School Committee: October 29, 2020

Transcript machine-generated with Whisper speech recognition (the source video has no caption track). No speaker labels; proper names and dollar figures occasionally misheard. Click any timecode to jump to that moment in the source video.

0:00 So I will call the meeting to order at 708 p.m. First up on our list, on our agenda, is commendations. And I actually have some commendations, so I will start. I want to take a moment to recognize Dan Bauer tonight. I have updated on whether to specifically name Dan or to simply recognize the work of all of the principals, but I think that Dan needs a specific shout out for all that he has done over the past couple of weeks. I want to say thank you. Thank you for your continued willingness to listen to parents. Thank you for your commitment to supporting your faculty. And thank you for your resolve and dedication to the education of your students. I see how hard you are working and what you are experiencing, and I’m grateful for it all. And I also want to recognize our faculty and staff. I don’t know what it’s like to walk a day in their shoes, but I’m trying to understand how the school year is going for them. School committee is committed to supporting the achievement of the students in our district, and we can’t do that without our faculty and staff. I see the dedication to your craft and the many ways that you are showing up for our students, and I am grateful for that as well. Does anybody else have any commendations? I’ll just put it over here. Yes, thank you. I have one last commendation. I just wanted to thank the support that we got from the town over this past weekend

1:30 dealing with everything and making the decision to pull remote in the high school. And that was a difficult decision, and I really appreciated how many facets of the town came together to help support that, because it truly was a town issue, and it felt really great to have their support as we made our decisions. And then it also felt really great to have the support of other institutions around Marblehead, and I was just really grateful for that, that so many reached out and sent letters to whoever they have in their fold to really echo the sentiment of Dr. Bucky. Yeah, any other commendations? Well, I was going to second that, Sarah. I know these are challenging times, and so when the events unfolded, obviously Saturday morning, and then into Sunday, and the townwide effort that went to work through this with the superintendent, yourself, the town administrator, Belf Becker, the Board of Health, lead nurse, Chief Picarello,

3:04 everybody that was involved, it was just, I think, a really true town effort, and I think the decisions that were made were the best decisions given the information that we had on a Sunday morning to be able to move forward. So I just want to also second that and thank everybody who came together, as a community, to make the decision so that we could try and move forward over the next couple of weeks. All right, I believe Mr. Fox has some commendations for us this evening. Matt, you can go ahead and unmute yourself. Thanks for having me. I have three commendations here tonight, sort of general and nature. First, to our parents, I’d like to commend all of our parents. They’ve had tremendous patience, they’ve shown a lot of support and commitment and investment on behalf of their students, and it’s not gone unseen or unappreciated here. Personally, for my seat, you know, somebody made seven informational videos and put them out there to parents, and we’ve accumulated over 4,500 views for those videos since the start of the year. So people are invested in staying up on what’s happening. My second commendation really is to our students. Imagine going back to middle school and what it was like for you there and having to stay six feet away from any friend that you have.

4:36 And they’re doing an outstanding job with it. They’ve done a great job following our safety guidelines. They’re working really hard and they’re working really in new ways too. Our eighth graders have really stepped up, become good leaders, and our seventh graders are really excited and really enjoying getting to know with them. So we’re enjoying that. My final accommodation, and the longest one, really goes off the staff here at VETS. 201, you know, teachers, parents, tutors, custodian, office staff, they’ve never worked harder in their educational careers than in this time right now. We really have to recognize that. They’re not only teaching in person, but they’re delivering curriculum virtually through the use of what we call AHA work, the at-home asynchronous work. While they’re doing that, they’re actively evaluating students, prioritizing standards, rewriting curriculum, and all while still supporting the social emotional growth and well-being of their students and your children. You know, we’re right in the middle of this process here in the school and the district of setting up our goals and our evaluation cycles for this year. So I thought that was a great thing to commend actually our teachers for, because in a year like this, when they already have mountains of things on their plates, it’s a year that they could have tried to phone in their goals and some of the things that they’re going to focus on this year, but they really haven’t. They’ve identified outstanding things that they need to improve, that students need to learn, that they need to learn as teachers in this new educational setting that we’re in.

6:10 So I’m just going to run you through, give you a short little sample of some of the goals that some of our teachers have. So we have some math teachers that are going to be working around systems of equations for students and bettering students fluency of their math skills, all while they expand their teaching repertoire to include all these new online platforms they’re using. Social studies teachers are going to be teaching about citizenship and civics knowledge, note-taking skills, very important skills you get older in the secondary ed, all while they’re rewriting and editing new curriculum maps and lesson plans to address the new state frameworks. Our science teachers are going to be teaching students how to effectively use non-fiction texts. They’re going to be creating and completing UBD, understanding by design and curriculum templates, and they’re going to be designing and incorporating more lab-based assessments that students can do even virtually. Our special ed and EL programs are going to be strengthening writing skills, aligning sub-separate math classes to state standards using specialized instruction, using the new technology, that’s a common theme to help data gather, to help gather data for our students and their goals. We’re going to be developing individualized language plans for our EL students and one teacher is even going for a Google certification. Our world language teachers are going to be working on oral competencies and speaking proficiency, journaling in the target language, and again some online resources and videos using edpuzzle. English will be focusing on grammar instruction and picking up some of the things that they identified as, you know, sort of maybe slipped to the wayside

7:41 last spring. They’ll be co-planning instructional strategies, again using some of the new online things like Pear Deck, edpuzzle, Google Forms, Google Docs. And then we have a large group of our teachers called multi-team teachers who teach all of our teams and they’re going to be working, someone will be working on citation and plagiarism. There’s this great new physical activity project involving virtual trips to national parks. We have a news literacy project that’s being developed to critically view information and evaluate sources of data. We’re developing resource web pages that students can have more in-depth exploration on their own. We’re expanding virtual hand-on activities, developing flipped classroom projects, and we’re even reorganizing and completely reclassifying a library by genre so students can access what they like a little bit better. All this is taking place while they’re teaching our students daily, supporting our students daily, and doing what they’re doing with a smile on their face. So I just want to really commend our teachers, our staff, our entire staff on everything they’ve done so far and are continuing to do. So thanks for having me. Thanks Matt. As the lone middle school parent on the committee, I absolutely high-fives all of that and you guys are doing a wonderful job. It’s apparent and when kids are needing adult support, they are able to get it and that’s great. I’m so glad that we added this to our genre

9:18 and so we’re going to continue to stay outside and do things. Last week and now, thank you so much for this was a situation that we all find ourselves in and even if we spoke within on that, but there’s so much amazing stuff that our teachers and students are doing and it’s great for everybody to hear what’s happening. Megan, the public, we can’t hear you.

9:47 All right, Megan is just saying that it’s great to be able to hear these things from the principals because with especially with everything going on in all over us, that it’s important that we know what else is taking place at the schools. Okay, perfect. Is there a way to fix the audio so that we can hear everything being said by the other parties? For some reason, audio comes up under a black screen from you and is not coming up under… Right, so the audio is going to come up under the Marvel head school committee screen. Because otherwise, we’re picking up feedback. Yeah, we can only hear you though is the problem. The public can’t hear anybody but you clearly. Do you want to move me? Okay, all right. So yeah, so I’ll move and in a moment it was and I’ll switch with Megan because we had we had tested this out the other day and tested it beforehand as well. So I’m not sure why it’s not picking up Megan right now. Yeah, you can hear she’s speaking. You just I can’t understand anything she’s saying. I’m sorry. That’s okay. All right, Dan. Matt, thank you very much. That brings us up to Dan, our student representative. Dan, you can go ahead and unmute yourself. Welcome tonight. Thanks for having me. Yeah, so we are back in remote learning. I believe this is the first meeting

11:26 since hybrid learning had started. So I had some things to talk about, some things planned to talk about. And I still will because it’s important to acknowledge. So I think I can definitely echo what’s been said about the middle school teachers, about the high school teachers. The effort has gone a long way and it’s very clear to all students. We’ve done things like I’ve had a lot of classes outside in different areas of the school. Teachers have been very diligent about cleaning desks after use. And it’s just really appreciated. But we are now in remote. A decision that I think initially was frustrating, but understandable. I think that there’s one word that I could use to describe students, it would be resilient and adaptable. Since March, we have been really the definition of rolling with the punches, having events canceled, just a number of things happening. But we just continue on, because that’s all we really can do. One thing that has been good about going back to full remote now compared to March, when we initially did it, is now we now have a program set up for it. So we have really

13:01 hopped back in without missing a beat. And we’ve returned to our former schedule before we move to hybrid. Yeah, so I can also echo the accommodation from Mr. Bauer. He came up to me at one point and was like, hey, I’m sorry about this. I feel so bad for all you guys. And it meant a lot to hear him say that because it has been tough. But I think students acknowledge that this is a serious time and we need to take it seriously. So I think that students have been very aware of that and accepting of that and its repercussions. Thanks, Dan. I appreciate that feedback on the students in particular. I think I was in a staff meeting with your mom the other day and one of the other teachers on the call talked about the concept of emotional endurance. And that was so poignant to me that that’s really where we’re at right now. That we all are working on building that and maintaining it and increasing it. Because I think we know that this is where we’re going to be for a little while, kind of going back and forth like

14:33 this. Yeah, definitely. Thanks for your update. Always good to see you. I just, a little out of order, I meant to make a commendation to Dan actually, if I can jump in and add that onto this. I hope I’m not embarrassing anybody, but we had received an update from Eric Oxford about a project that Dan has taken on. And I just wanted to commend him. I am so impressed. I believe it’s for his voice got eagle project. And I’m so impressed. He is working on funding a sensory room at the new elementary school that is being finished up right now. And I’ve always been impressed with Dan, but the fact that he chose to further give back to our schools, which I feel like he already provides so much for through this project. I just found so impressive. And I just wanted to commend him on yet again, giving back to the community and supporting the Marblehead schools. And I just think that he is a tremendous asset to our town and district. Absolutely. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you, Dan. All right. That brings us to public comment. If anybody who would like to make

16:05 a public comment will please use their raise hand function. I will start to call on people. Please state your name and address for the record before you launch into your comments. I have Catherine Martin. Catherine Martin, 29 West Shore Drive. Sarah Gould, can you speak to the fact that three of you are in the library right now? And the meeting posting is for a Zoom meeting. And you have a quorum of three people. This just doesn’t seem like transparency in a time when transparency needs to be our number one kind of focus because we’re in a crisis situation. Perhaps you’ve run this by the powers that be at the state, but it does seem really peculiar that three of you are in person, but yet the public can’t be there. And that wasn’t how the meeting was posted. It was posted as a Zoom meeting. This is not the first time I’ve seen kind of this lack of transparency with this committee this year. I also wasn’t really happy with the way the subcommittees were not voted on during the retreat, that they were kind of selected by email. And a lot of us sat through that meeting. And I didn’t at the time feel like I needed to say anything about that because COVID is obviously on everyone’s mind. It’s the most important thing in our community. But then the

17:36 third thing was sitting through the budget subcommittee meeting a couple of weeks ago, requesting public comment and getting no response from any of the subcommittee members. Now you can deny public comment, but you really should if the public is requesting to be heard that they be heard. You know, I compound this with hearing, you know, the request for forums, having a committee member of yours multiple times, request for forums over the last couple of weeks. And quite frankly, I wasn’t going to speak tonight until I saw the three of you sitting in the library. And the fact that the meeting didn’t start till 708. So there was eight minutes of you sitting in quorum with a meeting, you know, this isn’t how you do business in public. Perhaps there is a tight area. But you know, I think I’d like to hear about that. Well, Katie, it is against our policy to go back and forth during public comment. But this is a public meeting. And there is, I don’t know how else to provide access to the public in a better way than this. Next up, Jenny Armini. Oh, you gotta unmute yourself, Jenny.

