School Committee: January 6, 2022

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

0:22 all right we are all here so i will call us to order at 7 pm welcome everyone uh first up i’ve got commendations does anyone have a commendation tonight john i just want to commend our staff that worked over the break in in particular scott lavoy at the high school went out on new year’s day to pick up the test kits in franklin and as everyone knows that was quite the saga from wednesday to thursday with a pickup on friday that got delayed till saturday so scott lavoy certainly deserves a big shout out and then he was there all day on sunday helping with the distribution and speaking of the distribution the entire leadership team

1:09 showed up to participate and help with that so i want to give a shout out to all of our district leaders thanks john megan sarah i see you i’ll do your next um i obviously you know second and agree with everything john said but i do just want to take it one step further because i think all the staff have really gone above and beyond just to make sure that our schools could be open and our kids could get back there on monday and i know everyone had to be very flexible with those changes as they were happening kind of last minute and also with you know the number of people out this week so i just think everyone’s gone above and beyond um and i just really want to say thank you to our staff for again keeping our schools open so our kids can could be there on monday and

1:56 all week so thank you i couldn’t agree more um this this was one of the hardest weeks to be in a school um like i think since december 2020 when things felt so crushing um so i you know i’m really grateful that every day we were able to remain open and tomorrow we get a little little gift of a snow day sarah go ahead

2:23 i just wanted to give a commendation to three of our high school students um who were winners in the new york times coming of age contest um if i read correctly i just want to confirm here it was over 4 000 people entered and then there was 25 students this is nationwide that were featured in an article in the new york times or and um a link on their page which i think i hope we can post and three of our students were featured in that top 25 they were and i apologize for butchering names if if i do mimi fallon carrie lindy and courtney duffy um the performances in the visual art that was done by these three is really

3:10 amazing um i just wanted to recognize that thanks sarah that was going to be my next statement was to commend them and i had a chance to to look that over before uh the meeting tonight and it really is amazing and i think you know i only looked at theirs that i remember the ones from last year as well um i think it’s such a good snapshot into what our students are doing and what our students are going through within covid as well that just like all of our lives nothing has truly stopped and our students are still experiencing everything and going through the turmoils of being teenagers and you know and and on down the line and so i think it just you know it it those those three um

3:56 three girls they did such a nice job just sort of highlighting the experience of teenagers right now

4:20 i think it falls in line with with a commendation or a thank you or uh in some ways a farewell i think all of us know that jason silva tendered his resignation to the town on monday and he’ll be around for four more weeks but um you know jason’s been here three and a half years and we got to work very closely with him on the building committee because the town administrators were quiet as much as i think jason wusty could be in beverly some of those late nights and those hours when we were working to get the project off the ground and get to the building stage and everything but you know jason was right there he was very um you know he played a critical role in

5:06 moving us through the planning board and zoning process and the help of his office and becky and his staff and he played a really key role in working closely with the neighbors as things came up with the project and never hesitated to meet with neighbors talk with neighbors the other thing that comes to mind is when we did the underground power coming off dartmouth road the uh dpw actually did the trench work so rather than having to source out another vendor um you know jason stepped up and worked with the dpw and they were here doing the underground trench work for the power and um he’s also been a member of the oac the architect owner architect uh committee

5:53 and that meets um on wednesday so you know we’ll miss jason he’s been a really good partner of the schools and outside of the school project i think we all know you know we’re at this time of the year when we get to you know the budgets and um you know when bill stepped in i think jason did a really good job at helping bring bill up to speed with uh what you know what things were marblehead and how we did our business and i i assume that he’s done the same with you dr bucky from what i know all accounts as well so i wish jason that the best of luck and want to thank him for everything that he’s contributed to um to the schools and wish him well he’ll be missed thanks david

6:39 all right all right um i will move us along then to our student representative yes from cologne welcome johnson thank you sarah um okay good all right um not a ton these past couple weeks just because of the break and such but we do have some news um boys soccer coach coach magana won coach of the year from salem news so congratulations to him uh the band chorus and orchestra had their winter concert on december 20th on december 21st the school held a fundraiser for the post grads the national french honor society also held fundraiser for the haiti development institute before break on 12 22.

7:26 22. 22. like sarah mentioned three of our students won the new york times contest so congratulations to them once again um our school newspaper headlight is coming soon after they’ve had a bit of a break we had a math meet today at the high school uh team harmony which is a group that focuses on ending bias and discrimination is working on a presentation for the middle school uh the sophomore class is preparing for semi and they are inquiring about a fundraiser with schubies the junior class will be doing an online popcorn fundraiser so that’s exciting uh the seniors unfortunately had to cancel their winter dance but they’re

8:12 not too concerned about it and they’re starting to prepare for senior show in terms of sports boys basketball is two in one and girls are two and three at the moment

8:25 great thank you very much it’s always lovely to have an update enjoy your snow day tomorrow too thank you i will you too good all right uh that brings us to public comment uh if you would like to make public comment you can use the rave hand function and i will call on you please remember to set your full name and address for the record as well all right i will start with sandra callahan

8:56 hi my name is sandra callahan 25 august road um my concern is um there are changes being in the covid dashboard that occurred um on monday afternoon without much explanation to parents so i have a couple concerns that as a parent and i think a lot of the public would like to know so as of monday there was a disclaimer that was added to the dashboard saying that only true positive pcrs would be added and that no longer home testing and self-reported would be added to the dashboard which is really giving our school population misleading information that we don’t have a lot of covid going on in the schools a couple questions that i have that i hope that the school committee maybe can think about is are we no longer testing

9:41 with antigen testing um because my understanding is that we are using antigen testing for both pest and stain symptomatic and if we are um why are these testing these positive antigen tests no longer being added to the dashboard um is the school requiring anyone now with a positive antigen test to have a confirmation with a pcr test what constitutes a positive pcr test to be added to the dashboard dr bucky asked that all parents have their kids tested we received an email um as well as a robocall on a thursday at 3 p.m asking that we test all of our children most of us did it as best we can but i think the reality is access to pcr testing me being a provider is quite limited most parents have access to antigen testing um so everyone that was tested

10:27 that tested positive yet those weren’t added to the dashboard my question is what constitutes a pcr to be added to the dashboard is it only any pcr that’s confirmed within a five-day window of when a child can return back to school um my other question that i have is what is our expectation of parents from our superintendent to be told when we’re having excessive student absences as well as staff shortages i was disheartened to learn that we had lots of absences via our staff as well as our student population from my students that re you know my kids that reported it back but also i was disheartened to actually read this in the patch i would hope that that’s information that our superintendent would share with our school population

