea for a new website that is specifically the school committee’s website um there was a few questions that were asked that um i’ve got some answers to but i also thought it would might be beneficial to to pull up the different screenshots that were taken and fill in the community a little bit uh as this is kind of an exciting piece for us so um just to set the table again it was kate thompson who she had reached out originally in an email to the committee regarding some ideas for communication and megan and i kind of

1:51:46 took her up on her offer to fill us in on how she’s seen things being done quite effectively so she created a mock-up for a possible website and these are just a few screenshots of the current mock-up that we can that we will go back and um and fix up and and put more into um you know there’s bio pages there’s a calendar and i think the calendar is sort of where one of the the main question came in to follow up on uh the calendar can be a place for us to be able to highlight all of our meetings um so that there are fewer questions as to when subcommittees are meeting and when our regular meetings or when our off

1:52:33 schedule meetings are occurring because there can always be updates done to this and then it’s a kind of a one-stop shop as to anyone from the community wanting to know not just from the town website but from the school website of sort of at a glance what what our upcoming meetings are going to be uh so the question that i posed back to kate from last friday’s meeting was a great suggestion from i think it was megan regarding the possibility of push notifications so if when we get this up that somebody has a question or somebody wants information about the the calendar and when things are posted that although kate said that she doesn’t have a lot of experience with push notifications she did think that

1:53:18 that would be something that could happen her only caution to it and i thought it was a really astute caution was that this is probably going to be something that this calendar that we can um sort of underneath it play with quite a bit so on it you know you’ll see meeting one one test so that’s there so then you can click into that and and when we amend an agenda um specifically we can do that if we were to add an additional link to say a live zoom we could do that these types of things if if and when a subcommittee gets added that all of those things would end up probably getting caught in push notifications so

1:54:05 that the cautionary piece that she said was to just be really mindful if we end up going down that road that we don’t want to inundate people’s inboxes every time we’ve sort of added a small tweak to something that is embedded within that agenda or um you know another piece to that so i will just kind of continue to take it take it down to sort of what could be on this um and i think you know the the other good piece that we had discussed last week was that this website could be put onto the school’s main website so that we so that there could be a hot link right to it and then we can much more easily because the school’s website can be a bit

1:54:51 cumbersome and much more easily put up links to our policies anything that might have just been done as we look to live stream meetings going forward since we’re going to you know be in this quasi-hybrid remote fashion for some time that we could live stream our meetings to this site that we could um embed them on there then so that people who missed them could go back and watch them um and that we could um what was i i just lost my train of thought sorry um that it would so that any of the minutes that were that were approved would be much more easily posted um to this website so that all of the information that we’re sharing can kind of just be

1:55:38 put up there and sourced a lot more immediately so that’s just the updates i wanted to give

1:55:47 anybody can i ask one question on that by the way that that site is very impressive thank you key and thank you to you and megan for facilitating that with her um on the calendar is there a way to would there be a way to um for a person to sign up for push notifications just for certain things like just for um fine if the financial meetings or just for general school community meetings and i don’t know i have no idea what to tech um yeah i don’t know either that was sort of in the back of my head as we kind of went through this a little bit more that that would certainly be something to tease out because i think that then would make it significantly more valuable to be able to do that um and and with with significantly lowering the risk of of flooding people’s inboxes

1:56:35 i also think where john started the twitter campaign that that’s very communicative too so i think that that also kind of will be a double way to ensure if he says you know we have a school committee meeting coming up on tuesday or whatever it is that that also will give another layer of transparency to the community of when these things are happening yeah absolutely megan so total props to kate she’s amazing um so i definitely think she gets all the credit here for this website but one of the things i guess my question is what is our next step like if we want this to go live is there a way that we can just kind of set a target date and you know i’m not saying we’re going to be holding to it but if we can set a

1:57:22 target date and some specific steps we need to take to get there so for example um you know on that mock-up obviously we’ve got some pictures that probably none of us want out there so you know getting proper pictures and bios for each one of us like that would be our responsibility to do so if we can kind of outline or you know maybe kate can help us kind of figure out what those next steps are and what a target live date is and then once it goes live we can start playing with those push notifications before we you know roll it out to everybody but at least the information is up and running yeah no i absolutely think you’re right um and um you know my i’m slightly hesitant to pick a date um just because we’ve got so much going on but i certainly have a hope that this fall

1:58:08 we’ll be able to roll it out i think the sooner the better um you know i really like i think it was john who said that you know if you’re not controlling the information then someone else is controlling the information and i think that this would be a great way to kind of get us back in charge of of being able to get the information out there that we know to be important and that we want to communicate effectively to the community particularly as you know hopefully our our re-entry things slow a bit and that normal business picks back up a little bit more um so i i certainly would like to see it as quick as possible and and this this fall generally speaking if anybody wants to uh toss out a date that’s okay with me but

1:58:54 my thoughts well i wonder if maybe for the next meeting if we can work with kate and i’m happy to do this because i know you’ve got a lot on your plate or anyone really but if with kate we can work out kind of what we need to do to get it to a place where it’s ready to go live and then we can start you know in our next meeting we can talk about those farm those out and maybe a date might become more clear or at least you know let’s try to get it up and running for october you know a broad date yeah no i think that’s a good idea and actually it was going to suggest that this goes as an additional superintendent’s advisory um so that the work doesn’t kind of just get tossed out there to say like okay we’re going to work on this and and this person maybe is the point person uh but then you know assigning a