18:58 I’m still getting used to this. Sorry. No problem. Okay, so you need my address as well. Yes, please. Okay. Jenny Armini, 8 Russell Street in Marblehead. Thank you to the committee for giving me the opportunity to speak and to submit a petition on behalf of 375 verified signatories, all of them Marblehead high school parents, students, or concerned citizens of Marblehead. On behalf of Kim Day, the mother of freshman Sienna Day, and myself, the mother of Sydney Armini, also a freshman, I request that the petition, the names, and the comments be added to the Marblehead School Committee public record. The text of the petition, which is now closed, is still available if anyone wants to read it on change.org. As many of you are aware, it urges the school committee to support a genuine and aggressive effort by Superintendent Bucky, Principal Dan Bauer, and their teams in exploring technology-based synchronous learning options for the high school. The effort was organized after it became clear, one, that Marblehead is hitting the ceiling on the number of teacher-led

20:30 learning hours available in the two-cohort model. Second, the only way to give students additional instruction time in this model is to introduce synchronous technology into the classroom. And three, that until Tuesday of this week, there was no clear effort within the administration to actively investigate synchronous learning options. As you also know, we are currently in phase two of the academic year, during which our kids have, at most, 16.7 hours of teacher-led learning per week. This is well below the state standards. Phase three, as is currently being discussed, would reduce this number as students transition back into the high school building full-time on their in-person cohort days. Now, to address this, public and private schools around the state and around the country have introduced synchronous learning. Now, by no means this is a perfect solution, but we’ve all learned that perfect is not achievable, especially in a pandemic. And if the choice is between no additional learning time and an imperfect tool that adds to it, I’d like to think we would all take the latter. Now, why a petition, right? A petition is the

22:01 community’s way of sharing its views with policymakers and administrators. We hope it’s looked at as a tool and not as a repudiation. Marblehead has a long history of petitions, by the way. So, I have a fun fact for you. To get our first jail in 1731, we had to send a petition to the great and general court. Now, the one being submitted for the record tonight represents something entirely different. It’s a sense among parents that even in a pandemic, the district has to seriously consider every tool available to bring teacher-led learning time to our students, our high school students in particular. Now, why high school students? Well, the clock is ticking for them. These students are preparing for higher education and the workplace now. This isn’t an abstract educational concept that we have time to work out. Next fall, today’s seniors will be sitting next to their peers from around the globe, and many of those peers are in full-time learning programs right now. So, as a community and a school administration, we have to recognize that a lot has changed since last summer and early fall. We now have models to consider and best practices to consult. It was heartening to hear Dr. Bucky say on Tuesday that he has started to talk to schools

23:38 and districts about their experiences. This was a huge, positive, and welcome step. Up until this point, we haven’t had a clear indication that synchronous learning was being seriously considered. Many parents who supported were told they were a vocal minority. We hope that the petition shows that we are not a vocal minority. I’ll just end, as I like to one, with thanks to the committee, to Dr. Bucky, to Principal Bauer, and to the high school faculty for all they have done, all the blood, sweat, and tears to get us to this point. Change is hard. Adaptation is hard. But Marblehead knows how to roll with the punches, and we’re going to do this. Education is a passport. That’s what Malcolm X liked to say. For tomorrow belongs to those who prepare today. So, for Marblehead, there is no time to waste. Thank you so much. Thank you, Jenny. Susan Kuhl is up next. Don’t forget your address, please, Susan.

25:05 Good evening. My name is Susan Kuhl, 406 Atlantic Ave. Good evening, School Committee members, officers, and Superintendent Bucky. I would like to thank you for this opportunity to speak during the open forum. I would like to state my feelings about the value of synchronous learning and the importance of pursuing enhancements to technology in the classrooms of Marblehead High School. Before I get too far ahead of myself, I also want to thank the superintendent specifically for being open to this concept. Two weeks ago, he stated very clearly in a screen-castified video that he was not interested in pursuing this delivery method of instruction. Two days ago, however, he stated that he is looking further into the matter, and I applaud his open-minded… Allison. Allison Levin thinks she’s the origin of… Sorry, Susan. Whether you are an administrator, elected official, educator, or parent, we all have been collectively battling against COVID-19 for seven months. Since March 13th, the challenges faced by educators have been extreme. The concerns shared by parents have also been extreme when we consider that high school students have limited time to prepare for the next chapter of their lives, whether pursuing a vocation or an education at the bachelor level. At this point in the fall, our high school students have had four modifications to their class schedules, and classes are being delivered in two modalities. They still have the opportunity to sleep until noon on two mornings out of five. Students are receiving an insufficient amount of

26:41 direct instruction due to split classes. Teachers are stretched as they not only are scrambling to prepare their lessons in different modalities, but also in many cases they are instructing twice the number of classes. We face some discouraging numbers and predictions about how this winter might look, and even mixed information about when a vaccine might be delivered. However, I would like to offer some solace. I believe that if instruction is delivered via teleconferencing technology, as simple as an OWL system, the challenges will subside and education at MHS can get back on track. Half of a class can be in the classroom in one cohort, and the other cohort can be at home participating in the same lesson, hearing the same questions raised, and hearing the same responses from the teacher. This could possibly eliminate the need to have a cohort of remote learners and outsourcing classes to Edgenuity, as these students could remain remote while taking classes with MHS teachers that we all value. Many private and parochial schools in our immediate area have already made the investment, and their students have been on track since the beginning of this school year. Some school districts have adopted the same modality. Some states are in school full-time. I no longer can accept the adage that we are all in the same boat because we are not. We in Marblehead are falling behind. With synchronous learning, we regain our momentum, assuring that all aspects of the curriculum will be covered,

28:14 and with direct instruction, and we can be ahead of the curve. I leave you with two final facts. As of 5.30 this evening, we have 490 signatures showing support of implementing synchronous learning technology. I believe perhaps Jenny had verified these signatures, but in the count that I looked at online at 5.30, it did show 490. This academic year, 255 students left the Marblehead Public Schools, either to private schools or to homeschooling. If we see this number repeat this year, I would anticipate a loss of jobs, causing irreparable harm to the school system. For all of these reasons, I strongly encourage you, the School Committee, to support further research and support of this important opportunity. Time is of the essence. Thank you very much. Thank you, Susan. Alastair Connor. Alastair Connor, 9, Cloutmans Lane. First, I wanted to thank the closing committee who decided after the party’s situation not to close the younger age group schools. Looking down the barrel of a work week where I had everything delicately balanced, the thought of my first grader all of a sudden being home and having no child care was definitely stressful, and I really appreciate you thinking about that. In that situation,

29:44 it really made me think about when we quarantine or have illnesses with teachers or children, how we can respond to that. And this week, my stepdaughter didn’t feel well, so she was able to stay home because she goes to Mascam Namet where they… I’m going to talk about the first thing I want to say is that I have a plan for how children are going to receive their education. I have a plan for how children are going to receive their education. I realize that synchronous learning is not perfect. I have friends who are doing it as teachers and it is hard and it has its own challenges. But it does enable people to stay home when they’re sick and switch between remote and in-person for occasions like we just had. I also encourage you to differentiate the needs of different age learners that in the high school the amount of times that a class is presented and the amount of hours for each class is very important. Whereas for the younger learners the in-person time is the most important including my son who’s in sixth grade and his son who’s in sixth grade and his son who’s in sixth grade. Including my son who’s in sixth grade, his teachers still discuss the fact that they think the in-person time is really needed at that age group. So I appreciate you considering the different needs of different ages in our district. Thank you. Thank you, Starr. Sorry, I’m having a little bit of technical difficulties here.

31:15 Um, is it Megan? Is that? I think that’s me. Thank you. Megan Sweeney, 23 Beacon Street, here in Marblehead obviously. I have my youngest daughter in Marblehead schools. She is a senior this year, unfortunately. Um, thank you very much for the opportunity to speak. Thank you very much for all the incredible work that our teachers and staff have done to make sure that for the best and most possible solution there is that we are here in remote and hybrid learning. So thank you. I understand the challenges, or at least I try to. I wanted to speak tonight because I’ve heard everybody celebrating some of our successes and they absolutely should be celebrated. But for our family, my daughter cannot be part of the school right now. Her health challenges are such that she cannot be part of a hybrid. She cannot ever go into in-person until we figure out a vaccine or figure out how to keep her safe. So not sure how to solve that. I’m not looking for you to, but I just want you to at least acknowledge or to know that there are some students that will not be able to return until we have a better handle on COVID. I want you to understand that she was an athlete with promise to go to school

32:45 and play soccer. I want you to understand that she had planned on being at least one of the quarterbacks for the Powder Puffs game this year and she can’t. She can’t be with friends. She is in her bedroom alone trying to figure out how to do school and how to stay in contact with people. And it’s very difficult for her but also for me. So I just wanted you to know that there are kids here that are really wanting to be part of the school, to be part of a senior year, to be part of the class that she’s been with since she was a young kid and that she can’t be. As a mom I want you to understand that she is getting approximately seven hours of teacher time every week. Seven. She’s in two AP classes. She’s in AP Chemistry and AP Gov. She’s expected to do her AP Chemistry labs on her own apparently in our kitchen. I just want you to be mindful of that when you make decisions. I’m not sure what else to say except for I want you to understand that there are kids who would like to participate and who can’t and I’m not asking you for to solve it

34:16 but I’m asking you to recognize that for my daughter the synchronous learning would be invaluable because not only from a learning perspective but to be feeling again as she should be that she should feel part of her senior class and right now she is isolated in her bedroom. Thank you for your time. Thank you for sharing that Megan. I have the Earp family up next. Hi this is Alexis Earp. Thank you for inviting me to speak. My address is 41 West Shore Drive. I spoke at the school committee meeting on October 1st. I’m a junior at MHS and I’m in the remote learning cohort. As I mentioned at the last meeting my education has been mostly outsourced. For me specifically I’m on the platform Edge Annuity. Others are on a different platform. Today I only had one class so I had 50 minutes of learning time today with an MHS teacher because I don’t have classes. So the remote students really feel like we’ve been let down by the plan that’s currently in place and many of us feel forced to switch back to hybrid even if we don’t feel that that’s the decision safest for our families myself included. I don’t feel safe going back to school especially after the party that happened this weekend but my parents are literally