11:13 um and then lastly i request if other communities if the concern is that we can’t do contact tracing i understand that we’re having a huge huge outbreak um in regards to coven and i understand our staff is short um i understand our nurses are overworked i understand that i’m in that reality i deal with pediatrics all the time what i’m asking is that if we we can’t not disclaim a positive antigen test when we can’t get patients to get pcr tests linfield public schools their dashboard uh they have pcr tests as well as they list their antigen test i think that’s something that we need to consider and parents can you know have a fair idea of what’s going on in our schools so

12:00 um that’s my frustration in regards to the lack of transparency of what parents are being told in regards to how much covid is affecting our kids as well as how much of our staff is out and i don’t want to have to rely on my children to tell me what’s going on in the school thank you

12:17 thank you sandra all right um i don’t have any other oh i do have one more hand raised jess benedetto

12:29 hi good evening um i wanted to again bring up um as was mentioned before yes we’re having a lot of coving in our schools and yes the priority by deci and our governor has been for in-person learning we um people who serve our community and i speak more for myself as well as mental health workers as well as drivers as well as nurses as well as physical therapists as well as police and fire people people who serve our community are undergoing unprecedented staff shortages and so much so that our local hospital has national guard members there to help

13:16 in these unprecedented staff shortages getting a safe reliable transportation for our children to school for working parents who do not work at a computer but work in person serving our community has become a necessity and it is not a luxury it is a necessity and i have brought this up now for two years and i’d like to see this become part of our budget conversation and i apologize i didn’t say my name is jessica benedetto bradley rhode thank you thank you jessica uh elaine leahy hi elaine leahy ida road um i just wanted to say can you hear me okay i just wanted to say thank you to

14:01 dr bucky and others today for a great sustainability meeting we had um we’re it seems that we’re making a lot of good progress uh i’m on sustainable marblehead i should say and um todd bloodgood had mentioned gotten new trash bags that are reducing plastic we have composting starting at vets um we’re still of course like as jessica said looking at busting down the line but um i think a lot of good sustainability things are going on and i just wanted to let everyone know that we’re appreciative and wanted to say thank you

14:43 all right uh that’s all my hands so i will move us along to the consent action and agenda items and in our minutes section today we have four minutes that were in our dropbox does anybody have any uh anything to change on those or to add sarah there was one small change for the minutes on 5 20. in the section talking about sustainability there’s a reference that dr bucky was going to touch base with the director of student services that just needs to be changed to the director of food services all right thanks i wrote that down and i know lisa’s on this call as well

15:30 all right um anybody else okay um can i get a motion to approve the minutes from 5 6 20 21 513 2021 519 21 and 5 20 20 21. so moved megan moved

15:49 seconded sarah second all right um all in favor sarah gold yes david harris yes sarah fox yes emily baron yes and megan taylor yes all right thank you everyone and thank you lisa she was working really hard on those um all right john i will dish to you for the district updates all right one of them was taken care of for me by elaine i was going to talk about the sustainability meeting that happened today and a lot of good stuff came out of that and she really kind of captured that well i have had lunch the last two days of the high school and can say without question they have a robust composting and recycling program going

16:36 on and that has trickled down into the eighth grade and will be expanding to the seventh grade i believe in the coming week we had a good presentation by an electric bus company uh prior to the holiday vacation and they’re scheduled for an on-site visit this month to continue that conversation uh so and the new trash bags that uh facilities director bloodgood talked about uh today um so there are a lot of good initiatives uh the idling campaign the question came up during the meeting today to make sure there are signs that all of our schools about idling i see them at village it was confirmed that there are some here at the brown school for parents and we’re going to be making

17:22 sure that they’re at glover as well so some good things happening on the sustainability front question can i just add two things to that just because there was a lot that we covered um one of the things that this group has been working on i think you know now for a while is getting the composting and recycling up and running so we know it’s working at the high school um and john corrected me wrong here but i think you know vets has started to implement that as well um so they’re you know making sure that they’re doing it in a thoughtful way um and then village will be nets next and one thing too i just want to thank um sustainable marblehead because with the brown school opening we noticed that there are a number number of water refill stations throughout this nice

18:08 building and we’ve got that in a lot of other buildings too vets and village were really the two where we you know that wasn’t quite so prevalent so sustainable marblehead did some fundraising to get us one at vets and i think vets has purchased a second one too so that’s great um and we also talked about then you know maybe village should be the area that we looked at next to get those installed there as well so just you know there’s a lot going on with sustainability but those were two big ones that i was really happy to talk about as well

18:43 um on the budget front we had a joint meeting with the town uh prior to leaving for the holiday resource um after the budget workshops with the school committee to have a first pass with that group the leadership team met on monday of this week and reviewed um all of the information in the budget so far looked for uh things that uh needed to be added or changed or edit edited we took the first pass at a prioritized list there will be a budget subcommittee meeting on monday of this school committee budget subcommittee and then a joint budget subcommittee meeting with the town on tuesday of next week so the budget process continues and as david

19:29 has pointed out the town manager is exiting but he has been a wonderful resource for me in the budget process since i arrived and i expect that he will continue to be until his departure um lots of stuff uh on the covid front certainly we are very happy that we have been able to be in-person learning we monitor we monitor the numbers every day so staff absences and student absences and i can say that if there were ever a time where staff absences or student absences would impact safe operations of the school

20:16 we would take action jesse has given us the option of using a snow day in the event that you cannot safely operate your school and we rely on the professionals inside to make those decisions and if there are better ways to communicate information i know the superintendent’s advisory group met on tuesday and bantered several ideas back and forth linfield interestingly is where we got our covet dashboard and so kristen is a good friend of mine and a former colleague is a high school principal and a colleague superintendent and in the new superintendent’s group and we share information regularly so i’ve been talking to her linfield does not do pool testing they do not have pool testing in any of

21:02 their schools and so we prioritized pool testing this week monday tuesday and wednesday to uh get that information and they just started adding the antigen tests as a means of reporting in their district and certainly we look at how we communicate but i want to be clear that there’s not a lack of transparency we’re not hiding information we’re not withholding case numbers because we want the schools to be safe and we trust the professionals in our buildings our nurses are beyond overworked and so to say i know the nurses are overworked but i have great faith in deanna mcmahon and the work that she’s doing in leading our nurses and i respect that if we were

21:48 ever in a situation where they fought where they thought the case count in an individual building or the number of staff absences those are all monitored so children reporting to their parents is one thing but the professionals on the ground monitoring the situation we want our schools to be safe we want to maintain in-person learning and we’re dedicated to doing that so if there are things that the school committee would like us to do differently in terms of reporting mechanisms or mitigation protocols that we have in place certainly we have seen over the last two years the trajectory of this disease forces us to pivot and change what we do