1:59:39 point so that then when we have our meetings there can be updates given on it and and information shared and um you know screenshots taken again and so that it sort of rolls out in a more organized fashion yeah i think that’s a great idea and also this will give us an opportunity if we’re able to roll out those office hours like i know several of us have wanted to really implement to put those up on the calendar too so it will it will give a lot of more a lot more touch points for the community i think which is exciting if you want me to a secretary to kind of follow up with this with kate i’m happy to but if megan wants to that’s absolutely fine as well okay um i think when i was thinking about it i was gonna put megan on it

2:00:26 just be since this has kind of been her campaign slogan this whole time but i do think um you know i think after it gets up and running it we should discuss that again as to kind of who is in charge of this moving forward and that it probably makes sense to have it delegated to a title rather than a person so that when committees change it doesn’t kind of get lost in translation at any point

2:01:03 um anybody else any other any other questions that i missed that i’m forgetting to update all right all right so that will move us on to the subcommittee and liaisons discussion um so we’ve all had the the document that um we that i worked on with lisa to kind of streamline things a little bit and um i did sort of pull things out in a little bit different fashion so um i am going to make some suggestions um based on some conversations that people have had with me offline of interest in different things that they

2:01:49 would like to be on this year um so one of the subcommittees that we’ve added is the collective bargaining because this is a collective bargaining year so we did need to add that one um and then as stated with bill from last year we took the health and wellness subcommittee out from subcommittee and and put it where it belongs as the superintendent’s advisory um i think i don’t have one of my old sheets i think that was was what we did um that was the big switches there um the so the budget i was was going to say that megan be the chair of the budget and then david had requested to be a part of the budget subcommittee this year um collective bargaining

2:02:36 um myself as the chair and megan as the vice chair would take over on that for facilities um sarah fox as the chair and emily as the other person and then for policy myself as the chair and emily as the second i would like to to be on the budget i felt i was an enormous asset to it last year um as we came into closing the books and we talked about our surplus and what to do with it it was actually my idea to to facilitate um pre-paying because that would give us that money a year in advance and um and that was that was a suggestion that

2:03:23 was welcomed and applauded by our town administrator um that gave our town money to use right now versus later on when the initial the initial suggestion i think that came out um was you know to hand it back um i have you know i have a tremendous understanding of our budget as you and megan know firsthand i tutored you and explained to the budget to both of you in great depth um during the budget crisis um i feel very very strongly that i want to be on this committee um and i do not want to yield that seat

2:04:03 so i think you know you’re absolutely right sarah um i don’t think it’s a reflection on anything having to do with your capabilities um i think you know david had expressed an interest um and megan had as well um so i that was sort of the thinking around that okay i i actually was unaware that we were supposed to send you our interest in anything i apologize for that i would have gotten that right off to you um but that being said now that it’s on the table i i feel very very strongly about this i think um again i think sarah you’re absolutely right like you were um you know you were definitely

2:04:49 um a key player for the previous year i think going into this year and planning for hopefully a potential override um you know i just i guess my two cents on it is that both david and i have a financial background and david obviously has the experience with fincom um and i just think like switching it up a little bit might be um you know i would support that too um um i don’t want to get into a discussion that you know offends anybody but um i have a very strong grasp of the finance

2:05:36 of you know our our school committee of our town um i you know was i got i got a chance to um call john and call michelle and because i was so on top of the fact that we were going to get that 680 000 um i see absolutely no logical reason whatsoever why i would be pulled off of this committee in any way shape and form it feels very personalized to me which is uncomfortable at best and troubling i see absolutely no reason i would be pulled off this committee whatsoever this seems very politically motivated to me very

2:06:22 well i’m sorry if it feels politically motivated david and i’ll just say having been on um you know school committee for um five years i don’t know going on six years now we do often rotate committee members from from various committees across the board and um you know people don’t and we change you know chair and vice chair and the like and different things like that so i think it’s just sort of consistent with a with a normal rotation and i i welcome the opportunity to uh participate in the budget this year um i i did work

2:07:08 on the committee that that brought on michelle cresta as our finance manager um also worked very closely with uh bill mccaldiff as our interim superintendent as he was um trying to uh right the ship when he came on board and um [Music] i do think 11 years on the finance committee gives me a little bit of an opportunity to to help us um wade through some of these waters going forward and as we look to get the amount of money and funding that that we need for our budget so you know i welcome the opportunity i i know i’m also uh chair of the building committee but i feel

2:07:56 uh very confident that i have the time and to commit to anything related to working with the budget this year so i appreciate the recommendation to be on the budget committee megan would you consider yielding your seat i mean david makes some very good points about his history on fincom um i’ve you know followed this budget long before i was on the school committee which is what really put me in a great position to explain it to you two years ago um and i i just i ca i see no earthly reason i’ll be honest no earthly reason why i was the one that was chosen to be pulled off this i see there’s a lot of logic for david to come on it but i see absolutely no earthly reason other than political motivation

2:08:42 you know sarah i completely appreciate your request i think in this case this is the one um you know that from my very early days on the committee i have dug into incredibly deeply and you know i understand every single thing about this budget because of what you know we had to go through as a committee that first year um not to mention that i also have a significant background in economics and finance and budgeting so to be honest i think i’ve got the um professional experience to back it up as well and i like david really do look forward to seeing this through this year

2:09:24 i think it’s also important to note here that that this is the subcommittee not you know the budget is still in all of our hands and as it comes back you know in the conversations in the spring absolutely that i mean that that’s a full committee piece