35:50 forcing me to go back so that I can get an education and have teachers and not have a single hour of class time a day. So just to reiterate what other people have said tonight just implementing the synchronous learning would be so helpful because everyone is missing out this year. I understand that that’s just the reality of living during the coronavirus pandemic but the remote students have been really let down by having their education outsourced. So I would just again encourage you to please implement synchronous learning so that we can get an education too. Thank you. Thank you. Kathy I see that your hand is up. I would just ask that if this has already been said that you keep it brief and not repeat what others have said tonight. Fair enough. No actually I just want to circle back to Katie Martin’s comment at the beginning of the meeting I would just really like to understand the legality of having the meeting in person at the high school when it’s clearly said on the agenda that it was Zoom the agenda doesn’t mention the high school at all and I’m sure that there’s a precedent for that but just for clarity and just to clear anything up if the school committee could just explain to the people who are listening the more than what 140 is something like how it’s legal for some of you to be there but yet not have it listed on the agenda as an in person meeting

37:22 at the high school I think that would help a lot of people. Cheers. Thank you Kathy. I have CR up next. Don’t forget to unmute yourself. Hello. Yeah. Hi this is Cheryl Raisin I’m on 6 Lindsay Street and I’m going to try to keep it brief but just to encapsulate a lot of what people have said today for the ongoing foreseeable future we’re going to have students that are going to be out of school because they may be quarantined for two weeks. They may be in fact ill for longer. We’re going to have a subset of students that are going to need to be doing remote learning for the long term. If we couldn’t get back to in person learning this fall with the COVID rates the way they were I don’t see any hope for us having any meaningful face to face learning coming up anytime soon. And in the face of these facts I don’t understand why it is only at this point that we’re starting to investigate technology and the needs for that. We’ve basically taken almost 100% of our curriculum and turned it into a remote learning course. We are going to need support in order

38:54 to do that and it looks like for the foreseeable future that is what we are going to be doing. That’s all I can say. Thank you for your comments. Alright I will take a moment to clarify that this is a school committee meeting that is held so that the public can view and that there can be public participation. I believe that we’ve fully met those parameters this evening that there has been plenty of time. It is 747 and we have spent quite a bit of time on public comment and that this is a very capable way of meeting the public’s need to view a meeting while keeping people safe as well for the public gathering piece. So I encourage anyone with any questions to reach out to the Attorney General’s office and ask questions about the open meeting law so that you can better understand it. So next that moves us to the minutes. We have quite a list of minutes. Now I’ve got to call the Attorney General in the morning. Excuse me. Sarah? Yes Sarah. I just wanted to take a moment and thank, whenever a student speaks I think it’s important that we thank them and acknowledge them no matter what they have to say. I think it takes tremendous courage for students to come into a meeting that is largely populated by adults and to not only speak but to speak eloquently.

40:27 And I just wanted to note that I commend students for speaking up, for advocating, and also to let everybody hear that although we’re not interacting with public comment, we are hearing it. And we had some very emotional public comment and I think we all would be remiss to not acknowledge that we heard that and we appreciate what you had to say and just we can’t interact with public comment but I just felt we needed to given the content of what was said tonight. Thank you Sarah. Okay, so we are at the minutes portion. We have a significant list. I did not get a chance to read many of these because they were added quite late today and because there was so many, I do not feel prepared to vote on them at this point. I don’t know what the other committee members feel about that. Yes, say it, Sarah. Can you hear me? I can hear you, Megan. You said I think you’ve got over 10 sets of minutes here and I didn’t see the last 5 or 6 of them until 6 o’clock tonight so there’s no way that I would have reviewed them. The RSU

41:59 that we got earlier in the week that I’m happy to vote on, which are the August 28, 9, September 3, and September 10. But the other ones I just don’t think that we had the chance, especially given how far along we are since we’ve had those meetings to review them properly. Megan, I can review the ones that we got earlier in the week. I was able to look those over but I can’t, I wouldn’t feel comfortable voting on the ones that I haven’t looked at yet that were dropped in today. So I think part of the issue here is I don’t have access to upload things to the Dropbox. So I sent them off to Lisa yesterday and then sent her a couple emails this morning and then called the office and then I texted her and found out she was actually unfortunately ill today. But once I texted her, she was very responsive and very helpful and then she did upload them I think about 10 o’clock this morning and sent us all a text at 10 o’clock saying that they were uploaded. But I think if I had access to upload that and didn’t have to go use someone else’s as that, we could perhaps be more efficient moving forward. I have no problem giving access but I think there was a lot of minutes

43:29 and I don’t think that I would have gotten to them if they were put in last night either. I mean, what I’ll do is have these minutes happen like four months ago. So, you know, 20, honestly, we should have done reviewing that a long time ago. So we get them literally like hours before a meeting. I just do not think it’s fair to the rest of the committee at this point. So Lisa has a lot on her plate. She does a lot for us. And one of the reasons why we created that new website was to make her job easier as well, which is a goal of mine. So, you know, I don’t think that we can put this on Lisa, to be honest. That wasn’t my intention. I’ll just entertain a motion, Megan, on the minutes to be approved this evening. If somebody wants to make a motion. Can I get a motion to approve August 28, 2020, September 3, 2020, and September 10, 2020? Second. Second. David second. Is there any additions to any of those or concerns? 917 has been in there for over a week. I don’t know if the other issue with that is that I wrote it or if it’s simply a timing thing, but I gave that to Lisa 3, 4, actually I gave that to Lisa prior to our last meeting. So she’s had to submit. So that one is missing substantial portions of the meeting. There’s a vote on there that’s not even on there. So it’s missing so much that we need to go back and really do it because the

45:01 vote for the EDC supplemental policy isn’t on there. It just seemed a bit sparse. I wonder if something, because I emailed it to her, the Google Doc and asked her to convert it because I hadn’t figured out how to convert it yet. I wonder if somehow when I emailed that, the ones that I gave her today were already, I put them as PDFs. I wonder if something happened when I sent it to her. So I’ll go back and double check and convert that myself. Because I know that I had all that in here here. Our next meeting is next week too. So we’re not even punting this for two weeks. It’ll just give us a little bit of time to look them all over. Alright, so I have a motion that is seconded. All in favor, I will do a roll call. Sarah Gold, yes. Emily Barron, yes. Meghan Taylor, yes. David Harris, yes. And Sarah Fox. Yes, can you tell me, David, who moved the motion and who seconded it? Meghan moved and David seconded. Okay. John, that leads us to the superintendent’s update and you’ve got a few things that you’re going to update us on. Not very well at this point. Still

46:44 a little bit challenging, but when Meghan was talking it seemed to get better. Sounds better to me. Sarah Fox, does that sound good? Okay, I just want to echo Sarah Fox’s comments to thank people for speaking in public comment, particularly a student sharing her perspective. We are always listening. We’re not always able to do everything that everyone wants. I joked with someone today, I said I feel like I’m working at the speed of sound for people that want me working at the speed of light. And so I think in our never-ending pursuit to find the perfect model and to increase time on learning, we have put our educators in a position where they’re writing and then rewriting lesson plans for multiple modes of learning. In-person, Zoom, and asynchronous. Nowhere has this been more in flux than at Marblehead

48:16 High School, but the toll collectively on our teachers across the district with each pivot, with each optimization, maybe even a lurch is a better word, is alarming. I put out a survey to staff and I will say I am deeply worried by the results. As a new superintendent, I wanted to make the goal to make everyone happy. And I made the cardinal mistake of focusing on the criticisms and not attending to the critical component of focusing on our teachers who were and are suffering in silence. Their heart-wrenching comments in this survey have my attention. To them, I am sorry. As an educator for 25 years, I should have seen this and more importantly, done something about it. I think we all own a piece of where our teachers are right now. But this isn’t about assigning blame. It’s about finding a solution. I believe that that solution is to tap the brakes, if you will, take a step back, take a deep breath. The current half-day cohort model

49:50 might need some adjustments, but the toll that each revision, what I am calling optimizations, is debilitating for those charged with implementing it. Dan will finish the second week of remote learning at MHS next week and then go back to the Fibre 2 schedule he had implemented on October 19th. It increases time on learning and gives teachers a consistency they have lacked and are desperately begging for. The middle school faculty is working with Matt on some tweets to their current half-day cohort model, which he will implement on November 16th. Our elementary schools will maintain the cohort model they have now through the end of their trimester, which is December 4th. No changes to their schedule unless driven by teachers will occur until then. We will continue to survey families. Our 2-12 hybrid survey will launch on Monday. Results from the pre-K to 12 surveys will be shared at the second November school committee meeting. I will be vetting all of this with the reopening committee at their meeting on Monday. So that’s an update on where we are with cohort models and schedule changes. I just think we

51:22 owe it to our teachers who I printed some of their comments. I won’t share them this evening. But when you have 20-year veteran teachers who are deeply respected in this district saying they cry on the way to work every day, we need to stop. And we need to attend to them. And we can attend to everyone by working together and not pitting groups against one another. We are all in this for the same outcome. And so that’s my update on learning models and I’m happy to take questions. I’m hearing this in for our schools. We really can hear you as would now, Sarah. I think you moved away from the microphone. So I’m hearing this from Marblehead Public, certainly. And I’ve had people talk to me about this over this past week. And then I’ve been in my own staff meetings where teachers are struggling. And then I actually sat in on a I’m involved in a school counselors group for private school counselors on the North Shore. And they had a meeting today that I desperately wanted to attend because I wanted to be able to

52:52 figure out how to support people that I work with better. And they all had the same things to say. So I think, you know, well, we absolutely need to attend to our teachers in Marblehead because they are ours. This is something that is being felt at least around our general area of the Commonwealth. And my guess would be in many, many other places as well. John, thank you for updating. Peter, Sarah, and Danny, give me your both meters. So give me a thumbs up and give me your hand. Very muffled. So John, thank you for updating. I think you and I talked about this. We have a lot of parent feedback, which is great. And that’s imperative to the process. But the other side of that, the teacher feedback. So I’m very happy to hear that you’ve gotten that. Not happy to hear the results, obviously. But it’s important that we have both sides of the conversation so that we can factor that as input to our decision-making process. And I think you did such a great job over the summer with putting together that collaborative reopening committees. And I think going through using that team to help talk through some of the options

54:26 was a very effective way to move forward. And I’m so glad to hear that maybe you are going to pump the brakes a little bit. Not everyone wants to hear that. But I think to make sure that whatever the next change is we’ve been able to kind of vet it across that broad representative committee. So I’m very happy to hear that. Thank you. And I will say before anyone jumps to Dan Bauer for student listening sessions next week for the high school. So we have scheduled a ninth and tenth, I believe Dan is working on, in eleventh and twelfth listening session to hear from students. So it is really that three-legged stool. And we all have to make sure that one leg is not over-attended due at the expense of another. I’m glad to hear that you’re going to be talking to students as well. Because I think that was the other piece this week that I started to hear about and I started to think about from last for that’s going to be. And I believe we have the school committee next Thursday as well. So I will be coming off of those listening sessions to be able to update the committee with that information on Thursday. So I have a couple questions. First of all, I just want to commend the staff again for