22:34 this committee heard earlier this year families deeply concerned that we were considering using antigen tests as uh something to allow kids to return to school instead of a pcr test that’s when pcr tests were plentiful an antigen test we’re now in a supply shortage of both and it’s difficult to get that information but it is not as though we’re ignoring the conditions on the ground and so i just wanted to be able to share that with the community and with the school committee and see if school committee had questions for me but we are safely operating the schools and in almost every instance the numbers have gone down numbers were high on monday but not related to covid many families

23:20 ran into travel difficulties couldn’t get back or proactively were keeping their children home because they were concerned and that is a family decision and we respect that

23:35 thanks john thanks john any questions for john sarah so um so um a couple things i wanted to to ask um to follow up on that so our the the antigen tests we’re doing like when uh when a nurse does one in the office um on someone whether it’s it’s test to stay or symptomatic or um as the follow-up to the pcr are all those positives that the nurse is getting reported on the dashboard

24:17 you’re muted like i’m sorry you can’t you’re muted john i’m so sorry sir i keep hitting it you’re muted for the day yes um not at this time no those are not reported okay um and then did jesse give us any guidance because they gave these tests out um you know jesse gave out a test that that we’re not counting per se in numbers um and i kind of i if i had a dollar for every time i questioned why destiny does something they could they’re doing i think we would have less less budget issues but um did did they speak at all to you guys about why they’re why they chose to give out all these tests that then they they’re we’re not

25:03 recognizing because my concern is if we’re not recognizing it do we have a policy or do we need to create a policy that if staff identified their positive through those antigen tests that desi gave out that we then um because i think after two days don’t isn’t our current policy after two days you need some type of medical documentation um of sick leave i don’t believe so in the unit a contract no okay all right so there’s no problem with um with though them using our teaching staff who use those those tests using the antigen positive uh as a way to take their quarantine and sick leave that no okay all right um and then i um

25:48 i um i um we all read it read in the news about the masks that the state gave out to us and and the the grand apology about how they they weren’t what they were supposed to have we ascertained if the ones we received as the district fell into that category of not being what was promised by desi or how do we not have that information yet murphy’s law would suggest that yes marblehead was on the receiving end of the mass that were not mit approved but the commissioner addressed that yesterday in another call he tends to call meetings at the last minute but we had a call with the commissioner to address because we were originally told no

26:34 that’s a that’s false news all the masks that people got were quality grade masks now we are told that even if they are not the ones that say surgical grade mass they’re still qualify as a face covering that is appropriate okay because i know we had a large supply todd planned very well and we had a large supply so my question was had we gone had we diverted to our supply that todd had kind of proactively secured for us or are we relying on the desi mass that kind of are up and down with the information on i think it’s somewhere in the middle sarah we had distributed the desi masks but we have over 4 000 masks on hand that we had

27:20 before deci made their mask available okay thank you john i noticed that deanna’s got her hand up um can she weigh in through the chair okay deanna i just want to make a clarification for something so when we have an antigen test that happens in the nurse’s office of one of the schools and we take that antigen test so we have actually observed that positive it then goes into cic and they have this link to the board of health so eventually that test goes into the board of health and then that’s when we count it so for instance today it was really quick i had something that happened at the high school it was a positive antigen and by the afternoon when i finally was able to have a phone call with tracy and the board of health that positive had already gone through those

28:06 are on the dashboard so we do have the antigen tests that are actually administered by the nurses in the nurse’s office when the kids are tested through the desi testing program and in symptomatic and or test and stay those are on the dashboard as well as the pcr that people have at their doctor’s offices they share them in the video they share them on um real results so they can’t say to me yeah i got in the doctor’s office i need to have the actual results so a photo of the results or a printout of the result so it’s pcrs and it’s antigens that have been confirmed to the board of health after we’ve seen the testing that are on the dashboard okay so maybe that’s just the lag that it’s the time it takes from when it go because the board of health has to be completely overrun as well as our nurses that from when it’s taken in our nurse’s

28:52 office till when it goes through board of health and then it comes back to you it’s not just you get a positive at the high school on at six kids that you would hit plus six in the dashboard you wait till it clears the board of health i like to have it that way because i’m not gonna go on the dashboard and take things off nothing is perfect and sometimes kids test positive falsely so i’m not going to go on the dashboard i was on the dashboard for hours and hours this week i would really appreciate if people would have some patients understand i i really would appreciate it people have patience understand that this is not simple this is much more difficult and takes much more time than it ever has before so people have to be in my shoes or in the shoes of the other nurses i really would appreciate some patience and some respect not from not specifically you

29:38 guys but we we see the stuff that’s on facebook and it’s not true so so deanna effectively the dashboard numbers are what is represented by the board of health as well so the numbers and so what wherever they’re sort of um gaps in their numbers from what the reality on the ground is i mean i followed the wastewater numbers a lot and as that’s sort of like the the most accurate of where we’re headed and you know that would suggest the numbers are absolutely astronomical which they probably are but so our numbers are going along with what the board of health is also documenting and adding into their official statements

30:24 when i get results from family that the board of health have not gotten for some reason she takes my numbers as well but again it has to be an official pcr and or an antigen test that one of the nurses has performed we have to be able to see it we cannot take subjective information from people you’d be surprised i have people telling us that their children are positive and they’re not so we can’t just take someone’s word for it and the numbers you’re seeing on the dashboard are children that are actually enrolled in marblehead public schools no children that go anywhere else are on that dashboard and they’re only marblehead residents then if you’re getting it from our board of health they’re only marblehead residents that are aware if i get a positive that’s from another town and i’ve seen that you know uh the actual photo of the result or an actual

31:10 print out of the results and they don’t live in marblehead those numbers are there because those are our students okay all right thank you for nothing in real time not gonna be real time sarah oh and and i know you know deanna i appreciate i work really closely with the nurse at tower um and so i i you know i talk i i i’m the counselor for her half the time as well so i you know i know what you’re up against and i really appreciate it and i know you know as a parent it you know the the ability to kind of contact trace and everything like you know there’s a lot of priorities coming and going in your office and i was on the sac call for the high school today and we were talking about how many kids get sent to you to kind of get a mask wearing lesson um and i know that’s happening at every school