2:09:41 good that i think that’s a really good point sarah i mean we will we will be working collectively as a committee and and this is um you know that this is a subcommittee and um something of magnitude that we’re we’re trying to work on um things that will be impacted through covid all of those kinds of things are going to certainly always involve the the entire committee that’s a great point and we’re you know we’re just conduits to bring that information back to uh other members everybody is even collective bargaining as you go forward collective bargaining will be will be a decision of the of the committee and um it was um

2:10:27 you know the the choice that led us to dr bucky was was a committee that that made recommendations that came back to the full committee so all of these circle back to the full committee that’s a great point there is little doubt in my mind as i’m sure in many people’s mind right now that this decision was made outside of a public meeting was deliberated on by by multiple parties and i am i am beyond troubled with the lack of transparency the lack of collaboration the lack of all the trigger words everyone uses in a campaign of how this decision was made um and i’m just i don’t think this is in the best interest of our schools in or our school committee in establishing

2:11:13 any of this and i i you know it’s it’s really bothersome that you’re going to lob in bonds at the point like this is just ridiculous these are two people who expressed interest to me and reached out picked up the phone and talked to me and that’s it and so they you know and i had zero reason whatsoever to think that they were in in unable to handle being on the subcommittee to present things to the full committee that simple that simple yeah there’s been no violation of open meeting laws here there’s there’s nothing that’s been going on behind scenes i i simply uh did exactly that expressed an interest as we knew every year we go through this process to appoint committee members and i expressed an interest in it

2:12:05 i’d like to make a motion so moving on um the the other one that would require a vote um is the joint school town committee representation so um the building committee has kind of always sat as a subcommittee but i actually find it um not the most appropriate place to be sitting as a subcommittee because the building committee as it as it comes down from the school as a school building project um you know we do as the school committee manage quite a bit on of of sort of how who who makes up that committee we obviously sign off on some things but technically um building committees usually sit at the board of selectmen

2:12:51 level so we’ve kind of found ourselves with a little bit of of um difficulty at times figuring out who actually has the final say um so i feel that the building committee and then the selectmen mou committee which i couldn’t come up with a better name for that um would would really be more appropriate as being termed joint school town committee representatives um since that work is done that way so um for the selectmen mou i think it makes a lot of sense for the chair of the school committee and then the chair of the budget subcommittee to do that and then the building committee you know i think can can stay as it was

2:13:38 i just simply wanted to really pull it um to delineate it a little bit from being solely under the school committee and kind of um represent it more appropriately if anyone has problems with that we can absolutely discuss it and and push it back under a subcommittee if that feels best to everybody else i think these two sarah i think the way you’ve broken them out actually does make sense because they are very different and they aren’t just purely school committee business really they you know we do have to work jointly with the town so i think that that delineation makes sense to me yeah yeah and i’d just like to add i think the mou that was actually voted on

2:14:24 at town meeting provides some significant opportunities and it’s going to be a really important uh committee to be working with the town finance department town department heads and covid has sidetracked us a little bit here but you know we we’ve talked about multiple opportunities where we think there could be some efficiencies um and we might like like for instance i’ll you know technology the schools are all about technology the town certainly has a web page but we are the group that has the heaviest um use of technology so

2:15:10 maybe we can lend some expertise to the town in technology and there’s an opportunity there um once we we get going i think i think this committee is going to be critical and i think there’s there’s some real opportunities to you know to change the the way we do business in marblehead and present some opportunities to the town that could really be cost savings provide better services and and be more efficient so really important committee for sure

2:15:51 all right so i’ve made as chair i’ve made recommendations um so i would like to ask for a motion to accept the recommendations for the subcommittee representatives on budget collective bargaining facilities committee and policy and the joint committee’s joint school town committees of the building committee and the selectmen mou committee who was appointed to policy uh policy is me and emily

2:16:32 okay so i have less committees than anybody i was taken off of multiple committees well we haven’t gotten to the superintendent’s advisories and stuff too so but these are the ones that require a

2:16:53 second second david second

2:17:05 i just i just make one more plea to please reconsider the the budget and all of the multitude of positive savings i brought to the table in the last year i was the only one that was concerned at the budget hearing that we were losing kindergarten tuition and needed to plan accordingly i just i this i see no data points to track why i would be taken off this committee i have been nothing but an asset to it and again feel very adamant this is politically motivated and nothing else

2:17:52 um i you know i don’t know how many other ways to say it it’s not politically motivated it is simply just the delineations for this year you know it’s not at all a reflection on your knowledge or anyone else’s lack of knowledge um you know we we all bring quite a few different assets to the table here all right so i will do a roll call vote sarah gold yes emily barron yes david harris yes yes megan taylor yes sarah fox no

2:18:39 no no motion carries four to one all right so for the superintendent’s advisories which do not need a vote um as well as liaisons um and i know john had a little bit of things to say about the liaison so i’ll start with the superintendent’s advisories so we always have the safety advisory um and i put sarah fox on that we have health and wellness and i took that one and then the reopening committee is technically still a superintendent’s advisory so since i sit on the oversight i put myself in on that and then the communications one that i just talked about underneath the website that would last for a little while and then be turned over to i think most i think it does make more sense to lie

2:19:26 with the secretary long term um but for the advisory in getting the website sort of hammered out um it would be megan

2:19:39 sweet did i miss i we we already you approved um i was also pulled off of all the joint town school committee so anything affiliated with me in the town i’ve been to you’re still on the building

2:19:55 okay but i’m no longer mou no so i said that it makes a lot of sense to have the chair of the budget and then the chair of the school committee

2:20:10 are you okay doing safety we never met once last year so i don’t know what entails yeah i i was on that one my first year and it never met so um i mean but i assume that it’s it seems to be a standing advisory um so it seems like it should stay john you do you agree with that