56:00 they show up every day, they’re under tremendous stress. They show up, they give an energy and a positivity to their students even though they themselves are under stress that they I’m sure have never experienced in their careers before. So for that alone they should be commended. And I, you know, sadly this survey really isn’t a surprise at least to me in that I kind of I felt this coming, have heard some of this feedback a little bit and we need to make sure all the pieces are working. So I want to know, Dr. Bockett, you noted you had compiled some of the statements and you weren’t going to talk about them at tonight’s meeting but will you be making them available to us? There are a lot of them and so I will be going through them and yes, I mean there’s no reason for you not to have access to them but I did not. I said to staff that it would be anonymous. So I did not talk about publicly sharing the results of the survey. So maybe having a listening session with staff to make sure that they’re good with that. I meet with MEA executive board every Tuesday but I wouldn’t want any comments that could identify someone if they

57:32 said I’m a second grade remote teacher or something and we only have one of those. Oh no, totally. Sorry, but is it possible to maybe just identify with the general themes? Absolutely. That’s what I was going to say. That would be helpful. I don’t need to read the comments because now we have no idea what you’re referring to. General themes I could talk about tonight. They’re exhausted. They feel devalued and underappreciated. They’re chasing time at the expense of their own family. They feel like they’re on a roller coaster that is never getting off. And so I think this tacked the brakes and there’s not going to be another pivot or schedule change. There’s comments on Wednesday that the floating Wednesday makes it difficult for continuity and consistency. So can we look at that and the ability to teach remotely if we are in remote. Just balance. The work-life balance of being a teacher but also having remote learners at home. Maybe in a different district that has a different schedule

59:04 than we are. And I think balance is a huge theme. And so being able to give them time. I think time is another major theme. And so at the district level, Mann and I are looking at ways of eliminating initiatives that would open them up for additional personal planning time in collaboration with their colleagues. One thing I do want to note, Megan had thanked John for the reopening committees and had noted that she felt like this was the proper avenue for kind of circling back. But today in our teaching and learning K-3 committee, it was decided that we weren’t going to meet anymore. That given where we are we kind of disbanded, if you will. I mean, we can always get back together, but I have a concern that, you know, where that was such a collaborative effort with administrators and teachers and parents, you know, there still be an option for that at the SACs, I’m sure, and that was noted by the principals that wonderful things happen at SACs. But I wonder if really this isn’t the time to disband those teaching and learning committees because, Emily, am I, I can tell from your eyes, am I missing something?

1:00:36 Oh, no, I was just agreeing. Okay. It’s hard with the math to read facial cues. So, I just didn’t know if maybe, you know, it’s such a great way to get parent feedback with teachers, with administrators, and we really need to find the solution that works for everybody because exactly what Dr. Bucky said, when we try to please just the parents and the teachers, we’re in this together, we all have to work about this together because everyone has one common goal, and that’s to maximize results for students. And so, we have to find a way to do that, you know, obviously, together, but I think if we stop meeting, we can’t do that. Sarah, can you help me with that? Nan was out today. Did Nan leave that meeting? No. Nan had broken us down into smaller groups by age. She had broken us down to K-3, 4-6, and then I don’t know what happened in the upper levels. It’s kind of a mystery to me because I’m not, that’s not where I sit. But the K-3 had decided, you know, your survey was going out. It had all the information we were looking for, and so they’re really, the committee didn’t feel that, you know, there was a purpose at this point. I’ll be honest, I asked to keep the committee together. I just, I like, I like the format. I think

1:02:06 it works well, and I just, I don’t know if there’s still an opportunity for that. Or if maybe Nan’s thought is that we’ll go back to K-6 instead of that further breakdown, I don’t know. I’m sure she has a plan. Yeah, I’m just going to circle back to Nan because this is kind of coming out of left field for me. And so I want to make sure that I understand the process that led to today’s meeting because I know Nan was out and she’s attending the personal business. And so I just want to make sure to have a conversation with her about this. So thank you for raising that. Yeah, and kind of just clarify on my comment, I was specifically focused on your reopening the large umbrella. Because I think, you know, that does include parents, administrators, teachers. I just think that’s a very useful committee. And it has all the subcommittee chairs, so facilities and health and safety. Exactly. Thank you. Getting to Sarah Box’s point, I think we need to look at the use of other committees, teaching and learning-wise. Obviously, there’s issues being brought up at all those levels. And I think we need to look at it more detailed than what maybe that larger opening committee can look at it. There’s issues at the elementary, there’s issues obviously at the high school. And I think we need to really kind of look really deep into what’s going on. Because

1:03:43 hopefully, people are upset and unhappy on both sides. So I think it would be good to get feedback and talk to them about how to move forward or what they think is a good idea. And I’ve got it through to them since they worked on a lot of it, you know, from the beginning. I will say all of the first rules before they are having the time to pause. And so that will give those committees, whether it’s pre-K to 6 or 7 to 12, the opportunity to reconvene with NAM who led that work this summer. It’s really important to try to help the teachers and figure out what they need to be supported as well. And I think that’s really important that that doesn’t get lost in everything. Does that give a great transition point to update on technology and synchronous learning? No, no, that’s a wonderful transition.

1:05:08 I’ll start this one as well with the speed of sound and the speed of analogy. We had a conversation with a parent on Tuesday. Can we give Dr. Bocky the microphone or whatever we’re using? So, the conversation with the parent on Tuesday, that afternoon I met with the MEA executive committee to start the conversation about the MOA and about openness to this. The next day I had a phone call with a local independent school that was identified as doing this well. There’s no audio whatsoever now. Nothing. How about now? Yes. I can hear you now. So, the day after that meeting I met with independent school, found out about their multi-month, very significant. They did a Zoom Room project, which tremendous capital outlay for.

1:06:43 In the original meeting there were two districts identified. I reached out to the superintendent on Thursday. Had a call with one district who spoke about their implementation and they were just three weeks into it. And so, she was clear that there had been some implementation glitches, but after three weeks people seemed to be settling in. That afternoon I met with the middle school and high school principals to talk about it the following day, meeting with another superintendent in another district, the second district that had been identified. On Monday of this week, our director of technology gave a proposal to the leadership team about a vendor that she had been working with to explore synchronous learning cameras. And so, she shared that. And not for nothing. Our director of technology is retiring in December. And so, we are in the middle of a search for a new technology director. And those interviews are going to be happening Thursday and Friday of next week. And that’s not an excuse or a blame. That’s just the conditions on the ground. That in the midst of this, and Kathy has earned her retirement and I wish her well,

1:08:14 but this is a significant project. So, on Tuesday I met with the leadership board of MEA again and they scheduled a meeting with the high school faculty to talk about it. I met with a parent to talk more about this. I will say, I think there were some teachers that were going to speak tonight who just don’t feel comfortable speaking. And I don’t think there is a good deal of support for this, but we will continue to explore it, reach out to schools that are doing it. We yesterday scheduled an assessment to have a company come in and talk about the infrastructure issues at the high school and adding switches or connection points or other technological things your superintendent doesn’t fully get. But Kathy Hennessy has scheduled that. I met with one of our tech, our network administrator today in my office. I also had a call with the New England Association of Schools and Colleges today to talk to them about what schools they know that are doing it. And again, there are varying degrees of success. No one is citing this as terrible. No one is citing this as answering all of the ills. And so,

1:09:48 someone referenced tonight a video I did. I want to be clear that I was not speaking against this and saying I was not open to talking about it, but just presenting some of the challenges that districts find. And so, I think that the two districts identified, some of our teachers reached out and teachers in those districts shared that, you know, it’s not a magic bullet. And sometimes if a kid, a student gets kicked off and they miss that content and then you have an issue, do we want to do recordings of those? A family emailed me and said it would be so helpful if those were recorded and then a student could go back and listen to it. And that makes great sense to me. But if you have someone who doesn’t want to do it, there is a legality of recording someone without their permission. And so, we continue to look at it. We have quotes from different vendors, probably five quotes. We have looked at the Zoom rooms, probably cost prohibitive for us. We have looked at OWL technology, looked at Poly Studio. Each teacher got a laptop, so in a very pedestrian way or a very fundamental or primitive is the word I’m looking for, way, they could do what we’re doing now. So, it is not off the table. It is an ongoing conversation

1:11:23 that I would say started deeply in earnest less than 10 days ago. And so, there has been a significant amount. At the same time, there’s a lot of other things in the district and not that this isn’t an important priority for me, but to circle back and update people two days out from a meeting is challenging. And so, I’m hoping that tonight’s update makes it clear that this isn’t lip service, that this is something that is being explored in earnest, and we will update people as updatable information is available. And I did meet with a parent on Tuesday, and I think that that parent probably, because I said, you know, feel free to share any of this information, but that wasn’t any sort of a secret meeting where that person was getting prior to or carrying information. So, hopefully this process in sharing out with the school committee is helpful, and I’m certainly open if you have suggestions for how to get information on this potential project out to people in a better or more expeditious manner. You need the microphone again, Megan.

1:13:09 And that information can go to that committee and get vetted out, and then a recommendation comes out from that. I just wonder, again, kind of going back to the structure you had in place that we can kind of just follow that same structure. Does that make sense? Yep, it does, and I will do that.

1:13:31 Just to clarify, because it was very unclear what you were saying, did you say that you want, this was a circumstance that you would like to see handled by the Teaching and Learning Committee, or by the Parent Committee? It was just very mumbled. Were you asking me or Megan? Well, Megan, because I need to, for the minute, I couldn’t understand what you’re saying. The reopening committee. So, John, you noted that you had some proposals and some pricing, and you felt, for instance, the Zoom room, for instance, may be cost prohibitive. Can you share with us what that pricing is, and what these proposals that came back are? Yeah, it’s anywhere from around 50,000 to 80,000 to 100,000, or the Cadillac model is going to be over a half a million. But just logistics-wise, that’s not feasible for our district. Money and the district, the school that did this, started in June and said they just finished about three weeks ago. And so, that was about, well, I said that I wouldn’t talk about their numbers in public, but it was cost prohibitive for us at this time.

1:15:04 Okay, is this something where we may be in this long term, that we, no, we can’t flip on a dime now and start it if this took them months. But I think that we might want to look into what is needed to do this in the future, because as we build future, we build budgets, and if we’re in this long term, I don’t want to decide in six months that we should have started looking today, kind of, it seems like we’re deciding today, maybe we should have started looking in June. And let’s learn and follow, in my opinion, keep looking at this. That’s a great point, Sarah, and I’m so glad that you made it, because it was on my notes to talk about the two districts, public school districts that are doing this, did not have a tech outlay. They had the infrastructure in place in terms of technology existing to do this. Now, they may have had to make some investments in upgrades to what they had. But unlike the independent school, they didn’t have to start from ground zero. So, at our high school, currently, not every classroom has a smart board. And one of the districts, every classroom has an Elmo board. And so they were able to use that technology by some additional Elmo boards. And so for us, it is upgrading the infrastructure, getting more robust Wi Fi. And also buying the

1:16:37 hardware potentially, in terms of whether it’s an owl camera, or the poly studio quote that we have, there’s also one from Cisco. Those are all pieces of this.