31:55 as well so you know i know that there’s that there’s a lot of priorities for you and um and i appreciate that you continue to sort of you know triage and get things done um where they can be done all all right so let’s pivot to the calendar and who would have ever thought a calendar discussion would be as much fun as it’s going to be tonight i was talking to emily in my weekly meeting that the last time in my former job we did a calendar discussion there were nine revisions so i’m hoping that marblehead beats that by far and that one of these two uh that

32:41 have been presented uh can be morphed into what will be the 20 to 23 academic year calendar you saw in the memo that i provided you some things that are unique to this year’s calendar we did have the superintendent’s coffee that was well attended there were over a dozen people that turned out to talk about the calendar and i really thought it was a rich discussion because people raised uh questions that are sometimes difficult and uh dicey and uh everyone engaged in kind of civil back and forth and understanding and people that perhaps had diverse viewpoints at the end of it felt really good about the conversation so some of the things that i heard about it were having as many uninterrupted weeks at the beginning of the year as we can have

33:27 have have certainly parent conferences was fresh in people’s minds so extended time for parent conferences and to be mindful of the number of half days i have vetted both of these calendar versions with i’m not sure why this mask is so problematic tonight uh with mea and uh they do uh provide for teacher voice in this as well some of the things that are highlighted is there are three professional development days teachers really liked and of course who wouldn’t two years ago when desi provided 10 days for professional development and so we tried to take a day that was used at the end of the year and move that to the

34:13 beginning so there are three professional development days in uh at the beginning there’s also a full day for parent conferences and i understand marblehead has had every variation on a theme when it comes to parent conferences and so for some this will be like all right we’re going back to that and others it will open old wounds so there is a full day for parent conferences in december and we have taken that as the indigenous people’s professional development day and made that the conference day and then good friday is a half day in both versions of this calendar and certainly there will be downsides and upsides and there’ll be things that people like and dislike both of them

34:59 give us enough leeway that if we have a bumper crop of snow days in 2023 we will not be pushed up against the end of june uh but one does start before labor day and one does start after labor day and so um you have both versions before you and i’m happy to take questions and begin uh version three four and five john when you said that you wanted to um beat your old district i took it as like you wanted more so we’re in it to win it for you marblehead is different all right who’s got some questions for john or comments on on the calendar m

35:43 muted muted um what the conference is this year what did we have i know it was just a half day with evening with afternoon and evening so it was just the half day okay thanks

36:06 so i’ve got lots of opinions as always um i think version two where we start before labor day and kids go for a day and a half and then have a three-day weekend is really hard because if we give notice that we’re not starting till after labor day a lot of the programs like the y and the summer camps will continue that extra week of camp time for working families that’s that’s huge um it really makes a difference in being able to work that week or not so i think you know while it’s always nice to see that we’re gonna we could end school on june 16th um i think that very disjointed start of a day and a half and then a three-day week

36:53 is our weekend is is really hard i’m really happy to see that we have a full day and a half day of conferences um i think that we heard from parents and we heard from staff and that’s the direction that we’re hearing the majority wants to go um let me there’s a couple other notes here um [Music] the kid we had talked at one point and i had made this the inquiry and the suggestion about

37:23 are by waiting till september to do our kindergarten evaluation um i think it makes staffing and budgeting for staffing for those kindergarten and pre-k grades really hard when we used to eval in april and people had to register by you know at the end of february to get your date in april to go and do your evaluation it really encouraged people and forced them to register in a timely manner when we don’t have registration until you know the end of august it makes staffing in an equitable class size way really really hard i mean we have contractual dates we can’t move teachers at the last minute to balance

38:08 between schools i think what does that date june 1st john i think we have to let people know so i just think that as far as giving equitable class sizes at kindergarten staffing budgeting if we could possibly talk about moving that evaluating back to april where it was so that kindergarteners actually start when the rest of the school starts um i think it’s it’s helpful for that point of view but also when you look at the fact that some kindergarten or that kindergarteners wouldn’t start till september 13th um is also for working families i think really hard when camps and child care and things like that will have ended two to three weeks prior with the summer

38:54 that’s two to three weeks with the kids that that need the child care the most and we they won’t have it um and i’m not saying we need to run our schools for child care but i think it’s a it’s a factor for working families um so i just wanted to bring up those things and then i do have concerns right now that i was happy to see um that we took good friday and made it a half day because i i do believe unless we can equitably celebrate all holidays in our calendar it’s it’s really an all or none for me um i don’t think we should be picking and choosing because we one of our priorities this year as a district is uh diversity equity and inclusion and i

39:40 think a really big piece of that is not saying we’re gonna pick one we’re gonna pick two if we can’t celebrate and give everybody the time off to celebrate the religious holidays i really truly believe that we should be setting it up in our handbooks that you know these provisions are made for students and they’re protected by the law on any days that they they need to take off but that we’re really enforcing with our teachers that you they have to follow this the sports teams they have to follow this because we do have to make this accessible for all um but right now this proposed calendar only celebrates the religious holidays of one religion and i’m very concerned because we are a diverse community and i

40:26 think there’s a lot of beauty in that diversity and i want to make sure that we’re either representing all or none um i think if we can’t represent all then we really should should go with just you know the the federal and state holidays i i just think it’s really important otherwise in my opinion it speaks against our diversity equity inclusion goals to only segregate one or two holidays or religions

40:59 um emily um emily i think i’m confused by that um we’re taking we get the jewish holidays we get the catholic holiday or christian holidays no hours we don’t have dates we don’t get any christian holiday off no we get christmas we get an entire week holiday christmas is a federal holiday okay well it’s still a holiday and that’s why we get it off because

41:28 i don’t think we can i don’t agree with that if it’s a federal holiday but there’s more than just that we we have more than just you judaism and christianity i think then we need to start looking and taking a pull about what our what else our students celebrate i don’t think that it’s right for us only to celebrate two i mean we you said one originally you said one well we’re because we’re because right now we’re not we’re not celebrating any non-federal religious holidays of any other religion don’t we get easter off it’s sunday but it’s like we do have a half day on the good friday and on good friday and then you get easter sunday in an entire week i’m just saying like the way

42:13 it’s perceived is that those haul those vacations are placed for those holidays of a certain group so i think it’s a very slippery slope to start next vacation in the state of massachusetts always begins on patriots day that’s how we choose it it’s okay it actually it doesn’t um it doesn’t easter doesn’t abut april vacation oh it doesn’t this year no if it doesn’t sometimes it does sometimes okay sorry it’s always patriots day that leads it off that goes okay yeah um no but what my point is then we should i want to take a survey and make sure that we’re being that we are really truly being representative of meeting everybody’s religious well