2:20:33 yes i think uh in the times we find ourselves the safety committee takes on a significantly more important role and it’s not unheard of uh in my prior district we had a safety committee and that would ebb and flow and meet regularly in some years and less regularly in other years but i see the current year the safety committee being a pretty pivotal committee for the work that will need to be done okay all right and then so we always have had um school committee liaisons to the school advisory councils uh so for each school and last year it was a little bit wonky because we have some students that sort of usually were

2:21:20 in one school were it transitioned into another school so it got a little bit difficult to tease out as to kind of whether or not it was representing um students or whether it was representing schools and what that meant um but i think it still was pulled off just fine um john i will yield to you to have to let you talk about your experience with school advisory councils yeah and i hope that i articulate this well because it’s not that i don’t want school committee to be involved but it is new to me to see school committee members assigned or given a role in student advisor or school advisory councils or school councils

2:22:05 in ed reform they were deliberate to create these for more site-based management reasons and they were purposeful in saying that if you had x number of teachers you needed to have x number of parents so that there was parity and voice and parents didn’t feel like the teachers made all the decisions and teachers didn’t feel like parents made so there had to be balance and so coming here and finding out that school committee members were a member of school advisory councils seems to me to tip that balance and so talking to building leaders i know that that has been a conversation before and i want to tread very lightly here because i don’t want the community to think that you know i’m pulling school committee members out of

2:22:50 site-based decision work but it’s new to me and i think as much uh as many committees as school committee has and subgroups and that that this might be uh an area that they could step away but again i want to be very careful in the public perception of that that i’m not trying to silence school committee voice it’s just i’ve not seen uh in my experience either in my last district or the prior district of school committee members participating on these councils megan i think you had your hand up yeah so i guess um i don’t disagree with what you’re saying john um i will say of all the meetings i go to the sac is my favorite i’m on the you know i’ve been on the village sac for

2:23:37 the past two years and i’m probably not adding a lot of value so i take your point but it’s a window in for me to see all the great things that are going on in that school and to hear the teachers and parents alike talking so passionately about it so i don’t get you know like as a school community i don’t get that opportunity that much so i guess my only question would be you know if we can not in this meeting but maybe as we kind of move forward figure out how we can still capture that yeah i think that that’s an important consideration i would just um point to

2:24:16 coming in with the school committee hat on and so your participation in the meeting as much as you want to be megan the mom or megan the involved citizen you’re still the school committee and so parents on that council might think that they have a leverage point or teachers that a school committee member is participating and again it’s six one half a dozen i could argue both sides of this and i don’t want to unfairly pull man in but i see her sitting i don’t know that her experience has seen school committee members on school councils either yeah and i agree sorry nan just before you get there i completely agree john sometimes i feel that way too in those meetings and i would you know so i think your point is you know completely valid

2:25:02 and i and i take it totally so sorry man i didn’t mean to cut you off no i was just going to say i have never i i’ve been in three different districts and have never seen that so i think if we all hit a dollar for the number of times we’ve heard i’ve never seen things done the way they are in marblehead would actually be funded instead of defunding necessary positions but um i think that one i i have been on a school advisory council for this would be my sixth year and a large part of that was as a community parent representative and i have to say from that perspective it was so wonderful to have a school committee member on there you really felt that the school committee was really vested in

2:25:48 our individual schools and it felt they felt more approachable it felt and there was never a time where they crossed the line in fact when we were doing a school improvement plan the rep at the time would recuse herself from that because she would be voting to approve it later on um but it was just it really felt at the time to be the most collaborative collaborative element um and i think in some ways it really echoes the atmosphere on these teaching and learning committees where it’s very rare that you get to see school committee administrators teachers and parents working collaboratively to a common goal together and um i think that through the mechanisms that we have in place in our our sacs right now that it’s it’s been um

2:26:35 as a parent it was very reassuring to see that school committee member there and to see that um deep interest

2:26:46 yeah and i think um you know obviously john talked with me about this before our meeting last friday so i’ve had a while to sort of mull it over in my head um and i i haven’t been able to come up with like strong feelings in either direction as well um you know i i sat on the high schools last year and it was a really interesting window in um and then there were a couple of points where we would be working on something and you would have to you know state your role on this committee and then it was very clear as to whose thoughts were as the school committee thought um so you know i i can see it both ways so um you know and i still i don’t know how i feel um at this point tonight

2:27:39 i think that’s fair i mean as i said i could argue either side of this and this to me is not uh a significant issue it i am uh it’s new for me i appreciate sarah’s point that if you had a dollar for every time i said it was unique to marblehead uh we could fund the budget but it does give you an opportunity to focus attention on perhaps other things that you are interested in doing i.e the office hours that were discussed and i would like to engage school committee members in being in buildings and being part of the life of the school perhaps in different ways other than school advisory councils but at the end of the day it is not a significant issue for me

2:28:31 yep go ahead david john i really i really appreciate that last point if there’s a way to um now that my son is out of the school system last year or two i felt a little bit removed from it because as a as a parent you’re not in the schools but i think um if there’s an opportunity certainly we could we can go to athletic events or extracurricular activities and and things like that that are taking place at the schools but i think that would be a new opportunity and i’d be real interested to see how you might um

2:29:16 how you might work that where committee members could have an opportunity to um you know just just be in schools um you know see what’s happening in the schools but i i too am just at at this point tonight i’m not really sure since we’ve i guess it’s been a past practice i don’t know how far back this practice goes um