1:17:12 So like an owl camera is about 1100. And so if you the high school, I think you can do it at a more primitive level. So yeah, we really, when you guys go back and forth, we can only hear who has the microphone in front of them, which is really a problem for obviously the public, but I have no idea at the time what’s going on here. With the numbers represented and how we planned on outfitting the rooms, if this, you know, synchronous, remote synchronous idea was going to work, because I feel like there’s different ways that you can do it to make it more successful for teachers. And that seems to be a big issue is to make everybody comfortable in this new environment that people want. And so I was just asking, well, what, what are we specking out? Is it the camera in the TV in the back of the room? And we’ll obviously need some smart boards and the stand for the TV. And if that’s how we’re going to do it, there’s inexpensive ways to do that too. And I just,

1:18:42 if we’re going to look into it, I want it to be a model that is could be successful and not just a model that not look into it as like not a successful way to do it for the teachers to feel good about it. I guess that’s what I’m saying. I think there needs to be a plan on how we’re going to go about this, the whole process of figuring this out. If it’s what, you know, the teaching and learning committee decides is the best way to do it, what is the best practice to make everyone feel good about it?

1:19:32 Yes. You should say it or maybe it’s not even me, maybe it’s the committee or other teachers on how that is working, how they set it up, and what are some of the benefits or tips and tricks, you know, that they found, what is effective, and maybe where are some areas that, you know, they could, you know, there’s an opportunity for improvement. Ask those teachers what would make this work better for them, because obviously if they don’t have, if our teachers aren’t equipped right now, they’re doing it kind of in a primitive way, and they would probably, they are like the best resource to say, yes, let’s, if we had this and this and this, I don’t know what those things would be, but we should use them because they’re actually doing it right now.

1:20:22 Thank you for looking into that. Yeah, and thank you for coming. Okay. And because I meet with MEA every Tuesday, and they did have their meeting yesterday, which might, what was reported to me, there wasn’t strong favorability, and so what are next steps? A plan to say, this is how we can do it, this is where it works well for teachers in other districts, we will teach you how to do it to be successful. I’m just thinking maybe teachers would be more comfortable with it. I had no idea. I’m not sure that is a true assumption. Okay. In districts where it’s doing, and teachers have shared the concerns and frustrations, or the ways that it really helps. I think the, there’s a fear, for lack of a better word, and so we need to address that. Right, yeah. Because it’s the fear of being alone, right? I think it’s fear of scrutiny, fear of the unknown, fear of what they have heard about their practice, and inviting, potentially inviting more of that. Again, nothing is insurmountable.

1:21:54 I’m happy to continue the conversations, but presenting, I’m not sure that if you have somebody that is opposed to the idea of presenting them how it could work for them is going to change that opposite, that in it could. I don’t discount that, and I am happy to continue getting proposals and looking into this, but I think the financial piece for the committee is something that we’re going to have to address. That, you know, there’s been a good deal of public support in indicating that they want to move on this, but again, I wouldn’t want to have the public investing in time and energy into a project that isn’t fully supported by the people who were wanting to outfit with this technology. Well, it sounds like we will put a truth and have a discussion about it at the Re- I think that students are seeking this strongly. And then we have a two-fold problem. We have

1:23:25 hesitation from the teachers, which not to oversimplify, but have we asked for a detailed outline of what the reservations are pertaining to this? Because we’re not going to be able to fix all of them, but we might be able to address some of them and fix some of them, and come up with compromise. And then the second facet is finance. We don’t have the money to pay for this. And how do we fix that? Because the bottom line is we need to find a way to pay to educate our students, period. And if we’re not paying to educate our students properly, we’re failing. Hallelujah. I’m going to ask everyone to keep their mics muted or we will end the meeting. I cannot have outbursts in this meeting. That is not okay. Maybe you guys should be in public.

1:24:29 Yes, please.

1:24:37 First meeting, which seems like two years ago, and in response to, I think, David had asked about budget. And so I have put a budget goal in to talk about the budget process and getting information, looking for additional funding sources, doing program reviews, in particular, looking at a district capital plan for each of our buildings. Next year, we’ll be opening a new building, which is very exciting, but to have a capital plan for the district, as we are also closing two buildings, and merging staff. And what does the budget look like, and how do we adequately fund a quality education here? And so I’ve put together this budget goal and some kind of key actions, and I’m happy to take questions if people want clarification. David?

1:25:57 I can hear the superintendent at this point. I don’t need any further clarification on the goals, and I appreciate the addition of that to your goals, based on the feedback that we’ve brought forward. I appreciated the detail, and I think it’s where we’re at.

1:26:30 Writing my own goals in public session, but maybe I should add technology as a piece to this goal, that if I’m investing… Yeah, definitely, John. Definitely, definitely, definitely. Even pre-COVID, I think that it was sorely lacking in our district, and now I think it’s just glaringly obvious. Okay, so for next week, I will add a seven under the key actions to articulate a plan for technology as part of the budget goal. And that’s my update.

1:27:09 Michelle, grab that for our monthly budget update.

1:27:19 How are you? So there were a lot of documents in your packet for this meeting. I’m just going to go over the monthly budget update. So we are into our third month of the fiscal year, fourth month of the fiscal year. We just finished October, will be tomorrow. We have… But actually, I should back up and say that the report is as of the end of September. The next report you’ll get next month will actually be the end of October. So this was actually the three month report. We had spent a total of $4,155,000, or just over 10% of the budget. I attached the detailed budget report. Nothing really notable at this point. We are in the early stages of the year. Do you want to mention a couple things? So when this projection was done almost a month ago, our special ed tuitions were approximately $90,000 higher than budgeted. Since that time, we’ve actually got some not so great news that our circuit breaker revenue will be short by $225,000 from the figure that we had budgeted during the budget cycle from last year. That is actually due to the state pushing out the changes they made to the circuit breaker program. This was all within the Student Opportunities Act. They had done a number of

1:28:55 things that were going to help us. Basically, that has been pushed out to fiscal 22 at this point. None of those changes have been made. Our estimated revenue for circuit breaker is… Initially, it was $1,561,000. The actual number coming in right now on the cherry sheets is $225,000 less than that. So while we were looking at the $90,000 shortfall, we have a little bit bigger shortfall than that. I also did mention in the subcommittee meeting a couple weeks ago, we do have some reserve funds, some revolving funds for special education that were left over from last year that were able to apply to some of these deficits, or these shortfalls rather than deficits just yet, the projected shortfalls. So overall, projecting the shortfall to be $148,000. I’m not concerned at this point because that is a very fluid number. We have students tuition in. We have students tuition out. We are actually in talks with another community right now about tuitioning in another student. We are looking at a little bit of savings in terms of having 170 days in the school year instead of 180 days. So those 10 days of tuition will result in some savings as well. So as I mentioned, I’m not concerned at this point, but it’s definitely a point to keep track on and keep dibs on.

1:30:28 I am meeting on a monthly basis with Eric, the Special Education Director, so we can make sure we’re all on the same page and we know where all these students are and we know what the costs are associated with each of them. So that’s something that we will update continually each month. I do also want to mention the food service program. As a result of our hybrid operations, we had reduced our food service staffing by about 50%. We had furloughed about half of the staff. We are operating on a reduced schedule with a remainder of the staff. Our operations are going really well. The demand or the participation is a little bit higher than we anticipated, which is great. But I also do want to mention that the federal government recently passed some legislation to provide free meals to any school-aged student throughout the rest of the school year. And this program, while most people would think, you know, I don’t need free meals, you know, I’m able to provide my own students with meals. If you take advantage of this program, it actually helps us. We receive funding from the federal government for every meal that we provide. So the more participation in this program, it will actually help our bottom line. So I want you to, you know, go out there, spread the word, try the meals, see how it’s going. The feedback’s been pretty well, pretty positive overall. So I do want to, you know, have that great word spread around because it’s a great program and it helps the families and it also helps us as well.

1:32:09 Also in your packet is a report on the COVID expenditures. And this report was actually dated as of October 7th, so a few weeks back, which I’ll be updating this on a monthly basis as well. At that point, we had paid a total of $458,000. We had encumbered or committed another almost $900,000. And we had an additional estimated need of $555,000 for a total of $1,912,000. And this includes cleaning services, PPE, HVAC assessments, repairs, student services, technology. A great part of that is technology and a little piece of it for the revenue shortfall that we are going to see in our food service fund and our tuition revolving fund. Most of this funding is coming, well, about half of the funding is coming from the Town Cares Act, just under a million dollars. And the rest of the funding is coming from two grants that are earmarked for the school department and a third small portion that’s within our operating budget. So at this point, we are estimating just under that $2 million mark for our COVID costs. I will be updating that. I do not think anything significant has changed in the past few weeks. So that should be pretty much in line with what we will see next month as well.

1:33:42 And I think that’s it for the monthly update for the finances. But if there are any questions, please let me know. Michelle, I have a question. Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you for this information. I know it’s kind of changing very quickly. But one thing that came up in that subcommittee meeting was the potential that maybe the deadline for spending the money at the end of this calendar year potentially might be extended by the federal government. Do you have an update on that? I do not. I have not heard any word if that December 30th date is going to be extended because right now all of our CARES Act will basically have a sunset clause on December 30th. So we are hoping that that will be extended. We do not anticipate any additional dollars, but we are hoping just the timeframe where we can spend the dollars will be extended. But I have not heard anything on that. Thank you. Now, Michelle, speaking to that, while it would be helpful if the deadline is extended, my understanding is the money is gone, the money spent. There’s no big part of CARES money left that we could even expend if the deadline is added. I mean, there could be a minuscule amount, but my understanding is at least what we could draw from the town is gone.

1:35:13 We’ve been in discussions with the town and we understand there may be some additional funding remaining because anything that is approved by FEMA as part of their program is being reimbursed at 70%. So this, the FEMA funding should come first and foremost, and that’s actually under the control of the town. So I’m not sure of those dollar amounts of what portion is being reimbursed at 70%. But I do know that most of our PPE is being reimbursed at 70%. A lot of our HVAC needs, our facilities improvements are being reimbursed at that 70%. So only that net 30% is really hitting our town CARES Act. We’re really, I’m trying to take it off the top. So I do anticipate the town is going to have additional funding out of their initial 1.8 million because that 1.8 million was after the FEMA reimbursement. But that’s something we’re in talks with the town with right now. Can we try to get a figure of what they feel they may be able to share further with us because that could be used as a funding source for this technology issue that we’re having because that would most certainly qualify. So just to clarify that $148,000 current deficit, if you will, in the special education line. That was after utilizing any revolving funds that were left. Correct.

1:36:44 And I know we have a practice now, which is very beneficial to tracking our financing, tracking not only special ed outplacements, but a section for ones that are close, ones that are likely. Do we have any that are likely? And could you give us a rough total of what those could be? I spoke to Eric last week, and he does not feel that there’s many likely right now. Pretty much nothing. And I want to knock on wood right now when I say that. But absent moving or something very unexpected, we’re not anticipating any large swings in that number going upward anyways. Like I said, we do have a couple fuels in the fire that we anticipate will help us resolve that shortfall a little bit. That’s good to hear. And then where we hear about the reduction in the circuit breaker projected revenue. Going back, it’s just fresh in my mind because I just in the last week relived the budget hearing while typing the minutes. I brought up at the budget hearing my concern for not wanting to budget on kindergarten tuition because I felt that was going to dry off and that kind of has become an issue. And I also asked if we should be much more conservative in our projections for circuit breaker because I was concerned with the state reduction in revenue that they would therefore reduce their circuit breaker. And we’re kind of up against that wall now. What other areas in our budget that we were not conservative with, do you recommend us looking at now?