43:00 that due that week usually if the holiday winter break you get kwanzaa solstice you don’t get hanukkah we don’t get solstice we never get solstice solstice is the week before but you do get some there’s a lot of holidays that fall within that week so it does represent that so i think maybe we look at it closer but i don’t i think it’s a slippery slope if we start suggesting that we either do all or nothing because i don’t know that’s just my opinion no i just want to make sure that we really are being representative um i understand of all cultures and religions yeah because like

43:47 solstice those are very important holidays for people that practice that religion very important and we and it’s an all day thing for them sun up to sun down and we don’t re we don’t we don’t take that so i just my point is that i want to be careful that if we’re if we’re making diversity equity inclusion a goal which i i value that we’re really truly doing that

44:17 and and yeah i think i agree but i think we also need to be careful and all these things aren’t going to happen over time i mean aren’t going to happen immediately like next year if there’s an issue and someone wants to come forth and say this is my holiday and we need to represent it i think that’s somewhere we can go but this town is so one sided on how they celebrate the holidays it’s such like frustrating for me as a parent of someone who is a minority or my children my family is one of the minorities of this town that to see that we are represented to have my children see that we’re represented with these holidays is like so empowering for them where the rest of

45:04 the year they’re not so but predominantly it’s empowering for people who produce representatives so then let’s have people come and let’s discuss it but it’s not going to be something that’s going to happen next year i feel like it’s a process we can barely get this down to celebrate more than christmas like it’s going to be a process to get us to become more equitable just like anything so i’m just like we just have to be careful um so that’s my little spiel about that but to move on to the calendar i like this calendar that you presented i think starting after labor day is um great and i’m glad to know that

45:51 there will camps will do that extra week because that was my one concern for parents if with that funny week that’s um kind of broken up in the beginning and then with the conferences before did we always have a full day off and a half day does anyone i think we have had various it’s all kind of different up until three years ago it was a full and half day it was a fall in half yeah i i can only speak back to 2005 but starting in 2005 it was a full and a half day and it was one full day one week one half day the next week very similar to what you’re seeing here so is a

46:36 full day and a half day is that necessary because then teachers also have to provide slots for the evening too right for working parents so does that provide them is that like i know you can never have too much time but do we need a full i’m probably going to get a lot of flack for this but do we need a full day and a half yes that’s what this is what teachers recommended teachers recommended it yeah okay i didn’t realize teachers recommended it okay well then i will say though that

47:18 one of the thing one of the feedback pieces from the leadership team was that they used to do three weeks of half days in december and so that families really did not like that although it afforded teachers the time they needed to have quality time and conferences with families all three weeks leading into what would have been an early dismissal before the holidays of december not having a full week of school so we are trying to avoid that somebody had recommended doing the thursday and then friday maybe a half day on thursday and the full day on friday again there’s an upside and a downside to each piece or permutation of this i’m but you

48:03 know the calendar is uh voted on by the school committee i’m taking your feedback tonight and we’ll bring back a version that represents some of the things that you would like to see

48:20 i just want to offer maybe a different perspective at the start of school um i’ve always been a proponent of as many full weeks as possible stuff especially at the beginning for consistency and getting up to speed on routines etc um i think watching my own children anyway and i know that they’re not necessarily representative of every child but just you know kind of thinking about especially the younger kids coming back to school as much as we don’t like a disruptive week having that day and a half as you’ve i think it’s on version two that you’ve put forth actually allows time for the students to come in meet their teachers see their classroom

49:07 kind of get the lay of the land start to meet each other and also we know that their endurance especially the younger kids is not quite there so i do you know that’s just kind of another way of looking at the start of school is that yes we want to have as many full weeks as possible but having you know kind of that first day and a half as is represented here gives kids kind of that chance to come in and and just get the meet and greet over with and then that monday when they come back for the full week it’s like down to business so um you know again just a different perspective to think about for for the start um i do like the three days of professional development at the beginning and i think if that’s something that teachers um like as well then i 100 support that um

49:52 um um the conferences you know again we have tried so many different things i don’t think there’s a magic answer here just i i don’t love a thursday off and coming back for a friday personally that’s a minor detail take the teacher’s lead there um it’s just not my preference but that’s a minor minor detail

50:20 david did you have any comments before i weird muted wasn’t the thought though if if you didn’t have it on a thursday and you did it on a friday people would just

50:32 make a three-day weekend out of it potentially and i mean i think that’s some of the discussions we’ve had before right so that if you position it on a thursday and it’s just one of those things that i guess you know they’re they’re all optional you know you know you don’t have to go to them on any day but that was that was one of the um [Music] discussions i for me one of the things that we’ve had and it does depend on the way a lot of different holidays fall but has been the numbers of uh days in school at least consistent days you know the first month of september and then in october that you know you know students

51:19 need to have some consistency in their routines and getting back and you know this calendar certainly um by starting on that tuesday after labor day we do go almost you know three full weeks until you get the monday and tuesday off so that that gives like a good run to the to the start of the school whereas um you would get the same three weeks if you had the day and a half before as well but and i understand the benefits that you’re saying maybe they get an introduction to their teachers in their classroom and then they start they start the week off running um but we’ve also

52:04 heard a lot about that um you know it relates you know to families uh summer summer jobs as well as summer camps and all those uh different kinds of things as well so um no i think i think you’ve done a good job here it’s there’s a lot of moving pieces to it the the day after columbus day has historically you know i think we added that about four or five years ago because people um you know appreciated that but we grabbed we grabbed that back from to for professional development as you mentioned so that’s just one trade-off that we have to make so

52:54 um so i tend to feel more like megan about the start of school um where it’s nice to have the couple of days it’s a really big ask of students especially those younger ones to to come in um for those the the four days in a row um it’s not a hill that i would die on with this one because there’s a four day week you know i think that there’s we’ve had some warm days come in at the beginning of the school years and stuff so that would sort of put us past that that labor day where it gets a little less um warm with the weather so but you know it is a thought and and i think yeah i i agree with with megan on that one um the conference piece i

53:39 don’t know who i’m agreeing with at this point but i agree that sort of the the multiple weeks where where you have those days i do appreciate that you put them both on a thursday because that was one of the pieces when there was multiple weeks involved where um it was one week it was on a tuesday the next week is on a wednesday the week after that was on thursday like it it was a working parent’s nightmare and just i mean i think when my oldest was younger i think i was not working and then i was working so i sort of had that experience on both sides so it was it was bad regardless of whether you were working or not um i’m wondering you know i i think it was me who said like could we sandwich them and do a half day into a full day um my frustration with the piece about like