2:29:44 i don’t know if we can table it i’m not really sure about just doing away with it right now and i don’t know that um you know you know john’s right we can focus on other things i mean work all of the the previous committees that that were mentioned um you know the building committee that that is happening uh you know collective bargaining um we have our um you know facilities we you know we want to develop a master plan on what we want to do with our facilities over the next uh five to ten years and things like that but also i think um

2:30:29 i think these committees do report out on a regular basis at least they have in the past they’ve been part of our agenda as well so yeah i i too are i think i need i think we need a little more information or i need a little more information before we just sort of rush put them put them to the side and um even you know before we just move forward but it but it does seem like it it’s the direction that we that we could could move in so so yes sorry i just wonder if maybe it might

2:31:15 be an easier conversation if we had a more solid plan around how that engagement would look not that you’re not doing enough planning as it is john but you know it doesn’t and it does not something that has to happen immediately but i think maybe if we had a little bit better understanding of what the structure would be for us to remain engaged at the building levels that might kind of that might be a good trade-off is the wrong word but it’s the only thing i can think of at quarter past nine yeah so what i’m wondering right now is that given we are we kind of find ourselves in this little odd place where we’re starting school a little bit later um i think you know these sacs probably aren’t going to be the top things on principal’s mind getting the school year

2:32:00 going i wonder if um if john and i or you know it doesn’t have to be me but whoever um wants to meet with john and discuss what might the other options be and then sort of right around the beginning of school bring it back to the committee and see what the other options are to sort of take take part in building level and understand building level pieces um and be involved at that part of the community and then see at that point given those ideas given what we know with the school advisory councils you know what what is the will of the committee to move forward can i just add on to that sarah um i wonder if you know i guess i’d be interested to to get some thoughts from

2:32:46 the building principles and building leadership on you know how they think our engagement would best work for for their buildings i’m happy to do that thank you i was gonna say the same thing maybe ask if they like us there or not like if it you know makes people feel uncomfortable and not really say something they might say or i’ve actually never been to one so i don’t know how they work but the more information the better i think on how people feel

2:33:18 so does someone want to work with john on that or do you guys want me to work with john on that and then i think maybe bringing it back to the maybe the second meeting in september no can i can i nominate emily

2:33:48 and i’m happy yeah and then maybe maybe we could just check in i mean i i appreciate nan’s perspective she’s worked she’s has a lot of experience in different districts as well as what john said and we understand um that as well but we could also just touch base with dorothy too and sort of get some some guidance from masc on you know what what other districts have done and and what what she’s done yeah that’s good he’s always a great resource yeah that she is all right so we’ll bring this back to the second i want to clarify to the second regularly scheduled school committee meeting in september because it you know we might need others but

2:34:33 that that third thursday we’ll aim to put it on the agenda to loop back to it um so then the other school committee liaison but am i the person who’s gonna present the information to you guys yes yes so that’s that’s good okay we’re good on that i’m not did i just totally put you on the spot sorry so wait emily’s gonna work out whether or not we’re gonna have sacs with john and come back no she’s going to work out other options for building level community involvement for the school committee she’s going to gather other options with john and then present them at that third thursday in september and then the committee will decide whether we like those options or whether we want to stick with the sac

2:35:25 and i won’t take it personally that not many people jumped at the opportunity to work with me on this and that emily had to be nominated

2:35:34 i would have nominated myself sorry i can’t wait

2:35:44 all right so the other two are metco and cpac um and i know um megan was interested in cpac and and emily was interested in metco um does that still hold absolutely for me we were all self-nominating outside of an open meeting because i honestly thought we were just going to talk about this in the meeting i didn’t know this was a discussion prior i mean there’s not been a discussion it’s just if you if you feel strongly you know you can still voice your opinion any one of us can call the chair at any point i don’t think i’ve never i don’t think i’ve ever not returned a phone call

2:36:42 so is that okay we don’t have to vote on these um are these liaisons okay i would definitely like to do cpac if that’s all right with everyone i’ve you know obviously got the history with cpac and um so i would like to follow up with that i feel like it’s been long enough now far enough removed it’s a completely different um board leadership so i would like to get back involved in that oh and i’m happy to take over the netcode okay and emily on that one i can um do the intern you know help you with the introduction yeah i’m actually looking forward to doing it

2:37:28 all right all right sounds good and then like i said we’ll report back and we’ll make the decision on the sacs or other forms of involvement um mid-september all right so that moves us along to policy e b c f a of face coverings um so i know usually a policy needs to be read through a few times and that before it’s voted but i did reach out to dorothy presser on this one um and she she did say that she that that although that that is usually the preferred practice that in times when we need to pass something quickly that those readings don’t have to happen so that so we are okay to read through

2:38:14 this tonight debate it and pass it if we feel comfortable so face coverings which right off the bat i did get some further guidance from a legal from john foskett today saying that um given some of the changes that he put in yesterday that he would advise changing the face coverings to face masks um so i will i’ll make that note and if the committee can just know that this policy is actually going to be called face masks so i’ll read it through the marblehead public school district is committed to providing a safe environment as schools reopen during the covid19 pandemic according to public health experts one of the best ways to stop the spread of coronavirus and to keep members of our school community safe is the use of face masks therefore in accordance with

2:39:00 guidance from the centers for disease control and prevention the cdc and the department of elementary and secondary education deci the massachusetts department of public health dph and the massachusetts executive office of energy and environmental affairs following requirements are in place until further notice a math a face mask that per dph and cdc guide guidance covers the nose and mouth fits securely and comfortably against the side of the face is secured with ties or ear loops allows for breathing without restriction does not have any exhalation valve or vent and can be laundered and machine dried without damage or change of shape must be worn by all individuals in