1:38:19 Because I think it would be prudent for us to kind of readjust and maybe be a little more conservative now than when we find ourselves in January and February having to cut hundreds of thousands of dollars. It’s much harder to get that capture that savings midway through. And when you capture it midway through, the impact on student services is much harsher, as we’ve learned in the past. So if we can just, you know, I’m putting you on the spot, so don’t feel you have to come up with an answer right now. But if you can kind of, and maybe, you know, David and Megan, the finance liaisons can speak to this too. But if we can look at areas we might want to be more conservative and adjust our budget now rather than kind of being in panic mode later. Absolutely. I mean, you touched on the two areas that I think we need to go into the new budget season being very conservative. The circuit breaker being one, while they’re now promising us that they’re going to make these changes in fiscal 22, I do certainly do not want to hold my breath, especially given where the state budget is at this point. So I think the circuit breaker is one area we need to be concerned with going forward for next year. And I also think the revolving tuitions is another area as well. We need to remain conservative. While we are able to close that gap for this year, you know, pretty confidently, we have a small pool of preschool tuitions.

1:39:58 We really need to take a hard look at that and make sure we’re not relying on that for our basic operations for next year. So those are the two areas that I think we really need to. And we also need to take a really hard look at our food service program, if it’s going to, you know, what shape or form is that program going to go forward. I mean, hopefully we are in back to a new normal next year. But, you know, with that being said, no one knows when this situation is going to end. So I just think we need to take a look at that as well. You’re muted. Sorry, you’re muted. Sorry. Is our special ed reserve $250,000? And so this 148, if we need to go into that, would bring us about 60% into that in October. And a year where, although we have no likelies right now, I have to anticipate because of the way we’re at, what happened in the spring and where we are now that people are, we may have more outplacements. So that might be another thing that the budget committee wants to kind of look at. If this early in the year, we’re 60% through that, do we want to put in some safeguards? Yeah. And who knows what this year is going to hold. Right now, we’re doing pretty well with our payroll budget. Unfortunately, we have some vacancies in terms of our facilities and our bus drivers.

1:41:35 So we have some payroll savings there. We’re having a little bit of difficulty filling some of our parent tutor positions. So we are having to fill with subs, but we’re basically begging, borrowing to meet the needs we have. So there could be some regular budget savings where this budget projection pretty much plans on spending every budgeted salary dollar on those salaries. But in reality, not all those positions are filled at this time. So while I’m projecting the 148,000 in that area of special education tuition, we may not need to even touch that reserve fund when we get to the end of the year or close to it. Okay. Let’s cross our fingers. We hold those, fill those positions because we have another issue. Yes, we need them. Lack of staff. So thank you, as always, for your information. Thank you. Thank you, Michelle. I think that we’ll keep you holding on for just a second. We’ll pass the schedule of bills and then go on to the contract that you’ve got for us. So can I get a motion to approve the identified schedule of bills totaling $623,777.24? Second. Megan moved. Second. Emily second. All right. Anybody have any questions on that?

1:43:08 The invoices were in the drop box. All right. I will do a roll call. Sarah Gold, yes. Emily Barron. Yes. Megan Taylor. Yes. David Harris. Yes. And Sarah Fox. Yeah. All right. That passes five to zero. All right, Michelle, I’ll hand it right back over to you. Okay, great. And this is for the award of the Fire Alarm Maintenance Contract. Back in June, we had, or in May, we requested bids, and in June, we accepted them for a Fire Alarm Maintenance Contract versus Town and School Buildings. At that time, we received two bids. One of them actually contained a lot of mathematical errors, which raised some concerns. We had to check with the Attorney General’s office, and we also had one higher bid higher than expected. But we did not realize that this is a joint town school contract, and we realized that not every single town building was listed in the specifications within that bid documentation. So we rejected all those bids at the time, and we have been trying to put our heads together on how to reassess this situation and to see if there was a contractor on the state bid list that we could utilize without going back out to bid. And come to find out through talks with Jason Silver, town administrator, one of our current vendors who does a little bit of work for us in the town, they’re known as LW Bills.

1:44:43 Their technical name is B&B Engineering Corporation, but they’re doing business as LW Bills, is on the state contract for such services. So this was great news. We have a good relationship with LW Bills. I’ve actually used them in my previous districts as well, so great experience with them. And so the town and school both are very happy to be able to use this vendor without having to go through another bid search. So this contract award would also have to go through the Board of Selectmen, which I realized just tonight that this has not gone forward to them as well. Usually I send it off on the same day, but I just sent this to you a couple days ago. But this contract will include the testing repairs and maintenance of all fire alarms located within all town and school buildings, with the exception of Marblehead High School and Veteran School as they use a proprietary system. This is a time and materials contract to cover the cost of all fire alarm services. And as I mentioned, this is a joint contract with the Board of Selectmen. But we would be requesting that you approve this contract, and we will draft the contract and request that the Board of Selectmen also vote this as well. Thanks, Michelle. Can I get a motion to award a one-year contract for the Fire Alarm Maintenance to B&B Engineering Corporation doing business as L.W. Bills of Georgetown, Massachusetts, in the amount of $68,000, and to authorize the Chair to sign the contract on behalf of the committee?

1:46:15 Second. Second. David, second. All right, does anybody have any questions for Michelle?

1:46:26 All right, I will proceed with a real call vote then. Sarah Gold, yes. Emily Barron, yes. Megan Taylor, yes. David Harris, yes. And Sarah Fox, yes. All right, thanks, guys. That passes 5-0. Thank you, Michelle. Great, thank you. Okay, so that moves us on to the school communications. I’m actually wondering, Megan, do you and John want to switch, just so that you’re closer to the computer? You’re welcome to yell, but I think it would be a little bit easier if you’d better heard if you yelled from there. So first up, we have a discussion of school committee goals. And, Megan, I will – I’m sorry, I will let you get yourself situated again, but I think you’re up to kind of explain where we’re at with that and next steps. Okay, so the whole thing about this is that Sarah mentioned I’m a committee two and a half years ago, and I think with so many moving parts, it’s been challenging to get to that point. But I think now with the new superintendent, our administration in place, our budget under control, I do think this is a great time to reconsider putting in place some goals at the school committee level. And that’s not to overlap with what John is focused on, because he has got the operation and the implementation.

1:47:56 But what as a committee do we really want to make sure that our focus is on and then make sure that we’re monitoring progress on those goals? So I’ve been to training on this with MASC, and I’ve also spoken at length with our rep. And, you know, she says that really we want to focus in on maybe three to five goals. As a committee, we all agree should be our priority. And then within that, obviously, you have some key deliverables and dates, you know, really some, you know, use the smart goal approach to that. And then, you know, that would be the first step. And then following on from that, figuring out how we want to track process or progress related to that throughout the year. So maybe I just stop there, Sarah, and just get some comments or feedback. And then if agreeable, we can talk about how to move forward. Does that make sense? Okay.

1:49:03 I love the idea of setting goals. I actually would suggest that we pair this with, I know MASC has several workshops, one of which focuses on team building. I would suggest that we bring in Dorothy Presser from MASC and have her do a workshop on team building. And we make the focus of that being setting goals. And she can help us facilitate that. And I think that that would be mutually beneficial. I think it would be a little bit strong, but I think it would be a little bit catalyst. So I will admit. That, I mean, that’s a good idea, I think, for sure. I always love when Dorothy comes and enjoys us. I was going to suggest that we email goals that we might have to Lisa, and then that maybe two of the committee members sort of gather those goals, set some deliverables and dates on them, and then come back next week. But maybe I reach out to Dorothy and see when she could come and do that for us. And then that’s what we kind of figure out next week. I’m trying to take that approach. The only thing I want to preface it with is we are almost at the beginning of November, so I just request that we kind of get a move on it. And not that we don’t have 1,000 and one other things to be getting a move on,

1:50:34 but there’s no point in putting it in place in January. So if we’re going to do it, I think we just have to get on it. I’m actually going to call Dorothy tomorrow. She and I were scheduled to talk, so I will add that to our conversation. And then I think that’s the nice piece about having a meeting one week from now, is that we’ll be able to follow up on this. If Dorothy is straight out and can’t meet with us in November, then maybe that is we look to set some goals and then kind of have Dorothy come in and do some kind of maybe a goal is team building. So I think we’ll assess a little bit more this week and figure out a path forward at our next meeting next week. That sound good, Sarah? Yes. All right. Great. Okay. Anything else on that? David, did you have anything? Okay. I have something for you. Yeah. Just some examples of goals, again, just to kind of get the juices flowing. So if you want, I’m happy to send some of those out to the committee, you know, to the P.S. Sure. Sure. Absolutely. I think, you know, more information we have the better. Okay. All right. Thanks, Megan. All right. So subcommittee and liaison update. So this is something that we’re regularly trying to do and just touch base and see where the various subcommittees are at

1:52:06 and the liaison meetings are at. And then I also, underneath that, wanted to just be able to go back to the piece that John and Emily had worked at a couple months ago about figuring out best ways to get school committee involved at building levels, kind of where we’re at and where we want to go from here. So I will jump in and start with the policy subcommittee. We have met once, since I think our last update, we need to schedule another meeting. We have decided that we are going to, and if I get any of this wrong, just tell me, we are going to look to review the I policies this year. So it was beginning in I, which dovetailed nicely into what Nan had wanted us to work on, which was the homeschooling policy. She had found, you know, obviously that was a pretty big policy that she was following this year. And so she’s found quite a few issues with our current policy. So she was actually hopeful to talk to us and do that read tonight, but we are pushing it off to next week for Nan. So hopefully she’ll be able to join us and give us an update and we’ll read through that next week and then vote on it at our second meeting in November. And, you know, Emily and I will work with John to get a meeting for the policy subcommittee in the next couple of weeks. I think finance, budget.

1:53:39 Can I ask a policy question, Sarah? We have gotten a lot of correspondence and public comment regarding the bus policy. And my understanding is it is the purview of the school committee to develop and revisit the busing policy. So I would just request that you and Emily put that on your next agenda and look at that and discuss that. And possibly reach out to the individuals we’ve heard from frequently regarding that. Yep. And I had a nice discussion with Jean Skona and the Safe Routes to School piece around that, no idling. And I was working today finally to connect Michelle Kresta and one of those community members together. Michelle is going to take on the project this year of looking at busing and what would, you know, what the cost would be around increasing busing and, you know, what types of increases for the district. So, yeah, I think that’s a project that’s well worth looking into. And obviously there’s community buy-in for that. So, you know, that first came up when we were talking about the new school. So that was a commitment that, you know, I think would have been front and center had we not been in COVID. So I was really happy when Michelle sort of said that she was interested in looking at that.