54:25 people will just leave for a long weekend is that we had a lot of parent outcry this year of not having enough conference time so you know it kind of you you can’t you can’t always have your cake you need it too um something’s got to give at some point so but i do wonder john if that half day now i’m going against what i just said but if that half day could be moved to like the monday so that we don’t have the thursday then a friday like a half day thursday and then a full day friday so i don’t know kind of just another thought i don’t know if i even i i that’s the 15th of december

55:08 um do you want to say something i do um the feedback from stat or from teachers is that the half day when you have the evening component it makes it really hard if it is a wednesday like a midweek to then have two full days of school if you’ve been at school till 8 o’clock going parent conferences and so i i would think that we would get significant pushback if we put it on a monday or tuesday so it was put on the thursday knowing that there would just be the one day that’s totally fair um and sarah i really appreciated the comment about the kinder start i had not picked that up in this um and so that does seem really really late um so if we you know i’m not at all opposed to doing it i think sarah you’ve talked

55:53 about that multiple times about pushing it into the spring the the um the registration and everything so that we’ve got a better feel for the kids who are are going to be coming into our school um i think you know kova has made that that process even that much more apparent as to how difficult it is to kind of determine uh enrollment wise where our kinder is going to sit um i will put a little plug in and i probably will lose on this but that winter break is the december break is so short um you know it’s always short here i grew up in the midwest and my family is all still there they get that full two weeks um it’s so short and i and i felt this year

56:39 and i got a huge lecture from my ninth grader about it and then he really his head really exploded when he found out that i was one of them that voted on this and that we had approved the the break this year like everyone was so done by the end of december um and i i would love to anticipate that next year we’re gonna be all just floating in normalcy again but i can’t really i the reality of it is that we’re probably going to have at least some version of the last two years that we’ve that we’ve gone through um with stress and everything and so you know i don’t know if there’s a way to put something else that week like or to take even just the 22nd it’s just

57:26 it’s really it’s that it’s a long stretch into a really short break um so that that’s my piece i don’t know if it’s possible i know you know it’s also we get into warm days and you know if we’re going to go with the number the the first calendar i think which is we’re out the 21st of june you know that if we take a day or two it’s the end of that week so i get it you know but i i couldn’t not say it this year um so i think those are my thoughts at this point sarah so so at the end of the day it’s a math problem and we have 180 days we have contractual days we can’t start before and we have contractual days we

58:12 can’t go past so we can’t really push too much further in june because this is without snow days you tap five extra snow days on this and you’re pushing right up against our contractual obligations so we live in new england we don’t have a lot of wiggle room there um the other thing i want to point out with the starting before labor day at least two of the last three years we’ve had to call days for heat or make adjustments for heat whether it’s a last minute half day because that heat it is so intense at the the end of august um if we push that back that gives us an extra you know we would start on a thursday it would give us an extra four or five days

58:59 of safety of you know with the heat in our schools it’s been a continual problem so i i think it’s really really hard for families to kind of pivot at the last minute um when we have those heat issues right at the beginning of the school year so if there’s a way again to delay that till till after we have more continuity of consistency of days we have ourselves a little bit of a buffer with the heat um we tend to not get those super super hot days in june here in new england as much as we do in august the end of august um historically but at the end of the day it’s a math problem and there’s just we can’t

59:44 we can’t get 180 days in if we don’t go to school for 180 days between didn’t we have to cancel school at the end of the last year though i’m sorry was it was do we cancel school at the end of last school year for heat days or was it beginning of this one i know a couple years ago we were definitely at the beginning of the school year where we had to cancel i just thought i think it was the end of last year i think it was too so we’re sort of like again you’re completely right there that there’s only so many ways to do this um yeah i do think sometimes it just depends on things that are out of our control yes yep

1:00:25 all right i think we can move on and great thank you i will take your feedback and bring a final version for your vote for the 20th all right great thanks john all right let me find my agenda again um this moves us on to michelle and the monthly financial update michelle did you need to share your screen for anything are you good um [Music]

1:00:53 i don’t i don’t if someone wants to pull it up otherwise i can try i can let you um and you can go through it all right there you go i’ve been having computer problems for the past week so this is the first night it’s actually working so hang in there please

1:01:48 okay okay so we have our fy 22 financial report um the operating budget year-to-date report is as of november 30th 2021 um this is a report that was actually expected about two weeks ago so we’re a little bit behind here we will get back on track though so as of this point we had spent ten million seven hundred ninety seven thousand four hundred seventy four dollars or twenty six percent of the fy 22 budget at this point last year we were actually at 29 of the budget so we’re right in line of where we were last year pretty much um as we continue to monitor the accounts there’s not a heck of a lot going on that’s very interesting so far um we’re currently projecting the same deficit that we had last month in the

1:02:35 special education out of district tuitions of about 112 000 as i mentioned that’s not alarming at this point um it’s quite expected to fluctuate throughout the year our substitute account is actually finally seeing some action um we were able to hire i believe 17 additional substitutes since we have raised the rate to 110 a day which is great so now we have actually spent 65 256 or 28 of this budget line and this is actually compared to just 5 last year so we have seen a significant increase this year and um it was actually great at one of our meetings this week one of the principals mentioned that even though we

1:03:23 have a tremendous amount of vacancies um with everything that’s going on the effect of it is not as bad as it even was a month ago so we’re certainly certainly very grateful that we were able to raise this rate to 110 a day and it’s certainly working um we are really really where we should be with the budget at this point so we’ll continue to monitor that though as we go along um and the third account that we’re watching closely is our custodial overtime accounts um we knew this was going to go over at some point this year um so far we have spent 41 268 or 55 of the budget and as of last year i believe we were actually at 65 so um we are slightly below where we were

1:04:12 last year um but we certainly will be anticipating to overspend this line which which will be able to be absorbed within other lines that we have shortfalls i mean not short falls over so we’re good there um also attached a you know by the transfer there have been no budget transfers in the past month or so so that’s just the same report that was there last month and then lastly there is a covered expenditure report and this report is actually as of december 31st um could i put it together this week so i was able to get that year end of december 31st so we have spent all of our covet funding plots except for the the esser

1:04:59 grant one two and three so we have spent the budget line which was last year’s budget we have spent the state coronavirus prevention fund we have fully spent the municipal program of the million dollars the town allotted to us um we have fully spent the school reopening grant so we are on to the number five item which is the sr1 grant we have spent just about everything we have a very small portion of about seven thousand dollars remaining which is actually encumbered and already spoken for so there’s no available funds there um funding pot number six was the esser ii grant we have spent most of that and we do have a couple things encumbered which will fully spend that grant as well so basically we’re moving on to the sr3