2:39:46 school buildings on school grounds and on school transportation even when social distancing is observed exempt from this policy are individuals under the age of two families will be required to provide a daily face mask along with a backup face mask if possible face masks should be labeled with the student’s name schools will have backup masks when needed should a face mask become soiled broken or misplaced individuals may be excused from the requirement for the following list of reasons per cdc guidance the individual has trouble breathing is unconscious is incapacitated or cannot remove the mask or face covering without assistance in addition accommodations will be made for individuals for whom wearing face masks is not possible or safe due to a

2:40:33 medical condition disability impact a significant impediment to communication or other health or safety factors for which a student may include behavioral challenges medical documentation acceptable to the marblehead public schools is required for a requested accommodation any accommodations must be approved by the building principal in consultation with the school nurse or local board of health a face shield or physical barrier is not an acceptable substitute for a mask unless it has been deemed appropriate with an official exemption as part of a modification determination parents may not excuse their children from the face mass requirement by signing a waiver additionally face masks will not be required during mass breaks which will only occur outdoors with a minimum of 10

2:41:19 feet of physical distance between individuals all mask breaks are optional for the individual student students who do not want or need a mask break will not be forced to participate while eating or drinking which ideally occur outdoors and or with maximum physical distancing or during physical education classes chorus or choir singing brass and woodman woodwind instruments or musical theater all of which occur while outside with a minimum of 10 feet of physical distancing between individuals a student’s mask is to be provided by the student’s family staff members will be supplied masks the district will supply a disposable face mask for individuals who arrive at a building or who board

2:42:04 school transportation without one in addition to their required characteristics per dph and cdc guidance listed above masks must be appropriate in compliance with the same rules as are set forth in the school dress code and student handbook no masks containing offensive or inappropriate material will be allowed if a student refuses to wear a mask while at school and does not have a documented reason that is consistent with this policy the student will be sent home currently mask wearing is mandated by the state of massachusetts and the decision to dismiss a student for not wearing a mask has been approved by the marblehead board of health while we strive to educate through restorative justice principles there will be progressive discipline for students who do not follow the mass guidelines violations of this policy by staff will

2:42:51 be handled in the same manner as other violations of school committee policy or of the marblehead public schools workplace rules and requirements visitors in violation of this policy will be denied entry to the school slash district facility this policy will remain in place until rescinded by the school committee

2:43:14 yeah emily yeah emily um so i see that the learning was changed to a face mask but what about if kids come with the gators on you know there’s all that the news about the gators and how they actually spread it more right um is there going to be any what are we going to do about that in regards so the gators in this policy is set forth by this policy gators do not meet the dph and cdc guidance because they aren’t secured with ties or earlobes oh okay so are we gonna communicate that with families yes like a lot i feel like a lot of kids are going to show up with them on because they’re the most so they’re the easiest for kids but okay this is one

2:44:12 all right so can i get a little well yeah go ahead with the motion further discussion so can i get a motion to approve policy e b c f a for face masks so moved megan moved second emily second all right david go ahead so i would just like a little bit of clarity on where it’s 10 10 feet now um

2:44:52 i mean it’s three feet it’s six feet now it’s 10 feet i i just i’m 10 feet of physical distance and then um

2:45:07 i i just i don’t i haven’t heard 10 feet you know in my day job with all of the policies that we’re putting forward in workspaces you know the workspaces are that it you know essentially it’s uh you know a mask is required when when you what you know when you cannot socially distance and it you know if if you can [Music] like socially distance so i guess it so does this um

2:45:35 this pau this policy is i’m trying to see also the other question i had does this a policy apply to staff and everyone who is in the school district or is it just students it doesn’t doesn’t say it applies to everyone in the school buildings i’m gonna let john address your first question because he yeah and just like a clarifying question so like we know dan bauer has his own office and if dan bauer has his office door closed or john bucky is at widget road with his office closed he doesn’t need to have a mask on

2:46:21 so john do you want to jump in sure i’m going to go to david’s first question about the 10 feet that was revised guidance from desi around mid if not late july for specialty courses band chorus um that they are recommending that those are held outside and with 10 foot distancing so um in the context of this policy i’m assuming that that’s where the 10 feet came uh it doesn’t pertain to deci guidance on general classroom instruction right that’s correct so that i pulled that straight from the physical and that that’s what’s listed is the physical education choir woodwind instruments brass instruments and musical theater um and then the mask

2:47:08 breaks when we went to the department or the marblehead board of health andrew petty’s direct words were um that mass breaks should be done outside with extreme physical or extreme social distancing so given that i translated that with bessie’s 10 feet um because the 10 feet is without masks um that that the mask break you know obviously it’s without mask be done at a 10 foot distance as well so those are all without when when students are without a mask

2:47:44 and obviously in the case of phys ed and any kind of choir or band there’s heavy breathing involved

2:48:00 and then john do you have thoughts on uh on office yeah i think that i i think that’s challenging and i certainly get to david’s point that um in my office alone in widger road i have not been consistently wearing a mask but if that is the policy that we’re going to adopt that people in the context of the building when they’re inside uh have to model for students that we wear masks whenever we’re inside uh then that’s the that’s the route we’re gonna go

2:48:40 and the challenging part for me to to sort of not push that forward is the idea that particularly in a school building and um you know even more so than would you road that particularly in a school building there’s people walking in and out of offices all day and so i think to keep it as safe as possible you know that’s that is what we’re looking to do is to keep everyone in our school buildings as safe as possible um i do think it makes the most sense that that people are masked when in the building i concur