1:55:11 I think that’s a great plan for the district at this point. Yep. Sarah, I just have a quick question. I’ve only been working with one individual from the community on busing, and I just want to make sure that I’m not missing people that are engaged in the conversation. So, is Jean, Michelle? Well, I hear that. I think that there’s one individual who has made public comment and emailed us. But just through following social media, a lot of people have jumped in on the conversation. I just don’t want to be corresponding to someone that- No, no, no, no, no, no, no. That’s not it. It’s just, you know, it’s kind of a discussion out in the community. So I thought, and that individual had asked that our policy committee look at it. So I just thought I’d bring it. No, no, no, you’re not. Thank you. All right. Budget subcommittee. Yeah, we meet now regularly on the second Thursday of every month at 8.30. We had our meeting in October. I don’t really have anything to add that Michelle hasn’t already been through and all the documents that you reviewed in that meeting are posted out in our direct box, you know, pretty much right after our meeting. So hopefully you guys have that information for a while. But we will be meeting again on November 12th, also at 8.30. And David, I don’t know if you have anything to add.

1:56:43 No, I think we’re moving forward. It’s early in the budget season right now, but I think we’ve started to have the discussions that are needed. And we’ll need to understand a lot more about where the state is with their funding and how that might impact our planning going ahead. And one of the things that we’ve also talked about is that we do have the new school coming online. So the development of the budget for the new school will be important for next year as we consolidate Avila and Coughlin and pull the third graders back into the school and understand what the budgeting needs are for the new school. So just a couple of things that I think we can start to talk about as we move into the new year. And speak on that piece, David, I know when we looked, David Sandat had done a lot of work on projecting utilities. I think a lot of people think new school, lower utilities, and I just want to make sure we’re looking at those projections because new school actually equals higher utilities, ironically, because there’s more systems running than in our antiquated buildings. So I just want to make sure that we have that in the back of our head, that our utility expenditures will actually increase. But that may affect the town more than the school since we have a cap note, I think, of it. Yeah. No, no. I mean, that’s a great point, Sarah.

1:58:15 I mean, with the state-of-the-art air exchange handling units that clearly Coughlin and Avila don’t have, you do run into some more electricity costs. Then on the flip side, there is the efficiency of the school. So that’s something that we can definitely revisit those estimates with RDA and left field. Now that the school’s being built, we know it’s 82,000 square feet, and they should be able to provide some pretty reasonable estimates for us, at least in the first year going forward. Good point. I think we have a document that provides all that. No, we do, but it was a couple of years old, and it was based on a lot of assumptions on the price of natural gas and the price of electricity. So yeah, but, you know, Sharper and our councils revisit what those estimates were for sure to make sure that we have a good number there. Yeah. Great. Thanks, guys. Facilities? I reached out to the Facilities Subcommittee, and everyone was very flexible with schedules, which was great. And Michelle had asked that we meet the week of November 16th, worked for her.

1:59:46 I touched base, I think, between Michelle, Todd, and Dr. Bucky. They probably have the most complex schedules to look at, and Dr. Bucky gave me a couple times to answer that question. I’m going to circle back with the group and find the time that works the best. We’ll do that.

2:00:36 Alright, so we also had, I asked Emily to drop into the Dropbox the building level involvement piece, and I need to pull that up on mine. Hold on just a second. Alright, so I think one of the great things that we are doing right now, as was mentioned at the beginning of the meeting, are the school principal presentations under the commendations piece. So one school per meeting, so we had Dan last time with Matt this time. My guess is that we will have Mandy Murphy next time. So we’ll look forward to that. Emily, I believe that you sat in on one of the central council meetings? I did their first one that they had. Okay, great, great. So I think, unfortunately, as I look this list over, I just wanted to kind of touch base with the committee again and figure out if we wanted to move forward on any of these others. I love the idea of the lunches and the coffees. I think the coffees might have to be more of a Zoom type office hour situation that maybe we can look into. For myself, the learning blocks going through the buildings, I think especially, I mean, I think, you know, there’s there’s a piece of it this year where it seems like we, you know, the fewer people in the building, so we’d have to be mindful of that and kind of clear that with facilities and make sure that that is okay to do.

2:02:16 But I think being able to see the buildings and what’s going on in the buildings and how kids are positioned and where teachers are at, I think probably would be really great if we can work to pull that off. I mean, maybe even if it is cohorting pieces and contacts and everything, maybe that can even be an after school situation. I know it loses some of its kind of some of its reach at that point, but it just might be good. I know, you know, it was helpful for me to see that when before school started when I did those walkthroughs with the union. So I just I wonder if that might be something that, you know, other committee members would find useful as well. So I will turn it over to what other people think at this point. Thank you, Emily, for coming up with that list. Some of those, I feel like, are things kind of that have already been in play, like we already have someone on the central council. And again, some of those with COVID, I think it’s just adding any extra bodies into these buildings, I think, you know, unnecessarily increases risk. I think that these are all really great ideas when we’re not in COVID, but I really don’t think we should be adding any non-essential body into a building that could potentially, you know, increase spread, which would therefore put at risk in person learning.

2:04:00 I think this circles us back to the discussion of SACs, and if we want to continue them or not. I’ve always been an advocate for SACs and the school committee involvement in those. I think after hearing about, you know, some of the staff feedback, given the surveys and the lower morale, if you will, right now in our district, I actually think continuing the SACs as they currently are so that the staff and the parents and the administrators can see face-to-face and have a discussion with the school committee member monthly at an SAC and see our support. And see our encouragement and hear our positive feedback as part of a conversation in a team member, rather than, you know, us sitting separately at a school committee meeting. I think that that’s always been a wonderful dynamic that’s come out of the SACs. And I think given our current morale situation, I don’t think this will be the year to change that. I think maybe we look at changing it next year, if that’s the will of the committee. But I don’t think this is the year to kind of further separate ourselves from the community, you know, parents, teachers, administrators. I think the more that we can be part of a collaborative unit, the better, given our current situation. Other thoughts on that?

2:05:34 I mean, I feel just comfortable about this a number of times. You guys all know how I feel about my SACs. But I do think it’s important also, I don’t necessarily disagree with what you’re saying, but I think it’s also important to take the feedback from our superintendent and our principals on that and be respectful of that. So do I love my involvement on the SAC? Yes. But it’s because I can learn about what’s happening in the school. And I think some of these ideas, we can learn about what’s happening in every single school. And for me, that’s more valuable. Yes, there are some of these suggestions that, you know, do require in-person pieces. But one thing that we haven’t done in a while, just because of the overwhelming situation, is the building presentations to us. Because there’s great things. And yes, we get the commendations, but to really dive into some of the great programs and to hear from some of the students, I think we can do that in this setup too. And really learn a lot from our teachers and students on what’s happening in our buildings. I had the opportunity to re-watch the meeting last night from when we originally did this discussion on SACs. And Dr. Bucky at the time said it’s never been his experience that school committee members were on an SAC, but that he didn’t feel strongly one way or another.

2:07:09 And that he was noting his experience, but that he had no opinion on it one way or another. And at the time, someone asked if we could pull and ask the principals for their feedback. And Dr. Bucky was very full of humor when he noted that that was not something he was going to ask them. So we actually don’t have any feedback from the principals on that, because that wasn’t something, you know, anyone felt comfortable getting it.

2:07:42 So, okay. So, I mean, I’m being for whatever. If the committee wants to go back to the SACs, that’s fine with me. You know, I think it’s an odd year. And so I think, you know, it makes everything more difficult.

2:08:04 Do each person report back to us as a committee of what they’ve learned at the meeting? Yes, we tried to do that last year. Okay. Yeah. Because that’s what I think is really important, is learning about every school and what every school is doing. And that’s why I think these last two principal commendations, presentations have been so great to hear what is actually happening in the district. And so as long as we don’t lose that of what’s happening in each school, I will do whatever also. But I think it’s so important that we all know what’s happening. And I love the idea of the walkthrough, if we can do it in the states. Yeah. No. I feel really strongly that I’d like to go in and see how everything is kind of happening. Yeah. I think that’s a great point, Emily. And given the times that we’re in right now, and Dr. Bucky, one thing that’s been in place for many years also was that we rotated the location of our school meetings. And so we would meet at Village, and the various schools. And then when we were meeting at the schools, there might be a particular presentation by various groups and the principal and the teachers. And that happened once a year. And so obviously, in this kind of situation, it makes it challenging to do that.

2:09:43 And we’re missing out on that. But I do want to – I think we could take the point for the commendations when we started out at the beginning of the meeting to talk about what’s going on in the schools, whether it falls under commendations or, as Emily said, that maybe we focus on a particular school presenting out as to programs, PBIS like we previously have seen before, or other things that are going on in those schools. I think those were really informative, the public liked hearing them. And I think from a school committee perspective, they were really well received. Yeah, no, that’s a great idea. I think we went into lockdown right around the time that those would have started happening last year. So we didn’t get to do that. And I think the year before, some of them were cut a bit short because we had a budget crisis. So it would be lovely to try to pull something like that off. And I think in attempting to be together in a school, it makes it a little bit easier and more accessible to the public so that we are zooming people in because those meetings when they were in the other schools didn’t have the video capabilities. So we weren’t able to broadcast them on MHTV. So it presents us with a little bit more of an opportunity to share with the public when we’re in a different school instead of just having people attend.

2:11:21 So I can definitely work to look at that. So if we’re going to move forward with the SACs, I don’t know, does everybody want to just type in which school they want or do you want to email or text me this week? And then I can kind of look it over and get back to you guys next week. And he goes, I promise. And they said, oh, no, we don’t want to know. I’m fine with doing it here in the open meeting. They’d be presented in the open meeting next week. Okay, so Megan would like to keep Village. I’d love to keep the high school. I’ll keep Kwap and Evelyn. If Emily hasn’t had a chance to sit on one, I’m happy to hand over that. Emily, you want that? David, I think these usually get really difficult for you to swing with your schedule. Do you want to do Glover or do you want one of us to take it? Seeing if they’d most likely be remote. No pressure. Yeah, I can certainly work on taking Glover. And then if you can’t take Glover, you and I can tag team on Glover if that makes sense.

2:12:51 Also, if there’s a potential that they may, I don’t know if this was, I may be imagining this, if there’s a potential they may merge the elementary school ones, I could cover that as well. Okay, yeah, if that happens, then certainly, Sarah. That’s a good point, Sarah, since it’s 2K to 3 schools, there’s a lot of similarities there, and we’ll have to see where that goes. Absolutely. In the past, I think, three or four years, they’ve merged the school improvement plan and done it as one. Okay. All right, great. Great. Okay, so David, that leads us to the building project update. Go ahead. So I’ll start with the most recent news and go backwards. I think since we’ve last met as the committee, so we had our owner, architect, contractor meeting yesterday, and a little bit of inclement weather prevented the last slab on grade, which is the pouring of concrete in the gymnasium and cafetorium from taking place. So as a result, there is a notice out to the public that the team will be working on Saturday to finish that up. And once that’s done, as we say, we should pretty much be out of the concrete business, and that’s real exciting.