1:05:44 grant at this point the award amount was 796.75 dollars um to date we have only spent 229 577 which was actually for it needs that we initially thought were going to come from the arca fund um we have learned that um it’s not likely that this is to come from the opera fund so we have to pay the bills so at this point we have taken them out of the sr3 grant um this grant will need to be amended because when we submitted it we anticipated paying for a year of full-day kindergarten so we certainly need to revisit that and um this grant also has encumbered costs which include an additional nurse

1:06:30 dealing with the covert situation um permanent building substitutes we have recently hired to be in all schools at this point and we have ordered some additional air purifiers this week and um an extra surplus supply of masks before we found out about the state masks so um we have that and then we have some additional funds which nan and i are in discussions and um these remaining funds are will be determined how best spend them to meet our students needs whether they be learning loss curriculum mental health and whatnot but that is the focus of the remaining funds here but so far we have actually paid out the door or just over 2.5 million we have

1:07:17 168 000 encumbered and we have 470 000 remaining um in those various line items indicated in this report um with really 124 000 not determined yet where to be spent within that ester grant sr3 grant i should say if there are any questions on any of that i need to welcome them sarah

1:07:44 um so for clarification the it needs that we thought were coming out of arpa funds were those one of the items we made a budget priority last spring and we were told if we pulled that out it would be covered correct yes and then for i don’t know the details and i don’t think we actually i don’t know if that that might be too much in the weeds for us operationally but so that then changed in arpa was no longer need to needed to meet that so we need to bring it into our other funding streams now um i don’t know if it’s not a matter of being able to we just have not had the support of the town to use our funds for that okay so i guess i use the wrong they are no longer willing to

1:08:30 that’s the message i’m hearing but at this point um i could not hold up the invoices any longer so we moved them into that three grant at this point and hopefully this is not the end of the discussion but okay all right not 100 positive on that okay um and then how are we with our staffing right now i know you said we brought we’re able to bring on some new full-time subs under the arpathon and a new nurse um do we have other staffing needs that could or need to conjure though that us our money or how are we with our current staffing levels across the board i guess so this is part of question for you part a question for john um as far as i know we’re okay i mean

1:09:16 where dan and i have been discussing um what we can provide to students you know in addition to our current staff because we’re meeting we’re meeting our needs but certainly we can always be better um so that’s what we’re looking at right now is is how to spend these funds and what other needs we can meet but certainly if there are any shortfalls in areas that are causing concern for these students due to the covet situation we certainly could address them with these funds okay and then are we looking at um or is i’m sure nance has plans in the work but do we have some ideas of what our needs may be with the sr funds for summer programs for remediation um compensatory services

1:10:03 um just general learning loss yeah absolutely that is what’s in actually the original grant was a summer program addressing all those needs so yeah yeah that’s that’s definitely part of it so because we are cleaning that growing that program at all i think i think at the beginning the hope was that we kind of were just kind of getting back on track with from what we had and we what’s going on right now is going to create another um you know learning loss period if it goes on for too long so will we is there enough room with what’s left um if we need to increase our summer programs i see johnson okay absolutely it is though a question of leading the horse to water we offered programming

1:10:49 last year we had trouble staffing it because people were just exhausted and so getting competent qualified staff to make those programs robust and worthwhile and then students and families wanting just to take a break and a pause so certainly i know nan has ideas for summer programming this year and hopefully making it more attractive to students and families and the money is set aside to make them just that okay and then john at some point um you know in the next month or so can we look at as we get into the spring and warmer weather um i i can see why it was hard to get staff and things for the summer and hard for families who really needed

1:11:35 a break as well but can we use some of this funding to offer whether it’s some small group tutoring sessions after after school um lengthening the day like for for kids who have been identified as high risk um for that learning loss and things like that i think the short answer is yes where i’m open to the conversation and i know that uh we’re looking uh michelle and i are in preliminary discussions about could we bring some after-school programming in-house and although we have wonderful relationships with organizations in town the jcc the why various organizations might we look at something as a marblehead public schools

1:12:20 after-school program utilizing our facilities and staff

1:12:34 um sorry um sorry any other questions for michelle

1:12:42 megan just one real quick one michelle the um the overtime what what’s constituting that over time right now um it’s just a matter of vacancies within our custodial staff we have had a number of workers comp injuries lengthy orcas comp vacancies as well as um medical leaves and right now um kovitz certainly is doing a number on the staff so um it’s just a matter of not having temporary staff or enough custodians so actually next year in the budget we are asking for two full-time custodial positions one is an additional position at brown and the second actually is a floater to reduce these overtime costs okay thank you

1:13:32 and michelle on that topic we mentioned a little bit where some of the overtime was accounted accountable for the brown school opening did we balance that out we have not yet so this number actually you know as of november 30th will go down slightly yeah just a little but but yeah it’s still it’s still going to exceed the budget but yes it will go down a little bit more okay thanks

1:13:55 um michelle that that number that sarah questioned as well um [Music] correct me if i’m right like that was the that we had sort of agreed with the town in in our final budget talks last year that that was going to be covered by them and so now it’s not correct that’s this piece yes so originally it was a different number it was a little bit lower but it also included the phone um the phone system and the phone system was actually able to be paid for um out of additional funding the town had under that municipal code funds so we did not have to absorb that cost um but this is the actual it’s um i believe it’s network switching and the

1:14:41 wi-fi upgrade so initially when we requested it we actually put a three-year lease cost in so i believe the total cost of the it piece was about a hundred thousand dollars um and the other piece was for the phone system phone system is now taken out of the mix we’re no longer discussing that so just the it piece without financing it the total cost of that was 229 000 after our e-rate discount so if we did not go forward with it we would have forfeited all of those e-rate funds in addition to absolutely needing this network upgrade so um we did go forward with it and we actually found out after we committed to the project that um it was not going to be covered by the aqua funds at that time yes

1:15:28 okay thanks for that explanation all right um anybody else

1:15:34 okay uh thank you michelle thank you um so we’ve got a set of schedules as well so uh those were all in the dropbox um can i get a motion to approve the identified schedules of bills totaling two million one hundred and four thousand three hundred and fifty seven dollars and fifty three cents so moved megan moved seconded sarah sarah second um any questions on any of those okay okay i will call roll call sarah gold yes david harris yes sarah fox yes she went out of order he caught me off guard emily baron yes and megan taylor yes

1:16:21 all right thanks i always weave around where who’s on my screen and how it goes and so sometimes when people pop on and off that changes so um there’s some method to my madness all right so that moves us along to our school committee area and we were relatively light this evening so any subcommittee or liaison updates for us sarah