2:49:28 i mean it’s very specific so that’s good um you know it’s a whole whole new world that it is right david does it make more sense as to where that wording came from

2:49:46 um yeah i i had read this prior i’d read this prior to this evening and i guess that the 10 feet sort of slipped me by and once again not that not that what i do outside of school committee and where i work has any um implications on what policies we set but you know we’re required to wear masks when social distancing of six feet or less is not possible and certainly when you leave your office to go to another location to go to a break room to go to the bathroom [Music] to go to your car to walk down a hallway

2:50:33 you have you have the mask on and we in fact have been um encouraged to conduct outdoor meetings because being outdoors is one of the things that the cdc and mass department of health has um suggested is is certainly you know beneficial when you’re not in a confined area and that you can in fact um you know be in an outdoor setting when you’re six feet apart and not need to have a mask on but that i mean i mean there’s varying policies everywhere and i i’m not i’m not i don’t think tonight is the time to you know

2:51:19 debate six feet 10 feet and things like that so i’m i i think i’m always the glass half full person so to um you know what we’ve all been trying to do and what the guidance has been from dr bucky is you know let’s do this right let’s do this safely let’s let’s start the school year in the right way so um i’m hopeful that maybe as we move forward some of these things can can change a little bit so it’s it seems to me it’s probably appropriate to to be cautious and and take take the steps here we’ve we’ve had a recommendation from john foskett

2:52:05 you said has reviewed it and um these seem to be consistent with the guidelines within the state of massachusetts so i’m good with it all right good um deanna mcmahon also reviewed it um and then like i said there you know specific pieces of it were um i went back and forth with the marblehead board of health as well right yeah so i think you know just to david’s point i mean obviously policies aren’t things that we want to be changing on a you know frequent basis but this the landscape is changing on a very frequent basis so i think we just have to keep this one top of mind as as the environment changes and the situation changes and we learn more you know maybe this is something we need to revisit as we you know kind of travel along the covet highway

2:52:51 covet highway covet highway yeah no absolutely and i think you know the the final line in this in this is that this policy will remain in place until the school committee rescinds it so it certainly is up to us okay

2:53:12 all right i will call roll call sarah gold yes emily baron yes david harris yes megan taylor yes sarah fox yes all right that policy passes five to zero thanks everyone all right david that takes us to the building project update and i’m sharing my screen correct if you can that’d be great i can let me just find it on here

2:54:00 just tell me when to click through slides

2:54:06 so um so um the new school update still unnamed but we it is known as the elbridge gary uh school project so you can move forward to the next slide so what i’ve done here is there’s a series of um photos that brian johnson from left field captures and they are submitted in the monthly reports to the msba and those reports also go to the committee as well as um i make sure i forward them to the school committee but i think um you know a pitcher tells the story so rather than me talking about what’s going on on site

2:54:52 and everybody has been trying to sort of see what’s happening inside the fences i’d go through just a couple of quick slides here and i want to give a thanks and a shout out to cindy schieffer who you know is our lead communications person on the building committee and you know cindy was nice enough to to put this slide deck together for us that comprises um what’s happened over the last month so um first things first uh utilities were installed back in back in july and then um we started to get into what they say that the business of pouring concrete and we have been uh pouring concrete since uh early july and at the end of this week we will be

2:55:39 effectively out of the concrete business um you know four to seven trucks a day and um that is uh on schedule in fact it’s a little bit ahead of schedule so we will be out of the concrete business but just a picture here of what’s going on with the footings and if you can move forward to the next slide um and so this is a view of some of the walls but it’s it’s worth noting so this one you know it’s called a whole ram and the back ledge this is adjacent to two jane road and one of the characteristics that’s come out of this after the rock has been cleared and blasted is i think everybody will see that this is going to be um

2:56:25 very clean rock and very clean ledge along the edge of the school and it’s going to fit in very well with with the design of the school and in fact some of the blasted rock that that has been taken out of the site has been saved and is going to be used in the school project to enhance the landscaping and some of the various retaining walls so all of the rock will be natural and on site next slide

2:57:01 so this picture you know shows basically you’re looking from up on where the new athletic fields will be so from the from the back of the school or where the original upper bell school was looking down towards baldwin and you can see um you know there is a pretty big retaining wall and the picture on the right and the picture on the left is effectively what will be the gymnasium and the cafetorium so that’s that’s the wing of the gymnasium and the cafetorium that’s that’s going together next slide

2:57:39 so then uh we started with steel erection and um just moving along at um a really good pace the the first day i think over 70 pieces of steel were installed it’s been a really um coordinated process to get the steel on site to get it on site timely in fact the steel is has arrived two weeks early and you can see that the structures that are going up there and then once again the best view from the construction site is always from that upper level where the playing fields will be and uh the right hand photo shows looking back down towards um where the school is being erected and the retaining wall

2:58:32 and here’s a picture of of what it looks like we can start to see the formation of the school which is which is really exciting so if you were in in the left-hand photo you know that’s the area where there will be some of the pre-k uh play areas you can see the hallway the extended learning spaces that go down the center of the school uh you know on the on the left side and the right side you know you’ll have your kindergarten in first grade the upper level you can start to see how um the formation is there for the skylights that will allow um by design to have the natural lighting coming down into the school so you know it’s it’s really starting to