2:14:24 The roof is going on and is 65 percent completed as far as the roof, which is helping with the weatherizing of the school and preventing rain from coming in for work to be done on the interior. So that’s an important step. And then the other exciting piece that we had at the building committee last week is that the brick has started to arrive on site, and there will be probably a truckload or two a day for the next week and a half. And so that was going back to May and June. That was right online with the schedule that we need to have the brick on site because, you know, you really don’t want to be laying brick in cold weather because then it requires enclosures and heating and various other additional costs. So we’re hoping to stay ahead of the weather. And if it cooperates, we should be – the vendor is called Lighthouse, and we should be laying brick starting next week. So if you drive by the school, you should start to see the brick showing up. The piece that Gilbane is working on to keep us on schedule is there will be two brick layers going in two opposing directions. So if you’re over at Dartmouth Road, you’ll see brick going in one direction down the school towards the upper area,

2:15:55 which was old – which was the old Upper Bell School. And then if you come down Baldwin, you’ll see brick layers going down that side of the school and coming down the front. And that’s how we bought out that construction to keep us on schedule. So that’s real exciting. And the brick is on schedule, and things are looking really good on site. One of the last pieces that we’re working on, the bids for – I think I had mentioned this a month ago – are out for landscaping and ground improvements, which includes the playground. Those are coming in, and there are going to be some – there’s going to need to be some work. We’ve recognized that this is one of the last buyouts that we have between approximately 1.4 million, and Katie Martin is going to be involved in the final buyout on that when we get down to the last couple of bidders. So that’s exciting as well to see where we’re at. We mentioned during the Building Committee that we are also going to make sure that we involve park and rec, since they are our partners that maintain the landscaping of our schools. So we want to make sure that Chip Osborne and the entire park and rec staff have an opportunity

2:17:30 to see what kind of landscape we’re buying out, to make sure it’s maintainable, and that we don’t plant something that can’t be maintained in a year or two later. It’s overgrown with weeds, as an example, but we want to involve them. Another thing that Michelle Kressa had brought up was to make sure that for snow removal, the layout of the parking lots and the turnouts and snow removal, since we partner with the town highway department, so Todd Bloodgood, Michelle Kressa, and the team are looking to get together to make sure there’s a good understanding of the layout, the curbing and everything, and how that will look once the school is done. Let’s see, the other thing to report is we did have some work going on with the tower school, so based on a retaining wall and needing to enter their property, that’s going along well and is pretty much wrapped up. And we are looking to schedule another walkabout with the Building Committee. We’re trying to do it every four to five weeks. So either looking at my calendar, I think it’s either going, we’re going to tentatively try and do another walkabout with the Building Committee on, I believe, November 9th or November 10th,

2:19:06 so that people can come on site and see the property. And last but not least, Eric Oxford was great in reaching out, as everybody knows, as our Student Services Director, and since a lot of the plans and design and submittals were done with Bob Belucci and his staff, and while a lot of that staff remains, Eric wanted to have a good understanding of the spaces in the building and how they were originally designed. So Gene Raymond and Eric, and there’s three, I think three other people from his staff, and Dr. Bucky tentatively are scheduled to meet on Monday to have a Zoom meeting where Gene’s going to go over the layout of those spaces so Eric can start planning for the educational programming that will be offered in that school next year. So a lot of good things happening there. Great. David, I just want to again, Eric’s in this great email, I wish I’d printed it out so I could read it, that we have a student, Dan Howells, anybody that tuned in late, who has his Eagle Scout project, is fundraising, outfit, the sensory room at the new school. So just having a sensory room is great because, you know, our old schools most certainly have a new and updated room for that.

2:20:37 And the fact that we have a student fundraising to source this, it’s just very exciting for all of us. No, it definitely is. And that was something, as you say, just came from him this week and he let us know about, and with it being Dan, I think there’s an extra special added touch to that. So that will probably be part of the discussion as well going forward. Yep. Great. Thanks, David. It’s coming along. It’s exciting. I’ve got my office at Tower this year has like 240 degree views and so like right straight onto that building. So I was bragging to a kiddo today that I get to do a walkthrough at one point and they were quite jealous. And I have to make that happen. I have to clear my schedule to actually do that. So very exciting. Great. All right. That moves us to closing business. John, I think you had something come up. Yeah, I just need to schedule. Okay. So John needs an executive session to test on to the next meeting on next Thursday. Would everybody be okay with doing that at 6 o’clock on Thursday? Yes. Two yeses.

2:22:09 Three yeses here. Well, we have, I know in the past we haven’t provided a separate Zoom link for the executive function, executive session portion of the meeting. But I know a lot of public meetings actually leave the main Zoom and go into a secure one. I wonder if we want to look into that. Okay. I can look into that and how to do that this coming week. I can have a teacher friend to tell me how to work Zoom a little bit more effectively. Maybe even a breakout room. Yeah, exactly. Yep. David, are you good for 6 o’clock next Thursday? Works for me. Thank you. All right. Great. So we will make that happen. Okay. There are any other new business? I’m doing this on Friday. I think you’re not supposed to, because I think, for anyone to suggest that we are being anything but open and transparent with these meetings or not following the legal requirements for our open meeting law is actually not true. And I think, you know, the thought process behind doing this meeting in person is really twofold. One is we have our staff and students in here doing this every single day. And we need to lead by example. So that’s one thing. And as we see through this meeting, it is not easy.

2:23:40 And so we are experiencing what our staff and students are experiencing every day. And I also want to address the transparency piece, because I think especially since John has come on board, we have gone leaps and bounds in terms of being transparent with access to information and to our meetings. We’ve created a new website. John has extensive communication in terms of his own reopening website and his fireside chat and his weekly updates. He has to follow state guidelines on how many people meet inside, inside, in a building. And if we only did that, we would be limiting the access to this meeting, which is why we continue to Zoom so that everybody at home and in the community can participate in our meeting in a safe way and so that we can continue to follow the guidelines that are in place. So I’m sorry, I just felt like I had to address that. There was a meaningful reason why we made this approach. And to suggest that it’s to be a lack of transparency is just 100% not true and not the case. Right. And I would like to second that, Megan, and like to say that we spent time last week on the technology logistics and I think that’s a good example. You know, we’re trying to experience, you know, what our teachers and schools

2:25:13 are going through and Emily and Sarah Gold and Megan were working on the technology and I was simulating calling in to see how best we could make it work. And that was our attempt and had it not been for personal conflict that came up today, I could have been able to be there. And, you know, I know Sarah would be there if she could, but we were just trying to exactly do that, you know, walk the talk and do what our teachers and students are being asked to do every day. And at the same time, allow everybody to zoom in because, you know, we can’t have any public gatherings. And the fact that, you know, we started, I don’t know, at 705 or 706 was just sort of, you know, fine tuning the volume of the speaker in the library. So, yeah, it’s pretty sad that someone would suggest that it’s a lack of transparency because it’s far from it. We’re trying to just add to the transparency and, you know, do the best we can in a pandemic and to continue on with the business of the schools of Marvell ahead in educating our children. So thanks for that, Megan. So actually, David, I was completely unaware that you guys met in Troubleshot

2:26:44 or did anything last week. I was completely unaware of it. No, no, no, please, can I finish? David, can I finish speaking? David, can I finish speaking, please? I was completely unaware that there was, I received a text yesterday or the day before that you guys would be meeting in person and that I could zoom in and that that would be covered because of the way it was posted. But I was completely unaware of any prior planning for this meeting to be in person and I actually had no intention of making any issue of this whatsoever. But I am troubled right now that there was some type of test run to work out kinks that I was not aware of or part of and I’m not done yet. And I was unable to get on the meeting at the beginning and texted both, or two parties saying I am unable to get on, which was fine, that it was delayed until I realized that you were running through it with them, which it could totally, it probably is just that you’re running through the tech. But now that I realize that I was the only one excluded from that, it now is troubling. It was not until five minutes ago, but now it is. I’m not sure that any of this was happening. There’s nothing troubling about it. Emily and Megan and I met last week to make sure that we could work out a feedback issue so that there was more than two of us that, you know, that we were not deliberating over anything.

2:28:17 And I would like to make that clear as well, that school committee members are allowed to be together in greater than groups of two as long as they are not deliberating and discussing school committee matters. So working out the logistics to get a school committee meeting in person during a pandemic does not violate any of those rules. We realized at a certain point that we needed somebody else on the outside to tell us that there was feedback, and we happened to be able to get a hold of David. We quickly assessed that, and then we went home. Like, there’s nothing to see here. And so, again, for anyone to suggest that there is anything other than us trying to be coordinated with our district and supporting our teachers and showing them that we are not just sitting at home in our homes, not supporting them and not having their backs, that this is really, really hard, is just unconscionable, quite frankly. So I will move us to correspondence. I don’t think there was any correspondence. John, did you have anything? I do. David? Potentially. I’m not sure if this correspondence, Dr. Bocky, I didn’t get a chance to speak with you,

2:29:48 but it was dated Tuesday, October 27th, and there was also a CC to the school committee. And I don’t… Also the Historical Commission and the Board of Selectmen. I don’t know if it was written by Charles Gessner, if his intention was for me to send it around to the School Committee, which I will certainly do after this meeting as a public document. But essentially, you know, Charles was a former member and chairman of the Finance Committee, and essentially his letter to Superintendent Bocky and the town administrator Jason Silva was that a little bit of a plea that we think about the future of coffin, avalanche, and additionally during the feasibility study, we know that the schools own a piece of property at the corner of Beacon and West Shore Drive or Beacon West Shore Drive and Green Street that was actually considered during feasibility, and that we should think about just like, you know, what was done with the Gary School, put together a committee to think about when the new school opens next year, you know, what will the fate of avalanche and coffin be as well as this vacant piece of property that is as now listed as a school property.

2:31:28 So I think I can forward that around to the committee and potentially we can have it as a future agenda item for a discussion. David, will you make sure that I get that please because I have not received it? Nope. Yeah, and I don’t know, right, I don’t know what format it, like I said, the intention may have been for me to send it to people, but the way it’s titled, I didn’t know if you and Jason had received it, but at the end of this meeting, I’ll make sure I forward it to the entire committee, yourself and Jason Silva as well, so we can hopefully maybe talk about it at some point in the future. Great. Thanks, David. And David, we might want to look at sooner rather than later that Beacon Street property because we know that it’s unbuildable for the purpose of schools, so there’s no purpose for us holding onto that right now, whereas coffin and avalanche we may need to kind of look at a little deeper and do like a feasibility, internal feasibility study, but we know through our studies that Beacon Street is unbuildable. Nope, and yeah, a good point, Charles sort of points that out that there might be various needs of the properties, but you’re right, the Beacon Street property, there are some wetlands, but potentially, if it doesn’t become conservation land, there might be a saleable, to your point, piece of property there that could benefit the town and given the financial situation we’re in, so you’re right, that property could be looked at first and then there are some other strings attached to coffin,

2:33:07 and avalanche, and certainly the future of Widget Road, the storage of historical documents that we’ve heard about, but you’re right, that Beacon Green Street property I think could be looked at first. So David, why don’t you send that along to us and then if it makes sense, which it sounds like it probably does, to put it onto a future agenda so that we can have a proper discussion about it. Great, absolutely. Alright, thank you for that. Okay, so I don’t think there is any other correspondence, so I will adjourn us at 9.42 pm. Thank you. Goodnight.