1:16:47 facilities met on monday i believe yes it feels like it was a long time ago um we met on monday and we talked and we went through and gave you know our updates um the major thing we’re looking at right now with for repairs is um one of those two units on top of the field house that bring in hvac to the field house we’ve lost one of them um todd is working very diligently to see what the options for either getting that rebuilt or replaced and getting that that um looked at it’s it’s a very expensive unit it’s a large unit and it’s and it’s a significant price tag um one of the

1:17:34 suggestions i had made was because it is hvac and we’re depending on it um the one unit is able to keep up good right now but it’s a tax on it um that because it would fall under ventilation that would be justifiable arpa funds in my mind um that’s pretty clear that that improving your hvac systems is arpa funds so one suggestion i had was that we talked to the town and see if that is an option but i know todd um is working on trying to find out the best way to timely fix this and john was going to work on the other piece of it the discussions of what um does or does not you know qualify for arpa um we also kind of reviewed where we were

1:18:21 with the capital ask where no major changes to that with the exception i believe of the possible ventilation system but we talked about if that were to go through that article um that wouldn’t give funding for that until july 1. and that’s something that really needs to be fixed now so um correct me if i’m wrong john no i was just saying there were a couple things that moved from the operations presentation and todd’s facilities report that are now on the facilities ask okay and um so the all that all that information was put through um and i’m just trying to regroup on the there was something i was gonna say i

1:19:06 lost my train of thought on the the ventilation system um we oh todd had put out requests for bids multiple requests for bids on the roofs just not hearing from anybody um contractors are straight out this byline is really interrupted he’s he’s working really hard to get us some more information back he’s just getting absolutely no response um so we’re we have one in writing right now he’ll continue to work on more but in the absence of anybody answering us we at this point really have to keep working on getting more but go with what we have

1:19:52 sarah did you want to talk about um using gilbane and working with them yeah so i had recommended since we’re not getting anybody to give us a quote or call us back um that we have these relationships with left field and gilbane once you do a building project in the state of massachusetts over the million dollar threshold you’re actually required to have an opm so we would be required to have an opm anyway there’s a bid process there’s a hiring process so we would still follow all of our legal requirements but i said we have gilbane we have left field we have really good relationships with them why don’t we just give them a call and say can you come and look this over can you give us a ballpark of what you think are we in the right realm here or are we way

1:20:37 off in one direction so um that was something that they were going to work on as well just again harvesting the relationships we already have to kind of get some information in the abscess of anybody else you know willing to play ball megan you had something yeah this is helpful so i appreciate um the update just what’s the next steps then with these requests so the town michelle correct me from wrong the town had requested that we give them to them in a specific not hierarchy but group ones that are over the threshold of 25 000 and ones that are under the threshold of 25 000 so if you see a grouping there it’s simply because that’s how the town asks for to be grouped it’s not a hierarchy um

1:21:24 um um by the grouping it’s just if it’s over 25 000 if it’s under 25 000 and then within that subset you know there is the priorities as listed um and then michelle is it jill uh january 11th that the town has requested the first pass of these numbers i believe so i believe that’s when we have to submit them yes okay and i don’t know uh to be perfectly honest i don’t know if the new town events are gonna change some of these dates at all and if so how but we have our stuff we’re going to meet our deadline michelle has her stuff ready to go um it’s just kind of if if the town is delayed and kind of entering that conversation with us because i don’t i don’t know how what their plan is okay

1:22:09 so this is what we’re submitting to the town unless there’s an objection but this when we talked at our facilities meeting um you know john articulated it really well that none of these are wishes all of these are are deeply rooted in safety um and security

1:22:32 so do we need any wording or or warrant articles for our next meeting

1:22:39 i don’t think so my understanding is we tell them what we need and then they’ll come back and say in by policy and procedure yes we can take this on no this would need to be a warrant article and then we take our lead from them and i believe at that point lisa meade would provide us the wording instead of our legal correct michelle i believe so yes okay uh john uh john yeah the town calendar that jason sent out for the budget has the 11th as when those are due and then on the 18th for the cabinet to get together to vet them so the process is outlined but as sarah indicated i don’t know if that process will change at this point

1:23:25 so on the 18th who’s who vets that who’s that group i believe it’s each town department that supports you would represent the schools okay all right perfect can i ask one question oh go ahead david um so the roof um i was talking with someone recently who talked about a layer that can and i am so not going to do this justice but a layer that can be put over the top of the roof and that they had seen it done and been involved in a project um i believe it was on another school project um where it had been done and it it gives another an additional 20-year lifespan at like a fraction of the cost so having been uh so not this past year

1:24:10 the spring before we did a facilities walk through um and we actually went out on that roof and that was a year and a half ago and as we went through like um it was pointed out to us as we went through but you would have figured it out on your like anybody would figure out on their own as well it actually you can feel it’s it’s not a little bit of a problem right now it’s you can feel it like it’s just it’s spongy and we have leaks all the way through so what we’re doing right now is continually replacing the ceiling tiles to kind of hide the staining and what else is going on to make it more visual not hide but you know what i mean to make it functional um and we’re just it they’re literally running around with buckets

1:25:01 okay thanks i just wanted to ask that question um anybody else all right i don’t think that we have anything to report either um all right so then that leads us to new business any new business from anyone all right and there was no correspondence today so that brings us to the end of our meeting um because we for the public we are going to be going into executive session sarah did you have something before i we had that one correspondence we made it accommodations but it was from um oh from mrs billings yeah yeah you should just add that sure sure um definitely um so that so for the public um we are going to go into executive session and i’ll do i’ll say

1:25:47 all the legalese in just a moment um but we will not be returning to open session so we will adjourn um while we are from from executive session so we won’t be coming back in um so can i please get a motion and vote to meet an executive session pursuant to massachusetts general laws chapter 30a section 21a for the following purpose purpose 2 to discuss a strategy session in preparation for negotiations with non-union personnel if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining position of the school committee and the chair so declares so moved all right sarah moved a second megan second

1:26:32 all right uh roll call vote sarah gold yes david harris can you unmute sorry i just wanna make sure you’re hurting it sounded to the public like he said no glad i had him on you then uh yes emily baron yes and megan taylor yes all right so we will now be meeting an executive session pursuant to massachusetts general laws chapter 30 a section 21a for the purpose 2 to discuss the strategy session in preparation for negotiations with respect to non-union personnel specifically the director of student services with no intent to return to open session so give me a moment well people leave and i’m going to take us off of youtube

1:27:18 it was just michelle left i was just about to ask her what kind of dog that was in the back