2:59:19 take shape and um i don’t know the elevator pit you know we the school will have a modern day elevator so that that is ready to go uh next slide and then um i think this one is just once again it’s a great example so as you’re if if you were coming into town on route 114 the left-hand pitcher that’s the intersection at smith street and these joists are the ones that will go over the cafetorium and the gymnasium and um the length of the tractor trailer was so large that it required a coordinated effort between gilbane um the delivery company and marblehead police so chief

3:00:06 piccarello and his team and gilbane they put together a coordinated plan to time the delivery of the truck so the truck actually turned on to smith street and if everybody know everybody knows that intersection and this pitcher on the right the truck actually had to back all the way up baldwin from smith street to get the joists on site and that this was the first delivery that um took place on tuesday and two more of them took place but it’s just it’s a great example of just the teamwork and the and the seamless efforts to make it you know not disruptive to the neighborhood there was some disruption as far as no parking on the streets um for a couple

3:00:54 of days but it was it was well planned people were informed there was a good communication plan and so as we’re trying to be good neighbors building the school and just getting that the help of um marblehead town departments this this one was was a great example of that and they’ll probably be a couple more going forward but and i think that might be the last slide oh nope there’s a couple more slides and so then uh just the steel joists once again being offloaded and you can see the uh superstructure of the classrooms in the first photo and then the steel joists being offloaded um as far as that goes and then the last thing that i just wanted to talk about and i know this has

3:01:40 come on a little bit quickly but i appreciate um dr bucky turning this around and giving approval to allow sean and donna to uh communicate this to parents so we missed a great opportunity most projects have you know a groundbreaking ceremony we weren’t allowed to do that when covet hit and one of the other significant um milestones of of all construction projects is um you know basically when when they raise the last piece of steel or what’s called a topping off ceremony and you know it it’s exciting for the for the construction workers on site for the

3:02:27 steel workers on site and so what we wanted to do was try and find a way to celebrate this milestone to um involve the children that will be at the school children that maybe have graduated from the school and moved on so cindy schiffer’s been working with gilbane and so there’s a picture on the left there’s actually it will be the last piece of steel to be fit on the building it will be painted bright white and it will be located in a secure uh safe area inside the gate off of uh off of baldwin and what we’re going to do is be

3:03:13 sean and donna will be emailing out to the um [Music] the coffin gary eveleth bell parents and students that we invite them to bring their student or child down between 8 30 and 3 p.m to come with a sharpie uh sign your name on it and forever be part of the construction project since that being will will live in that school and um it’s been thoroughly vetted through the department of health and so we just there will be appropriate signage and um people can you know come in take their turn everybody and anybody but we really

3:03:58 want to focus on the kids of course you know and it’s exciting for them for an opportunity to come down and get their name you know on the last piece of steel that will be fixed on the building and then the following week um [Music] what will happen is the beam will be raised the following week probably um i think need to check these dates a little bit um not to belabor this but it would be september 2nd i think so i apologize for that so next week would be the 24th through the 28th and then um sometime the week of the 31st probably the second third or fourth is when the beam will be raised um unfortunately the board of health has

3:04:45 said that people cannot gather um due to social distancing and and see that event take place but the beam will will be raised and um we’re going to work with um the marblehead reporter and mhtv to you know record record this event and and milestones so that it can be shared with the community and um that’s the update it’s just it’s it’s going along great um we’re real excited and um when you drive by and see it’s it’s really it’s really starting to look like a school so and the school committee does the building committee does meet um next thursday at seven o’clock

3:05:32 great thanks for that update that is that is really exciting megan david i love the pictures so thank you to you and cindy for putting them together this is like you know we don’t really get a chance to have a you know detailed bird’s eye view into the construction project and it really makes it feel so much more real for us so thank you yeah and there is um i think i might have mentioned it but there’s a really awesome drone video that jack jack attracts excuse me he’s been doing drone videos jack attributes did a video it’s about five minutes long um four weeks ago of the site and he’ll do another one so you’ll be able to see sort of the before and after and that’s um emily made sure that and uh emily and cindy made sure that that got posted on

3:06:19 our website so the drone video is posted on our website too so people can uh see the progress awesome exciting emily um i just want to say it it’s so cool that i think everyone needs to go and drive by and look at the building because i’ve now gone two days in a row because um i had to show my son and we saw like another big truck of steel being delivered today in the water truck and it’s really amazing to be able to see it actually coming like alive i guess you could say anyway so everyone should go drive by it is it is and so we should be um sometime

3:07:06 by mid-october they’ll start laying brick and the envelope of the building will start to be closed in so so far so good adhering to all the covid practices and have not incurred any delays but certainly as we go forward we know things change and once you get inside the building doing work there there could be some some challenges that gilbane will need to work through with that but um you know we’re really excited that you know for now the the you know the project is is on schedule and and we’re staying on budget the committee will get a budget update on uh next thursday as well great great thanks david it’s all just i’m really

3:07:52 excited for the ability for kids to uh sign that that beam that’s really cool just to make sure ben berman doesn’t take up the whole section of the beam with with his signature so um we’re gonna have to limit his script on that so he’ll have to sign last i guess

3:08:16 all right um that brings us to our closing business um so any new business sarah did you have accommodation um yes i just wanted to take the opportunity to thank so much of our staff who has been working out of contract on these committees um they are donating hours and hours and hours of their time um they’re doing it because they love our students they love our schools they care deeply and i’ve just been very very impressed with the number of staff members that have volunteered their summers um that were well deserved after a hard year and again they’re doing all this out of contract and and i’m very appreciative

3:09:06 all right um anybody else with any new business all right so that brings us to adjournment and i will join us at 9 55 p.m thanks everyone thanks good night good night thank you